Ugly Foamlets, Strange Beauty

Here's an ugly truth. Sometimes walking on the beach feels like a chore. Not every walk down at the beach produces sweetness and light. And not every vista one sees is beautiful, as last night's walk demonstrates.
The rain having stopped, Alma and I returned to the beach yesterday afternoon for our customary walk. We only made about 2/3 of our normal three-mile walk on the beach itself because, while the rain had stopped, the temperatures had also fallen by a good 20-25 degrees. Compounding the drop in temperatures, strong northwesterly winds off the ocean blew the entire time we walked. Neither of us had dressed warmly enough for the cold and windy conditions.

The day began like many of the others I have described heretofore, sun shining brighly through scattered clouds in the westernmost quadrant of the sky. We could find no parking near Strongs Rd, but managed to find a spot on Pacific Ave. close to Venice Boulevard (mid-way between Strongs Rd. and Abbot Kinney Boulevard). So we were ideally positioned about 2 blocks from the beach.

When we arrived at the beach, the first image I had was of a thin sheet of sand blowing across the surface of the beach, such was the effect of the wind. There was no place to hide from it and the strong winds yesterday were sustained and not occasional gusts. Even though we began by walking southward, the winds were coming equally out of the west as from the north and so, as Alma constantly reminds me, that "big cold wet thing" out there made for a cold walk even walking southward.

While we walked southward toward the Villa Marina jetty, Alma and I noticed little foamlets on the sand, almost as if the Pacific had held a giant bubble bath and the bubble patches on the shore remained. I almost want to say that these foamlets were unnatural, the scummy by-product of pollution. The foamlets seem to hang around inordinately long, almost as if they have some chemical component. And they appear slightly dis-colored with a slightly off-white tint. The wind would push these foamlets across the surf and, when I noticed them, I mentioned to Alma that I thought these foamlets were singularly ugly. Alma disagreed. 

Now I admit that watching these foamlets dance across the sand had a certain grace, a certain sprezzatura. And I'll grant that perhaps my aesthetic judgment was somewhat clouded by the cold winds that were blowing yesterday. But I think that the reason I saw these foamlets as ugly is that they diverged so radicallhy from my picture of what a beach should be, the Platonic essence of 'beach-dom,' if you will.

Ironically, Venice Beach usually comes nowhere close to matching that Platonic beach ideal under even the most idyllic of circumstances. The water at Venice Beach is not blue and is often too cold for swimming or even wading. Often you find black globules of tar washed up on the beach from the offshore tar vents the area is famous for. And, as often as not, rotting kelp dots the shore. So asking Venice Beach to meet some Platonic ideal is asking a bit much. Even so, in no Platonic vision of beachiness do I find little commas of foam that stay on the beach long enough for the wind to push them around.

Alma said that the foamlets reflected what was going on in the sky and their blowing across the sand reflected the clouds blowing across the sky. Not literally, of course. To Alma, though, it looked like the clouds blowing across the sky were "a reiteration of what was occurring in Nature." And, it's true as Alma noticed, that in the wet sand itself, you could see reflections of the actual clouds themselves.

Alma took several pictures and so I will let you decide for yourself whether these foamlets are beautiful or ugly:

The sun sets at 5 p.m. or even earlier now. We finished our southward leg and arrived at the Villa Marina jetty at about 4:40 p.m. and had only about five minutes of direct sunshine left before the sun finally dipped beneath the western horizon. The wind continued to blow harshly but now, with no direct sunshine, the temperature and effort required began to feel unbearable to Alma and to me. So, after about 15 minutes of trudging northward back towards the Washington Boulevard Pier, we decided to get off the sand quickly and did so, returning to the car via surface streets.

The Decline and Fall of American Consumerism: The View from the Trenches (Part II)

Alma and I returned to the Westfield Culver City Mall last night. As we had Friday night, we again walked for 90 minutes, from 5:45 - 7:15 p.m.

There were more people at the mall last night and, judging from the shopping bags they were carrying, shoppers were buying things at the mall last night. However, the feeling was decidedly muted and I again saw many retail shops with no customers in them. Specifically, there are four specialty jewelry outlets: Zales, Kay, Romano and Kevin's and, with seven complete circuits in 90 minutes, I saw at best 1-2 people patronizing any of the four. The 3 Foot Locker outlets (Foot Locker, Ladies Foot Locker and Kids Foot Locker) also had at best 4-5 customers between them. This in the space of 90 minutes on a Saturday evening.

When I checked Foot Locker stock on a lark, I was shocked to see that its stock price went up more than 10% on Friday alone. Why? Well, the per-share earnings had doubled in the previous quarter (from $0.16/share to $0.33/share), surprising analysts and the market. All I could do is shake my head - clearly that doubling in earnings is not coming from the Westfield Culver City mall, based on what I've been seeing.

In fact, all 3 of the stocks I checked (Foot Locker, Zales and Kay Jewelry) saw their share prices go up on Friday. So it's probably just as well that I only joked about selling shares of the stocks short, as I would have been punished for my presumption.

It appears as if the bad weather has lifted today, so Alma and I shall be heading down to the beach today. But I have no doubt we shall be returning to the malls soon when the weather turns inclement again.

The Decline and Fall of American Consumerism: The View from the Trenches

In my second post, I wrote that my audience for this blog was as large as the world but as small as only myself. I would now like to refine that statement a little bit or to amplify upon it. Southern California is hurting right now -- in the midst of Great Depression v2.0 -- and I would like to describe that pain and offer some of my ideas for palliatives.

As of October 22, the unemployment rate in California as a whole stood at 12.4%, according to California's Economic Development Department (EDD). And this is using the narrowest U2 measure. More expansive definitions, up to and including the widest U6 measure, suggest that the percentage of Californians out of work, working less than full time but seeking full time work, or discouraged entirely from looking could climb as high as 25%. (In other words, one out of every four Californians of working age wants to work and cannot.)

The weather here has taken a sharp turn for the worse since Thursday. Cold temperatures, high gusty winds and a chilly, miserable rain have moved into the westside and promise to remain here for the next few days at the very least. Accordingly, last night, Alma and I decided to walk at a nearby mall, rather than our beloved beach.

We arrived at the Westfield Culver City Mall -- located just off the intersection of Sepulveda and Slauson Boulevards -- at about 5:30 p.m. and walked and shopped there until about 7:30. This mall is relatively small, as these affairs go. It has three levels, the uppermost of which is a modest food court with perhaps 8-9 food choices. Because we are now walking 90 minutes each day at the beach, we also resolved to walk for 90 minutes at the Westfield Mall. In practice, this meant about six full circuits. We spent three of those circuits on the ground floor and the other three on the second floor.

And what we saw was not pretty. The many specialty stores seemed entirely devoid of customers, even customers who were only browsing. Several of the storekeepers at the smaller stores actually stood in the doorways of their stores, looking forlorn as the pedestrian traffic passed them by. Not that the big anchor stores fared much better. Best Buy and Target anchor the southern end of the mall, Best Buy on the ground floor and Target on the second floor. Even Target seemed pretty muted -- we went in there at 7 p.m. when our walk was over to buy some lingerie for Alma and I observed that many Target clerks were standing around and not doing much of anything. More to the point, there were not that many customers coming through the checkout lines. We waited exactly 30 seconds for our cashier.

JC Penney anchors the northern end of the mall, occupying both levels.  Despite running numerous televsision ads constantly, the place seemed almost empty. We saw only one family of 5-6 people going in and, more important, no one leaving carrying a JC Penney bag. How in the world can these big chain stores remain open when there is no business at all?

Macy's occupies the first and second floors in the middle of the west side of the mall. It too seemed like a ghost town each time we walked by. Simply incredible. I foresee a very bad holiday season this year, based on what we saw last night.

There are probably 5-6 specialty athletic shoe stores there and we could see no customers in any of the stores. The mall has 3 dfferent Foot  Locker variants - none of the 3 had any customers that we could see. I joked to Alma that I was thinking about selling Foot Locker stock short, so shocking was the vista. What made it more depressing was that we could see all the sales people standing around fidgeting with the merchandise, mervously re-arranging it in the various displays.

"The whole place is vibrating with nervous tension," said Alma at one point. When I asked what she meant, Alma said, "These retailers are worried about counting on the Christmas season to stay in business." Indeed, there were two places in the mall that had closed up entirely or were in the process of going out of business. Alma continued that all the other retailers who remained wondered whether closing would be their fates also.

There were a lot of people at the mall but they did not seem to be shopping at any of the retail outlets there. God knows what the  people actually were doing -- perhaps eating dinner at the food court. We seemed the only people there who were using the mall space to exercise. But there is nothing culturally redeeming about this mall, no bookstore, no movie theaters. And so, if no one is shopping at the retail outlets, there really is no reason whatsoever I can see for this mall to exist.

What we saw at the mall last night, I think, is nothing less than the decline and fall of American Consumerism writ small. There is simply no way that retail establishments, whether nationally branded or locally based, can remain open, pay their staffs even the minimum wage and meet overhead, when they have no customers. There were a few customers in line to pay at Old Navy and at Claire's. But Old Navy was selling plenty of clothing items for less than $10 and Claire's is a novelty store that appeals to young girls, The rest of the Culver City mall is like a morgue or like some character from the Undead, not yet fully aware that it has died and still going through the motions.

I am no advocate of broad consumerism, no proponent of crass materialism, and I would not be entirely heart-broken to see America start learning to make do with less. At one point in our walk last night, I turned to Alma and said, "America deserves this for electing Bush for 8 years (or for standing by while the Supreme Court installed him illegally in a bloodless coup in 2000)." But a lot of people working at the stores in the Westfield Mall were mere children in 2000 -- they had nothing to do with Bush's junta but they will end up paying for the consequences. And when I think of all the people whose employment prospects depend upon a healthy, vibrant consumer economy, and when I see what I saw last night, I cannot help feeling a bit sad for what we had before and what has passed. In posts to come, I shall offer some ideas for fixing things. But after last night, I am not sure things can be fixed.

Welcome to the Asylum

I have been unemployed since October 5 but have few regrets so far. I had basically exhausted any growth possibilities at the place I worked for the previous 4+ years. During those four years, Alma and I had, thanks to frugal living, repaired our balance sheet and paid off all our debts. In April of 2009, we took advantage of the housing collapse in Southern California to buy our first home, a condominium in Westchester whose extra bedroom became an art studio for Alma and a music studio for me.

Alma and I live frugally by Southern Californian standards. As I wrote earlier, I drive a 1993 Nissan. We have paid off all our credit card debt except for a few miscellaneous gas purchases. Furthermore, Alma and I had saved up some money prior to this unemployment beginning. I also am collecting unemployment compensation, so we are in no immediate fianncial danger. I have always landed on my feet in the past after periods of unemployment, some long and some short, and I have no doubt I will do in this case too, without any significant danger or damage to Alma's and my well-being.

Unemployment is very strange though. At the end of October, California's unemployment rate stood at 12.4%. Even by the strictest measure of how economists define 'unemployment,' roughly one out of 8 Californians who wanted work could not find it. (If one uses a more expansive standard of unemployment, to include those working part-time who wish full-time work and those who have given up looking entirely, the percentage may rise to Great Depression levels of 25%.) Add to this the fact that I am now 51. And the job boards are replete with horror stories of older workers who face lengthy stints of unemployment. So I look for a job that pays a regular salary or paycheck, but I also search for activities to fill my days.

Since becoming unemployed, I have finished two important tasks, while continuing to look for a new job. First of all, in early November, I started this blog so that, when this period of unemployment ends, I will have something of lasting value to show for the time I was without paid employment. I plan to have a book-length manuscript after a year of these daily blog posts. Only time will tell whether it becomes the next Walden.

Equally important, I have built a website to display and market Alma's art:

http://almasartasylum.com/

Right now, it's a pretty simple website, with only four inter-linked pages. But the site is scalable, so as Alma produces more work and organizes that work into shows, the site can grow to accomodate that growth.

The website allows Alma to evade the barriers to placing her work in brick-and-mortar galleries in Los Angeles. I shall write on that topic more at length in posts to come, but suffice it to say that gallery owners here look for artwork by a younger set that is hooked into some sort of bizarre hipster scene. Alma and I occasionally attend openings at one or more of these galleries and, frankly, the curating of exhibits is appalling to me. The works displayed for sale are ugly and leave me completely unmoved, except for remembering Flaubert's exhortation to epater la bourgeoisie (loosely translated: "shock the middle class"). Flaubert shocked the middle class but exhibited great artistry in doing so, whereas today's hipsters have the 'shock' part down minus the artistry.

We have put prices on a few of the pieces on display at the gallery; we have also offered Alma's work on a commission basis. So perhaps Alma's art will be discovered by one or more wealthy collectors. I shall use various strategems to place and keep Alma and her work in the public eye through this website.

Truth to tell, Alma and I have not decided whether the primary purpose of the Asylum is to display her art, to sell it or some combination thereof. As a putataive webmaster though, I can take some solace in the thought that I am not completely 'unemployed,' even if that employment has not produced any positive cash flow yet, nor may it ever. I take solace in remembering that Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime. And now look at Van Gogh. Likewise, even if the Asylum produces no sales, it has secured a sort of immortality for Alma, just as this blog has produced its equivalent for me. Seen in that light, cash flow is really only the icing on the cake.

The Beach and the Five Senses

Most of my reports of our walks on the beach have, until now, concerned what the eyes can see. This focus on the visual makes sense, because Alma is a visual artist and this blog is in part a record of her creative process and how she sees the world around her. But the world of Venice Beach touches far more than merely the visual.

Here is an unpleasant truth about the beach. Sometimes it smells horribly, like something has died. Well, the reality is that something has died (or is constantly dying): the kelp that washes up on the beach and the occasional bird or fish. But the rancid smell becomes especially pronounced when one is around any of the man-made formations: either the Villa Marina jetty, the Washington Boulevard pier or the breakwater a half-mile north of the pier. The water is less turbulent there and that relative stillness and fewer and smaller waves must allow for the bacteria to proliferate that produce the smells.

Below are pictures of washed-up kelp and a dead or dying jellyfish:

In fact, I cannot say that any of these segments of Venice and Santa Monica beaches we regularly walk ever smell absolutely delightful. At least, though, when Alma and I walk the open beaches, the sea breezes blow constantly, refreshing the air we breathe and preventing any buildup of noxious scent. And there are times when the temperatures are especially mild that a balmy breeze seems to waft a pleasant tropical scent through my nostrils.

In the summer, the sand warms beneath the sun's rays, such that we can almost always remove our shoes. Walking through the soft pack bare-footed produces pleasurable sensations of the warm sand massaging our toes, feet and ankles. Only rarely does the sand reach temperatures where walking on it at length risks burning the soles of our feet. The Beaches and Harbors maintenance folk drag their rakes and harrows through the sand each morning, leaving vehicular tracks we can step into and out of. The sand is packed down a little more firmly in the vehicle tracks than in the surrounding unblemished sand.

And, of course, we walk the beach in part to collect material for Alma's art, so we continully engage our sense of touch whenever we pick up objects on the beach abandoned by man or washed up the sea. Often the object has become partially embedded in the sand, so reclaiming it requires moving sand away from it or pulling it out of the sand.

I find, though, that I respond most to the sound -- the white noise of the waves, the muted sounds of sea fowl, the even-more-muted sound of people talking at a distance. The white noise overwhelms almost all other noise. Even the high-pitched keening of children and gulls takes on a 'far away' muted quality because of the dampening effect of the white noise from the waves' breaking on the surfline. The annoying distractions of the frequent helicopters and planes flying overhead from the Los Angeles International  and Santa Monica airports, even that sound becomes muted before the ever-present and unending white noise of the waves.

I did not intend this post to catalogue each of the five senses and I have left out taste, as we engage that sense only in drinking juice from the sports bottles we prepare before walking. But walking on the beach engages the senses, all of them, and not solely the visual.

Ten Waves per Minute

Last night we returned to our customary walk between the Washington Blvd. Pier and the Villa Marina jetty. I was curious to see how often the waves rolled in and so made sure I was wearing a watch, so that I could continue timing the periodicity of the waves.

Back in October, before I started this blog, I timed the waves that rolled in at the Villa Marina jetty. The rate at the time varied but the waves seemed to roll in at a rate of six to eight per minute. Yesterday, we began by walking the half-mile jag north from the Washington Blvd. pier to the little breakwater just north of Washington Boulevard. While we were walking, I tried to measure the periodicity of waves on that portion of the beach to see whether waves occurred with the same frequency as at the Villa Marina jetty.

Maybe it was the beautiful weather, maybe it was a heightened attention to my surroundings, but I simply could not seem to get accurate measurements yesterday. I would start timing when the second hand of my watch was straight up and would count 4-5 waves within the first 30-40 seconds, but then would lose my concentration. Also, last night, I noticed that not all waves are created equal. Sometimes, the waves are of uniform height and come in at regular intervals. Last night, though, it seemed like the waves' height varied considerably from one wave to the next. And, as often as not, a given wave would be followed by a smaller 'wavelet', a pale afterthought of a real wave. So should I count that as 1 wave or as 2 waves? I did not know and such considerations prevented me from ever completing a count through a full 60 seconds.

As though Nature were conspiring to divert me from my measurements, when we reached the small breakwater, I happened to notice a single dolphin swimming just beyond the point where the waves would start to swell before reaching full form. He (or she) seemed to be swimming a very narrow circuit between the breakwater and a point about 20 yards south. The dolphin would arch partway out of the water every so often but never so predictably that Alma could capture a picture of him. But I found that I would gladly ignore the second hand of my watch for a chance to see his back arch from the water.

Alma found herself taking pictures of some of the rock formations that form the breakwater. I told her that, if I were the Inspector of Sand Dunes, she was now the "Photographer of Rocks." Truth is, there are only so many things one can photograph down at the beach before the potential subject matter starts to run a bit dry. But Alma took some rockin' photos. Should we say that Alma rocks?

So, at any rate, I think in the Santa Monica Bay, under normal weather conditions, one expects to see about eight to ten waves per minute, or one every 5-6 seconds. I shall endeavor to measure the periodicity again when the weather has grown worse. The meteorologists are forecasting that temperatures will drop some 15-20 degrees by week's end and there may be rain this weekend. I would like to see if the frequency of waves increases when the weather worsens or whether the periodicity of waves remains constant no matter the weather.

Dune Report - From Brooks Ave to the Santa Monica Pier

Alma needed art supplies from a store in Santa Monica so yesterday, after having purchased supplies,  we again parked on Brooks Ave, rather than drive back to Strongs Dr.. This time, unlike Saturday, we did walk on the sand and we walked an ambitious route from Brooks Ave. all the way north to the Santa Monica pier and back. (I estimate the total round trip distance at about 4 miles and the duration of 2 hours seems to confirm that, as our normal walking rate is 2 miles\hour.)

We again had gorgeous weather and, as a result, many locals had chosen to decamp on that stretch of the beach (the northern-most extreme of Venice and the southern-most extreme of Santa Monica). I prefer walking when there are fewer people on the beach; the more people around me, the more difficult I find it to commune with Mother Nature. Even though the white noise of the waves swallows up most of the sound they make, just their physical presence often seems distracting to me. And yesterday was no exception, at least at the start of the walk.

But what is a distraction for me is often an absolute boon for Alma. On the inital stretch of the walk north, we found many abandoned beach toys and other man-made detritus. We arrived on the beach at Brooks Ave. at about 4:15 p.m., and so we had about 45 minutes of glorious sunshine left before dusk. We used that time to our advantage.  Here is what we found:

10 bottle caps (red and green Coke primarily, but a couple orange Gatorade tops as well)
3 plastic toy sand shovels (pink, green and yellow)
1 plastic toy sand rake (yellow)
1 broken plastic serving spoon (white)
1 plastic toy bucket (red with white handle)
1 plastic dinosaur mold (yellow).

Alma joked that with all the dinosaur molds she has collected on the beach this summer and fall, she can now put together an assemblage piece called 'Dinosaur Art,' an oblique reference to some of the put-downs she has endured at the hands of the Los Angeles hipster art scene.

We also came across the intricate cross-webbed tracks of many seabirds and Alma thought the imagery deserved a photograph. I would not have seen the beauty without Alma's pointing it out to me. The bird tracks do possess a strange sort of elegant, almost fractal, beauty:

The Santa Monica pier has a small amusement park\carnival built on it.

As you can see from the picture immediately above and the picture at the beginning of this post, the Pier offers various rides and attractions, including a small roller coaster and a medium-sized Ferris wheel. Someone associated with the park (or with the company providing the Ferris Wheel) has programmed the most beautiful light show for the Ferris Wheel's lights. Often, after dark or even as the sun sets, we will see the Ferris Wheel presiding over the Pier like some giant electrified kaleidoscopic sentry. Alma took some photos last night with her cell phone but the camera does not capture the magnificence of this Ferris Wheel well.

The lights on the Ferris Wheel constantly change, perhaps every second, producing an effect that the lights and the wheel actually move. Now I know that someone somewhere had to program the light changes and intricate designs. That would be a hell of a job to have, making beautiful light shows with a Ferris Wheel. Just as the colors of the sunsets are often reflected in the area or surf where water meets sand, so too the lights of this Ferris Wheel reflect onto the sand right where the water meets the sand.

As for the bottle caps Alma and I reclaimed from the beach yesterday and on days previous, below is a photo of one of Alma's work in progress. A giant flower whose petals are composed of . . . you guessed it, soda bottle caps of various hues. If you look closely, too, you might notice that the two petals on the stem  actually began life as plastic toy sand rakes:

Finding the materials for 'found art' on the beach yesterday and then seeing the Ferris Wheel so brightly illuminated got me to thinking that, as touchy-feely as it may sound, art happens all around you and often you find art where you might least expect it, provided you are willing to open your eyes and look (or have a spouse who is an artist). The western sky is a giant canvas upon which the powers of the universe put their works but even in something as small and seemingly disposable as the cap of a Coke bottle is the material of art, requiring only the imagination, hands and diligence of a dedicated creator.