Illuminated manuscripts, handwritten texts aglow with pictorial and decorative embellishments of gold, silver, lapis lazuli and other precious materials, are among the most beautiful works of art created during the Middle Ages. The seductive, jewel-like quality of their shimmering pages stands in sharp contrast to the often gruesome subject matter being depicted, whether it be scenes of the Passion or vivid and precise images of torture, execution or war. ‘It seems jarring to our modern sensibility, but it was a natural juxtaposition for people in the Middle Ages,’ says Elizabeth Morrison, associate curator of manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum and organizer of the current exhibition ‘Images of Violence in the Medieval World.’ The show’s underlying theme is how violence in the Middle Ages was considered an integral’even necessary’aspect of life, a concept so counter to our contemporary view. ‘Violence is really unacceptable everywhere except perhaps in professional football,’ Morrison notes with a laugh while leading a recent tour of the exhibition. This day, instead of the usual handful of people who turn out for a gallery talk, Morrison was met by a crowd of close to 50, all eager to delve deeper into the darker side of medieval life. Lest anyone imagine the show’s boundaries as confined to the Middle Ages (roughly the years 500 to 1500 A.D.), Morrison shares with the audience how modern-day acts of violence uncannily affected the planning of the exhibition. The official launch meeting, scheduled on September 12, 2001, was canceled in response to the horrific events of the previous day, 9/11, and the show was temporarily shelved. Morrison turned in her text for the revived exhibition on March 20, 2003, the same day the U.S. declared war on Iraq. In addition to being a timely reminder about the origins of violence, the exhibition also is seen by Morrison as an opportunity for people to make a connection with a more obscure part of the Getty’s collection. The Getty’s holdings of illuminated manuscripts, considered the finest in the United States after that of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, make possible the creation of countless thematic shows, including ‘Family Life in the Middle Ages,’ a show Morrison mounted last year, and ‘Medieval Beasts,’ an exhibition she is planning for 2007. One of Morrison’s biggest challenges with the current exhibition was to winnow 17 select images (all except one from the Getty’s collection) from the vast selection of brutal imagery abounding in medieval texts. A variety of texts, ranging from saints’ lives and prayer books to romances and histories, are represented and shown in the context of three categories: violence in everyday life, in the world of religion and in the name of the state. The dangers of everyday life were many in the Middle Ages, when even the barest necessities were often scarce, plunder and oppression were common and family feuds and disputes were often settled on the side of the strongest and fiercest contender. In a 13th-century Spanish legal manuscript, two men involved in a money dispute go before the king, who concludes the case merits decision by duel, an aspect of the Spanish legal system that was decisive and legally binding. Both the combatants and the witnesses firmly believed that God would be ‘on the winning side’ and victory would be awarded accordingly. Another fascinating glimpse into daily life is found in a popular medieval book known as ‘The Romance of the Rose.’ While the text seems to argue against the practice of wife beating, warning that under these conditions ‘true love cannot long endure,’ we nonetheless see a graphic depiction of a man gripping his wife’s hair with one hand and threatening her with a stick with the other. In the late Middle Ages, a father’s money and power were passed on to his eldest son. The deadly rivalries this brought about are graphically illustrated in ‘A Massacre of Family Members,’ where grisly beheadings, a drowning and a hanging fill the picture plane as due warning. The account of the torture and death of Christ was the most well-known story in the Middle Ages, when suffering in one’s own life was seen by Christians as necessary for salvation. This point was constantly underscored by vivid images of the Crucifixion, scenes of flagellation and tales of martyrdom. An exquisite painting of the Crucifixion from a 15th-century German manuscript is of a particular visceral nature, intended to encourage readers to empathize with Christ’s pain. A section devoted to ‘The Art of War’ unveils clashes for land and power, including revolts pitting lord against vassal, holy wars waged in the name of religion and confrontations between dueling nations. In one such picture, the battle of Aljubarrota, one of the most famous battles of the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), shows the victorious Portuguese army triumphantly waving their pink banners while Spanish soldiers are massacred in the foreground. Morrison hopes the exhibition causes people to contemplate the tremendous power of images, both in the Middle Ages and in contemporary times. ‘Imagine the impact of the Abu Ghraib prison story without photographs,’ she challenges. ‘There’s one aspect of violence that’s unchanging,’ Morrison says. ‘Differences bring it out, whether in religion, race or country. I think this exhibition puts in relief that it [violence] is nothing new.’ Morrison will conduct two more one-hour talks on the exhibition on Tuesday, February 15 and Friday, March 4, both at 3 p.m. Related programs include a film series, ‘Savage Cinema: The Violent Poetry of War on Film,’ selected by Los Angeles Times critic and Palisadian Kenneth Turan, which explores cinematic portrayals of violence in war from the Middle Ages to modern times. It takes place Friday, February 4 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, February 5 at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Another event is a lecture on ‘Violence in the Middle Ages’ to be presented on Thursday, March 2 at 4 p.m. by best-selling author and noted historian Michael Wood. ‘Images of Violence in the Medieval World’ continues through March 13 at the Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive. Contact: 440-7300 or go online to www.getty.edu.

The name Pink Floyd didn’t mean anything to Howard Lamden before August 1980. At the time, he was a recent transplant from Baltimore working in Los Angeles as a television editor on George Schlatter’s ‘Real People,’ a comedy show featuring unusual slice-of-life stories. ‘I’d never heard a Pink Floyd song in my life,’ says Lamden, who received a phone call that fall from a cameraman he’d worked with in New York, asking him to help create and edit a documentary from footage of the band’s ‘The Wall’ show in London. On November 30, 1979, Pink Floyd had released its legendary album of the same name, which included the hit song ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ (‘We don’t need no education/ We don’t need no thought control…All in all it’s just another brick in the wall’). Filmed in and around Earls Court arena, the footage included the two-hour concert as well as the unloading of equipment and mounting of the elaborate production, performed with visual aids projected on huge screens, giant inflatable characters and gigantic foam bricks. This show was not only a groundbreaking example of a modern multi-media experience but also the last time the band’s original members played together. It was the final production of the ‘The Wall,’ which Pink Floyd performed 30 times on stages in Los Angeles, New York, Dortmund (Germany) and London. Lamden started work on the documentary in January 1981 and it took him about six months to complete, working part-time. When he was done, he sent the documentary, shot on 3/4-inch videotape, to Pink Floyd. ‘At the time, these guys had so much money that they could’ve done anything,’ says Lamden, who names The Band as one of his favorite rock groups. Lamden wasn’t sure whether some of the documentary footage was intended to be used as part of a larger project, such as the movie ‘The Wall’ (originally released in 1982), but when he didn’t hear anything, he filed it in his archives, to use for his own reel and to get other jobs. ‘This documentary was one of the best things I ever did,’ he says, referring to its linear progression of the ‘load-in,’ which begins with trucks of equipment rolling into the arena and the crew unloading giant aluminum stage pieces. ‘I wanted to build an organic story, to tell it as it was.’ The 25-minute film documents the stage construction and engineering of the concert through behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the engineer, architect, sound and monitor mixers, as well as other crew members, roadies and fans. ‘It’s miles ahead of anything else that’s ever been done in rock-n’-roll,’ a young Roger Waters (the frontman and songwriter of Pink Floyd) says about the production at the start of the documentary. Waters is the only band member who’s interviewed in the documentary, though others are pictured in sound checks and rehearsals for the show. Images of the 35-foot-tall balloon-like figures with huge lights for eyes, and the collapsible foam brick wall made to withstand 20-30 mph winds, are fascinating to see. Especially well-edited are the sequences of the crew hard at work, with the piano being sound checked; these segments add artistic color and texture to the film. Around the 20th anniversary of ‘The Wall’ in 1999, Lamden received a phone call from James Guthrie, sound engineer for ‘The Wall’ shows, who wondered if Lamden still had a copy of the documentary. ‘There was so much infighting [among band members] that source material was lost,’ Lamden says. ‘I never lost the documentary. They lost it. I had my copy, a pristine copy.’ Lamden also owned the copyright, and seriously began to consider releasing the documentary around the time he had to start paying college tuition for his daughter, Lily. A PaliHi graduate (’03), Lily is now a sophomore at Colorado Sate University. When Lamden read an article in a UK publication that discussed the ‘lost’ Pink Floyd documentary and credited the wrong people for directing and editing it, he realized that ‘this was an important piece of work, and a lot of people had heard rumors about it.’ To prepare it for release, Lamden changed the title from ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ to ‘The Lost Documentary’ and took out the 12-minute version of ‘Another Brick in the Wall,’ which had accompanied the original documentary. The two-hour concert also had to be omitted for copyright reasons. He copyrighted his work with the Library of Congress in December 2003, alerted Roger Waters to his intentions for release, found investors, built a Web site and cut a trailer. ‘I went through all the proper channels,’ he says. ‘I wanted to make money but I wasn’t going to do it and not feel good about it.’ In order to maintain control over the documentary, Lamden decided to self-distribute the DVD via a Web site in September 2004. ‘I had thought the first thousand would sell in hours,’ he says. To date, the first 1,000 pressings are almost gone. Negotiations are currently under way between Lamden and Waters to release the full concert with the documentary on DVD. Lamden’s experience in the music business includes producing and editing Bruce Springsteen’s The River concert in Tempe, Arizona (1981); directing and editing a Jackson Browne documentary called ‘Downtown,’ shot in downtown Los Angeles (1982); and editing the Doobie Brothers’ ‘Live at the Buddakan’ (1981/1982). ‘I really love being an editor,’ says Lamden, though he admits that he always preferred working in television for people like George Schlatter (well-known for the variety series ‘Laugh-In’) over working in music. ‘I learned everything about cutting comedy from [Schlatter]. He just made you feel great.’ Lamden moved to California in 1979, after working as a television editor on 20/20 and People Television in New York. He has lived in the Palisades since 1982 and currently works at Weller Grossman Productions in North Hollywood. Lamden’s 17-year-old son, Peter, attends Temescal Canyon Continuation School. To view the trailer for ‘The Lost Documentary’ or purchase the DVD for $29.95, visit www.thelostdoc.com.

Will Rogers State Historic Park has resumed its grounds tours to give the public a glimpse into the detective work used to restore the historic buildings, and to celebrate the life of Will Rogers. In the early 1930s, Will Rogers was probably the most popular celebrity in America. Successful as a daily columnist in most of the nation’s newspapers, and a star of radio and movies, the cowboy philosopher had established his career by rising through the ranks of the Wild West shows, vaudeville and the Ziegfeld Follies. His ranch, donated to the state in 1944, reflects many elements of his career, and is a living window on the past. Over the past four years, it has been undergoing a restoration that includes the ranch house, barn and landscaping,. It will be completed later in 2005. Among the myriad ongoing restoration efforts is the reconstruction of Jimmy’s mule barn, named after Rogers’ youngest son. The barn, situated close to the stable, had been part of the ranch operation, housing Jimmy’s horses, draft animals, most notably for the 1932 Japanese Olympic team, and guest horses. The barn was taken apart in 1943 when lumber was in short supply. Docents tell the story of how Betty, Will’s wife, gave the wood to a relative who needed to build a house on land they owned in Santa Monica Canyon. In addition to seeing the newly constructed barn, visitors will also tour the polo field, stable and riding areas, pastures, goat pen, roping corral, hay barn, and blacksmith and carpenter shops. Issues relating to the restoration of the ranch house, projected to reopen in January 2006, will also be discussed. The grounds tours are held on Tuesdays through Saturdays at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. The cost for parking is $7 per vehicle. Tours are free and all are welcome. Large groups (18 or more people) and school groups can be accommodated at 10 a.m. and should make reservations. The reservation fee for the group picnic area varies according to group size. For further information, including volunteer docent opportunities, contact Michael Allan, State Parks Interpreter at 454-8212, ext. 103.

Steve Brigham, owner of Buena Creek Gardens, a retail plant nursery and display garden in Vista, will speak to the Palisades Garden Club members and guests on Monday, February 7, 7:30 p.m. at the Woman’s Club, 901 Haverford. He will talk about his book ‘The Trees of San Diego and of Other Mediterranean Climates,’ (San Diego Horticulture Society), which includes 240 trees, accompanied by color photographs by Don Walker. Buena Creek is a four-acre garden and nursery that grows Southern California’s largest selection of new and uncommon flowering perennials, shrubs, daylilies and vines. Its collection of over 5,000 outstanding varieties of flowering plants attract visitors from all over the world. Brigham, a horticulturalist and nurseryman who has lived in North San Diego County since 1980, developed his interest in gardens in his childhood vegetable garden. His interest expanded to landscape gardening as a young adult, when he discovered the Sunset Western Garden Book. In college at UC Santa Cruz, he worked as a gardener, and ‘that’s when things began to change,’ he writes in ‘Birth of a Plantsman.’ ‘Tending a large collection of proteas there made me realize that there was more to the world of plants then what was commonly available in nurseries. My professor, the great naturalist and horticulturalist Dr. Ray Collett, had by then already established an enormous collection of many kinds of unusual flowering plants at the arboretum, and I was just getting to know them. ‘One day I went into one of the greenhouses to do some weeding, and I could not believe what I saw. An exotic and spectacular bright yellow flower had just been produced by a small subtropical tree that I had never paid much attention to. The next day, there were more flowers, and more after that. What I was seeing was Tabebuia chrysotricha, the Golden Trumpet Tree’a Brazilian plant that would change my life. I discovered that although this tree could grow and bloom outdoors in Central California, it was practically nonexistent in the local nursery trade.’ Brigham’s search lead him to the classic book, now out of print, ‘Color for the Landscape,’ edited by the late Dr. Mildred Mathias of UCLA, which featured pages of color photos of the best subtropical flowering trees, shrubs, vines, perennials and natives for California gardens. He determined that he would search for each plant in the book, take cuttings and seeds which would become the nucleus of his first nursery in Santa Cruz. ‘One yellow flower, then one book, and suddenly a career was born,’ Brigham writes. In the course of his 30-year career, Brigham has worked both as an employee and a volunteer for several botanical gardens and nurseries, and has introduced many flowering plants into the nursery trade. He and his wife Donna have owned Buena Creek since 1996. He says that the mission of Buena Creek is to ‘collect, grow, display, promote and distribute new and uncommon varieties of ornamental plants for Southern California gardens.’