Getty

Over the past year the Getty Center has been mired in controversy and scandal because of allegations that its curator knowingly bought stolen art from around the world. While this fact may tease out protest from those in the know, it appears to have no effect on the hundreds of people a day who take the tram up the mountainside to be in one of Los Angeles' best public spaces. There was a front page article in the L.A. Times the other day about 12 acres of land in Bel Air (yes, Fresh Prince, and yes, the neighborhood adjacent to the the museum) that sold for $75 million. The Getty Center is at least 12 acres, and is the gift from a rich guy, Paul Getty, who bought up the high perch land, built an incredible four-story art museum, landscaped the mountainside, kicked out all the cars, built a tram, and opened it up to the public for free. It is in typical L.A. fashion that this wonderful place was not carved out organically or democratically by the people demanding shared space. Rather it took the trust fund of a billionaire and an eye toward humanity, which a glance at the polis below will convince you is an exceedingly rare combination. The Getty is praised by the art world for its lavish collections, by natives for its views of the city, and by everyone for its dreamy, futuristic landscape gardens. One of the joys of a career in academics is that some days you don't have to work in the office. Today was one of those days, and I took my stuff and bussed to the Getty and sat and read in the sun for the afternoon overlooking the city and the ocean. The people in the first picture (above) sat down next to me to eat. They were a young family of three, and I got the impression they were tourists. But I started making up stories to myself that they just moved to the United States and this was their first outing. They were so excited and happy and eager to show their kid the entire world stretched out before his eyes - the land of opportunity and caring. Do they know there are people who don't want him to take part in that world? Who will wield financial and political muscle to keep him out? Who will construct physical and social barriers to eliminate his competition? Who will send him back to somewhere-not-here? I would have said the people who think this are the fearful ones whose mansions surround the Getty in opulence, with their private panoptical views of the universe. But it can't be *all* the Richy Riches who think this, for the space we were sharing was not public after all, but under the ownership of one person, Paul Getty. Here even admiration is for sale.



The skyline you see here is Westwood (UCLA's hood), and you can just make out the skyline of downtown in the upper left part of the image. With the naked eye I could see the skyline of Long Beach too way off on the horizon.



Pool garden thing.


Looking north. Over those mountains is "the valley," home of the valley girl. Like.

And for CJL a mini-vid of flowing water.