"Nobody sits like this rock sits."

"You rock, Rock, and that's what's important."

The LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) has a new installation going up in a few days: a monolith. "Monolith" means "big-ass rock".

Out in the mountains a 340-ton granite boulder was chosen as the rock of the day, and has been on a slow trip from the high desert to the LACMA facility. It's not like a stone this size can be carried by a helicopter or plane; it weighs more than each combined.

My definition of art is generally wider than most. I tend to see art in many places most folks don't, and I draw the "not-art" line a little further down the list. I'm not quite sure what the LACMA tends to do with this boulder, but a giant granite thing in the corner of a room doesn't quite speak to me as art. As a thing of great natural beauty and importance? At least there we're using the correct vocabulary.

But last night, last night might have been the art that's inspired by this monolith.

Such a large object has only one way to be brought the total distance: by truck. That truck, though, can only go five miles per hour. Last night it came down Atlantic Ave, right down the street from our apartment. I saw folks standing out on the corner as I walked home from my nighttime parking spot, and asked what they were doing out there. They explained that the Rock was coming by shortly.

Looking up the street you could see flashing lights in the distance. Hmm, I thought. I went home, changed out of my scrubs, grabbed my camera, and ended up chasing after it as it went for a few blocks and then rested.

The true art, to me, seemed to be the masses of folks who came out to take pictures of this thing past one in the morning. Like me.

Here it is, the drivers and walkers taking a break. You can see it looking like a mountain, wrapped in white plastic.



Here'a shot of the base of the rock as it's suspended for it's slow trek across the LA basin.



As the caravan started, I remember thinking, What a badass truck, to be able to pull so much mass...



Then, as I started off home, I saw the two pushing trucks; note one is ahead of the other. They were attempting an ATM--Advanced Traffic Maneuver, a right turn for a 340-ton rock.



I got the feeling that it it fell out of its suspension, it would rock the ground enough to be able to feel from a certain distance. Then, as I walked home I passed a church that was used in an Ice Cube movie (Second Sunday) as a stand-in for a Baltimore location, and thought that if the monolith fell from the top of the steeple, it would create a shock-wave that would knock people over within a certain radius.

That feeling gave some definition to the presence the rock stirs up in you.