All The Sweet, Green Icing

Since, once again, the temperature is knocking on the door of insane outside, I’ll sit here on the sofa indoors for a while and tell you about the really fun thing I was doing earlier today. Back when it was much less hot.

The mission: First show up at Mama’s Hot Tamales Cafe. (So since at the very least, ridiculously tasty tamales are involved, clearly anything beyond this is just a bonus.) This is located across 7th Street from the South side of MacArthur Park, just West of Alvarado (map link).

Next, after saying hello to the friendly people who are happy to see that you showed up for the event (a friend of mine and I were the first to show up), you sit at a table for a little while and read six plays. Don’t worry, since the average length of one of the plays is less than a page, so it won’t take long -and they’re all rather good!

Next, you go outside, cross the road, and spend some time in MacArthur Park. Why? Well, it is park with a bit of a bad reputation that is seriously underused and under-appreciated by many, so that’s a good reason right there…

…but the main reason for this visit at this point in the mission is to wander the park and see if you can spot some of the performances or, as one woman put it, “extrapolations” from the plays you just read.

This is what we did, and it was such fun! Most of the things/scenes/performances that we found could just been ordinary things happening in the park involving ordinary people, as opposed to performers riffing off something from one of the plays. This adds a lovely element of uncertainty, since you are not too sure if you want to be staring at some person, wondering what scene in which play they might be doing, only to find out that they are not a performer. (Later on, a rather nice thing began to happen – some people began to respond to and participate in some of the scenes!) I’ve included snaps of some of some items and scenes in this post, but won’t explain them in case you want to go and discover them for yourself tomorrow (Sunday). I’ll update later, perhaps.

After doing that for a while and finding that it is in fact now time to eat, the next part of your mission is to go back across the street to Mama’s, for tamales, with other tasty accompaniments. A rather nice aspect of it all is discovering some of the performers who were out in the park taking a break and also eating at Mama’s. Food and conversation flows freely for a while (you’ll perhaps be exchanging notes with other people on the mission about which installations they found), and then it’s back out to find the ones you missed, or perhaps to just wander in the park for a while before melting back into the city of Los Angeles that beckons just beyond the confines of the park’s green oasis.

So what is this? First, let me say that this is on tomorrow as well, with the installations/performances running for about an hour, starting at 10:00am, 12:00pm, and 2:00pm. It’s a really great way to bring more people to discover an historic part of the city that is a bit neglected by many. Oh, and did I mention the tamales? If you don’t like tamales, there’s another culinary gem a quarter of a block away – Langer’s Delicatessen! So you just can’t lose. Where was I? Ah, what is this? It is another brilliant brainchild of Christine Louise Berry, of Smart Gals Productions, who does such wonderful performance events around the city. (I so wish I’d known about the Twelve Days of Christmas events along the Gold Line last December, for example.) The current events culminate a week of writing workshops held every night at Mama’s on different aspects (poetry, fiction, theatre, song), which in turn is part of the 365 days 365 plays series of events going on all around the country, in celebration of a play-a-day idea that the playwright Susan-Lori Parks had some years ago. There’s more detail about the Smart Gals’ event (and other events) at Mama’s/MacArthur Park here. I’m a fan of what they do just on the strength of the fact that they encourage people to bike or take public transport to their events, where possible (the Red Line subway stop is about two minutes’ walk from Mama’s, and the 720 and 200 buses (for example) run right by, and they’ll give you a 25% discount on your food – drat! I forgot to claim mine! – if you show up by using the MTA or bike).

It’s a really great way to spend a couple of hours, get some good food, see a part of the city you don’t see a lot, and maybe meet some other people too!

-cvj