After a few days away, about which you’ll be reading next week, I’m back. Wiser? We can only hope. Older? Afraid so.
On Saturday, yours truly turned 62.
Is that a milestone age? Some might say you’re a senior at 50, or at 55, or at 60. Or more officially at 65, when you’re eligible for Medicare.
But 62 is when you’re eligible to claim Social Security. (I’m holding off.) You can get lifetime passes to state and national parks at 62. And you’re eligible for senior pricing on some transit lines at 62.
What discounts at age 62 do you take advantage of, readers? And more philosophically, did that birthday, or that year, carry any special meaning to you? Did you think of yourself as a senior at 62 or some other age? Drop me a line at dallen@scng.com with your thoughts along with your name and city of residence, please.
(These questions are posed on the bare chance that any newspaper readers are older than 62.)
My friend Jonathan turned 62 three weeks ago and shrugged it off. He’d hoped during his 60th year that he might somehow slide backward to 59. When that failed, he accepted that he was in his 60s and plowed ahead.
Personally I can’t tell you yet what 62 is like. As I write this on Friday, I’m still a youthful 61.
Monumental art
Before doing some traveling, I saw exhibitions at two art museums in downtown Los Angeles. The shows had been on my mental list for weeks, awaiting some free time. With free time in hand, I saw them on successive days due to discounts.
The exhibits couldn’t have been more different.
A stack of oversized ceramic plates and a dark cloud composed of tangled phone cords are among the sly artworks by Robert Therrien at The Broad. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
At The Broad is “This is a Story,” a retrospective of sculptures and paintings by Robert Therrien, many of them whimsical. He’s best known for the giant dinette set that’s part of the museum’s permanent collection, a favorite of patrons. It’s so big you can walk under it.
Among the delightful pieces in “This is a Story” are a person-sized stack of ceramic dinner plates, a “closet” filled with giant pots and pans and, high on a wall, a dark “cloud” composed of tangled telephone cords.
A new favorite is an oversized card table and folding chairs, all enormous, all functional. A docent volunteered to take my photo. I stood under the table, arms raised. It’s like being a small child again, where everything is much bigger than you.
I was there because it was the first Thursday of the month, when admission to The Broad’s ticketed exhibitions is free. The Therrien show (normally $19) is on view through April 5. To get there I took Metrolink to Union Station and the A Line to the Bunker Hill stop.
Following the first Thursday of the month was, inevitably, the first Friday of the month. That’s when admission to the Museum of Contemporary Art’s ticketed exhibitions is likewise free.
I went to the Geffen Contemporary to see “Monuments” (normally $18), taking Metrolink to Union Station and the A Line to the Little Tokyo stop.
“Monuments” is a thought-provoking show about the Confederate memorials installed in public settings in the decades after the Civil War. Many depict pro-slavery military figures on horseback or otherwise exalt White supremacists via heroic poses and benign inscriptions.
While some 200 Confederate memorials have been removed from public view in the past decade, especially if they were defaced or broken during protests, more than 700 remain in place, mostly in the South. History’s losers have rarely had it so good.
Nearly a dozen decommissioned pieces are part of the exhibit. Combined with the incisive wall text, they’ll make you think about who we decide to honor in public spaces (in this case, traitors to America) and why (well-funded donor organizations, lazy thinking, racism).
A monument to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson that stood in Baltimore until 2017 is in the same gallery of the Geffen Contemporary as a modern response. “A Suspension of Hostilities,” by Hank Willis Thomas, highlights the Confederate iconography of the 1980s TV hit “The Dukes of Hazzard.” (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
A short film tells us the United States has more monuments to Robert E. Lee than to Ulysses S. Grant, who was not only on the Civil War’s winning side but later was our 18th president.
Further context and reflection comes from new art by Black artists in the same galleries. A shoutout here to filmmaker and multimedia artist Cauleen Smith, a Riverside native who now lives in L.A.
“Monuments” is in place through May 3. It’s worth paying to see.
A ‘Golden’ evening
In Claremont, an event Feb. 28 celebrated the publication of “Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California,” an anthology published by Angel City Press. As co-editor Romeo Guzman is a professor at Claremont Graduate University, the expansive backyard of the university president’s home was the party site.
This happened to be a short walk from the accessory dwelling unit I call home, so it was a treat to attend. I lived closer than anyone present.
Three of the contributors spoke, among them Susan Straight, the Riverside writer who wrote the anthology’s foreword. She read a passage from her latest novel, “Sacrament,” involving a funeral procession up San Bernardino’s Arrowhead Avenue to Pioneer Cemetery.
“How many people here are from San Bernardino?” Straight asked the audience, many of whom were Claremont Colleges students. A bunch of them shouted in affirmation.
To sum up, Riverside and San Bernardino were both represented. And to get this item, I didn’t have to leave my own neighborhood. Nice of the IE to come to me for a change!
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Retired Garey High teacher Ion Puschila, now living in northern Kentucky, keeps in touch with me and with the news. Over a sushi lunch in Claremont on a return visit, he told me matter-of-factly: “I subscribe to two newspapers, the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Daily Bulletin.” I said: “You are probably the only person in America who can say that.” He replied: “Well, I am unique.”
David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, routinely. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.