Markasaurus

Dog on Shoes, in Venice CA.

In the spirit of the “Daily Puppy” website that some of you may be familiar with, I present the Markasaurus “Tuesday Pet Pal” feature, that may or may not ever be repeated. I took this photo in Venice, CA on my recent trip. This dog s sitting on the shoes that are displayed in the bottom of the store window while someone puts up a new display.

I should mention that the most popular post I’ve ever written was about the Black and White Tegu, a large semi-aggressive lizard that some of you might remember from last August. It makes up over 3% of the pageviews for the entire site, and is the top landing page behind the index. If anyone knows anything about why these animals are so popular I would love to hear an explanation.

Rite Aid Beverly Hills, at night.

Yes, that’s right (or should I say “Rite”). Not only is there a Rite Aid in Beverly Hills, they actually call it “Rite Aid Beverly Hills” with “Beverly Hills” written in script on the sign as if it were a Bentley dealer or Cartier. Upon going into the store, it was mostly good old Rite Aid- sunscreen, medicine and snack food as far as the eye can see. There was an ice cream parlor inside too, but I have seen those in other Rite Aid locations. It’s not like they were selling caviar and pate flavored soft serve or anything either, it was just regular ice cream.

This picture depicts a display window on the back of a trashy lingerie shop on La Cienega Blvd. in West Hollywood. What was I doing at a trashy lingerie shop? I was on my way to the organic vegan restaurant next door, of course. Note that one of the mannequins in this photo is disintegrating. I don’t have any theories on that, or at least any theories I could reveal in a family-oriented blog like this.That’s the best part about LA- you’ll find insane juxtapositions of high and low culture, good taste and bad, or hippie food and pervert mannequin fetish all on the same block (oh, wait, this is starting to sound like my Master’s Thesis).

As long as we’re on the subject of weird juxtapositions in Los Angeles, don’t white plaster statues of men with American flags make you want to run out and buy a suit?

Santa Monica Topiary Dinosaurs, proudly guarding the Promenade.

Yes, even Los Angeles has dinosaurs. Of course, they are made out of shrubs and shoot water from their mouths while people casually eat frozen yogurt and shop at an outdoor mall. This is one of the many highlights of last weekend’s trip.

Another highlight of the trip was visiting the Museum of Jurassic Technology. I’m sure many of you have heard of it by now. It’s a museum that is really more of a conceptual art project. While it projects the trappings of an “official” museum, you never quite know whether the things on display are real or not. You also never really know why they are on display, as much of what’s in the museum looks either obscure, insignificant or both. Long story short, I can’t describe it well enough to do it justice. If you are passing through Culver City, give yourself at least an hour and a half to see the displays and more than that if you want to read everything (actually you would need a whole day for that).

One of the displays featured this glass case with a dog’s head inside. Through a series of prisms, the image of a man fidgeting in a chair and barking is projected into space so that when you look into the case, he appears to be in the dog’s head. Then he starts barking. It’s priceless, and this one exhibit is worth the price of admission alone.