Detectives Beyond Borders' life of Johnson

Dr. Samuel Johnson (aka Blinking 
Sam), by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
the Huntington

Vacation: 1. Intermission of juridical proceedings, or any other stated employments; recess of courts or senates. ...

2. Leisure, freedom from trouble or perplexity. 

— Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language

I consulted my copy of Johnson's dictionary for terms related to law and murder (you know, to crime fiction), and I found the above — apt, since I bought the book during my most recent respite from trouble and perplexity.

Johnson was a man of words, but I bought the book because of a picture. I'd always associated Sir Joshua Reynolds with those endless English eighteenth-century society portraits by him, George Romney, and others, but this dynamic, loosely executed picture made me realize that Reynolds could do a fine job when he got hold of a worthwhile subject. And what the hell; the society pictures probably earned Reynolds and the others a nice living.

(Henry E. Huntington, who founded the collection where the Johnson picture hangs, loved eighteenth-century English portraits, and the Huntington has a room full of them. It's probably no accident that the most congenial portrait in the room to my eyes was Reynolds' of the celebrated English actress Sarah Siddons portraying the dramatic muse. It was about the only painting in the room whose subject is pictured doing something other than showing off his or her era's new attitudes to leisure. The same room, by the way, includes this impressive young man.)

Back to Johnson, whose portrait hangs upstairs from the society pictures opposite Henry Raeburn's portrait of James Watt (left). Can you imagine a scientist as a celebrity today?  Suddenly the eighteenth century's painting seems more like the century's literature, which included men like Hume, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau writing for an educated public as well as for themselves and one another. It's still not my favorite period in art, but it's a lot more interesting to me than it was before this week.

(Detectives Beyond Borders readers may soon read more about Dr. Johnson. The preface to his dictionary includes an assessment of the dictionary maker's place in the public esteem that, with the substitution of one job title for another, would describe perfectly the lot of a modern-day newspaper copy editor in America.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

Santa Monica noir, or Nighttime at the heister's hideaway

That's the beach in Santa Monica (all photos by your humble blogkeeper).  It is not to be confused with the icy steps I salted down when I got back home to Philadelphia this evening.  While I wallow in self-pity, here are some superlatives from the Los Angeles leg of my trip:

1) Most evocative Raymond Chandler destination: A tie between Laurel Canyon and the Baldwin Hills oilfields. Or maybe the "Lido" Pier.

2) Best place to eat: The Astro Burger at Melrose and Gower.

3) Most heartening blend of artifacts, history, pop culture, and cultural sensitivity in a museum exhibition: "Junípero Serra and the Legacies of the California Missions" at the Huntington. This exhibit on the life and work of the Spanish missionary who worked in Mexico on his way to setting up the mission system in California offers the basics about Serra's fascinating life. The man was one hell of a traveller, among other things. It also offers entertaining examples of the cultural kitsch that ensued once the missions caught the popular imagination, as well as a section on the California Indian tribes among whom Serra evangelized. Traditional history, pop culture, and cultural diversity co-exist in a harmony almost unimaginable amid the shrill, deafening, witless clamor that passes for cultural discourse in America.

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This is the motel/motor court off the Pacific Coast Highway where I'd hole up if I were a desperate man on the run for something he didn't do. Lush scenery. Cabins set back from the Pacific Coast Highway. I bet heisters waiting for the heat to cool down or for their new faces to heal have the place booked years in advance.

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And now, as sands through an hourglass, so are the days of our vacations. One good thing about being back from this trip is that I can begin planning my next one.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013