Malibu morning picture of the day - Monday, December 8, 2014

Dear Family, Friends, and Gentle Readers,

A new week has arrived. Here's how it looks where I am ...

Looks like God just poured in the cream, but has not yet stirred with a spoon yet.

When I was riding up on the bus, the "pink" layer seemed so pronounced (I knew it would be gone when I got to work), so I decided to get off at Sunset and take a snapshot. Wound up being a little late, but in the long run of things, I'm not sure what's more important.

I look at the photo and think now "big deal"--but it seemed important enough at the time ... hmmm.

The venue: a converted warehouse in Historic Filipinotown

Hope you had the kind of weekend you were hoping for. My was spiced with highbrow and lowbrow events. On Saturday, my son and daughter-in-law took me to a roller derby game.  The L.A. Derby Dolls. Seems that a friend of theirs in their exercise club is a founding member of a women's roller derby team. Her nom de guerre  is "Suzy Snake-Eyes".

It was a pretty exciting game, running pretty even, but one team got ahead by 35-40 points, but eventually closed the gap back to 3 in the final moments. This is a lot more serious game than the one that was on Sunday afternoon TV back on the cheap channels when I was a kid (basically gratuitous girl watching); this is actually sport with a fair amount of crowd-pleasing irony mixed in. It was a Millennial crowd, so I am not surprised by its basic female-empowerment underpinnings.

It's a nice diversion, but I don't think I'll be buying a season ticket.

And then last night I attended my second son's choir concert--about an hour of avant-garde winter/Christmas music. If you're tired of the Mantovani-to-Bing Crosby-to-Mannheim Steamroller EZ-2-like pleasantries of holiday musical treatment, and are hungry for some dissonance and intellectual heft in your yuletide celebrations, you need to get on the mailing list for the Metropolitan Master Chorale. Where else will you hear a musical setting of a poem by e. e. cummings on the subject of winter?

They were performing in the same church where my band practices. I was able to go down and work on music library filing during intermission. Wasn't that efficient of me? KIDDING! But the part about being at the same venue is true.

One of the trumpet players tells me that the Crystal Meth 12-step group there is THE L.A. gay meet market of choice outside of going to a gay bar. I believe him. I had to run in one evening to drop off something and I thought I was at the largest gay cocktail party (without cocktails) I had EVER seen. So many well-dressed, good-looking people on their best behavior in one place. What goes on during the week at YOUR church? BINGO of the original sort?

That's it for today. Have a wonderful week.

Love,
Pops