Hi! Welcome To Big Sigh🌀
Everyone in Los Angeles is spiritual, including me.
I read too much fiction as a kid to not be. For some reason I find myself to be acutely spiritual in Los Angeles, I have two theories as to why this is true. Theory #1: The solitary nature of LA and the lack of true, pure, public space plagues its residents with longing. A longing to be involved in ~something~ bigger than themselves, something worth rallying around (god, filmmaking, astrology, AA, hot yoga, veganism, functional mushroom use, being annoying at (or about) el prado, etc).
Theory #2: The closer you are to the natural world around you, the more you start asking yourself big existential questions. In Los Angeles you are forced to kill or spare more mice and spiders than elsewhere because your apartment has more life around it, and more windows and doors for that life to creep in. In Los Angeles you go to the beach hungover and start crying because “it’s so big”. In Los Angeles you see an overgrown but manicured magnolia in the backyard of an estate sale and wonder who’s going to take care of it now. In Los Angeles the sky turns purple and a ray of sunlight hits a church on a hilltop. This last one happens to me quite frequently as I drive down the 2 and look at the Forest Lawn Museum. It’s not a church but it does have a big white cross on top.
Forest Lawn is a chain of cemeteries, started in part by Hubert Eaton in 1906. Eaton’s philosophy about the preservation of life after death was abnormal for the time. His vision for the inaugural Forest Lawn Cemetery was “a great park devoid of misshapen monuments and other signs of earthly death, but filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns, splashing fountains, beautiful statuary, and memorial architecture.”
Eaton made good on his promise. Got rid of upright gravestones, built castle-like mortuaries, and placed statues and murals all over the grounds. But the best and most important thing he did… was bring big painting.
What is big painting?
In a way, big painting is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the biggest painting in the Western United States and the biggest religious painting ever created. It was painted by Jan Styka and brought to the World’s Fair in 1904, unfortunately, Styka couldn’t afford the export duty and was forced to leave it behind and return to Poland with two big empty hands. Stranded in America, it was wrapped around a telephone pole and stored in the basement of the Chicago Civic Opera where Huburt Eaton discovered it, transported it to Glendale, and built the the big white building with a cross on top where it currently hangs, right smack dab on top of the hill.
What is big painting about?
The crucifixion of Jesus is what it’s about but I don’t think that’s even that important. The most important thing about big painting is that it’s big. It's hard to explain just how big it is, and it’s harder to explain how compelling the subject matter is because in truth it looks boring and ugly online. The painting is so big, that most of the characters in it are life sized. Including Jesus, who is pictured center, right before he’s about to be slammed on the cross. The scene around him is of ancient Jerusalem, which looks a hell of a lot like LA.
Whether you’re religious or not, the sheer scale of big painting is what renders it awesome, it could be pretty much anyone up there, it would still feel holy. Whenever I am feeling small, angry, pensive, hurt, glum, or generally at odds I visit big painting, my favorite holy site. It offers a wealth of perspective.
Last weekend I attended a free event at big painting, the premiere of the new audiovisual accompaniment to BP that’s been years in the making. There was pepperjack cheese and a guy at a table near the front entrance who was selling grave sites, he said it was important to “pre-plan”. A Shakespeare scholar named Jeff who was standing next to me advised me against it “By the time you die you’ll be buried on the moon.” There was a band playing Frank Sinatra and an open bar. Jeff asked me why I liked “this schlubby old thing anyway”. I said because it’s big and sometimes I come and sit near it to think. Jeff said that he rediscovered his spirituality recently after his wife’s friend started “dating a Nazi”, he said if he cared so much about the guy being a Nazi he must be more Jewish than he thought. I thought that was a pretty sound argument. Jeff told me he also started learning the cello but that was unrelated to the spirituality thing.
During the unveiling presentation, the museum director explained that a companion piece for big painting was commissioned in 1965, titled the Resurrection, it gets wheeled out halfway through his spiel. This painting is not as big and therefore not as good. It looks like precious moments fan art, and if you look closely dead George Washington makes a cameo stage right. I hate this painting.
Jeff told me that I remind him of Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing. He also told me that he met his wife swing dancing and when he saw her the crowd parted, like in the movie Swingers. Then he puttered off into the crowd which is when I realized he came alone.
As I made my way towards the bathroom the guy selling grave sites walked by me and whispered “pre-plan, pre-plan”.
🌱🫘🎷Taste Buds 🪷🥒🤸
Atlantic Seafood and Dim Sum
Location: Atlantic Seafood and Dim Sum, 500 N Atlantic Blvd suite 200, Monterey Park, CA 91754
Time: Sunday, September 17th, 12pm
RSVP By Email: by Friday evening
Finally, Dim Sum brunch! Atlantic Seafood is one of the few dim sum spots in LA that still use push carts. There’s something about the sound of a rolling cart and the click clack of stacked plates and chopsticks that is extremely calming to me. Maybe it is to you too.
The best dim sum in SGV is hotly contested. Sea Harbor, Lunasia, Atlantic Seafood, NBC, and Monterey Palace seem to top the charts. I have no horse in this race and this Sunday may just be the start of me trying them all, please join me.
As always, if you have any suggestions for upcoming weeks, I am all ears 📣
Love this Ness!! Happy to see you're back to regular newsletters :)