June 13, 2004
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Old-School Americana night…
After dinner at The Pantry with Peter and Rosina, we headed over to the Redcat Theatre for the very campy Charles Phoenix Variety Show. (Is it just us, or is Downtown L.A. really tricky to find your way around?)
So there was an accordian player,old home movies, a marionette show by Bob Baker (which unfortunately was hard to see from where we were sitting. The tapdancing ’Bill Bojangles Robinson’ was awesome), a cooking segment with Ambrosia (a classic American dessert we hadn’t heard of or tasted until tonight) and a narrated slideshow which was the best part.
We were treated to slides of Disneyland, Times Square, Vegas (and many other locations) in the 50′s-60′s, quirky roadside attractions, people in dorky clothes doing dorky things, and lots of fancy vintage cars.
Verdict? Not enough slides. We wanted more!!!
Memo to self: Visit Clifton’s Cafeteria, Make Ambrosia at home…
Charles Phoenix’s Perfect Ambrosia:
(served at Intermission)6 large cans of fruit cocktail
1 large tub of Cool Whip
1 large bag of coconut
1 bag of marshmallows
5 drops of red food colouring
Decorate with halved maraschino cherries
While browing the Web Zen archives, I came upon this short 3D film: Day Off The Dead. There’s a trailer here.
Soccer, anyone? Eddie’s a huge soccer fan and as we don’t get TV broadcast of the Euro 2004, we’ve been searching for internet broadcasts/streams. Looks like we may have something here and via soccerstreams… (No English though)
JCHAR Converter lets you convert text written in the roman alphabet to Japanese Katakana or Hiragana script. Don’t know how accurate it is, but looks handy. (via Fragments)
Comments (7)
Hello! Found you guys almost by chance – you’ve been to the AppleCentre when it was located in Sussex Street, Sydney. Just thought I’d say hi, and I’ll be sure to follow your adventures. Peace!
Living here in the Midwest, I reckon I’ve had more ambrosia than you’ve had hot dinners… And if you like that sort of entertainment, you need to take a vacation in Wisconsin this summer and spend a week or two taking in all the wacky small-town festivals. You just haven’t lived until you’ve dined upon fine bratwurt, eaten greasy cheese curds, danced to Jailhouse Rock done polka style, and watched the John Deere Precision Riding Mower Driving Team perform!I’ve been wanting to see Bob Baker’s show the last couple of times I’ve been in LA. Sorry you didn’t have a better view.
Downtown is really only confusing on Bunker Hill (REDCAT, MOCA, etc) and south of Little Tokyo. After a couple of trips, you’ll do just fine. Speaking of MOCA, you should check out the current show, A Minimal Future.
You can check out Bob Baker at his tiny theater, which is just outside of downtown, towards Echo Lake. You won’t miss the performance there…you sit on the floor right in front of the little fellows.
I’ m glad you’re exploring downtown. I, for one, really appreciate what it offers.
Hi horakhti – I just left a comment on your blog. Yes, we remember you from that Apple Store on Sussex! …wow that was a long long time ago. Hope you are well. Good to see you have a blog
Mr Bali Hai – I am amazed about this ambrosia thing and how come we’d never heard of it. Do you eat it like ice-cream or cake? Is it really that common in the midwest?
Paksong – Yeah we’ve also had the MOCA show on our list of weekend-things-to-do .
We’ve been Downtown a couple of times we love hanging out around Little Tokyo and Chinatown and have had no problems getting around. Yeah, it must be just that Redcat area that’s confusing…
Re: Bob Baker, this was badly organized because all the front row chairs were on the same level and the puppets were on the ground. But some of us got out of our seats and stood over in the aisles to see. We’ll be visiting the theater for sure.
- Lili
Ambrosia is definitely a mainstay of holiday meals around here, Lili, and it’s particularly popular at summer barbecues. I think people like to make it because it fits in well with that whole midwestern casserole culture of making things in big containers that serve dozens of people.
Ambrosia is alos popular in the kitchens of Grandmothers all over the South as well. My Grandmother makes it everytime my family comes to visit… my insides are pink and fluffy as a result.
Well you learn something new everyday.