The last few days in Los Angeles have been extraordinarily frenetic, which is both enormously fun and exhilarating, but also verging on the bewildering - how is it possible to be so wrapped up in an institution (its internal politics, rifts, wrangles, debates, plans, plots, and generation of ideas) before one's even arrived? Part of the answer to that, of course, lies in the fact that this is when one starts planning next year's events for real, and that's why I'm here. And part of it is the energy of the USC campus, endlessly kinetic, even if a lot of that energy is propelling itself towards one on a skateboard or on a little pink bicycle with flowers round its basket, or setting up some camera equipment, or is in a band playing "Don't Stop - Don't Stop Believing" outside at lunchtime - at which point one looks around and expects Tony Soprano to drop dead, and then thinks - no, that's back in New Jersey.
But it's going to be important to know how to grab some quiet, as well. I took 2 minutes just to stop and look at this sculpture - called "generations," it seemed optimistically to embody the spirit of endless giving to the university (and there's lots of that around, I'm glad to say) - but I'd rather think of it in terms of thought gestation ... Best of all was actually spending some time in the Art library, which, o miracles, had a catalogue of a NY exhibition that I needed - on paper arts - and that is currently retailing on Amazon for around $486.
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