Venice Cultural Corridor Happenings

We zoomed up and down the "Cultural Corridor"(which I so dubbed it because of the art galleries, Pacific Resident Theater, Beyond Baroque, SPARC, etc, of the main artery) of Venice Boulevard last night to catch art works that ranged the gamut from hippie to posh and back to hippie again.


Beyond Baroque & Gerry Fialka hosted the re-lighting of the neon 7 Dudley sign (and the continuance of 7 Dudley Cinema) that used to hang in our dearly departed Sponto's Gallery. When my gang arrived via bike, bells a-dinging, it was to join the crowd gathered out front of Beyond Baroque singing, "This Land Is Your Land" together. Then at 4 minutes and 20 seconds after 7:00 pm, after the now-obligatory chant yelled at any Sponto Memorial of "SPONTO, GET ME HIGH!!!", the old red light was re-lit to much applause and happy shouting. I felt a little choked up from missing all the good times back at Sponto's Gallery, but then one of his friends, Shirley, approached carrying, well, Sponto. His ashes. So he was kinda there after all. Oh, Venice ... how we love you.


Then it was off to the other end of Venice Blvd, to the LA Louver to catch the latest opening, Tom Wudl's "immensities and infinities: further specimens from the flowerbank world". It explores the "Avatamasaka Sutra/Flower Ornament Sutra", and they were lovely in their detail. It was all pretty cool, with a lot of familiar local faces in attendance.


Upstairs were sculptures, works on paper and a new painting in the Wormwood series of works by Enrique Martinez Celaya. Again, pretty cool ... just nothing that moved me to my core to want to gush over.


The best piece of the whole evening was saved for last ... I mean, check out this sunset! It was more special than normal ... it was more golden and just bigger somehow. It felt good just to be alive and able to look at it, with scores of like-minded folks outside celebrating the approach of official Summer (though it was CHILLY!), love, and being right where you want to be.


I get these little Notes From The Universe messages that are always so right on, and while thinking about all the art and hijinks of the day, this one came in, and reiterated what I was feeling ... about everything:

Have your preferences. Go where you're drawn. And dwell upon all that is good.

High!

There is a great place to watch the Sunset in Venice these days, high above the Boardwalk at High. It's the bar on top of the Hotel Erwin (used to be the shoddy Best Western), and the view is so gorgeous you can't even barely stand it.


You enter the Hotel Erwin lobby (centrally located on Pacific and almost Windward) and take the elevator up to the Roof. You walk down a long Hamptons-like wooden sidewalk that leads to the seating areas, where you set up camp in one of the comfy couch sections, and Behold! The entire Venice Boardwalk, and the mountains and sea beyond. stretch out to infinity. There is nothing left to do but toast your good fortune to be in this moment.

As with any decent place with a view, High gets its fair share of Tourists and Tools, but if you and your posse of locals can finagle one of the front couch areas from the very nice manager, Tom, you will pat yourselves on the back as you keep your eye out for the Green Flash. The sun sets over the vast Pacific .. the Santa Monica Mountains turn purple before your eyes.

There are blankets and space heaters for your coziness as the night air turns brisk, and the menus light up so you can see what you're in for. Innovative. One drag is that the bathroom is two floors down (via stairs or elevator) and that can seem like a haul, but there are worse hells.

I haven't had any of the food really, other than little appetizer things, but I can vouch for the drinks - good and stiff (though a little pricey, like most Hotels with a view. Perhaps not a nightly hang spot). There is a restaurant on the street level called Hash that looks pretty good too. High and Hash. The Erwin seems to be familiar with much of its Venice clientele already.

I haven't seen any of the rooms in The Erwin yet, but have heard that they are clean, well-designed, and affordable. The art on the hallway walls seems pretty beachy and cool ... I will for sure recommend the place for my out-of-towners to stay (when my own Hostel is full).

We had a fun and fantastic High Happy Hour last Friday, and the colors of the sunset were mind-blowing. It put us all in an excellent mood to carry on to First Fridays over on Abbot Kinney (aka Food Truck Alley - weird). The lights came on all over town, and from the High vantage point, it looked so charming, that all just had to be well.

Check it out when you want to impress someone with the stunningly beautiful side of Venice. I'll clink to that!