In LA it’s All Rock & Roll
Alright I live in LA, so I’m used to shall I say,“ the unusual“. So when the Los Angeles County Art Museum (LACMA) announced that the centerpiece of artist Michael Heizer’s outdoor sculpture “Levitated Mass” would be a huge rock, I didn’t bat an eye.
It was only when I learned that they would be transporting this 340-ton granite rock star through the streets of LA that I well…. took some interest; after all, a 340 ton rock making a left turn onto the freeway isn’t a sight one sees everyday, even in the land of smoke and mirrors.
And so the great slow roll began.
“The boulder“ (having changed it’s name from “The Rock” to prevent being confused with the actor) left it’s home - a quarry in Riverside, Cal.- in a not so clever shrink-wrap disguise, on a flatbed trailer that moved very very slowly only at night, toward LA.
The only bump in the road was that no one at The LACMA anticipated the phenomenon this massive “rock star” would create. People started to follow the nightly progress of the boulder, a blog sprang up, paparazzi began to follow it’s every move, the local TV stations gave daily updates and the boulder began drawing huge crowds - especially during the day and evening when fans would come out to “party with a rock star“.
At any rate, yesterday I found myself stuck in traffic, a helicopter hovering overhead and people swarming into the street taking photos. I figured I had wandered into the end of some police chase, or a movie shoot, although a movie shoot didn’t seem likely as there weren’t the usual equipment vans, dressing room trailers, and catering trucks parked nearby.
Anyway as I got closer to the commotion, what should I see but -- “the boulder“-- sitting right there in the middle of the street surrounded by paparazzi and traffic escorts.
My first impression - the boulder looks a lot smaller than it did on TV, although it does look heavy, that flatbed has a huge footprint.
And so there I was, inching pass this huge boulder, listening to Prince’s “1999” blasting from who knows where, watching people take photos of a rock wrapped in plastic, street vendors selling drinks and “I saw the boulder” t-shirts, and TV news crews setting up for their “breaking news” shots, and I thought……..
this is my L.A!
