Ma & Pa Holliday were in town for a few days, so Audrey and I met them for lunch and an evening out. My lack of enthusiasm for many things LA is well-documented, but this city has more than its share of memorable activities, and a visit from Ma & Pa was a good excuse to indulge in a couple of them. Lunch was at the bizarre and unique Encounter Restaurant located in the quadripod in the middle of LAX. Being in a science-fiction themed quadripod with airplanes all around is totally OK by me.
Following lunch, and after a long and losing battle with LA rush-hour traffic, we limped into Laguna Beach for the evening’s entertainment. Every summer Laguna Beach holds the Pageant of the Masters Festival, which is one of those you-really-need-to-see-it-to-understand type of events. The high-level description is that it’s a presentation of several dozen famous works of art, reproduced on stage with live actors as models, which sounds like complete yawnsville. However, being there in person with 2700 spectators while an orchestra plays, a narrator explains the artwork, and the curtain goes up on what appear to be huge, 2-D reproductions of famous works of art, all the while knowing that through some magic of lighting, make-up, and perspective it’s actually 3-D canvases with real people on them, is a pretty surreal experience. Even Pa, who can be notoriously stingy with his praise, admitted that it was “pretty cool”. Ma was more effusive, stating “I love it I love it I love it” on more than one occasion. From a slightly different perspective, the two old ladies in heavy costume jewelry that were sitting behind us frequently chimed in to let their neighbors know “that’s not people, it’s just a painting”; one might suggest they bring binoculars to next year’s performance so that they can see the “paintings” blink from time-to-time.
