CULTURAL LANDSCAPE : EYEING L.A. : The View From the Other Coast

W hat is it about the Southern California arts and culture scene right now that intrigues people in other cities around the world? To put it another, more immediate, way: What would they do or who would they rush to see if they hopped a plane here tomorrow?

Calendar called several New Yorkers associated with the arts and entertainment and asked them just that.

At first, we heard a lot of the predictable answers--stereotypes die hard.

The one we heard most (and which we understand perfectly and therefore allowed, especially during the winter) was: Head for the beach in a convertible.

Once we got past that answer, some interesting observations followed.

Calendar will occasionally make the phone rounds with similar people in other cities around the world to let you know what everyone’s hearing about the arts and culture of Southern California. Tom Brokaw

NBC News correspondent and anchor of “NBC Nightly News”

I still get excited when I’m in the landing pattern to Los Angeles--it takes me back to the first time, in 1965, when I went out to interview for a job with NBC. I left in ‘73, but I’ve never entirely been gone since I get out there so much.

I have certain old patterns I follow. I always stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel because of its instant immersion and location. I always go to the beach. I almost always get by Spago at some point, in large part because I like the food, and I know that a lot of traffic seems to come through there.

But I’m always interested in what my friends consider the newest hot restaurant, like Maple Drive. I’m alert to what’s new but depend on my network of friends who happen to represent different disciplines--films, politics, journalism--and it sort of depends on where I land. Having lived on the streets as a reporter all that time, and having had the privilege of moving through all the strata of Los Angeles (culture) as a reporter, I’ve been able to maintain that in absentia.

I’m on the board of the Norton Simon Museum and like to go out there. What I haven’t done in a long time and miss is the Hollywood Bowl. I used to work in the early evening, run over to hear something, then come for back for the late news. It was a real lift.

Peter Eisenman

Architect

As an architect, I’d want to see Frank Gehry’s work. I’d certainly want to see Loyola Law School, the Schnabel house, the California Aerospace Museum and the (coming) Walt Disney Concert Hall. There are certainly other, young Los Angeles architects whose work I’d want to see--like the Morphosis group, Eric Owen Moss, Frank Israel. There’s a much more open environment in Los Angeles; clients are willing to take risks with younger architects and more avant garde projects. It’s much more open and has the spirit of the frontier. Los Angeles is the city of the avant-garde in this country right now, no question. There’s nothing happening here in New York in terms of movement forward.

Isaac Mizrahi

Fashion designer

I have some great friends out there, who are doing great things with their houses, like (David Geffen Co. president) Eric and Lisa Eisner. The Eisners sort of took the bungalow theme and went with it--I love that they sort of recognized the history of bungalows and use it in creating something modern and futuristic.

Sandra Bernhard is one of the reasons I go out there. I can’t wait to see (her film) “Without You, I’m Nothing.” I love the Ivy and hosted a dinner party there once. I like Morton’s very much, and I love Grauman’s Chinese Theatre--that’s practically my favorite thing in the world. It has to do with history in an American city with so little history. In Europe, everything is historic (but) in Los Angeles, everything is just beginning.

Adrian Bryan-Brown

Theatrical press agent

Until it closed last week, you could have chartered a plane of New York theatrical press agents just to see “Follies” in Long Beach. We all wanted to see that. You could do that show with Yma Sumac, Juliet Prowse, Shani Wallis and Karen Morrow--people who are really fun--and there wasn’t the pressure to be definitive as the next big Broadway production of “Follies.” “Merrily We Roll Along” is at the Arena Stage in Washington, and all of New York is going to see it because it’s too close.

I’d also see Miriam Margolyes doing her one woman show. She’s a character actress, not very well known, and she’s doing her show in Los Angeles rather than New York. She was the best thing about the television version of “Life and Loves of a She-Devil.”

Anne Rosenzweig

Chef/owner of Arcadia restaurant and vice-chairman of the “21” Club

I hope to work at the La Brea Bakery at Campanile with Nancy Silverton because I hear the bread is so wonderful. I want to come and work all night in the bakery with Nancy. And it looks I will be doing that right away.

Eric Bogosian

Actor/writer

I got to hang out and work with Frank Zappa one time (in 1986) and I think I’ll always think of it as a key Los Angeles experience. We fooled around in his studio for a while and made these X-rated audio tapes (for the Museum of Contemporary Art’s radio series). Frank is open to experimentation and is on the cutting edge of sonic technology, and that was the kind of very high-tech but very loose thing that can happen there.

Los Angeles has KROQ; We don’t have KROQ in New York. We don’t have endless screenings of “unreleasable” movies. You get the feeling there’s great stuff in Los Angeles that doesn’t get released because some executive doesn’t think it’s releasable or should be in distribution. That’s one of the fun parts for me--coming in and getting to all these strange shows.

Misha Dichter

Pianist

I don’t have to be too imaginative about this, because my wife Cipa and I just performed there, and I find every return visit to be an occasion for retracing steps and making nostalgic voyages. Los Angeles was a very special place to grow up in in the ‘50s, (something) we almost took for granted because of the people who settled there.

Last month we performed at UCLA in the evening, then spent the next day with musicians who came out for the Grammys. I pointed out to these friends that “Groucho lived here, Heifetz lived there and Stravinsky was around the corner over there.” We jogged and swam in the ocean, then had a power lunch holding a hot dog on a stick. Next, Cipa and I visited an old friend, a TV producer at the unlikely address of Hollywood and Vine, went to an editing facility to see his latest project, and ended the day with friends at Chinois on Main. Cipa said it had to be one of the greatest half-dozen meals she’s had in her life.

That 24 hours, from performing one night to having this great meal the next day after a morning at the beach, could only happen in Los Angeles.

Robin Wagner

Tony award-winning set designer

My ideal trip would be on a location survey. What more fun thing to do as a designer than to see all the film sets that have existed since the ‘40s in Hollywood, and all the great buildings going up in the height of the building boom there. Some of the most significant architecture in the world is unsung by its owners.

I would have to see the new downtown section, where a little Japan is developing. The Pacific Rim has become the future, Los Angeles is sitting on the lip and everybody knows it. New York is a reflection of the old world, and Los Angeles has all of the youth and energy of the newborn and of the future. Hope is as bright as the sunlight out there.

I also want to see the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Universal Studios Tour--I haven’t seen that for 10 years--and I’d want to try out the new restaurants. The restaurant scene here has fallen down a lot and California cuisine has now taken hold in New York.

Glenn Bernbaum

Owner, Mortimer’s Restaurant

My closest friends there are Irving (Swifty) and Mary Lazar and I usually come out to their Oscar parties. There’s always a group of expatriates from the East that sort of rat packs it for Swifty’s.

My favorite restaurant in Los Angeles is Hamburger Hamlet. I’d grab (socialite) Cornelia Guest to go to Hamburger Hamlet, then get hold of Wendy Stark (Gorsuch), Fran and Ray’s daughter, who shows me the current scene. Last year she showed me a restaurant where there were about 40 people at one table. About half were very well known movie people, and it was separate checks.

Mary Lea Bandy

Director of film department, Museum of Modern Art

Since I started going there 10 years ago, I always visit a film studio when I’m in Los Angeles. I’ve had privatetours of Paramount, Fox and MGM--when it was MGM. We arranged a dinner some years ago at Warners on the set of “Hotel,” had 200 art collectors from all around the world on this glorious set, and they all had the best time. I visit the sets of films being made and as they’re being completed. I go often to film labs because I like to see film restoration in process--we’re restoring Vitaphone discs and recently I went to listen to discs of “The Jazz Singer” and other early sound films.

Allan Miller

Artistic director of Symphony Space and film maker (Oscar-winner “From Mao to Mozart”)

I’d go and see all the exhibitions of contemporary art at the new museums because we’ve been hearing so many terrific things about the adventure of looking at paintings and presenting them to the public. I don’t have to go to Los Angeles to know about music there because the best of it comes to New York, but until they put all those wonderful new (galleries) on tour, I’ll get myself out there to see them firsthand.

Paula Cooper

Art dealer

I always go to Margo Leavin because she has a mix of good works by well known artists and younger artists, to James Corcoran because he shows many California artists and to so many other good galleries one couldn’t even mention them all.

I’d want to see good friends like (artist) John Baldessari (plus) visit the Eli Broad Family Foundation collection and the many galleries showing younger people who I later see here. For example, I had seen the work of Charles Ray a couple of times at Burnett Miller there, thought it interesting and then saw it at the Whitney drawing show that just opened. You feel that it’s lively there, and I think MOCA helped pick up the whole community and get it going.

Jeannette Walls

New York Magazine’s Intelligencer column

I usually pay attention to just New York but I’m increasingly paying attention to Los Angeles as well because of our bi-coastal society. There’s a real cultural exchange, and a lot of important figures in New York go back and forth and keep me abreast. About once a month, (I write) an item on Los Angeles.

For example, I’m keeping an eye now on the whole Armand Hammer Museum thing. I found it fascinating when they began setting up the (Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center) and became particularly interested when the (Occidental Petroleum Corp.) stockholders objected.

New York might have more theater but Los Angeles has the movies, which certainly affects more of the country. The whole world watches the Oscars. With theater, you have to come here to see it, but with Los Angeles, it’s all exported, so it affects more lives.

Jonathan Tisch

President and CEO of Loews Hotels

My hotel habits have certainly changed since our hotel opened in Santa Monica seven months ago, giving me a reason other than to visit my brother (movie producer) Steve and our friends. All those (movie business) relationships make Morton’s my favorite restaurant (but) friends in the entertainment business also take us to 72 Market, Spago and Chinois on Main.

My wife and I also enjoy shopping in Los Angeles. Although I live a couple blocks from the Armani shop here, we shop there. It’s your basic navy suit, but it’s cut a little different for the Los Angeles market and I like that more casual look.

William Luers

President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

My basic attitude about Los Angeles is that I don’t understand it. But two things I do understand are the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, and I would go to both of those. No matter what’s there.

Hal Rubenstein

Editor, Egg Magazine

I always eat my first meal in L.A. at the Border Grill. It just seems to be to me as refreshing and unencumbered as L.A. should be. Nothing is ever as pure as it should be, but for all the years it’s been there, it’s a constant.

There are certain people I always call up--(journalist) J.V. McAuley, Mario Tamayo from the Atlas Bar & Grill, Jeff Yarbrough, the West Coast editor of Egg, (clothing designer) Michael Schmidt and (songwriter/artist) Allee Willis and among them I can figure out what’s going on. Allee always has some great wonderful dump to eat at. There are places I like myself--Millie’s in Silver Lake, Versailles near Lorimar Studios, Maurice’s Snack ‘n Chat on Pico--and I think Bar One and Bret Witke’s Club Louis are fun.

When you’re in a lot of other cities, you’re aware of a lot of homage/jealousy about New York. But when it comes to Los Angeles, I don’t think that’s so. There’s a system there that now works, and it works only for Los Angeles.