Will Rogers, Persian Books, Cyrano at Ruskin

Here are a few of the things we did Saturday.  It's late so I'll keep it brief. 

[I put two pictures together above, moving the sign out onto the lawn]

These are the Santa Monica mountains a short walk up from Will Rogers' house.  David Hockney fans may recognize this type of landscape from the Pool with Two Figures.  Though Hockney took some liberties and greened things up a bit - even though the hills in the picture are pretty green after record December rainfall.  And so you folks back in Anchorage don't feel too bad, it was cloudy all day and chilly for here.  High 50s F.

Will Rogers was a horseman and there are stables and polo grounds on his former property which is now the State Park. 

 

 Jumping past some other events, we stopped in a Iranian book store in Westwood.

The Ruskin Group Theatre is on the grounds of the Santa Monica airport which we go through regularly while we're here.  Since it's so close to my mom's house, we thought we should try to catch a play here.  So, on the way home we stopped to see if we could get tickets.  We were put on the waiting list. 

And got in.  Like some of our wonderfully intimate theaters in Anchorage, the audience is almost onstage here.  We enjoyed a well done performance of one of my favorite plays, though I felt almost a little too close during the sword fight scene.  

You should be able to figure out what play by looking at the lead character taking his bow.  Watching the play tonight, I realized the must have been in my subconscious all my life as a role model - with its championing of doing it right, being independent, not selling out.  Not that I've always succeeded, but I've tried.