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From The Desk Of Van Dyke Parks: The Cliff House

VanDykeParksLogoWith Van Dyke Parks’ new Songs Cycled (Bella Union), the renowned composer, arranger and vocalist (in that order), not only releases his first album of originals since 1995’s Orange Crate Art (with Brian Wilson singing), but lends his usually complex creations a renewed sense of simplicity. The thoughts may be determinedly complicated and touched by the soul of social protest, but Parks’ music is deliciously direct, while remaining as elegant as anything he’s done for himself (à la 1968’s chamber-pop initiator Song Cycle) or others (the Beach Boys and Rufus Wainwright amongst them). Parks will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature with him.

CliffHouse

Parks: A place to escape the First World, its insolvable problems, just two hours north from L.A. on Pacific Coast Highway, in Mussel Shoals (no not that fabled musical Muscle Shoals in Alabama). It hides there, incognito, in a postage-stamp community straddling a coastal sliver along the route from Santa Monica to Santa Barbara. Un-airconditioned rooms inhale cool beach breezes, reminiscent of a ’40s blue-collar retreat. An Olympic-sized swimming pool, with deck-chairs lawn-side, invites a good beach read. Marine life idles in tidal pools with a jetty projecting west. It’s capped by a phony island that has palm trees masking the oil wells pumping oil shoreward. That kitsch industry masks the serenity within.

Commuters drive by, oblivious to this pearl of an affordable getaway. The highway’s hum recedes in the sounds of surf. The restaurant is a foodie’s Eden. Town action is a short hop north in Santa Barbara, for scenesters who just have to be seen. Closer yet, Rincon Beach, a surfer’s paradise. A perfect recipe for an endless week-end in quiet excess.

Video after the jump.