Millard Sheets as tourism

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Some 500 tickets were sold to Sunday’s tour of Millard Sheets sites in Claremont and Pomona (“Millard Sheets: A Legacy of Art and Architecture”), offered by the Los Angeles Conservancy, and while the rain probably kept some away, there were still plenty of people in attendance, including yours truly. We saw buildings and murals designed by Sheets, a Pomona native who died in 1989.

Above is Scripps College’s Garrison Theater, where Sheets’ exterior mosaics depict, from left, “Antony and Cleopatra,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “King Lear.” Below is a mosaic from Claremont Eye Associates, formerly Sheets’ studio, which shows falconers and their birds. This wall fronts Foothill Boulevard. We got to eyeball the optical office (so to speak) and its original exterior walkway.

Also on the tour: US Bank (formerly PFF) at Indian Hill and Foothill boulevards in Claremont and, in Pomona, the pedestrian mall, Chase Bank (formerly Home Savings) and the American Museum of Ceramic Art (formerly PFF).

Docents, most of whom seemed to be from out of town, ranged from pretty good to pretty poor. One kid thought a vintage photo of the Sheets studio might date to the 1940s; a tourist took him aside to tell him the building was built in 1959. A woman at the US Bank swept her arm to encompass the intersection and said in 1969, when the bank was built, “none of this was here,” while looking at the 1911 Claremont High campus, the 1926 Wolfe’s Market nearby. LA types must think this was an utter wasteland. Nobody mentioned the Richard Neutra church next door to the US Bank either.

But some docents seemed to know their beeswax, the buildings and the tour booklet were outstanding, and of course the entire event was commendable as far as drawing attention to Sheets and the threats to some of his 1950s-1960s buildings.

“The Conservancy doesn’t get out this way very often, but I think we’ll do more in the future,” its executive director, Linda Dishman, said at a panel discussion afterward.

We’d be delighted to have them — rain or shine.

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‘Only in LA’ resumes online

It’s only online, but “Only in L.A.” can now be found on the LAObserved blog. Steve Harvey, the retired LA Times scribe who penned the quirky bits-and-pieces daily column until 2008, has produced two so far in the new format. They’ll appear irregularly, but not too irregularly, one hopes.

You can find the first one here, the second one here and subsequent ones ought to be locatable here. Welcome back, Steve.

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Wearing of the green

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Claremont’s venerable Espiau’s took on a kelly green paint job recently. It’s presumably temporary for St. Patrick’s Day…right?

On a related note, the IE Shine On blog has a roundup of St. Patty’s deals and activities. I’ve added the blog link to the list at right under the heading Other Sites of Interest.

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Restaurant of the Week: RaPour

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CLOSED

Ra Pour, 7900 Kew Ave. (at Victoria Gardens), Rancho Cucamonga

Ra Pour is an ambitious attempt to create a Vegas-style fine-dining restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga, with an executive chef who cooked at the famed French Laundry and with live music on weekends.

I went there for lunch recently with a friend with a $25 Groupon for an appetizer and two entrees.

Ra Pour’s interior immediately impresses. The expansive interior is modernistic with a soaring ceiling, a glitzy bar and, near the greeter’s station, a water feature shimmering against the restaurant’s name in script. The restaurant seats 200. You feel you’re in good hands before you’re even seated.

We shared an appetizer of tempura mushrooms, a mix of five types of mushrooms lightly fried and delicious. For entrees, I had a lobster roll and my friend had the salmon BLT. The online menu doesn’t have the prices, but each item we had was about $12 to $14. With the Groupon, the appetizer was essentially free (but remember to tip based on the full value of the meal).

The salmon BLT was a perfectly cooked square of salmon with bacon, avocado and greens on a bun. It was best eaten open-faced. My lobster roll was a lobster salad, served cold, on a bun. I’ve had hot lobster rolls and loved them; this was only okay. Sandwiches come with either salad or fries. The simple mixed greens salad was the healthy choice; the fries are In N Out-like and, in my friend’s heretical view, better.

My friend also got a $5 (happy hour pricing) cocktail, an Anejo Manhattan with tequila rather than whiskey, with a slice of orange, and said it was made well.

Service was assured and friendly. Several tables got lobster pops, five balls of lobster on skewers and lined up vertically in a holder, which seems to be the appetizer to get. A lot of items on the ever-changing menu sounded tempting.

Mondays may be the best day to go. Happy hour is all day, and 10-inch wood-fired pizzas, typically above $10, are $5. Then again, if you like live music or a crowd, they have DJs or live music (when we were there, a stage held a full complement of instruments) on Friday and Saturday nights, which are probably less about food and more about drinks and entertainment (some of the tables have bottle service). On Sunday they have live jazz in the mornings and a gospel brunch. Ra Pour’s motto is “Eat Drink Lounge Listen.”

You exit to the very 909 sight of a Payless across the street and, at the corner, a TGIFriday’s. The funny thing is, a lunch on a Monday at TGIFriday’s is almost certainly more expensive than at Ra Pour, even though Ra Pour offers a far superior experience. Get your swank on and give it a try.

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Column: Upland’s missing U will soon be A-OK

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Friday’s column (read it here) begins with an item about Upland’s topiary entry sign on Euclid that looked more like JPLAND earlier this week. See the photo above. Then comes items from some of our other cities.

I even make a suggestion for Pomona: that a street visited by President Obama on March 19, 2009 be named for him. Good idea or terrible idea? You tell me — but read what I had to say first.

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Birthday to me

It was 48 years ago today that I came into this world. Just think of all the marvels I’ve witnessed: the moon landings, microwave ovens, MTV, culottes, specialty coffee, Tide sticks, oversharing, the list goes on and on. Today is a typical workday for me, but maybe I’ll get a slice of chocolate cake at Nancy’s or a $1 cone at Handel’s or something.

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Column: Kicking up dust at Upland City Hall

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Wednesday’s column (read it here) is about Monday’s Upland City Council meeting, at least nominally. (I tend to free-associate a bit with my Upland columns.)

I tweeted the above photo from the meeting. Didn’t seem worthwhile to try to get a photo of a dusty cabinet into the newspaper, but here it is on my blog as a bonus. It’ll make sense when you read the column.

Speaking of bonuses, below is a segment from early in the column — it would have picked up right after the first paragraph — that I decided to cut. Didn’t want to look like I was protesting too much. Also, because the meeting actually was kind of boring, the reader might have had a point!

Before we delve into the latest from the City of Gracious Living, a brief word about the frequency of its council meetings. They occur twice a month, and I try to attend both, but due to vacation I was only able to be at one of the February meetings.

Even one column a month about Upland is too much for some readers.

“You are a very talented writer but you are wasting the public’s time with the constant Upland City Council updates,” reader Rich emailed to say after my Feb. 15 column.

Constant? One or two columns a month out of a dozen or more?

“Not many people outside of Upland give a damn about that city’s business. Boring is putting it mildly!” Rich continued. “I could not finish reading the column after reading the first couple of paragraphs.”

At least he gave me a fair chance: two paragraphs.

Even if it’s true that “not many people outside of Upland” care, does that mean Upland shouldn’t appear in my column? Uplanders are people too!

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Daily Bulletin on Vacation

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After carrying my Daily Bulletin around Europe and photographing myself or being photographed, it’d be wasted effort if I didn’t share more shots. You already saw me at the Sherlock Holmes Museum and with The Thinker. Here I am at the Notre Dame Cathedral, at left, and at the famed Shakespeare and Company bookstore, both in Paris.

The bookstore dates to 1951, and as for the Notre Dame, did you know it was finished in 1345 (!) and slated for demolition until Victor Hugo (author of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” among other novels) rallied Parisians to save it?

But no matter how picturesque or significant the backdrop, I only have eyes for my Daily Bulletin. And like a movie star with a bad facelift, I am perpetually surprised by our ONT headline.

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