Academy Awards this weekend! I usually watch all the best picture nominees before each Oscars ceremony, and at some point I got the idea to watch all the best picture nominees ever, going back to 1928.
Apparently, however, it’s not possible to watch all the best picture nominees ever, because one of them is missing (The Patriot, 1928) and one is only available at the UCLA Film & Television Archive (The White Parade, 1934). Huh. Will UCLA let me go watch The White Parade? (Also, what is a Bruin?)
Turns out they will! (And a Bruin is a bear.) This is the Powell Library (currently under construction for seismic improvements). To get an appointment to see the film, you have to search the library catalog for the number of the thing you want, send it in an email to the Film & Television Archive, fill out the form that they send back, and then on the agreed-upon day, they will put your media on hold at the Instructional Media Lab on the second floor of the Powell Library. You just have to visit at some point during their open hours (10 am-5 pm on weekdays).
I’d never been to UCLA before (I didn’t even know where it was, I thought it was more Santa Monica-ish), and it is impressive. The buildings are way fancy, made of pretty red brick, and look like they were built yesterday (even though the library was built in the 1920s). This is inside the library.
At the Instructional Media Lab I exchanged my photo ID for two remotes and a laminated card reminding me to not record the media. One remote is for the TV, and one is for the media itself. You get your own viewing room! There’s like a dozen of them! There’s sound-damping foam on the walls, a door you can close, and a table and chairs. And they pipe the media directly to the room’s TV from what looked like 1980s-era servers behind the front desk, which was pretty cool. That way I never had to assume responsibility for the world’s only copy of The White Parade.
The other impressive thing about UCLA (and I didn’t know this until Kelsi tipped me off the day before), is the food. After talking to her, I downloaded abillion’s UCLA vegan food guide, and it’s 35 pages long. There’s four residence restaurants, eight quick-service restaurants, five brand-name restaurants (there’s a Veggie Grill ON CAMPUS) and “a plethora” of coffee shops.
But I didn’t do any of the UCLA food things because I’d already inceptioned myself for vegan ramen at Grand Central Market in DTLA. The garlic ramen from Ramen Hood is the first picture in this post, and it is delicious. I’m not sure what they do to those mushrooms (the things that look like scallops), but it’s amazing. Plus it’s fun to wander around Grand Central Market.
On my way to catch the train home. The Angels Flight railcar had just arrived at the bottom of the hill.
I saw a driverless car from the train! I thought it was a person mapping the streets at first, then because of stoplights we passed it a couple times, and I could see that the car was empty–there’s bright sunlight shining on the empty driver’s seat. Definitely made me do a triple-take. The crazy thing was that the car’s body language was exactly like if a confident local had been driving: turn signal came on when I expected it to, pulling into the left-turn lane was like I expected it to be, positioning was ideal. I wouldn’t have known it was driverless if I’d been driving next to it.
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