LAmag.com

"I don't think the pier has seen this much action since the 1980s!" shouted an aged lady in a fluorescent miniskirt. Questionable attire aside, she might have had a point. By now, if you weren't on the Santa Monica Pier on Saturday night, you've probably read plenty over the last couple of days. Oh, those jaded Netizens wishing for More Glowiness. For those who arrived early, the art did seem a bit dispersed, that the whole thing might not hang together. But when the DJs got cranking on the pier, the hippies started swinging their glow sticks, the goofy Solar Koi Parade went shambling along, and once the place got to be absolutely packed... Honestly, the cognitive dissonance alone was worth it: The confused folks, for example, exiting the Carousel Building (they had gone in for a nice horse ride with the kiddies, but Dublab was blasting spooky, low-tempo beats--extremely dirty beats. "That's just noise!" a disgruntled fellow with baby stroller was heard to say).

There was a nice psychedelic edge to the art, especially Primal Source, the giant wall of water used as a projection screen for weird, abstract images. Microphones picked up ambient sounds, and the light display changed accordingly. The kooky jellyfish things under the pier. The Dunnage Ball, really just a bouncy castle.

Contrary to what some folks have said, the Santa Monica Police didn't shut things down early. Apparently, they slowed down access to the pier once, but Glow went all night as planned. Estimated 200,000 people total with 75,000 at any one time. Numbers that went far beyond expectations. Quite amazing how orderly it was.

Thanks to Gina Pollack for photos and her take on the whole thing

MOCA’s Marlene Dumas: Measuring Your Own Grave is the first large-scale exhibition of the South African artist’s work in the United States. Focusing on Dumas’s process as well as on her finished pieces, the show includes 60 paintings and 25 drawings. Her unsettling portraits, mostly of women and children, explore race and sexuality. » Through Aug. 22. Call for hours. Tickets, $8. MOCA Grand Avenue, 250 S. Grand Ave., downtown, 213-621-1745. Map