Southern California #2, Palm Springs: A Search for Culture

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

As we said in #1, we have a reputation in Southern California , this land of warm weather and hot heads. It’s a strange place, outsiders say, an accumulation of nuts and fruits, a destination that happens when the people of restless America get stopped by the sea. Maybe so. But it can be a benign terrain, this land of Disney and Hollywood, this place of powder-white beaches and at times surprisingly cold seas, and this realm of laid-back, languid, contented folks who don’t travel much because they have it all in their backyard.

So if you have flown into LAX, don’t have the children or grandchildren with you and wonder what’s to see if you have a tank of gas in your rental car, here are three locations to explore that are all so different.

Palm Springs, California: What Money and Civic Pride Begat

To be sure, Palm Springs is a razzamatazz, glitzy mirage in the desert. It’s a place, a last resting place in a way, for Hollywood celebrities of the 1930s, for famous millionaires of any era, for the legends of TV Guide and People magazine of today. It’s a place where broad city streets called drives are named after Dinah Shore, Bob Hope, Fred Waring and, of course, Frank Sinatra. Frank, indeed, is buried locally and his grave marker says it all, “The Best is Yet to Come.”

Y’know something? Those were great people and if today’s kids don’t recognize the names, the kids are the losers. And something else? Old Blue Eyes maybe got it wrong: America’s best days may be behind it not ahead. We love Palm Springs. In many ways its very existence is a tribute to the past, to a time when some Americans were larger than life, to a era when the country itself was big-hearted, generous, confident and optimistic about itself and about the world.

Those who love this crazy city, this fun place for the glitterati, this tongue-in-cheek vacation location for those who don’t take life and themselves too seriously, come again and again. It’s not the winter weather, the spring in December climate. It’s not the sense of room although you always know you are in the American Southwest, this land of wide streets and open plan public space. It’s not the glamour. And it’s certainly not the bargain prices in winter because for that, as in Las Vegas, you have to come back in the heat of summer. Oh sure, some come for some of the most exquisite restaurants in America and our favorites would have to be Le Vallauris in downtown Palm Springs and Melvyn’s at the Ingleside Inn. Who would not enjoy spending time with Mel Haber, Melvyn’s owner, hotelier to celebrities and sublimely oblivious or indifferent, himself, to the fact he has become a celebrity as well?

And we have favorite places to stay from the intimate Andalusian Court to the exotic garden resort of La Quinta. What’s not to love about a little inn that recalls the Mediterranean or a gorgeous rambling resort that remembers where Frank Capra wrote his screen plays and where Garbo hid to be alone?

And we have, of course, a favorite show. We’ve gone repeatedly to the Palm Springs Follies, thinking if those spry, older show girls and vaudevillians can make it in the autumn of their lives, then so can we. And if that rascal master of ceremonies there, Riff Markowitz, can laugh at us and at himself, then maybe we should too. It’s sure kept his genius young. He responded to the question, “Who wants to see Grandma’s legs?” with the answer, “Everyone!” Riff has revealed the “sexy showgirl’s shocking secret”: she’s 84!

Indeed, Dorothy Kloss, duly certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, took her first dance lesson, aged 3, when Calvin Coolidge was president, worked with Bob Fosse when he was learning to dance and performed in clubs across the nation when FDR was president. The average age of the cast is 70. We should look that good.

Riff has told us his jokes about our older age group, the group he serves – and is now joining. Have you heard the latest pickup line in our bars? he asks his audience. It’s, “Do I come here often?” And we’ve stood up at Riff’s “star spangled finale” along with a mass of ex-service men and women, to pay tribute to those who have served their country. It surely seems appropriate in a city that often casts a backward glance at history.

We’ve driven with Morgan Wind-In-Her-Hair in her red jeep marveling at her encyclopedic knowledge of the area, and stood with her straddling the San Andreas Fault. “Our main street, Palm Canyon is on an old fault,” she told us. “It runs for 140 miles through California and on for 700 miles through Baja. City Hall in Los Angeles is built on the fault and it has moved 10 feet farther north since it was built.” Morgan really knows her county. “We have 2,800 kinds of palms” she says, “but only one kind is native to California.” She points out the fountains in front of a resort with the cascade of water catching the rays of the sun. “We have natural lithium in our water supply, she says, “this is ‘happy county.’”

We’ve studied archaeological sites of the Cahuilla Indians with Morgan and ridden horses in Palm Canyon, but the biggest surprise for us – who thought we’d seen everything in this Coachella Valley was to discover, finally, its museums.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in this sun-splashed city, where so many people seem to come only to relax and lie around the pools listening to music is to walk up the steps of the Palm Springs Art Museum and discover exhibits that would entrance, even knock over Manhattan sophisticates. “We’ve just celebrated our 70^th anniversary,” a guide tells us, “Our museum benefits because many wealthy people have retired here and want to give back to the community. And we benefit with numbers because, when it’s 120 degrees outside in the blazing heat of summer, visitors discover our 125,000 square feet of exhibits are spread over five air-conditioned floors.”

It’s no surprise to find space used so well in this art museum. The American Southwest has always emphasized an open style of architecture and its living space is never cluttered the way New England has embraced Victoriana. You can breathe in this museum and no one seems to be in a hurry. There’s time to digest this veritable banquet of art offerings: native American art, classic Western paintings, Modern Masters like Picasso and Henry Moore, contemporary artists such as Lichtenstein and Warhol. There is no real focus other than quality. Says our guide, “We have Pre-Columbian pottery, American photography, glass studio art – for starters.”

Like many community art museums this one offers free art classes, live music and poetry readings. Two outdoor sculpture gardens lie outside to be enjoyed in cooler weather.

There’s a sense of fun in this art museum. Visitors notice the older couple who, seemly tired, have found a bench to rest on. As we climb up the stairs we notice they are really resting, not even moving. Once again artist Duane Hanson has caught visitors who, even on close inspection of his art, were initially unsure as to whether those people were real. In fact they are resin and fiberglass molds made from actual people; some are friends of the artist, or indeed anyone who could sit through the tedious preparations and casting process of their forms.

Hanson apparently began his art career at the age of 13 creating a wooden reproduction of Gainsborough’s 1770 The Blue Boy. His work was critical, initially even political, such as his Gangland Victim (1967). His Tourists (1970) the only work by Hanson in a British public collection (the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh), showed a “physically mismatched and appallingly dressed couple looking outwards in dazed bewilderment. They look ridiculous but loveable. . . Truth is beautiful, isn't it?" said Hanson. Ouch! Hanson, speaking like a psychiatrist, has said he “sees more inside these sculptures than outside.”

His satirical, obese, cleaning lady, Queenie II came along in 1988, his Man With a Walkman in 1989, his Medical Doctor in 1994, the same year as his Old Couple on a Bench. Hanson was born in Alexandria, Minnesota in 1925 and died aged 70, battling cancer, in Boca Raton, Florida in 1996 just as his work was being re-recognized for its value. He had fallen from favor in the 1970s partly, it’s been said, because other artists were jealous of his success and partly because the Photorealist movement had lost its appeal to the public.

Our two other favorite museums here are the Palm Springs Air Museum and the original McCallum Adobe and the city’s Historical Society. On our pages the art museum’s Man with World at his Feet stands beside the air museum’s statue to commemorate those who served in World War II. The air museum has a different bustle to the art museum. Sounds echo more, the space seems hollow as it indeed is; we are inside three hangers and amongst a different kind of sculpture: aluminum ones. A glance takes in Grumman Wildcats, Hellcats and Bearcats; a Grumman Goose, A6 Intruder and a F-14 Tomcat. And surely the most photogenic of all, a Curtiss P40 Hawk. Elderly docents with a military bearing wander amongst their memories, willing at any time to recapture their past for visitors. The airplanes are often flown and these docents may be the last of the Greatest Generation to be familiar with the controls and specification numbers for those aircraft, one of Palm Springs’ priceless resources. Says a former pilot and now docent, “These planes are uniquely available to the Air Museum because of this splendid weather we get in Palm Springs -- that draws both residents and millions of tourists to this region every year.”

The P40 is not alone. It shares space with a Republic P47 Thunderbolt, perhaps the most indestructible fighter ever built. Beside it a Supermarine Spitfire seems as delicate as a butterfly. And beside the Spit squats a bigger brother of a plane, a North American P51 Mustang.

Beyond are the bombers: a north American B25 Mitchell, a Douglas B26 Invader and, star of the show, a Boeing B17 Flying Fortress.

There’s also a library on the premises with an extensive collection. A visit includes information on the Last Great War, and includes rare and original combat photography, examples of uniforms and exhibits of aviation and pilot memorabilia.

Aviation enthusiasts can test their skills on flight simulators, tour through a B17, a Douglas C47 Dakota and a Consolidated PBY Catalina. Movies are shown daily in the Buddy Rogers Movie Theater. And always, there are World War II pilots walking the hangars with a catch in their voice and a tear in their eyes as they remember their contribution to America and perhaps their less fortunate buddies who paid the ultimate price for their devotion.

The McCallum Adobe and Historical Society recalls a much earlier time. Built in 1884 it is the oldest building in Palm Springs. As you wander around the simple dwelling of this wealthy family you realize how life and homes have changed in 125 years. The artifacts suggest life was harder then and people had to be stronger.

You are seeing a side of Palm Springs that sometimes is missed by winter hedonists who simply crave warm weather and an ice-cold drink. But sometimes by looking beyond the obvious, lucky visitors get to know a place better and want to return again.