Levitated Mass

As we walk around this colossal town, we see odd things. And sometimes our only possible response is a shake of the head and a quietly murmured, "Only in L.A." Here's a recent example ...

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a world-class institution we are rather addicted to, recently spent $10 million to transport a big rock (ahem, sorry ... "megalith") from a quarry in Riverside to its backlot where some dude named Michael Heizer will watch a crane move it to just the right location over a walk-way, thus deeming him "the artist" and the rock "art."

See? Only in L.A.

For some odd reason I can't quite puzzle out, tens of thousands of people from the four counties the "megalith" rolled through came out at all hours of the night to catch a glimpse of the boulder. I say all hours of the night because massive road closures, tree removals, and traffic signal dismantlings made day-time travel a bad idea. Dozens of area newspapers, that capitalized way too often on the "rock 'n roll" theme in their headlines, reported on rock music festivals and food trucks eager to make a buck off the rock craze.

Every morning, Matt expectantly busted open the newspaper to trace the rock's whereabouts on its 10-day journey. To my everlasting surprise, even national news outlets got in on the hype. On my drive to school every morning, I listened to stories from stations running the gamut from the local Pasadena public radio station to Martketplace, The Morning Report and even both NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

So last weekend, Matt laid out a course for a trip down to LACMA so we could check out the rock for ourselves. We went early, hoping to avoid the crowds and peek at the big boy through the fence behind the museum.

I peeked. And criticized. And shook my self-righteous little head. The thing was wrapped in plastic, for heaven's sake (although my sweet husband informed me that, no indeed, what appears to be plastic is actually imported Egyptian cotton designed to protect the boulder from the elements, to which I sarcastically replied, "Aren't boulders sort of designed to be IN the elements?"). The "megalith" is about the size of one of those gas station kiosks that sell cigarettes and 2-liter bottles of Pepsi, whereas I'd been envisioning something more on the scale of a Walgreen's. Megalith indeed.

Because Matt is always happy and curious, he thought the boulder was pretty much awesome, not to mention the heavy artillery of large-scale trucks, trailers, and cranes surrounding it like a queen's retinue. I pointed out that someone in the marketing department would be getting a bonus since all the trucks, trailers, and cranes were all conveniently painted in the same colors as LACMA's trademark red and white. He grinned. Rather enthusiastically.

We were correct in that the crowds were light at 8:00 a.m. (this city sleeps until noon on the weekends), but the news crews were out in full force. A cameraman from Fox thought our noticeably opposite reactions were funny, so he pointed his camera in our direction and asked us to talk.

We did. I was funny. Matt was funnier. And as we strolled back to the bus stop, we shook our heads and muttered, "Only in L.A."