I had never been the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels until last night. There was a performance of Jonah and the Whale on tap and who would want to miss that?

The architecture of the cathedral was better than I expected but it was the counterpoint of the cathedral’s warm, socal stylized exterior hardscape with the nearby monstrosity called Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts that whacked my brain the worst.

I mean, what the heck were they thinking?

Back when our office was in downtown I had a friend whose office looked directly toward the school as it was being built. I can remember him wondering out loud: “Do you think that’s gonna be a stairwell of some kind?”

Nope, not a stairwell, nothing of function or beauty; just a somewhat atypical brand of LAUSD pretentiousness. Like so many things from LAUSD it’s disappointing but not unexpected.

The one act opera was fun and mercifully short. But, for me, the real show was the pre-sunset light. I wish I had more time to enjoy it before the chill-air and the opera brought us into the sanctuary.