String of Arts

Tiny fabric hearts, strung on threads, make a garland so delicate that it barely catches the eye, against the white wall.

Huge floor cushions, plump and inviting, that can cradle your entire body.

Orbs of braided cotton; hand-pieced embroidered runners. Handwoven cloth, indigo-printed patterns. Whimsical retro butterfly chairs, their fabric slings a patchwork of color, threaded with gold.

All this is what Christina Kim of dosa has brought to a spare, empty space in Westwood. Gathering works made by hand, with recycled materials, by people in communities all over the world, dosa champions the small, the minimal, traditional arts, and natural materials.

She's just one outpost of Los Angeles artists and artisans in a kind of pop-up craft market called Arts Restore LA. 

Filling empty storefronts in Westwood Village, they bring accessible art to the streets. And bring shoppers to the streets of Westwood.

Looking for handmade skateboards? Prints by noted Los Angeles artists? Hand thrown pottery and intricate jewelry; one-of-a-kind textiles and home-made jams and preserves. It's all here.

Arts Restore LA is an effort spearheaded by the UCLA Hammer Museum. Running November 1 - 24. You can still catch it today, if you're in town.

Firewater

Soju is distilled from starches like rice, potatoes, or tapioca. It's the best-loved tipple in Korea - and also in Los Angeles' Koreatown. It's got a rough, sweet, medicinal bite that makes you almost wince.

It goes great with steamed pork belly with garlic, jalapeno and pickled chile radish, wrapped in Napa cabbage leaves.

Cloud shrouded

The rain came yesterday evening on the drive home. In a line of cars, red tail-lights glowing, just below the Getty Villa on Pacific Coast Highway, it started, the drops on my windshield so fine I thought it was another car's washer fluid, then like a spray hose opened up, full, and I turned on the wipers.

As we inched up the canyon road, windtossed rain hurled itself intermittently at the car, road slick beneath, snaking up the S-curves.

The flat roof on our post-and-beam house is like a drum-head for the rain; last night's rain was like the tap and stroke of deft fingers on a tabla. It went on steadily all night; awake in the dark and you hear it above.

This morning it's still dripping. Jack took a run in the rain and came back in fast. The mountains are shrouded in cloud. The roads will be a mess today.

Toast

At work, my office is across the hall from the copier room, and just down the hall from the department's kitchenette and bathrooms.  Each day, everybody in the building passes by my door at least once.

There aren't many convenient places to eat nearby, so most people bring lunch from home. With a microwave, a coffee maker, a toaster oven and a full-size refrigerator, our well-equipped kitchenette allows for food preparation that goes beyond the usual office lunch. But whatever someone decides to cook back there, I'm always the first one to get a whiff of it.

Throughout the day, I get to share in the experience of everyone's breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack, whether it's Pop-Tarts, Lean Cuisine, chow mein or garlic bread. I love it when someone brews a fresh pot of strong coffee. One of my co-workers is Punjabi - her lunches are redolent with spices so powerful I often wonder if the memo I fold into an envelope will carry the scent of garam masala to the distant addressee.

My co-worker Susan has a long commute, and to save time, she makes her breakfast on her morning break. She's on an earlier shift than I am, so just about the time I arrive and log into my computer, she's in the back, making toast.

There's nothing like the smell of toast first thing in the morning to make your mouth water, even if you did have breakfast at home. I couldn't help saying, "Wow, that smells good!" the first couple of weeks I started working here.

Now sometimes Susan offers, before she starts her breakfast, "Would you like a piece of toast?" and then she'll bring me a slice, spread with good butter.

"I feel bad," she says, "if I'm making you hungry, I feel I should share." One lunchtime she shared sweet potato Tater Tots she crisped up in the toaster oven.

I try to reciprocate. The last time I made fresh bread at home, I brought in a few slices for her. "Oh, you're such a good cook!" she said. "I wish I could cook, but I can't. I just make easy things."

This morning, she asked me, "Do you like sunflower seed butter?" I'd never had it before, so as I checked my morning email, she brought me two slices of wholegrain toast, slathered with creamy sunflower seed butter.

Such a simple thing, a piece of toast, warm and fragrant, slathered with nut butter. Smooth and salty, it has an herbal nut-like taste and an unctuous mouthfeel with just a little fine grit. I licked the oil off my fingers when I finished, and I felt good about starting my day.

Susan says she's not a cook, but she has mastered the art that all good cooks aspire to - the gift of sustenance.

Street and Fleet

Big surprise - Friday on my day off, I got a call from someone in another department in my organization. I was on the recruitment list for a position, and they were interviewing for a vacancy. Could I come in Monday morning at 8:00 am?

Of course I could, I said.

The interview was to be at the complex where all my organization's physical plant maintenance work was carried out. I left the house early, wearing my black Eileen Fisher pantsuit that I wear for job interviews. I had only visited there a few times in the past - it's a rambling complex with workshops, warehouses, garages, equipment compounds, and mechanical shops. I pulled in and parked in a "visitors" parking space, and tried to figure out where to go.

The email directed me to a central office, and instructed me to check in with someone named Tyra. I thought I found the right office, but they directed to me go back outside and walk down a few yards. "There's an umbrella table outside the door - go in there and ask for Tyra."

I saw the umbrella table, and I also saw a group of people standing around it, coffee cups in hand, talking and laughing. One man stood in the walkway, one foot on the concrete bench of the umbrella table, his body blocked my passage. But as I approached, my heeled shoes clicking on the pavement, someone murmured, "hey, get out the way," and he turned and stepped back when he saw me.

I smiled and said good morning. "I'm here for an appointment with [Person], and I'm supposed to check in with Tyra. Can you tell me where to go?"

Tyra was a tall, pretty black woman with dreadlocks, standing in the group. "Of course, you're the eight o'clock, come on in," and she led me to a chair to wait. I was ten minutes early, so I checked my email on my phone and waited.  The radio on Tyra's desk played at low volume, Santana's "Oye Como Va."

When the eight o'clock hour came, a man greeted me and led me back outside. "We've grown in the last years, and we've had to make some office space out of the shops," he said. But even so, I was a little surprised when he led me across the grounds into the bay of a vehicle garage where cars and trucks were hoisted up on lifts. We eased past a work bench, and my escort nodded and said hello to the mechanics whose buzzing air tools ministered to them.

A group of jumpsuited workers were performing stretching exercises in unison. We threaded our way through them, saying hello and I caught one worker's laughing eye. Then, we went into a conference room where the interview panel sat.

It was a half hour. I think I did OK. I was nervous and my mouth was stone dry, but I felt comfortable answering the questions, and I think my answers were good. There were some silly questions, like "describe your biggest weakeness," and "tell us how your friends would describe you." But, on the whole, I felt good.

The job's duties include one area that is a great strength of mine. I would also learn one computerized process that I've always been interested in learning. It pays about $5000 a year more, to start, than my current job pays.

The atmosphere is casual and blue-collar.

The field is totally without connection to the career in arts and entertainment that I've spent my life in.

Except - I am used to working with guys like this.

There are two other candidates. They want to make a decision soon. Whatever happens will happen.

The state of things today

 We live in a world where people go to a bar to drink beer and eat brussels sprouts.Think about it.

Autumn arrives

Morning fog

This week it really feels like autumn has arrived in Southern California. Mornings are foggy, with a chill.

Deciduous trees are changing color. You don't think of this happening in Southern California, but there are are places where ruddy or golden foliage, while not as glorious as those in frost-kissed northern climates, brings that familiar feeling to the heart of a former Midwesterner like me. In our canyon, the native sycamores, or platanus racemosa, that grow along the creekside turn a subtle gold-tan, and soon drop, raising the startling white branches to the sky.

Grape leaves

 In the Valley north of us, in Woodland Hills, the streets are lined with tall, straight liquidambar trees - what I grew up calling "sweetgum" -  whose star-shaped leaves turn purply-crimson. The grapevines off our deck blaze scarlet.

This contrasts with the almost startling steely blue of new eucalyptus growth or the dark cedar foliage.

Today a dark cloud heavy with rain hangs over the canyon, and yesterday it looked even more menacing above the parking lot at the supermarket.

clouds over PCH

When I lived in the north, we'd call clouds like these "snow clouds" - and perhaps they are dropping snow on the San Gabriel mountains to the north. But when these heavy lowering masses are near the coast, they sometimes have a startling beauty, here lit by the setting sun on Pacific Coast Highway.

It's chilly in the morning when we walk, Jack and me.

It's sweater weather. It's time to make warming soups and stews. It's time to buy firewood again. It's autumn.

Egg salad with a pop

L.A.'s Koreatown is exciting not just because it's a vibrant immigrant community with a fascinating ethnic culture to explore - it's exciting because it's an amalgam of multiple immigrant communities, and from this it has created its own fascinating culture.

The best-known example of how cultures are embraced and adapted into a new dimension is the famed Kogi truck; a catering truck selling short rib tacos and kim chee to young hipsters hanging out in karaoke clubs.

Korean cuisine is assertive, and when Korean cooks take on other cuisines, something bold, brash and vivid happens; strongly flavored and served in abundance.

Strange skies

This morning it was foggy, and there was a fine mist blowing up from the coast.

By late morning, when I walked Jack, the sun was shining feebly on our side of the canyon, but dark clouds loomed over the western side.

It's changing every minute. Watch.