Snow White, the Ballet

{Please excuse me while I gush...}

Saturday night, Leslie and I went to the ballet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and it was such a treat!

 

We went to see Blanche Niege (Snow White) performed by Ballet Prelojcaj, with costumes by Jean Paul Gaultier (yes!  for reals! ballet + fashion design!).  I don't even have to tell you it was incredible.  So so beautiful.  And not in the Disney Princess way.  At all.  It was raw, sexy, dark, modern.  (I think there was a ballet-style orgy at one point...)

See for yourself:

 

Right?

I left so impressed.  Impressed by the dancers, yes of course (ohmygosh their bodies and their grace and the way Snow White and the Prince's bodies moved like they were somehow part of one being!), but also impressed by the set design, the stunning costumes, the production.  It was all done so well.  The moment where Snow White is lifted through the air by her mother's spirit, or where the seven dwarves dance on a vertical mine wall -- those were so much about the lighting, the effects, the set, but in such a subtle way.  The same way that the choreography managed to blend modern and classic without a hitch.  It was breath-taking.

  

{via}

And I can't even think about the costumes without gasping!  The evil queen wore thigh highs and a bustier (omg she was so amazing).

{via}

And Snow White wore this insane fringe ball gown in the last scene:

 

{via}

White fringe!  I died.  Died.

All this talk is making me want to see it again.  It was really that good!  Plus, our tickets were under $40 a pop!

Seriously people, if you're in LA, take advantage of this show while it's in town.  It's so so worth it.

Ktchn 105

Whew, last week a busy one.  Lots of work to be done!  But after a short trip up to Santa Barbara on Saturday and an awesome Superbowl party at our friends' house on Sunday, I'm back to feeling like Ashley, human, rather than Ashley, litigation associate.

Anyway, we've got a lot to catch up on, at least in the food world!  Thanks to my friend, Stefanie, I discovered another great brunch place!  (This city is full of 'em, I swear.)  This one is Ktchn 105.  Have you heard of it?  Maybe you have, but have you been able to find it?  That is a totally different question.

{love the logo}

Ktchn 105 is both too cool for vowels and too cool for signs.  And I love that about it.  Say what you will, but I'm easily impressed by anything remotely secret, hidden, or underground.  Marketing ploy or not, it totally works on me.  So obvi, the yelp reviews had me at "unmarked."

So.  You arrive in a warehouse district just east of downtown.  It's not exactly shady, but it's not exactly un-shady.  You park on the street and start searching for address numbers.  Good luck.  I just hope you find the random apartment building with the gated parking lot and the Ktchn 105 sign stuck to it.  Maybe you should plan for a few extra minutes of searching time.  Ha.

Once you're in the parking lot, you'll see a random piece of furniture with assorted towels on it (so unclear).  Go toward it.  Where there are towels, there must be food (...or something).  Just around the corner is a darling patio (we all know that's my favorite dining accessory, right?).  Nothing beats brunch in the sun.

And the inside is pretty cool too.  It's got that industrial vibe that makes you think, man, I want a chalkboard wall in my kitchen.  (Just me?)  The kitchen is open to the entire space, and so is the bar.   There is something comforting about seeing someone prepare the food you're about to stuff in your mouth eat.  And they have cooking classes here (because it's so cool), so the open-kitchen thing makes sense.

 

OK.  The first thing you have to do is order a Bloody Mary.  I don't care if you're hungover and you don't like spicy things and tomatoes aggravate your acid reflux.  (Ew.)  Just do it.  If you don't absolutely love their Bloody Mary, I'm not sure we can be friends.  Maybe don't tell me.  This bloody gives the Bloody accessorized with scotch egg and crab claw at Ramos House a run for it's money.

I ordered the special that day -- a cornmeal waffle BLT with maple syrup.  It reminded me of the pancake lasagna I had that one time at Eric Greenspan's pop up at Tart, and I loved that it was both savory and sweet.  Solves the eternal brunch dilemma and all that.  Plus, food like this makes me smile :)  (They also had scrambles and french toast for the more traditional breakfast eaters.)

This is my new go-to spot downtown.  It's a keeper for sure.  Just don't forget to make a reservation (it's required)!  And don't forget they're only open on Saturdays and Sundays!  Because, you know, they're elusive like that.  (OMG I love it.)

The Walt Disney Concert Hall

It's been a work-hard-play-hard kind of week (and my aching feet can attest to it).  In the last six days, I've gone to three cocktail parties, a fundraiser for the Creative Visions Foundation (check them out!), an L.A. Phil concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and to top it all off, I got sworn in to the state bar of California!  I'm afraid I didn't get to take many pictures of all the social events, but I do have some pics from the Disney Concert Hall to share!

I've wanted to check this place out since I moved to L.A., so when I saw the Groupon for tickets to "The Hollywood Sound" in my inbox, you bet I clicked that "Buy!" button faster than you can say "the deal is on!"  As you probably could guess, unlike some of my other Groupon purchases (<ahem> the Bar method that expired four months ago), this one turned out to be money well spent.

The Disney Concert Hall itself is absolutely breath-taking.  It was designed by Frank Gehry, who lives in a crazy-cool house he designed right here in Santa Monica (which I will now commence stalking...I will find him if he's findable).  Everywhere you look, the lines of the building soar up, and around, and then plunge down again.  It's so big that it's hard to take it all in.  I am so in awe of Gehry's creativity.

One reason I loved this concert was that all the music was from old(ish) movies (hence the name, "The Hollywood Sound").  Before each set, the composer would explain a bit about what movies the songs came from, and how they fit into Hollywood history - it was so interesting!  Did you know that each movie studio used to have its own orchestra that would record soundtracks?  My favorites were the suites from To Kill a Mockingbird (the piano and flute solos made my heart hurt - the composer said they are supposed to echo the childlike simplicity of the narrator, Scout) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (the organ gave me chills!).  Brian liked "The Hunt" from Planet of the Apes best, and everyone gave a standing ovation after the orchestra played the Superman theme song as an encore (oh Superman...).

The inside seating area is all wood, and the design feels very Scandinavian.  But somehow, despite it's sleek, modern lines and high ceilings, it still feels intimate and warm (there were no pictures allowed in the seating area sadly).  And the "acoustics"?  All I can tell you is that from the perspective of someone who has used the word "acoustics" maybe three times ever, it sounded like I was standing in the middle of the orchestra and they were playing a special concert just for me, and maybe we were in a field with sunshine and fairies involved.  It was that good.

When I was little, every time I went to a museum, I wanted to be a painter; every time I went to the ballet, I wanted to be a ballerina.  I've grown up enough to know that I'll never be a painter, a ballerina, or a concert pianist, but I still leave every performance, every exhibit, every concert, feeling a little more hopeful, a little more optimistic, a little more like a dreamer. Watching artists perform is still the ultimate source of inspiration for me.

The world was a little brighter after the concert today.  I left feeling honored to have had the opportunity to enjoy such talent, and thankful that I live in L.A., where $47 and a 30-minute drive will get me here.

"Kids take over your life, then destroy it."

Last week, I went to go see God of Carnage with Brian and his parents.  When this play was first suggested, I was like wtf?  Why would I want to go see a play about gory violence and a god who approves of it?  With my in-laws?

But then my way-cooler-and-more-informed friends explained to me that God of Carnage, in fact, is neither a play about people massacring each other savagely in the name of God, nor is it a play about a god who approves of gory massacres.  It is, instead, a Tony Award winning masterpiece (Tony award nominations for all four actors/actresses, and three actual Tony awards -- best play, best director, and best actress for Marcia Gay Harden).  Quite deservingly a "hot ticket."  So hot, in fact, that Brad and Angie caught the opening night.  Of course, once I heard that it was approved by Brangelina a Tony Award winner, I was totally in.  We planned to grab a super fancy dinner at Patina (on my LA list!), and then head to the show.  The whole week in BarBri, I looked forward to this night celebrating the finer things in life.

And then everyone in L.A. and their mothers decided to drive east on Olympic exactly at 4:00pm.  I had 7 miles to go from my apartment to pick Brian up at his office in Beverly Hills, and guess how long it took me.  Just guess.  40 minutes?  An hour?  I mean, how bad could it really be, right?  ONE HOUR AND THIRTY-THREE MINUTES.  93 minutes.  That's an average of 4.5 MILES PER HOUR.  I would not joke about something so upsetting as this.  (I will skip the parts where I almost had a nervous breakdown/claustrophobia attack in my car.)

So dinner was cancelled.

BUT.  We did meet at the Edison instead for a drink and snacks, and it was quite nice, although no Patina.  I'd been to the Edison before and liked it, and I still liked it this time.  For those of you who are not familiar, it's a 1920's-themed bar that's built inside an old power plant.  It's huge, with big tall ceilings (as I guess you could imagine from the power plant thing), but it also has all these hidden-away rooms and tables that makes it feel intimate.  It's always kind of dark, and there's lots of red velvet involved, but not in a why-am-I-in-a-brothel type of way.  The drinks are good, the food is OK (they got rid of the bacon wrapped bleu cheese dates, sadly), and the waitresses are pretty and wear black sparkly dresses.  It makes you feel kind of fancy.

{The Edison; The Ahmanson}

After our short snack, we headed to the Ahmanson.  This was my first time at the theater, and the first thing I noticed was how clean it, and the surrounding area was.  In SF, theaters are invariably located in the worst, most dangerous, and most odorous areas of the city.  But the Ahmanson was clean and nice and didn't even smell like urine.  So I liked it.

The show was...intense.  I had heard it was funny, hilarious, even.  The posters advertising it showed the actors and actresses smiling half-laugh smiles.  This is the description of the play on the Ahmanson website itself:

“God of Carnage" is set in a gentrified section of Brooklyn where two married couples meet to sort out a playground fight between their sons. At first, niceties are observed but as the evening progresses and the rum flows, the gloves come off and the night becomes a side-splitting free-for-all."

Side-splitting, eh?  Humor, I figured, was a reasonable assumption.  But I was still skeptical because, really, when was the last time you heard the critics of the dramatic arts get all excited about something funny?  Doesn't it take at least a war story, or a bitter divorce, or the death of a child, or some form of insanity to get them excited?  I shoulda known.

{Apparently there are plays that go on inside this round building that is next to the Ahmanson - how awesome is that?}

{nighttime reflections}

I shoulda known that after the first few minutes of comfortable laughter, the plotline would veer from a funny commentary on parents who take themselves too seriously and litigiousness taken to the extreme, to a cynical and depressing portrayal of the futility of marriage and inevitable dysfunctionality of family life in modern society.  I should have expected it.  It was like the time I went to see The Village by M. Night Shayamalan thinking it would be a mindless horror movie.



But don't take that to be any kind of a negative commentary on the quality of the play itself because I thought the play was brilliant.  The acting was outstanding, the writing was smart, and I was enthralled the whole time, even though it took place entirely in one scene, without an intermission.  (So that means it was really good.)  But I'm just saying, "side-splitting" is not the word I would choose to describe a play that brings up issues of alcoholism, depression, workaholism, immoral practices of pharmaceutical companies, the frustration of dealing with aging parents, spousal infidelity, [insert depressing symptom of our declining society here].  In fact, the two lines that resonate in my mind most are decidedly UN-funny: "Kids take over your life, then destroy it," and "We're all alone."

{fountains and City Hall in the background}

So basically, it was a hard play to watch for a newly married couple who still believes that their love is different, that they can have it all without losing each other, and that children are pretty accessories for grown ups to carry around.

But you should still see it.  Maybe not on a first (or 10th) date.

(P.S. if you've seen "God of Carnage" and you totally disagree with everything I just said about the play, you're probably right.  I claim no expertise whatsoever in dramatic-arts analysis.  Or any form of analysis, really.  Please feel free to leave a comment calling out my continuing ignorance.)

Hi-ho hi-ho...

{Downtown LA}

It's off to work I go.  Not like real work (yet).  But still, this picture seemed appropriate for the day.

P.S. Can you believe that my last spring break ever is OVER?  Anyone else disturbed by the fact that I'm almost an adult?

La-La-Lakers

On Tuesday I got lucky enough to snag some tickets to the Lakers-Suns game (I know, who am I, right?), so obvi I brought my camera because what else is there to do for the first half of a basketball game?  For reals though, this game lasted around 4 hours and went into triple overtime!  I think that's the longest athletic event I've ever attended.

This was my frist time trying to photograph a sports event and it was really hard!  They just kept moving!  (I suppose that is the point....)

Also, it turns out there's a lot less audience participation in NBA games than in college games.  Wait, I take that back.  There are spurts of intense audience participation, but only from obnoxious pre-teens desperate to get their faces on the stupid jumbotron.  (Brian seriously almost threw his shoe at this brother-sister pair that danced like it was 1999 every time they did the audience cam thing.)

But I still had fun chowing down on various junk foods dipped in fake cheese and scouting for celebrities.  I spotted Jack Nicholson on the other side of the arena, and I think I saw Chloe Kardashian from a distance (but not close enough for me to run after her screaming "let's be friends!!!" thankfully).  Oh, and I walked right past Busy Philipps.  Don't know who that is?  Yes you do.  You just didn't know she had such an...interesting...name.

My favorite part was at the end when gold and purple streamers fell from the ceiling when we won!  (Note my use of "we" - I'm so LA right now.)