pool party

the hollywood bowl is a huge venue with bleacher seats on up, and the few tables closest to the stage are in a section that was once filled with water. thus, the pool cicle was born. the seats are at tables with the owners name affixed to each site. rumor has it that these seats are passed on in families from one generation to the next. it's nigh impossible to get tix.

barbara has always been generous with her box seats and has hosted us with dinner a few times. she has said that one of her dreams would be a night in the pool circle. so we've always thought that if the opportunity ever arose, we would reciprocate with pool tix.

lo and behold, a random search on craigslist reveals 4 tix for rachmaninoff on september fourth. sooner than we had imagined. hue goes through a minor interrogation and a large atm withdrawal to purchase seats from the wassermans. we give 2 to barbara, along with the valet parking: non-stacked behind the stage, which is part of the pool experience. she invites ginnie, a friend from cal state northridge.

our neighbors jin and judy generously agree to babysit milagra. we hurry to catch the westwood shuttle and arrive in record time. for an 8pm show we're usually lucky to make it by 730, this night we arrive an hour earlier.

bramwell tovey is the conductor, a very energetic and funny guy. he started with a fun tchaikovsky march. the rach part is his symphony #2, a long and extended tune for the la phil, and heavy on the violins.

lise de la salle is a french prodigy, a 19 year-old pianist who performed a very technical and fast piece from prokofiev. ginnie is a teacher with a music background, and reports that for a woman to perform this piece she would require very large hands to be able to physically meet the demands of the score. most women cannot, and have to rock back and forth to reach all the keys. not lise. her fingers had us mesmerized with speed.

our seats are right next to the stage. we can touch it. we can see the shoes of every musician in the front row. we're served by sylvan, who knows barbara from los feliz and is our patina server for the night, where we enjoy 'california halibut with lobster risoni, asparagus, chorizo and heirloom tomatoes' and 'ricotta and pea ravioli with sweet maui onions and morel mushrooms' plus an excellent gazpacho and passion fruit caramel cheesecake. and of course a few bottles of wine.

a lovely night, and we returned home to a sleeping milagra who had a great time playing with chloe and her parents.