chase the light

[Watts Towers, Los Angeles – Info]

L.A.’s own Antoni Gaudi. A skeletal Sagrada Familia in the heart of South Central. Called up [ Adnan ] this morning and we headed over to the Watts Towers. This is one of those places I’ve been meaning to go to my entire life. Lot’s of elementary school trips went but for some reason ours didn’t. Somehow I’ve managed to fail at getting there until now. A couple weeks ago I tried and it was closed. Finally! I was hardly disappointed, in fact it was really amazing how intricate all of Simon’s work was.

We had a tour time of 12:30 and you only get a half an hour inside but I think it was plenty actually. $7.00 for entry and a rather rehearsed dialogue by the tour guide. Not too bad really. I saw a horrible documentary on the towers last year but at least I learned some of the history. I was more interested in just looking around and seeing it close up. It’s a very small area so half an hour is more than enough time. The towers are a very Los Angeles centric curiousity. I grew up knowing all about them and little 4’10” Simon Rodia but I’m not sure how much is known about them outside the city. I know it’s in guide books and such but Watts is probably more known for its troubles than its towers.

After the tour we went and sat in the adjacent mini amphitheater and Adnan broke out his watercolors and did a quick sketch of the towers. I watched a sky writer in a plane start to write “WHO W..” then the wind blew it away. A little community theater group was setting up for some performance. It looked liked something straight out of “Waiting for Guffman”. We sat out there for over an hour as it was soooo nice out just laying in the sun and not a cloud in the sky. Let’s see, we talked about Godzilla, Pakastani music, online daters, animation and what we’re doing after Beowulf is over next October. And that was that.