What better way is there to celebrate a special occasion than with an all-day excursion of gorgeous weather, strolling an array of gardens that span rainforest to desert and Japanese to Australian to more, seeing the worlds’s stinkiest (and amusingly phallic) plant, eating international fare, admiring fine art museums, and ending it all with a high tea?
Great museums and art galleries abound in Los Angeles. to such an extent that we’ve become and art city to be internationally reckoned with.
New sites open all the time. By the end of this year, the Marciano brothers who founded Guess Jean will open a venue displaying their ample collection of modern art.
One of many Rodin sculptures at Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum
Among the giants like the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Getty, Pasadena’s Norton Simon holds its own. Freeway close with plenty of free parking, and a minimal entry fee, you’re not even at the front door before impressive Rodin statues greet you.
Van Gogh’s portrait of his mom
Inside, Van Gogh paintings fit neatly among an endless array of classics such as Picasso and Degas.
Picasso’s Woman with a BookRousseau’s Exotic Landscape
An entire underground wing houses Asian loveliness.
Maillol’s Mountain
The rear of the museum features patio dining with reasonably priced upscale fare. Refresh yourself near ducks swimming in a pond. Thoughtful water-wise landscaping of native plants highlights more masterpiece sculptures.
Ever think you, especially if you’re a writer, are alone in your self-doubt?
Fear not alone. Even the best work hard to keep their self-esteem high and dry. Pioneer sci-fi writer Octavia E. Butler wrote pep talks to herself.
Handwritten notes on inside cover of one of Octavia E. Butler’s commonplace books, 1988. Octavia E. Butler papers. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Copyright Estate of Octavia E. Butler.
Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was a multiple Hugo Award and Nebula Award winner. She was the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship’s “Genius Grant.” All that, plus she was the first African-American woman to be officially recognized as a fabulous sci-fi writer.
Octavia E. Butler near Mt. Shuksan, in Washington state, 2001. Photographer unknown.
Born in Pasadena, California, Butler started writing as a kid. It took her a long time and suffering through many non-writing jobs to develop her style and eventually sell many, many stories, including her Patternist series, her Xenogenesis series, and her Parable series (aka Earthseed series).
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