i'm stalking Julius Shulman now

On Thursday, Julius Shulman made an appearance at the Los Feliz Library. Of course I went, even though months ago I purchased a ticket to see his lecture in Pasadena in two weeks (little did I know that I'd have so many opportunities!). He sort of reminds me of the grandfather I never had (of course I had grandfathers, but I never met them since they died long before I was conceived). He tells interesting stories. You don't know what you're going to get, but hidden in seemingly random strains of information, he reveals an illuminating nugget of why it is so fucking cool to have witnessed so much (domestic) architecture so intimately. He talked about how the Bradbury Building in downtown LA is one of his favorite buildings (see an upcoming blog about my walking tour yesterday that included it...I just need to download the photos) and how one particular house by Raphael Soriano that is now threatened with demolition was the inspiration for Frank Gehry to pursue architecture at USC.

But then he also talked about big breasts. I am not kidding. Out of nowhere he tells us that Taschen sent him some books recently, including one about enormous breasts. "Why would he publish a book about this? I know..." He proceeded to talk about how men love breasts, and he could actually envision them picking up the book and burrowing their heads into the pages. Oh my god how the crowd laughed. I couldn't believe it, and then I thought, "Was he staring at my breasts?"