George Getty (1855-1930) moves his family
from Minnesota to Oklahoma in 1904, where he amasses a fortune as an oilman -- a fortune which will one day be exceeded by his son J. Paul Getty's own endeavors.
Yesterday Todd and I drove out to the Getty Villa to look around and have lunch because we had not been to visit since the renovation and re-opening. As we drove north on the Pacific Coast Highway I regaled Todd with accounts of "Million Dollar Listing," a "reality show" on BRAVO which challenges one's ability to suspend disbelief and features the adventures of three young men of varying and ambiguous degrees of charm and looks who are realtors in L.A. One of them had recently helped a widowed client find a summer lease "in the 'Bu," which is to say in [Mali]bu, although his client had never heard of the area being referred to in this manner.
At the Villa we were happy to rediscover many old favorites, but I was sad to learn that the statue of a centaur (a copy after a late Hellenistic original) in a lovely liver-colored red marble, over five feet tall, has been removed from display. The gentleman at the information desk could readily discern my disappointment, but I replied that luckily I had a postcard of the piece from my last visit in the early 90s which I could always enjoy as a consolation. For a moment, however, I did feel as though I had not kept up my end of the artistic bargain and had even been a little slipshod in my connoisseurship, until a woman interrupted my reveries to ask where the rooms of French furniture had gotten to.
Standing in the gardens of the Villa, taking in the view, Todd and I both agreed that this was defnitely the way to live in the 'Bu, if that's where you had your heart set on living. Taking the long way back by way of Sunset, we contemplated other neighborhoods -- the Palisades, Brentwood, Bel Air, Beverly Hills -- but by the time we were home again we'd both decided we were perfectly content where we were.
Yesterday Todd and I drove out to the Getty Villa to look around and have lunch because we had not been to visit since the renovation and re-opening. As we drove north on the Pacific Coast Highway I regaled Todd with accounts of "Million Dollar Listing," a "reality show" on BRAVO which challenges one's ability to suspend disbelief and features the adventures of three young men of varying and ambiguous degrees of charm and looks who are realtors in L.A. One of them had recently helped a widowed client find a summer lease "in the 'Bu," which is to say in [Mali]bu, although his client had never heard of the area being referred to in this manner.
At the Villa we were happy to rediscover many old favorites, but I was sad to learn that the statue of a centaur (a copy after a late Hellenistic original) in a lovely liver-colored red marble, over five feet tall, has been removed from display. The gentleman at the information desk could readily discern my disappointment, but I replied that luckily I had a postcard of the piece from my last visit in the early 90s which I could always enjoy as a consolation. For a moment, however, I did feel as though I had not kept up my end of the artistic bargain and had even been a little slipshod in my connoisseurship, until a woman interrupted my reveries to ask where the rooms of French furniture had gotten to.
Standing in the gardens of the Villa, taking in the view, Todd and I both agreed that this was defnitely the way to live in the 'Bu, if that's where you had your heart set on living. Taking the long way back by way of Sunset, we contemplated other neighborhoods -- the Palisades, Brentwood, Bel Air, Beverly Hills -- but by the time we were home again we'd both decided we were perfectly content where we were.
If a realtor wanted me to look at places in "the Bu," I'd tell him to go take a flying eap.
Reply to this
Lucky guys! But, say, has the centaur been shipped back to Italy, perhaps?
Almost every time that I visit the Metropolitan Museum, I'm physically struck by the outrageous lootishness of the place. So many treasures that couldn't be exported today. (Almost all of the serious fabric of the Cloisters, for example.) Call it the Elgin Perplex.
Reply to this