Walt Disney Concert Hall - Home of the LA Philharmonic

Spent an evening at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA last week, my first visit to the warmest sounding (and looking) concert hall I have ever experienced. It did justice to a deeply satisfying performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 by pianist Emanuel Ax, and managed to take the rough edges off of the LA Philharmonic’s world premiere of Sirens by Swedish composer Anders Hillborg.

Sirens is a modern take on the mermaids of Greek mythology trying to seduce Ulysses with song. Some intriguing sounds coming from the orchestra and a chanting, finger-snapping chorus in the beginning, but the sirens droned on, not very seductively, ending their arias with ear-piercing shrieks when they realized that their charms had failed them (Ulysses had his crew tie him to the mast of his ship so he wouldn’t go overboard and make whoopie with a manatee). An interesting passage came at the very end. As the orchestra slowly faded (Ulysses ostensibly sailing off into the sunset) we heard an intriguing solo melody that we were all convinced was part of the composition. Alas some one forgot to turn off his mobile phone. But it seemed to fit.

Have a look at this high definition video. A stream at Yosemite becomes an out-of-control Slurpee.

Andy Goldsworthy's Spire: San Francisco Presidio (c)2010 Russell Johnson

Took a walk through San Francisco’s Presidio a couple of weeks ago and saw how artist Andy Goldsworthy managed to create beauty out of destruction. Cypress bark beetles made a feast of some 150 Monterey Cypress trees and Goldsworthy built The Spire from those felled trees to celebrate the history and future of the forest.  Young trees will grow up to meet the sculpture, which will eventually disappear into the forest. Even the beetle damage had the look of some ancient cave painting.

Cypress Bark (c) 2010 Russell Johnson

The trust that runs the national park is replanting some 1,200 trees along the Bay Area Ridge Trail over the next few years.

Step Right Up Folks! See Amazing California Redwoods in 3D!
red-cyan 3D glasses required – double click on video for HD

Regardless of what you thought of Avatar, the movie has moved 3D from the sideshow tent to the  Big Top. Even though some of the live action shots have the hyper-stereo look of  old Viewmaster frames, the characters and virtual worlds are stunning and natural looking, a huge advance from the creepy fake skin world of Polar Express or the flying daggers of 50s B movies. The new 3D TV sets are expensive, but ten years from now they will be ubiquitous. I will probably not buy one, but wait for decent projector. We have had a home theater for many years and couldn’t conceive of watching 3D on anything less than a seven foot screen.

Movie makers have always tried to give a flat screen depth by layering scenes from the foreground to the background along what they call the Z-axis. One of my favorite over-produced examples of this is CSI Miami, where cameras constantly crane past fluorescent beakers and testubes as actors and extras cross in several directions on several layers in the background. In 3D, this will drive me nuts, but they will do it…guarantee you, along with flying body parts. The biggest challenge of 3D is restraint.

I took advantage of a gorgeous Sunday afternoon to walk to a waterfall in the canyon below our house. Redwood forests are notoriously hard to photograph. They are mostly green and brown with little contrast. You can’t shoot tall trees vertically, for obvious reasons. Shooting their bottoms usually doesn’t show their massiveness unless you stick a little kid with a red hat in front. But 3D can do it.  I grabbed a few shots with my 3D rig.  Grant, my 3D is a bit hyper. That is because the distance between the eyes of my two cameras is a bit far, about 4 inches instead of the average 2.6 inches of human eyes. Which brings be the the conclusion that this is the way the Na’vi probably see as they have enormous heads. I am off the hardware store this afternoon to get the parts for a new rig to move my eyes closer together and correct my Na’vivision.

Point Lobos (c) 2009 Russell Johnson

Don’t know much about geology, but what I am learning defines me, in the nature of nature, as the insignifcant biped that I am.

Paid a visit to the Pinnacles National Monument. Not recommended during the summer as the temperatures regularly hover around the 100F mark. The best time to go is in the cool spring when the wildflowers are blooming.

I did learn (in the air conditioned comfort of a interpretive center) that The Pinnacles are actually the weathered remnants of an ancient volcano, half of which hitched its way along the tectonic freeway and is now holed up in some rock motel north of Los Angeles.

But as movers and shakers go, Point Lobos is the clear winner.

See Photos on The Connected Traveler