“Strange travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.”
--Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Tonight I was wearing one of my strangest T-shirts. For decades I have been known for my wide variety of T-shirts...artistic, political, scientific, etc.
As an aside, my most recent addition is in honor of my step-daughter who is about to go away to college (not many people get it): (I am improvising since my keyboard doesn't have all characters)
E/(c^2) squareroot(-1) PV/nR
Get it? Never mind...
ANYWAY, that is beside the point. Another somewhat recent T-shirt is my Museum of Jurassic Technology T-shirt. Almost NO ONE knows what that refers to...but tonight someone complemented me on that shirt and he KNEW about it. And he told me that an administrator in our department ALSO knows about it. It was a real pleasure to meet someone who knows about the place!
I have two sets of strange travel suggestions for all and sundry, one set in Los Angeles (mostly actually Culver City) and one set in New York (Brooklyn). They include two of the most obscure and interesting museums I have been to.
I refer to the above mentioned Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, California, and on the opposite coast to the Proteus Gowanus gallery in Brooklyn.
For those who see strange travel suggestions as dancing lessons from god (a la Bokononism), these two places have to be on your list somewhere, sometime because they fit perfectly into the spirit of Kurt Vonnegut and Bokononism.
I have always loved travel. Want to go to Kyoto, Japan? I have many suggestions of the best places, some spectacular, some strange, all off the normal tourist track. Imperial villas, shrines with hundreds of big balled statues of Tanuki where Taxi drivers go to get their good luck charms, etc. I can tell you where in Turkey you can actually see real scrape marks of an ancient city gate on the pavement of a ruined city left over from the Bronze Age. And (if they are still there) I can tell you great places to eat in Florence, Italy, in Rezekne, Latvia, in Moscow and Petersburg, Russia, in Istanbul, Turkey, and in Santorini, Greece.
Some places are so off people's radars it amazes me they ever survive. But they deserve survival.
The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY is one of the most polluted waterways in America. Believe it or not, many of us in the community cheered when it was declared a Superfund site. That designation gives it at least a remote chance of being at least partly cleaned up. On hot summer days the stench is, shall we say, unique. One year my wife and I, while crossing a bridge over the canal, looked down and saw an iridescent oil slick so thick and congealed that a glass bottle was embedded in it on top of the water, immobilized in the muck. Nearby, on the more liquid part of the eerie, iridescent slick was a single latex glove floating away, fingers positioned exactly like a Vulcan "Long Live and Prosper" sign.
The Canal has been the center of ongoing battles over how much to clean it up, what should be there, etc. Right now it is a fascinating mix of light industry (e.g. coffin factories), neo-hipster apartments and restaurants (some of which have basements that flood with rank, stinky water), and a long-standing art colony. It also has some of the most diverse and fascinating bridges across it in NYC, something I never appreciated until my son's Kindergarten class did a "bridge study" along the canal. SO my son showed me how each bridge is unique.
While a Whole Foods is desperately trying to open up along the canal on a site where a soil sample was so toxic it actually dissolved a plastic container over a weekend before it could be analyzed (I kid you not!) about a half block from the canal is an amazing gallery/museum: Proteus Gowanus.
Almost no one knows about it but it is one of my favorite local places. I could sit for days reading through their "resurrection library" of seemingly random, old and obscure books. They have a segment dedicated to the history of the Gowanus canal and the surrounding area of Brooklyn which is how I learned that the street I live on was once a river (explaining why we have so many flooding problems). And then there are art exhibits that often are unusual and fascinating.
PROTEUS GOWANUS
543 Union Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215
Gallery Hours
THURS & FRIDAYS, 3-6 pm
SAT & SUNDAYS, 12-6 pm
From their website:
Proteus Gowanus is an interdisciplinary gallery and reading room housed in a former 1900 box factory located centrally among several vibrant Brooklyn communities. Proteus Gowanus is named after both the Greek sea god who could change form and the neighboring Gowanus Canal, a changing post-industrial waterfront area with a thriving artistic community and a history dating back to the Revolutionary War and earlier.
Proteus Gowanus exhibitions, programs and publications are developed by a core collaborative of artists, writers and workers in other disciplines, with help from an extended community of PG correspondents. Proteus Gowanus also works reciprocally with a group of non-profit partner organizations that utilize the Proteus space and receive proceeds from sales. Proteus Gowanus incorporates the rich, interdisciplinary resources of its non-profit partners into exhibits and programs.
I should note that in the same building just around the corner (on Union St.) is also a
pottery studio that is also pretty cool!
Some regular events at Proetus Gowanus:
Third Thursday of each month, 7 pm, the Fixers Collective meets at Proteus Gowanus. The Fixers’ Collective is a social experiment in improvisational fixing and mending. The project grew out of our 2008/9 theme, Mend, in response to a sense that ‘fixing things,’ from the mundane to the profound, had grown increasingly out of our reach. Bring in your broken thing and see if, together, we can improve it. $5 donation appreciated.
Morbid Anatomy Library: The Morbid Anatomy Library is a private research library and collection of curiosities, books, artworks, photographs, ephemera, and artifacts relating to medical museums, anatomical art, collectors and collecting, cabinets of curiosity, the history of medicine, death and society, natural history, arcane media, and curiosity and curiosities broadly considered. Email: morbidanatomy@gmail.com
Every Wednesday from 6:30-8:30 pm, the Writhing Society meets at Proteus to practice and discuss writing with constraints. $5 fee.
Museum of Matches: The Museum of Matches is an interdisciplinary project that explores the Cold War, its antecedents and its legacy through visual art, documents, photographs, books, memorabilia, and publications, using the wooden match, a disappearing artifact, as a central visual element.
Reanimation Library: Reanimation Library is an independent library of books that have fallen out of mainstream circulation. Designed as a resource for artists, writers and other cultural archeologists, the library offers visual and written resources selected to facilitate the production of new creative work.
To join their mailing list, send email to info@proteusgowanus.com
I should note that nearby are some other good finds in Brooklyn along the same Union Street. Of course there is the Park Slope Food Co-op, the largest food co-op in America, but you need to be a member to go there! You can talk to me if you want a tour as a guest!
Then there is Palo Santo, an amazing Latin American fusion restaurant and wine bar that not only is delicious (their menu constantly changes) but their wine selection actually baffled relatives of mine who are wine experts and even wine producers...there were wines made from grapes they had not heard of. And good wines, too! I have personally found that their taco appetizers, which change frequently, are almost always nearly perfect. Wild boar tacos. Pork tacos three ways, each better than the last...etc. Sometimes portion sizes are small, but otherwise no complaints here!
Then there is an associated restaurant, Fort Reno, a BBQ restaurant using fresh, local meat and with an amazing variety of mixed drinks. Good BBQ isn't so easy to find in NYC but this place is among the best. Their "Hot Mess" is a great place to start...basically a mason jar layered with a sampling of most of their food. Their burnt end beans are great. As, of course, are their meats. Have not tried their brunch yet but the brunch menu looks amazing. As for their mixed drinks, well they have "Where the Buffalo Roam" which I swear is in honor of Hunter S. Thompson, as well as some very Caribbean specific kinds of drinks that are amazing. Looking at their website (above) I have not tried the drinks they list there. But they have many others that are great. Good happy hour specials as well.
Then there is Rose Water, a great place with fresh, organic ingredients...best deal is Sunday Brunch but show up EARLY because there is often a line. Other times it is a tad expensive but worth it if you can splurge.
There are the beautiful community gardens along Union: The Garden of Union and the nearby Annie's Garden. Worth a look and a quiet sit on a bench when they are open. Annie's Garden, though smaller and not open as much, is the better of the two for just sitting and relaxing.
And of course at the far end of Union from the Canal are Grand Army Plaza and Prospect Park. Prospect Park, designed by the same people who designed Central Park but designed BETTER because they felt they had learned from their Central Park experience, has a HUGE amount to offer. We still, after years of living in the neighborhood, learn more about Prospect Park.
All in all, tourists could easily spend a day along Union Street and come away satisfied. Two days if they add the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Academy of Music very close by. Maybe even three if you add things like the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, the Brooklyn Children's Museum and such.
Now let's turn to the Los Angeles area. First off, one of the most wonderful places to visit in LA that few people know about is the sister of the more famous Getty Museum: the Getty Villa (PDF). The Villa is actually the original Getty Museum and is in many ways far more unique. Perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean in Malibu, it is a replica of an ancient Roman villa from Herculaneum (near Pompeii and buried in the same eruption). If I was granted one wish it would be for my home to be the Getty Villa. I could die happy just sitting in those surroundings! I recently recommended the place to a co-worker who had never been to Los Angeles. She was blown away. I would place it as one of the top places to see in LA.
Not too far from the Getty Villa, just up Sunset Blvd a bit from the ocean, is the Self-Realization Fellowship Shrine. It is a Hindu Shrine in the middle of Los Angeles centered around a natural, spring fed lake. I am not a Hindu. But I find it among the most soothing and beautiful (with a touch of kitch) places I have known. A portion of the ashes of the Mahatma Gandhi are enshrined there, and though that doesn't do much for me per se, there is a kind of overwhelming CALM about the place. And the roses in their rose garden are some of the most fecund and large roses I have ever seen. Whatever their secret, they have created a magnificent environment right in Los Angeles.
Then we come to Culver City. In itself Culver City isn't so interesting but there are a few things that make it well worth a visit. First, let's make a bridge from the last place...in Culver City is an Indian market, complete with prepared food ready for purchase, called India Sweets and Spice. It is not fancy. But it is delicious, cheap, and authentic. For take out it is well worth a try. I still fondly remember the chick peas I last had there!
Also a great, cheap place in Culver City is Tito's Tacos. This is NOT authentic Mexican. Usually that would be a strike against it...but not in this case! It is one of the most addictive places to eat I have ever been to. After the first time I introduced my NYC raised wife to Tito's Taco's, she on her own initiative pushed it to the top of the list of things to do when in Los Angeles. The tacos (with cheese...a bit extra but worth it!) and the beef and bean burritos (one of the rare times I eat beef) are amazing. Even if you go at 2 AM there will be line. Just expect to wait. Expect it to be hard to find a place to sit. It is worth it. Get a lot and just pig out. I usually get 3 tacos and one burrito...and it comes with chips! A warning: the salsa and the guacamole are not really worth it. Same goes for the tamales (sadly since I LOVE tamales). I have not tried the enchiladas but I suspect they will do them quite well. Everything else will hit you like crack cocaine and you will make sure it is top of your list for places to visit in Los Angeles right off the plane. Trust me. I know. There is even a place in Brooklyn (Rachel's) that has an eponymous dish honoring Tito's Tacos. It's former sister location (La Taqueria, now defunct) also had a mural that explicitly honored Tito's Tacos. So even in Brooklyn people know and love this place.
Then we come to the reason I highlight Culver City and the origin of the shirt that inspired this diary: The Museum of Jurassic Technology (a museum dedicated to non-Aristotilean, non-Euclidian, non-Newtonian knowledge). No...it is NOT a creationist place, though at first some might mistake it for such. It is actually brilliant! The founder of this place won a "Genius Award" (MacArthur Fellowship) in honor of the museum. It cannot be described. In fact to try and do so would partly ruin the impact. There is a very good tea room. A roof garden. And a theater. Plus their regular collections. You will be first VERY baffled, then amused and amazed alternately. Let's see...Lives of the Dogs of the Soviet Space Program...The Napoleon Library...Garden of Eden On Wheels: Collections from Los Angeles Area Mobile Home Parks (probably my favorite!). Every corner is a gem...sometimes a prized gem, sometimes a deeply disturbingly flawed gem. But always a gem. Go to it, let yourself be confused and absorbed by it, and come out a possibly wiser, definitely more amused member of humanity.
It may well be one of the more intricate dance moves god can teach you.