The effulgence of the North
Last night I went to the grand unveiling of the Velaslavasay Panorama. The invitation came to me by way of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, which is the inspiration behind Sara Velas' wonderful project.
Subject: THE EFFULGENCE OF THE NORTH
Grand Unveiling & Alpine Spectacular
July 21st, 2007, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
An Evening of Alpine Spectacle and a 360-degrees Arctic Panorama.
At The Velaslavasay Panorama
1122 West 24th Street
Los Angeles, California 90007
At Hoover & 24th Streets, Three Blocks North of Adams Boulevard.
Tickets: $12 general admission
$10 Panorama members and students
Available at the door or online .
It is with great excitement and only a little trepidation that the Velaslavasay Panorama announces the Grand Unveiling of The Effulgence of the North, an Arctic panorama taking the visitor to frozen heights to bear witness to the mysterious phenomena of the Aurora Borealis.
This evening of Alpine Spectacle will feature the yodeling talents of Tony Hartenstein and the melodic alpenhorn tones of Loren Marsteller. Professor Erkki Huhtamo will present an illustrated lecture on the most successful moving panorama of all time -- Albert Smith's Ascent of Mont Blanc, which was performed at London's Egyptian Hall no less than two thousand times throughout the 1850s. Outside in the Gardens will be an Alpine Photo Studio, Bavarian refreshments, and Janie Geiser's work of live projections entitled Stolen Archives of the Vanished Ice-World.
From July 27th and thereafter, Effulgence of the North will be on view weekly -- Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 12 noon until 6pm at The Velaslavasay Panorama.
Besides the Panorama itself, the event was absolutely spectacular! There was some serious yodeling going on, and a few wonderful performances in the gigantic garden behind the theater. An acquaintance of painter and lady of the house Sara Velas, explained to us that she had indeed built the gazebo from scratch. You can see her gazebo, and other wonders here. The Union Theater, where Sara Velas relocated the Panorama, served as headquarters for the Tile Workers Union back in the 60s (hence the name). As a result, wonderful abstract mosaic decorates the exterior of the building.The huge crowd was very Getty-UCLA-USC-Silver Lake, what Bourdieu would call the "cultural capital (+)." A lot of very eccentric characters. It was also refreshing to see kids hanging around the artists. Another quintessentially utopian LA moment.
We had a group picture taken at the Alpine Photo Studio, shared a pretzel and a boiled München weisswürst dipped in Heinz grain mustard (straight from Costco, as the people behind the makeshift bar assured us), admired Janie Geiser's silent movie stylings artfully projected on a suspended white sheet besides a luscious banana tree.On the way there, as we were idly cruising for a parking spot around 25th Street, we passed by two police cars.They had their big spotlights on, trained on the officers conducting some kind of business on the doorstep of a Church. The street was completely quiet and empty, so we couldn't really figure out what the trouble was. Until we turned the corner. We saw a white sheet on the sidewalk, covering an amorphous outstretched bump, something underneath. We didn't quite realize it at first. And then it hit us. It was a dead body. Random. Anonymous. Dead.
[The church is located at 1177 W. 25th St., and according to the Google, it is the Ward AME Church - I will try to call tomorrow to figure out what happened]
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