The Old Plain Getty
In villa form
I wrote this last week and then didn’t have time to send it because I got busy with other things. Life! Hopefully you’ll forgive me and forgive yourselves for anything you’ve left undone as the year winds to a close.
Post Thanksgiving. Parents in town. What to do? Turn to my sister, the inveterate planner of activities, to procure tickets to a museum. Late on a Sunday afternoon, we turned off the Pacific Coast Highway and onto the winding road leading to the Getty Villa.
The Getty Villa started its life as The Plain Getty, but then they built The New Plain Getty and instead of calling it The Old Plain Getty they decided on The Getty Villa. This makes sense, because according to my meticulous research (quickly reading the Getty website), “The Getty Villa is modeled after the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, Italy.” John Paul Getty faithfully recreated an ancient mansion buried by a volcano because I guess when you have that much money you are bored and constantly looking for tax write-offs. Seems fun!
Two surly parking guards almost immediately foiled our outing. Maybe they were surly because the post clearly only needed one parking guard and they each felt like the other was infringing on their purpose, but couldn’t turn on each other, so instead turned on the public they were there to manage. They informed my sister, who trailed our car in her own, that she could not park on the premises because her car contained her psychotic Jack Russell terrier Maybelline. Of the reasons to ban Maybelline from The Getty Villa premises (she barks at air, bites at air, is 300 years old, has the personality of a disgruntled ottoman) the salient one was she was a dog and dogs are not allowed at The Getty Villa.
This is interesting, because I bet The Original Italian Non-Getty Villa had dogs running loose all over the place. Ultimately, my sister should have checked the rules, but that is not the style of the youngest child, and I do think at the end of a long holiday weekend our inveterate guards could have been more veterate and let Maybelline continue her hours-long nap in The Getty Villa Parking Lot. But in the spirit of Centurions, the guards held strong in their mission to protect The Getty Villa from terriers.
My sister turned back down the hill and parked by the ocean. My dad stayed to keep Maybelline company and contemplate the sunset while my sister and girlfriend took the shuttle up the hill, like plebeians.
Meanwhile our dogless vehicle decamped, undertaking the multiple elevator rides required to get to the front door of the museum—up, down, and up again. Like The New Getty, the entrance is part of the experience—a separation between our world and the world of The Getty Villa, except that the first thing you see is the snack bar. The next thing you see is a stone amphitheater, and finally, beyond that, the villa. The Getty Villa. We wandered into the (new) ancient Italian garden, which was littered with visitors traipsing through the olive trees, their traipsing documented by companions for various social media feeds.
While my mom sketched the baby by the fountain (an analogue version of the surrounding activity), my husband and I wandered into the exhibits. We were tired, so the priceless antiquities barely made a dent in our sleep-deprived consciousness. We breezed past gold jewelry and marble statues and various vessels, eventually finding an exhibit entirely devoted to a bronze statue the size of an avocado. It was discovered in a farmer’s field in Albania and took an international team of professionals to return it to a version of its former glory. We marveled at how amazing it is, with all the things in this world; this many people cared about a tiny statue that we wouldn’t have given a second glance.
Later, when my sister and her girlfriend had arrived, ferried up the hill by the shuttle, she took the baby for a spin around the exhibits. My sister paused in front of a fertility column—tall and green, a tiny penis at its base. My baby looked at it and said, “Wow!” She hasn’t seen enough to not care about things yet.
We exited through the gift shop, which (sorry to Banksy) is my favorite part of every museum. Maybe it’s because the things in there are for you to touch and enjoy and treasure and take home, unlike everything you just saw, which stays encased and enclosed and untouchable. Maybe that’s how billionaires feel about statues and gardens and villas—they’re connected to them because they can possess them.
And thank God, because it gave my family something to do besides sit in the house, look at our phones, and lecture each other for looking at our phones too much.
The lengths you all go to for LA culture!Q!
I wasn’t looking at my phone for fluffy news items. I was reading a book.📖