A running theme with my daughter, Madeleine, is the things she cannot do because she is two years old. For so many things she has to be five, six, even seven years old, sometimes just three. She tries to sit in the front seat of the car, “you have to be twelve,” and so on. I am frequently assigning numbers to activities out of reach. Then, this morning, I am walking, alone, in front of the Echo nightclub – on my way to Par Paint,* across the street – and I see an 8x11.5 sheet of white paper, taped to a light pole and blowing in the wind, advertising for a drummer. The thing that catches my eye is the prominent age restrictions, so precisely decided: Seeking drummer, age 20 to 31. Oh, no! I have already been 32! And what’s wrong with 32? Or 33? Or…never mind. I never wanted to be a drummer anyway. My daughter is a good drummer (no kidding) but she’s missing a zero. And she’s never heard of the other specs – the bands the flyer says you have to like, if you happen to be 20 to 31 years old. Meanwhile at The Echo, the nightclub has decided to fill some of what is probably downtime with all-ages country-music shows. Every Sunday, from 5 to 9 p.m. And free, too. We’re planning to go.

Perhaps the Echo’s proprietors read the interview in Arthur magazine (I miss you, Arthur! Is it true you may be coming back?) with one of the members of the MC5 – I forget which. He said he has always considered all-ages shows to be the best and coolest. Of course, this coming from a man in his upper 60s (if not beyond), but I believe him when he says he’s always felt this way.

Makes me think of the Los Angeles Times story this Sunday about the dancer Marion Scott. She’s 84, uses a walker, and will be performing her 10th installment of her “Spirit Dances” series at Highways next week. She dances with her arms and upper body. So…if you heard you have to be 20 to be a professional dancer, you heard wrong.

*One of Par Paint’s claims to the right to charge high prices is that it has been installed in its Sunset Blvd. storefront for over 50 years. Another claim is the boutique paints it carries.

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Echo Curio gallery is going doggy with “The Pit and the Pendulum,” an exhibition/semi-benefit of Sara Press and other artists, opening this Saturday.

Press release describes it:

The Pit and the Pendulum: Breeding Wild into Domesticity, a group exhibition with featured artist Sara Press, will have an opening this Saturday, April 14th from 6pm-midnight at Echo Curio in Echo Park. Press' work, etchings and drawings of pit bulls, examines the historical culture of dogfighting, and looks at the uniquely human ability to simultaneously love something and sacrifice it.

There will be several sweet dogs at the event who are in need of
adoptive homes, and a portion of the proceeds from sales of artwork
will be donated to dog rescue organizations.

One quibble with the press release (and perhaps the art): I do not believe that the “ability to simultaneously love something and sacrifice it” is uniquely human. For example, I ran across a National Geographic story recently (the issue given to me by Kaki Wall, a longtime Echo Park personage) that contained some remarkable photos of a leopard who had just killed a female baboon. After killing the baboon the cat noticed that the baboon had an infant. The cat watched over the infant for four hours and then carried it into a tree, where it snuggled with the baby primate. The baby died of exposure some time later and only then did the cat return to the dead mother, to eat her.