DISCOVERY OF CA: A NIGHT AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL(REDUX 8/4/2010)

View from the back!

That's us!

We went to the Hollywood Bowl last night for the first time. What a great experience: it is a large music shell, big enough to fully enclose an entire symphony orchestra with much room to spare, and set into the canyon on a hillside. Radiating out from the open side is a large array of banked seating, enough to seat 20,000 people, and it was full last night!
We drove into town early to avoid the rush hour traffic and toured a few streets in the Hollywood Hills region with famous old homes: the "Hollywoodland Development" on Beachwood Dr, a 20s collection of homes that is situated right under the "Hollywood Sign" (which originally said "Hollywoodland"). And also the most charming set of homes on Hollyridge Loop a barely two car ridge with homes on either side and a dramatic drop off beyond.
Then on to the Bowl, where we picnic'd at Camrose Park and then heard Dudamel and the orchestra performing Gershwin and Bernstein--- popular favorites. The pianist for Rhapsody in Blue was wonderful. Her expression and sense of timing were the best I have ever heard on this piece. And she did encores in which she took musical themes and spontaneously improvised Classical performances on them! The other music was well performed especially the broad orchestral tones on American In Paris, we kept looking for Gene Kelly to appear onstage (but he never did).
The music was fine, but the experience of being in this giant dramatic bowl of people was incredible all by itself. And even more incredible, the experience of having this mass of people all walk out in some semblance of order to endless jam parked cars waiting to leave and flood the local streets with traffic. (Every experience in LA includes a traffic experience!) It took us about 30 min to get moving and we found a route home with little traffic and minimal hassle.

THE DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA (REDUX2010)

We moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles in September 2009.  The 5 day drive across the country was a great adventure and we arrived in LA to embark on a "new life" in a new place.   Soon after arriving,  I started journaling a series of blogs about being in LA.  In the change from one blog site to another, they were deleted,  and I forgot about them for a while.  But the adventure of discovering the new city has not ended,  and it seems a good time to resurrect those early impressions with some editorial updating and then continue the process of journaling the adventures we have in this exciting city.

(Posted 10Apr2010)  It has been just over 6 months since we left Atlanta for Los Angeles.   Between the moving, the drive across country,  setting up a new residence,  dealing with our house flooding in Atlanta and learning a new environment from auto repair to supermarkets it has been a busy time.   But exciting and (mostly) fun.   A journal about arriving in the West is an established California tradition,  with new residents constantly writing back to their former friends about their discoveries.   Of course,  in the 19th century,  these were discoveries.  In the 20th century,  more developments and innovations,  and in the 21st?  For Judy and I,  these are our impressions  to share with whoever  might be interested.
     We are renting a house in the  "Hollywood Riviera" named in recognition of its role as a Summer resort in the silent picture Hollywood days of the 20s.  It is a small bungalow among similar homes on a hillside of winding streets.  There is an outdoor space with patio and small yard and a variety of exotic plants including tall bird of paradise, and nile lilies that we had never seen growing in Atlanta,  as well as the typical roses, camellias and a peach tree.  On our first day,  we made the 3 minute drive to the nearest beach(Torrance beach) and have gone walking there regularly ever since.    Walking by the ocean feels like being on vacation,  and over and over again in the following months,  we keep asking ourselves "when will the vacation end?"  I discovered reading Kevin Starr (more about his books in a future post) that this is an almost constant reaction of new arrivals from the earliest settlement of the state. 

This is a picture of our house

this is the view from the kitchen to the city below

     For some reason, it never occurred to me that Los Angeles is surrounded by reasonably high mountain ranges,  but it is clear from this view near the house:

And yes there are beautiful sunsets over the water:

(Posted 12Apr2010) Arriving in LA in September,  the weather did not seem very different from Atlanta.  Both are sunny and warm at that time of year.   Atlanta was much more humid,  and felt warmer,  though the temperatures were not so different.   Where we are living there is a strong breeze off the Pacific most days which really helps cool things down.   In Atlanta at this time of year,  the AC was always on.   In LA, our house doesn't have AC.  We just open the windows and wait for the breeze
      I hadn't realized how much the heat,  and insects,  and our general situation in Atlanta were not conducive to being outdoors until I got here and realized how much more time I spend outside.   Make no mistake:  there is a lot about LA that isn't conducive to being outdoors:  the miles and miles of concrete streets and freeways with loud traffic and strip malls are not friendly to walkers.   The air quality in many areas,  though better than it was,  is still poor some of the year.   And Atlanta  many more trees though this part of LA is very green.                
      We live on a quiet street not too far from the sea,  where the traffic is light,  and behind the house is a dirt trail that divides to subdivisions and has a long row of eucalyptus trees planted years ago and very tall now.   The walk down to the beach and back on sidewalks takes about 30 minutes.   And then there is a sidewalk trail down the hill that wends its way through the next big area,  Palos Verdes,  for miles.   But the big discovery for me was the Bluff Trail,  a seaside walk down to a rock beach about 10 minutes drive from the house.   The view is spectacular and the walk not very difficult.   For a challenge you can boulder across the rocky beach and watch the birds (or the surfers).  
Arriving in LA in September,  the weather did not seem very different from Atlanta.  Both are sunny and warm at that time of year.   Atlanta was much more humid,  and felt warmer,  though the temperatures were not so different.   Where we are living there is a strong breeze off the Pacific most days which really helps cool things down.   In Atlanta at this time of year,  the AC was always on.   In LA, our house doesn't have AC.  We just open the windows and wait for the breeze
      I hadn't realized how much the heat,  and insects,  and our general situation in Atlanta were not conducive to being outdoors until I got here and realized how much more time I spend outside.   Make no mistake:  there is a lot about LA that isn't conducive to being outdoors:  the miles and miles of concrete streets and freeways with loud traffic and strip malls are not friendly to walkers.   The air quality in many areas,  though better than it was,  is still poor some of the year.   And Atlanta  many more trees though this part of LA is very green.                
      We live on a quiet street not too far from the sea,  where the traffic is light,  and behind the house is a dirt trail that divides to subdivisions and has a long row of eucalyptus trees planted years ago and very tall now.   The walk down to the beach and back on sidewalks takes about 30 minutes.   And then there is a sidewalk trail down the hill that wends its way through the next big area,  Palos Verdes,  for miles.   But the big discovery for me was the Bluff Trail,  a seaside walk down to a rock beach about 10 minutes drive from the house.   The view is spectacular and the walk not very difficult.   For a challenge you can boulder across the rocky beach and watch the birds (or the surfers).  

Bluff trail view

All this is just to say that I have discovered the pleasure of just walking again.   This was typical of arrivals in CA 125 years ago,  when the area was much less developed and the outdoor terrain still relatively pristine.   Yet it still happened to me in 2009,  in a region now intensively developed,  where open space is not completely gone,  but must be searched for.   It's no wonder that Californians have begun to face the consequences of their population explosion.   All these people and all these houses have covered over much of the natural beauty they came here to enjoy!  This is the delicate balance between man and the natural environment.   When man is absent,  the natural beauty is profound but often dangerous and forbidding.   When man dominates,  the natural beauty is covered over and lost, (and idealized). (Landscape painting as a subject did not become important until the Industrial Revolution took large numbers of people out of the land and into cities.) Thoreau understood this and retreated to his cabin.   Where is the balance and how can it be recovered in places where it has been lost?  These are not original questions,  but I did not think about them very much until we moved,  and I spent more time walking outdoors.

(Posted 10May2010) One of the things I expected to lose by moving to LA was the change of seasons. "Everyone knows" that LA is just one continuous Summer and that the seasons that are so dramatic in the other 48 (less Florida) do not happen here. Wrong! We arrived in September and it seemed milder but similar to Atlanta in the early Fall. Then came a period of leaves coming off the trees and temperatures cooling from the 80s to the 70s and 60s. I had to look for it, because so many trees are evergreen varieties of pine, cypress and palm, or the CA live oak which resembles the "live oaks" of Georgia coast.  But there was a definite sense that the season was changing.
Winter was a big surprise. It does get cooler,  even at times the high 40s along the coast. There is sometimes snow in the higher mountains but not in the basin or coast.  But the big change is the air: a mist that pervades all through the rest of the year clears during this season. (Some would say "smog" others the "marine layer", but basically water vapor + gunk.) The result is dramatically clear views of the mountains that surround the city. The San Gabriels to the east and the Santa Monicas to the north emerge in dark dramatic solidity with peaks snow capped when the winter rains come.  The distinguishing feature of Winter here are the rains. Sometimes it is a light drizzling rain, but at other times literally torrents of water wash down the hills and streets in short bursts of minutes or hours. Unplanted earth turns to mucky mud and the winds pick up and blow white caps on the ocean. Further up into the mountains this becomes snow and white peaks suddenly visible, and in the high desert, too, there can be snow (out beyond the mountains). By April, the season has turned again, and CA really does have a Spring. And this year, with all the rain, a very dramatic one. In wild areas, dramatic wildflower blooms  over wide acreage.

The gift of fire

This Spring view from Del Cerro trail is special: a year before there was a fire in this area.  This releases seeds that bloom only after fires and the field is covered with these waist high yellow flowers.

Medicine and Aging

In this week's Sunday Times magazine, Tom Dunkel writes about one man and his doctor working together to slow or reverse the aging process and about other organizations promoting similar treatments.  He also includes rebuttal from other doctors who reject this as "quackery".

In the midst of the current health care debate the cost burden of the elderly looms large and reducing elder disability costs could be very helpful.  The fact that the body changes and deteriorates with age is not in question.  But this can be interpreted three ways:  1) the changes are programmed into the species to eliminate those who have reproduced to make room for the next generation.  2) the changes are a remnant of human design which reduces current homo sapiens longevity unnecessarily.  or 3) "Aging" is a disease like any other,  subject to research to cure or prevention.

According to the first view, humans should do nothing to interfere with the aging process because it is part of the normal evolutionary cycle from generation to generation.   The second and third views, with slightly different justifications,  support the process of finding ways to arrest or prevent aging by stopping or reversing the biological factors that contribute to it.  While Dr Comite is quoted in the article as distinguishing between "optimal health during life" and preventing death,  the latter is the much stronger motivation for persons engaged in these programs.  Though women have always been observed to experience  the aging process,  as a consequence of the disappearance of menstrual cycles,  the concept of male aging is not as grounded in public perception.  It is interesting that this article concentrates on the example of a male trying to prevent aging.

Is this a good idea for men?
Ignore medical comments that all this is quackery.   Certainly some of the treatments are simply placebos,  but there is clear evidence that hormone supplements have impact on the body.   There are measurable effects.  But are the treatments effective in preventing "aging" or promoting "optimal health"?  and without undesirable side effects?   Endocrine treatments often have undesirable side effects,  like those experienced with administration of corticosteroids,  or estrogens and birth control pills.   Nature seems to reduce certain hormones with age to prevent certain effects,  which allows worsening others.   Which negative consequences are preferred?  Should people have the right to choose?  And should medicine be free to research the potential consequences and develop "antidotes" to prevent them?   In short, should our scientific community  explore ways to prevent the changes of aging and "optimize health" for as long as possible in the population? 

This is not simply a scientific question, despite the impression given by Mr Dunkel in the article.  It is a MORAL issue.  If a plant were discovered in the Amazon tomorrow which conveyed eternal life should it be developed and distributed to everyone at whatever cost?    If there are really vampires in the world somewhere,  should we allow ourselves to be bitten so that we can enjoy eternal existence (albeit in this case in the dark only)?

When the question is framed in this way, " optimal health" mutates into "escaping death",  and the finiteness that gives meaning to human life is gone.   The moral answer for most of us,  even given our fear of death,  would be "no.  This is not a good thing to do."  But then,  where is the line between the two?   When does "optimizing health" become "trying to prevent death".   Drawing this line in the research and treatment of aging is the moral question: when does improving life become attempting to prevent death and ultimately change the meaning of life?