TT: Home stretch

A few miles south of Ragged Point, we pulled off the road and spent a few delightful minutes communing with the occupants of the Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery , whose website contains an admirably straightforward description of its unique attractions:
The Northern Elephant Seal, Mirounga angustirostris, is an extraordinary marine mammal. It spends eight to ten months a year in the open ocean, diving 1000 to 5000 feet deep for periods of fifteen minutes to two hours, and migrating thousands of miles, twice a year, to its land based rookery for birthing, breeding, molting and rest. The Piedras Blancas rookery, on Highway 1 seven miles north of San Simeon on the California Central Coast, is home to about 17,000 animals.
Mrs. T, who goes in for such spectacles, was thrilled beyond words, and I confess to finding the whole thing pretty amazing myself.

The bad news is that the exhibition closed on Saturday. The good news is that it's moving to the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington, where it will be on display from June 30 to September 23. I beg you to go, no matter how far you have to travel. It's one of the half-dozen best museum shows devoted to an American artist that I've seen in my life.

We stopped in Hollywood not to see plays but to pull ourselves together after two nonstop weeks of grief , mourning , and frenzied travel (and, as always, so that I could get some writing done). The only "show" we saw there was Budd Boetticher's The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond , which we watched with pleasure in our hotel room.
To be sure, I was also supposed to have had lunch in Los Angeles with Morten Lauridsen, about whom I've written but whom I have yet to meet. Alas, he got snagged by a jury-duty summons, so I settled for sleeping in, drafting a Wall Street Journal column, and dining en famille with Mrs. T and an ex-protégé who has since metamorphosed into a good friend. On Saturday we brunched with another old friend, then headed south.
On Sunday afternoon we went to Itamar Moses' new show , which I'll be writing about for The Wall Street Journal later today. Tonight we drive to La Jolla to see Hands on a Hardbody , about which I've heard much, nearly all of it good. Come Wednesday we fly back to New York, and on Friday I hit the road again, this time on my own. My destination will be Niagara-on-the-Lake's Shaw Festival , where I'm seeing Noël Coward's Present Laughter, Terence Rattigan's French Without Tears, and Bernard Shaw's Misalliance.

Either way, I have to get through the next three weeks first, not to mention the next two days. Another show and a transcontinental flight stand between me and New York. Yes, life on the road is fun (up to a point, Lord Copper!). Yes, you can have too much fun. Have I had it? Not quite yet--but just about.
* * *
John Barrymore imprints his profile at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 1940:
The Piedras Blancas LiveCam:
Video streaming by Ustream
Published on May 28, 2012 16:50
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