LACMA on Monday, plus David Brooks

I visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Monday to check out the newly installed exhibit by Chris Burden:  Ode to Santos Dumont, a performance sculpture.  The description states that plans to exhibit the sculpture began in April 2015, after Michael Govan, the museum director, saw a test run with Burden's machinist-collaborator, John Biggs, in a rented hangar at Camarillo Airport.  Sadly, although Burden completed his plans for the exhibit at LACMA, he passed away on May 10, 2015, before the installation opened to the public.  

Burden was inspired by Brazilian-born pioneer aviator, Alberto Santos-Dumont who flew an airship around the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1901 which greatly advanced interest in aviation.  

Burdens other works at the museum include the Light Posts sculpture at the main entrance to the museum and Metropolis II, a fantasy composite city with 1,100 fast-moving toy cars and eleven model trains running on the weekends in the Broad building.  Here are some photos of the exhibit and of John Biggs who runs the exhibit.

Then on Monday evening, I went to see David Brooks at the Speaker Series in Pasadena.  I appreciate his wisdom on PBS and NPR even though our politics are not totally aliened.  He is now talking about his new book, "The Road to Character."  He talked about importance of integrity, forgiveness, and generosity of spirit. He said that people strive to improve their resume but people are remember and their life assessed at their funerals when eulogized about their quality of life.  He said that hes had spent "...too much time cultivating 'resume virtues' - racking up impressive accomplishments - and too little on 'the eulogy virtues,' the character strengths for which we'd like to be remembered."

David Brooks impressed me once again!