Drawar

Please stop me if I'm contributing to spam or something, but what "bad reputation" do you speak of? Are you talking about the rest of the country's perceptions of LA? The fact that top websites such as Perez Hilton, TMZ and Defamer (amongst others) are based out of LA?

I see plenty of culture (and certainly no loss of it) in LA--but I see it in the people that are here. Not in the prevailing way that entertainment news dominates all other "world events" and the fact that it geographically originates here. Is there really any other place that's better to try ANY type of cuisine? Sure, it might be a bit more of a salad bowl than a melting pot, but it's here and if you know where to look you'll find it.

You have the gays and Russians in West Hollywood, the gays and latinos in Silver Lake and Echo Park, the Armenians in Glendale, the Chinese in Monterey Park (and now San Gabriel Valley), the Koreans in ... Koreatown, the Japanese in the Sawtelle district and Torrance. Hell, I live by a Little Ethiopia where you can go to a restaurant to scoop food with your fingers. You also have your yuppie surfer dudes who wear collared shirts under pink sweaters to the few clubs in Santa Monica. Compton certainly has its "culture," though people aren't exactly eager to find out what that is. We have EVERYTHING here. I have lived here 10 years and love to eat out and I doubt I will ever run out of restaurants that I want to try.

The best way I would recommend seeing LA is to find out what events are going on during your visit window. There are tons of festivals and events that don't happen year-round, such as The Brewery Art Walk (the largest residential art colony around) and The Tamale Festival.

I would also recommend some not-so-known museum finds such as The Museum of Tolerance (dedicated to Holocaust victims) and The Museum of Jurassic Technology (a bizarre tiny museum I plan on visiting soon). But I definitely agree with The Getty being a must-see...as well as LACMA (which will be getting the Dali exhibit soon). I might have added MOCA to that list, however.

I live here - we all know that the rest of the country has a pretty sneering attitude about LA. I love it here (but I'm from NYC, so I'm predisposed to find culture wherever I am), and when I hear jokes like "What's the difference between LA and a cup of yogurt? Yogurt has an active culture," I wonder if people just need to know there's more to LA than looking for Britney Spears and her type.

So don't be offended, please - I'm with you. MOCA's not on my list only b/c I wanted to keep it to 3 or 4 museums. Notice, no Petersen Automotive Museum either, and that's right on Miracle Mile too.

No hard feelings. :)

My take on it is that if people need to dismiss L.A. (and 100% of its inhabitants) as a star-crazy and superficial then so be it. We are way overpopulated as it is and it's not as if we need more people moving here, contributing even more to the horrible traffic. :)

Materials & Applications

That's a great find, Justin. I'm going to check it out.

Looks like I needs more culture.
I've been to the Art Walk in San Diego a few times, looks like I'll have to check out this Art Crawl too. Silverlake isn't too far from my place.

Wow, Justin, thanks for that link - and it opens in just three days! I"m going to be out by Los Feliz this weekend. THink I'll take a little detour and check it out.

M&A is always open, they're a firm. The art space beside their offices rotates out with new installations all the time. I visited a few years ago when this was there:

more pics

Oh, Jennifer -- I'd love to see pics of it when you get back!