Silent Wings
He and I drove to Los Feliz on Saturday night for the 40th birthday party of one of his colleagues. We were told to expect fingerfoods and cake; not knowing if this would be enough to sustain us for the rest of the evening, he picked a little restaurant on Hillhurst Ave. called Home, a neat little place serving burgers, soups, salads and sandwiches. We sat in an outdoor booth, clearing falling leaves from the table every few moments, and enjoyed a cozy meal together under the stars and the warmth of an outdoor heater.
Never having visited his friend's house, we pulled into what should be his neighborhood, according to the Thomas Guide: two and three story homes, many set upon sloping hillsides, and all with a fantastic view of the nighttime lights in the L.A. Basin -- not a cheap neighborhood by any means. We checked the Guide once more, found the necessary street and started driving, eventually passing the house but because of the narrowness of the street and the lack of parking, we had to find an alternate spot at the bottom of a hill. Then, we traipsed up that hill to the door of his friend's house and up the 30 to 40 steps to the front door.
The Spanish-style house boasted two stories and looked gigantic from the outside; once inside, we realized how narrow the house actually was, being about the width of a large family room for the entire length of the house. Nicely decorated with original artwork, tasteful books on cooking and art, hardwood floors, large mirrors, and two gigantic bedrooms upstairs. What sold me on the house, though, was the magnificent view of the hills and the valley from their living room window. I could imagine sitting on the sofa, watching the droop lower behind the hills as the lights twinkled on one by one. We stayed for a few hours, meeting quite a few interesting people and some of his and his friend's co-workers. At 10 PM, we finally left with bags of leftovers (chicken skewers along, squares of filo dough layered with provolone and jack cheeses, stuffed olives and mushrooms) that our hosts forced upon us; I don't think they realized until the end of the party just how much food they made. Jokingly, our host told us to watch out for coyotes.
As we strolled down the hill toward the car, sure enough, we spotted two small coyotes. They must have spotted us as well because they quickly dashed to the left, disappearing into the bushes. I stomped my feet loudly as we continued down the hill, believing this would keep them away. As we turned the corner to head for the car, I saw one of the coyotes watching us from the cover of the bushes and hurried my pace to get to the car. During the drive back, we laughed about the coyotes and listened to the second disc of Kate Bush's new album many times over.
Sunday afternoon, we made our way to Fullerton to meet with my friend RG for a unique concert. The Orange County Theatre Organ Society presented a special screening of the 1927 silent movie classic Wings starring Clara Bow, Richard Arlen and Charles "Buddy" Rogers. The story revolves around two young me who fall in love with the same woman. The United States is dragged into World War I, and both young men enlist to become pilots. At first bitter rivals, they soon come to value each other's friendship in the face of the harsh realities of war. A great movie with a cameo appearance by the quite young Gary Cooper. What made this showing unique, at least by today's standards, was the live accompaniment, provided on a 1930's Wurlitzer Organ.
We sat back into our seats as the lights dimmed and this amazing sound, almost like a full orchestra, filled the theater. From near the front of the stage, the large Wurlitzer along with organist Bob Salisbury emerged on a small elevated platform, playing the song Avalon. After the standing ovation, Bob gave a little history of that particular organ and then of the movie itself, pointing out that the great-grandchildren of Lucien Hubbard -- who produced Wings -- were in the audience to see the film for the first time with a live accompaniment, as originally screened back in the silent film days. Bob told the audience that the score he was to play was written by Gaylord Carter then placed a single sheet of paper on the Wurlitzer's music stand -- he called the paper his "cue sheet" -- and began the overture. The platform lowered below the stage, and the movie began. For 2-1/2 hours, we sat entranced with the movie, and while we noted the score, as the movie continued we forgot that someone was playing live. The music fit perfect and was impeccably timed to the action on the screen.
Bob received another standing ovation once the movie ended, and that's when I remembered that he didn't have any sheet music in front of him. He played the entire score from memory! Simply amazing!! After the show I even met with fellow blogger Laura from google-fu.
I'm definitely hooked on live music accompaniment, I realized, because they mentioned another silent film showing in January 2006 at The Orpheum in Los Angeles; this time, Fritz Lang's sci-fi classic Metropolis will be screened. And I am so there!
Image from World Art Sales
I flipped through the LA Times over the Thanksgiving holiday and found this little puzzle hidden away in the comics section. A simple 9x9 grid with a few numbers scattered about and also sectioned into smaller 3x3 squares. The object: fill in the grid so that each row, column and 3x3 square contains the numbers 1 through 9 without repeating. Sounds simple enough so I grabbed an pen and started to work. A few hours later, I searched on-line to find out how to solve one of the damned things (which I eventually did -- very much later).
