Sunday we headed down to Laguna Beach to meet up with some fellow Blog
Geeks for a 'BloggerCon' dinner meeting arranged by KMRZoom,Kevin of
Dilittante fame . I have
been a 'regular' at his green martini Blog for a few months now, and I
was looking forward to meeting him and all the others who frequented his
website and stayed to leave comments. We had spent the entire afternoon
traipsing through the Laguna Art Festivals
(Festival of the Arts), strolling and
taking in all that Laguna had to offer in as much time as we could
before our 5:00 meeting time. Around 4:00 or so we headed over to the
Laguna Beach Art Museum .......very
convenient as it was right next to Las Brisas. Luigi changed his mind
about going into the Exhibits when he learned it was a special exhibit
called "Surf Culture". He's not from California and could care less
about surfing and said after looking through the Museum Book Store, he
would meet me over at Las Brisas at the appointed time. I could not let
this exhibit pass me by. After all I am from Southern California and
grew up with surfing all around me. Hailing from Santa Monica and living
very close to the coast my whole life, I had always either had
boyfriends or friends who surfed; and saw many of the new and old Surf
documentaries that I managed to find playing in some museums, art houses
or colleges. With all this fascination with surfing, I now wonder why I
never learned how to do it. The museum docent who took my ticket told me
the exhibit would probably take about an hour and was on three levels.
She never told me which level was to be viewed first. So I ended up
doing it backwards by viewing the first floor first which seemed the
logical thing to do. Most of the exhibit was a display of old and new
surf boards;how they were made, video documentaries and 'surf art'. There
were pictures of Andy Warhol and Orson Welles.( Don't ask... I'm not
sure why they were there except Andy Warhol was involved with California
Art Culture in the 60's). I really found most of it very
interesting;especially the surf video documentaries which I spent the
most time on. I always marvel at the size of those monster waves and
comparative small figures of surfers trying to navigate them. It is not
only a sport in my definition, but a true art form. All athletes have a
certain style and grace that is fascinating to watch and I find that so
relative in watching surfers do their stuff. They make the gliding
through the water seem so effortless as though they could do it in their
sleep. A Huge wave starts forming and lifting to 15 or even 20 feet. The
white foam starts curling at the top of the wave as it starts breaking
toward shore. The surfer positions his board right below the crest and
seems to glide through the center of the wall of water, almost
sometimes, seemingly defying gravity. He becomes one with his surf board
as he rides the white tipped wave, always just ahead of the breaking
crest moving toward the beach. Have you ever seen a film or photograph
of a surfer who actually gets right underneath the curl of the wave so
that he is inside the 'tunnel' ?(the space inside the top part of the
wave as it curls over and touches the water) It is truly an incredibly
awesome sight. If he manages to 'hang' all his toes over the point edge
of his board you could say: "Hang 10 Dude!" One of the most interesting
and disturbing of the exhibits was a display of moving mannequin dressed
in Hawaiian Hula dress. There were about 25 or 30 of these Hula Girls
with mechanized torsos that would move and sway their hips to the music.
When you first walk in, you would think it was just a bunch of life-size
moving hula dolls. As you got closer you realize that they are all
holding weapons . Most of them are automatic weapons used in war. Some
were holding knives. I looked closer at their faces. It gave me an eerie
sensation to look at them, because it looked as though they were staring
right back at me,and they had strange and very disturbing expressions on
their faces. They were Asian women and I believe they were Vietnamese.
That's how it appeared. As I walked around the entire exhibit to the
other side I was confronted with some of the women who looked like they
had gone through some war themselves. One of the 'moving mannikins' had
a very realistic black eye, swollen and purple. Another moving hula girl
had her face hidden behind messy and tousled hair as though she had been
in a fight. There was no explanation for the exhibit, only the name of
the artist which I have forgotten. This particular 'art display' was a
bit unnerving and I'm not sure exactly what he was trying to say.
Anti-war maybe, but with hula women? Going downstairs was actually where
the first part of the exhibit began, displaying the history of
surfing;from 19th Century Sandwich Islands native surfers to Duke
Kahanamoku(sp),to modern day surfers. I finished "Surf Culture" just
before 5:00 and left to meet everyone at Las Brisas
. As I was walking over there, I
thought maybe I was a bit too casual in my knee short capris and
sleeveless t-shirt and no make-up.( I don't wear makeup on week-ends.
Because the rest of the week I have to look professional with suits and
pantyhose and make-up. And it's so nice to feel 'free'on week-ends)) I
brought a change of clothes but it was in the car. Luigi was waiting
outside and I pretended to pick him up. We walked inside and almost
recognized Kevin right away from his Blog photo. He was dressed very
nicely in a red silk shirt and levis. As a woman I don't like being
mistakenly overdressed or underdressed but Kevin assured me it was o.k.
He had to give up the table by the window with the beautiful view of the
ocean, because that table had been reserved for eight people. It turned
out that we were the only ones who showed up. But we were still given a
great table, just for the three of us. Kevin was a great host and we
really enjoyed having dinner with him. I just felt badly that he had
gone through all the efforts of getting this together and then no one
showing up . One of my other Blog friends in Tennessee said a similar
thing happened at their Blog Meetup. Well, whoever told me there are
only flaky people in California is wrong. It exists all over. Hope you
don't run into any freaky hula mannequins out there, Peach