Here’s something different: I am going to talk about the Olympics that were opening in Paris as I wrote this column. Especially exciting were the athletes floating down the Seine in a series of boats—so improbable, but so original, and so picturesque against the bridges and the banks of the freshly cleaned river.

A magnificent spectacle accompanied the boat parade—a relay of people bringing the Olympic torch across Paris, from underground tunnels to rooftops, to light the flame. They managed to get in so much art and design, so much history—moving from the Eiffel Tower to the Grand Palais, the Louvre and the Tuileries with dancers, singers, acrobats and the ghost of Marie Antoinette. The torch bearer at the Louvre found the Mona Lisa missing. There was lots of humor and quite a bit of camp, especially in a scene of colorful characters seated at a long table, which served as a runway for some over-the-top fashion.

The next day, the news was full of outrage against an alleged parody of da Vinci’s The Last Supper—the pileup included French clergy and politicians and some Americans on the right. The US House Speaker, Mike Johnson, declared, “Last night’s mockery of the Last Supper was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world.” Who knows where this warped notion began? I never once thought of The Last Supper while watching the opening ceremony. Presiding over the festivities was a full-bodied woman with a radiant crown—no Jesus, no ritual drinking or eating, no backstory of betrayal. However, the conservative right invents make-believe insults in order to continue the culture wars. Thomas Jolly, the ceremony’s artistic director, explained “The idea was to have a pagan celebration connected to the gods of Olympus.”

So, what will Los Angeles do when the Olympics open here in 2028? Granted, we do not have the long history and scenic wonders of Paris. Here, we will be using existing facilities, such as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which was used in the 1932 and 1984 Olympics in LA.

The arts have long been a part of the Olympics, in their own competitions during the early years from 1912 to 1948. The Los Angeles 1984 Olympics offered the Olympic Arts Festival. Paris 2024 has an arts and culture program, the Cultural Olympiad. In June, Hollywood producer and arts supporter Maria Arena Bell was named Chair of the LA28 Cultural Olympiad, and I cannot wait to see what her team comes up with.

LA28 will also be using some new arena venues, such as those in the revitalized Hollywood Park. I have just been to openings for two more venues—Cosm Los Angeles, a new immersive venture, and Intuit Dome, the new home of the LA Clippers, which commissioned seven pieces of public art from our own SoCal artists. Six are completed—I was especially impressed by Jennifer Steinkamp’s pivot to lighting design—the Dome covered by hundreds of diamond-shaped panels with embedded LEDs not only changing color but making patterns that “move” across the surface