Guests of Big Oil

Using his enormous profits from the petroleum industry, Mr. J. Paul Getty seems to have purchased every available piece of art and made it part of his collection. He then, magnanimously, allowed the world to come and see it at no charge. (As befits a Los Angeles attraction, though, it's free for people, but cars need a reservation and $8 for parking.)


The Getty Villa, which is not to be confused with the Getty Center, is a recreation of the Villa dei Papiri, a private home in Herculaneum buried by the Vesuvius eruption. As such, it is a fitting site for the Getty Trust's collection of ancient art and artifacts. It formerly housed the Trust's entire art collection, but in 1997 all of the western art was moved to the Getty Center, leaving the ancient Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Minoan, Cycladic, etc. behind in Malibu.

One questions the wisdom in building a replica of a house destroyed by a natural disaster in Malibu. Isn't that just tempting fate?

Regardless of the risks, because, frankly, they hadn't occurred to me until now, we took Tessie to view Mr. Getty's ancient art collection. Our first stop on arrival was the "Family Forum," a children's play area with dress-up foam shield and helmets, vases to scribble on with dry-erase markers, and crayons to make rubbings.

We walked the galleries and gardens, saw the current Piranesi exhibit, ate in the cafe, and stood idly by while Tessie entertained the other visitors by splashing around in the fountain. She needed a change of clothes after that, but she seemed to have lots of fun.

Tooth status update

Symmetry!

Ah, but wait...

This is the Google video hosting service, which is different from the Google Blogger host. (Why? I don't know why, it just is.) Any better?

More Video Jiggery-Pokery

I'm still working out the kinks in this video blogging stuff, so here's another try: still working through YouTube, now I use Windows Movie Maker (which I didn't even know I had until today - thank you, Mr. Gates) to convert the file to .wmv format, which YouTube prefers. Early results are promising, and this software lets me do a few things more than just post raw video. Before too long, I expect I'll have these videos so chock-full of dissolves, fades, wipes and silliness that you'll barely be able to see Tessie. I'll try to restrain myself.

So, here we go with a revised version of Tessie at Eaton Canyon. Let's call it the "Director's Cut":

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

O.K., I could write some self-serving blather about how these items are relevant to the challenges of 21st century parenting, but I don't have to. This is my blog and I can post what I want, and what I want to post now includes examples of how far off the rails our alleged civilization has gone.

I'm going to retroactively include a previous post under this heading; chronologically, it will come first under the tag "wrong."

Then, with a tip of the hat to Leslie Carbone, we have this atrocity.

And lastly, to complete the introduction, this, which is just so wrong: