59

“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.”

— Albert Schweitzer

My 4th Coachella left me feeling like I need to be comatose for the remainder of April and half of May. Over the 2.5 days, Rob and I walked 60,767 steps (~26 miles) and danced/jumped 17 flights of stairs in the desert heat on little sleep. My blisters are so bad, I had to go barefoot most of the weekend.

But. It. Was. So. Much. Fun.

Acts we saw included LCD Soundsystem, Jack U, Christine and the Queens, Lido, Jaden Smith, Ice Cube, Disclosure, RL Grime, Silversun Pickups, ZHU, Alunageorge, Guns and Roses, Calvin Harris, Sia (feat. Maddie Zieglar & Kristen Wiig), The Arcs, Major Lazer, Flume, Rancid, Nathaniel Rateliff, Tokimonsta, Usher, etc.

We met Mickey Avalon and chilled near Andre 3000 from Outkast in the Rose Garden. We made a friend from San Paolo, Brazil who spent most of Friday night with us. Sadly, I barely met up with my friends that were there, it's so hard to coordinate. We did get to see Rob's cousin and his friend from high school. Everyone loved the weekend.

And R, I couldn't have asked for a better partner to go with. I had so much fun dancing and loving you. P.S. thank you for not asking me to wear that flower crown, I was having a slight identity crisis with the corniness. P.P.S Let's get married.

54

“Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?”

— Mary Manin Morrissey

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Still I Rise, Maya Angelou

52

“One of the mixed blessings of being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened before.”

— Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Jalama Beach Camping Trip, Mid-March

51

“Anything I do, I spend a lot of time. I do it with passion and intensity. I want to be in charge.”

— Eli Broad

Image from Broad Museum site. (All other images mine.)

The Broad Museum opened up in September 2015 in downtown Los Angeles. Admission is free, but tickets are booked up months in advanced, especially for a weekend date. I jumped on reserving tickets before the museum opened. I have been lucky enough to go to The Broad twice, in November and in February, with two groups of friends.

I was particularly excited to see the Infinity Room. I had gone to a Kusama exhibition in New York two years ago, and although I got to see much of her incredible work, the line for the Infinity Room was 3 hours long. This November at the Broad, I was again unable to see the exhibit. I learned that the only way to see the room is to get tickets for the museum for 10 or 11 am and claim a spot in line when you arrive. I was successful in February when I did just that. Rob and I had to wait 4 hours to see it (our friends decided to skip), but we leisurely went through the museum, had a lovely brunch at The Otium next door, and were texted when we could enter. It ended up being a lovely day.

After Rob and I had spent hours in the museum and seen the Infinity Room, we went back to my favorite exhibit in the building, The Visitors by Ragnar Kjartansson. We sat in the room for about an hour. I had been feeling extremely stressed and upset that week, sitting in the corner in the dark, surrounded by soothing music and beautiful images was the best therapy I could have had. I never wanted to leave.

The Broad Museum gives a short description on their website: "The Visitors features nine musicians in various rooms at Rokeby farm in upstate New York, a decaying nineteenth-century mansion known for its romantic setting and gloomy charm. Each performer uses different instruments and plays the lyrics in their own deeply felt ways in one long, extremely impressive sixty-four-minute take. The screens in the gallery project all at once, resulting in a collective experience for the viewer. Together, the videos create what critic Hilarie M. Sheets calls an “entirely absorbing ensemble piece that was alternately tragic and joyful, meditative and clamorous, and that swelled in feeling from melancholic fugue to redemptive gospel choir.”

Although it doesn't do it justice, I posted a video below of The Visitors at a previous gallery. Skip to 3:40 for one of my favorite songs in the piece which also happens to be last song in the 64 minutes.

The Broad is terrific. If you live in LA or know when you will be making a trip here, reserve tickets. There's no need to wait in line to see the museum.