LAVA’s Sunday Salon
On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.
Special program at the May 29 Salon:
• Artist / musician and LAVA Visionary Rich Polysorbate 60 was born five years after the shipwreck of the S.S. Dominator off Palos Verdes. The wreck served as his tree fort and nautical womb. He would hallucinate and dream about fusing as one with it. The Dominator would feed him memories and stories related to those who died on it after it split in half and was scattered among the rocks. Rich will be on hand today to share mementos and clues in the way of a film/poetry presentation with live theremin accompaniment from Paul Wilkins (PWE/Clowns and Fetuses).
• LAVA co-founder Richard Schave hosts a discussion on the history of The United Lodge of Theosophy, a unique Los Angeles institution. The forces that impacted founder Robert Crosbie from his arrival in 1911, and how he and his brethren shaped their spiritual and educational environment over the decades, are a fundamental narrative of the city. Theosophy, like Los Angeles, straddles two kingdoms, the finite and the infinite, imbued with fascinating contradictions: love, wealth, greed, power and release. Victoria Prinz is a member of the ULT, and she’ll take some of these themes as a starting point for this discussion on the extraordinary legacy of the ULT in Los Angeles.
Post-Salon happenings:
• Following the Salon, a limited number of people will join LAVA co-founder Richard Schave and architectural historian Nathan Marsak for a free L.A. Noire-themed walking tour, part of the series The Flâneur & The City. This event is now sold out (info here), but all may attend Nathan’s pre-walk presentation upstairs at Clifton’s on Downtown Los Angeles Then/Now as represented in the game play of the new video game L.A. Noire. Nathan’s talk will begin around 2pm, as the Salon concludes.
Clifton’s Cafeteria is at 648 South Broadway, near the corner of 7th Street. There are numerous paid parking lots nearby, and the closest Metro station is Pershing Square. Clifton’s is online at https://www.cliftonscafeteria.com