"L.A.'s Essence": Coda

IF WE WERE having class this week, I would have pointed your attention to a dust up that's occurring in real time out here in the journo-world. The New York Times has been publishing a series of pieces by Verilyn Klinkenborg about Los Angeles, many of which haven't been sitting well with us "laid back" folks.

It's not so much what he is saying in these delicately appointed pieces about L.A. -- it's what he isn't saying, and the tone. There's always the tone.

Last Sunday, the Times published an editorial "Haunting Los Angeles" in which Klinkenborg explains that he is at a loss to understand Los Angeles' essenece: "The iconic glimpses don't help me in my quest -- not the sudden view of the Hollywood sign I get from the Hollywood Freeway, not the view of downtown almost floating in the sunset from Pasadena. Every now and then, I turn a corner and think that something essential is about to be revealed. The feeling intensifies all the way up Venice Boulvard into Culver City, and then I'm on National taking one of those curious hidden freeway entrances and suddenly the feeling vanishes"

Vanishes.

Klinkenborg, for all of his hesitation in his impossible quest for Los Angeles' essence concludes:

"If I had an extra lifetime to live, I'd live it here. I don't mean one lifetime lived, in the usual way. I mean a lifetime living within a block or two of the insurance shop on Venice Boulevard with the wrap-around neon facade. Another watching cars turn off National onto the 10 . . . . Perhaps then I could grasp what always escapes me here. Then I'd know whether it was worth looking for in the first place."

It's the final line that has created the dust up -- "worth looking for in the first place..." that has set off bells and has become an impetus for posts, tweets and columns this week (see Hector Tobar's piece in this week's L.A. Times.)

What it all said to me was exactly what we've been trying to move toward in this class. Many of you know the essence already and can articulate your corner, your street, the intersections, the essence -- without qualification or apology.

Go forward.

You know what you're looking for. And it doesn't escape you. It's in you.

-- L.G.

(photo credit: Robert Adams, courtesy the Getty website)

Step Away From the Mirror

LOS ANGELES TENDS to be an image-obsessed city. Whether it be the fascination with celebrities or fighting for the table outside at the Ivy so you can "be seen: these are things we encounter daily. Yet L.A. reached a new low for me when I went to Chevron and purchased a few energy bars and large water bottles—aka finals survival fuel. While standing at the cash register, the cashier looked me up and down and told me that “if you want to keep that body you shouldn’t be eating these candy bars.” Though I tried to explain that they were indeed energy bars, he wouldn’t listen. Although my annoyance was on my mind at the forefront, it made me think that if we can’t even go to the gas station without our image being put in check, then where in Los Angeles can we go?

The homeless shelter. For an eye opening experience of the real people of Los Angeles I spend time volunteering at a homeless shelter which will not be disclosed due to privacy restrictions. It is here that the plastic surgery, fast cars and monetary obsession fade away. These people of Los Angeles could care less about it and make you feel that you should too. Their greatest concern is whether they will be able to find a place to finally take a shower.
And yet, so often as Angelenos, we pass these people on Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade or at the end of the freeway, begging for their livelihood. And what happens? People speed by in their $100,000 cars without giving them a second thought, except to maybe ensure that their doors are locked.

One thing I am proud of is that the city of Los Angeles has finally taken an interest in homelessness and the rate has dropped 38% since 2007 due to the $100-Homeless Prevention Initiative. But living in a city where so many have so much, we could reduce this number further and possibly eradicate it. As celebrities give to important relief efforts oversees, I wish we could remind them that here at home we can really make a difference too. Maybe it’s time that Angelenos stop looking in the mirror and start looking outward.

-- Emily Day
(photocredit: omar omar, flickr creative commons)

Los Angeles Lakers Fans- One Generation After Another

ALTHOUGH I WOULD not consider myself an avid Los Angeles Lakers fan -- and admit to having been to only one game -- I could not help but become inundated with their successes this past week in the news of their recent win. It seems as though I couldn’t get away from the hype of the popular team -- sportscasters on the news feeding the details of who shot the most points and who saved the game and even a stranger asking me, while sitting by my apartment complex pool this past weekend, if I knew the score. Shortly after, I realized that this obvious Lakers fan had asked me because his young son had probably dragged him up from the couch while watching the game to soak up some sun at the pool on a beautiful April afternoon. What struck me most was that despite this little boy’s strong urge to be playing outside rather than on the couch, he was just as interested to know if the Lakers were winning and when he found out that they did he couldn’t have been happier.

It became clear that Los Angeles Lakers fans pass on their pride and respect from generation to generation which helps maintain such a strong loyalty for so many years. It would almost seem taboo for someone in a family of Lakers fans to stray away from the pack and adopt another favored team. Despite its location and whether the home of the Lakers resides at The Forum in Inglewood or the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, the Lakers will always have fans --both young and old. The team represents so much more than just the game. The Los Angeles Lakers represent a community, a city and generations that will last as long as Angelenos and fans allow it. The team would be nothing without its fans and the fans would be nothing without their team.
-- Jayme Dolan

photo credit: "#1 Laker Fan" by jvnuag, flickr creative commons

"We Tell Stories . . ." : Norman Klein

"In 1974, when I first moved to the neighborhoods west of downtown Los Angeles, I was soured by the omens I sensed there. One vacant store had been a kosher butcher shop in the fifties now with a rusted sign, but very similar to the dismal store my father had run in Brooklyn for thirty years. In an utter reversal of Proust sipping tea, I remembered the smell of raw meat in the sawdust on the floors, the armies of cockroaches under the display cases, the look of chicken guts stuck to the sides of garbage pails out back.

I learned that across the street from my apartment on Glendale Boulevard, Tom Mix used to ride a horse to work from his ranch in Mixville (now a Hughes market shopping Center). But no recognition could be found anywhere that the entire film industry had once been centered there (1912-192). It was clear that the city of Los Angeles would never announce formally that the movie business had started in what was now, forgettably a "Mexican" neighborhood. At first, the sheer neglect left me dreary, reminding me of family repression during my own childhood. It took at least a year for me to realize how much vitality existed west of downtown."

-- Norman Klein
-- from The History of Forgetting



(photo captions: edendale and mixxville
photo credit: lapl archives)

Los Angeles Is . . .

LIVING IN Los Angeles is like living in a bubble rolling along a path of needles. Ya kno' its going to pop, but you just don't know when.



A YOUNG man meets and falls in love with a young woman at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. This area is known as Miracle Mile, and the whole movie takes place there. They make a date, which he misses, and while he is searching for her, he accidentally finds out that we (the United States) are about to start a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. He frantically searches for her so that they can escape Los Angeles.

Harry finally meets the girl of his dreams--on the last day of Earth. Harry mistakenly picked up a ringing pay phone to learn that a nuclear war had already begun. Now with a ticking clock and a rioting city deteriorating around him, Harry must guide Julie to safety. But can he save himself as lawlessness becomes the norm and terror grips every living soul in the city? Written by Tim Kretschmann ( courtesy of ImDB)


The 1988 film Miracle Mile captures the paranoia that constantly grips Los Angeles. People living on top of each other. So close but yet so far. Its like a game of Telephone where what one person says may start out as the truth, but as it snakes down that line things can become twisted, more surreal than anyone can ever imagine. to understand the movie is too understand the areas:

Miracle mile is a one mile stretch between Wilshire, Fairfax, and La Brea. When my father first moved out here, "He said that it was beautiful, everything new and clean it seemed but now its just broken down. Nothing has its sheen anymore, just homless zombies, and roving rockers past their prime, with fairy dust pouring through the palms just trying to rememnber a glimpse of the stars"

Some things that may help put this in perspective:
Support_for_the_theory (broken windows theory, When people think an area is broken down they treat it as such. Crime rises, etc...)
(Quick history of Miracle Mile... Look at the history and compare it to the movie version. Kinda funny how word spreads so fast in Los Angeles about a nuclear holocaust and what does this say about this city's degrees of separation)

-- Jason Collins

What is it about LA?....

I CAN SEE how some people find LA impersonal. I can even imagine people living here right now who feel that same way. The way that you feel when you are in a place where there are a million people around you, and you still feel so alone. It breeds the tropes that are attached to LA as a dangerous place, a place where celebs live, and one filled with materialistic people who are good looking and tan all the time. These stereotypes are damaging, as we have already seen in class, and are quickly quieted by a closer look into what we might refer to as the "real" city.

But, what about those that are still lost in the shuffle? Would they still feel like this if they were living in another city? Should I set my sights to an examination of the human psyche instead of this city, where many still leave feeling empty? The fact is, LA is not what it is cracked up to be for many people. We love to discuss the people who live in and love the city, but for every one, there is probably someone out there who doesn't love this place. Did they just not look for what we try to find? Did they not see the hidden gems that we seek out when we decided to discover the real city? Is it just too big, too impersonal for many to find a real connection with it? It could be as simple as it's just not their thing, that they just don't have a taste for this place, but I wonder if anyone has an answer to this question that has kept me thinking...

-- Kimberly Dennis

(photo credit: nate vawser, flickr creative commons)

There Are Two L.A.s: Blame the 405

WATCHING THE FILM Falling Down, I found the portrayal of Los Angeles quite interesting in that all areas are exposed (geographically, psychosocially, sociologically), yet inevitably linked to specific stereotypes and connotations that reinforce it’s realities as well as its myths.

As a third generation Angeleno, I feel overqualified to argue that there are two LA’s, east and west, divided by the 405. West of the 405 you’ll find, Malibu, Santa Monica, “Hollywood”, UCLA, palm trees, organic farmers markets, and last but not least convertibles to go with your sunglasses. East of the 405 you’ll find deserted buildings, homelessness, gentrification, riots, threatening minorities, and dirty streets governed by territorial gangs.

We have all seen these images at some point and have never seen any good come of the two sides meeting. As much as I want to deny the separation, and follow alongside the popular image that we all do run into stars everyday, the fact of the matter is that we don’t and the separation exists.

The popular images of Los Angeles cover nowhere near the actual size of LA, so we have managed to elect the smallest community as the ambassador of our Los Angeles. The reality is there are more communities living in poverty than there are ones that are not. In fact, the images, in my opinion, cause these realities of isolation and division to persist.

We have now grown comfortable with the fact that there are areas, specifically east of the 405, that you should not associate with, and therein lies one of the many problems these images reinforce.

Isolation and exclusion are by no way a means of solving problems, especially as in relation to members of a society. This causes the members of these societies as well as others, to buy the myth that this is the way LA is "supposed to be" -- divided by a line supported by class, stratification, and race.

Obviously the popular perception is that of west of the 405, and the reasons why many people come to Los Angeles in the first place -- for their dreams of stardom to come true, or at least walk amongst those whose dreams are coming true. This is supposed to be the place where opportunity resides, alongside success, and the carefree lifestyle California is most often associated with. If this popular image is the stronger of the two, then the true Los Angeles is largely underrepresented.

Why not, as neighbors, be alarmed by this division and push for some sort of unity? In my own experience I have seen many people disappointed when they come to visit Los Angeles. often it is not what they ‘pictured’, whether they are referring to the fact that Hollywood is not as glamorous as it’s made out to be, or the fact that the parts shown in the popular images are not nearly the size of the rest of Los Angeles.

For now we will have to at least recognize the fact that there are two very different LA’s. One LA that will continue to be the enticing yet false face of Los Angeles, and the other darker side, which might never get the recognition associated with its magnitude.

-- Erin Golightly

photo caption: the 405 Freeway from the Getty tram
photo credits, kinga-san, omar, omar,flickr creative commons)

Read L.A.: What Makes Mike Run?

JOURNALIST, TEACHER and poet, Mike Sonksen, (BKA, Mike the Poet) touched down in class last Monday night and spun L.A. history via shimmering rhyming couplets. He threw out names of some of his favorite books, authors and hidden places in L.A. Full list to follow but here are a few of the books and/or authors he made mention of both in conversation and verse:



Budd Schulberg: What Makes Sammy Run?





Kamau Daaood, Leimert Park CD



John Fante, Ask the Dust




Charles Bukowski, Hollywood

L.G.

Zoot Suit Riots on American Experience

FOR THOSE of you interested in delving in a little deeper PBS is airing a documentary on the Zoot Suit Riots on March 1st at 9pm. Check your local listings. Here's a brief synopsis:

In August 1942 the murder of a young Mexican-American man ignited a firestorm in the City of the Angels. In no time at all, ethnic and racial tensions that had been building up over the years boiled over. Police fanned out across the city in a dragnet that netted 600 Mexican Americans. Among those accused of murder was a young "zoot-suiter" named Hank Leyvas -- the poster boy for an entire generation of rebellious Mexican kids who refused to play by the old rules. As he and sixteen other boys headed to trial, the mood of the city turned violent. The deck was stacked against the defendants, and a verdict of guilty would spark a series of brutal riots. The convictions were ultimately overturned, but the city and its inhabitants would be forever changed.

-- L.G.

Photo Credit: American Experience, PBS

The Endless Night

NOW THAT you've done some knocking around your L.A. Noir chapter, take a look at some of these images that grew out of this environment. There was a reason why so many novelists, directors and screenwriters set their studies of isolation, dislocation and cynicism in a very particular Los Angeles. Just as Louis Adamic, peered deep into "the jungle," these artists were looking at the underside -- often using nighttime Los Angeles as not just environment but a character itself. Take a spin through these. Does anything come to mind? Why do you suppose Los Angeles inspired these storylines? Are there moments that are indelibly Los Angeles to you?



-- L.G.

L.A. Neighborhoods in Cyberspace

THE TREND is catching on. A new Facebook page, "Who Remembers East L.A." is really a lovely valentine to the streets that stretch out "over the bridge." If you have a Facebook account check it out. I'll be checking in to see when they actually launch a webpage. But here's a sample of photos from back in the day:


The Lorena Bridge

Atlantic and Telegraph

Around Blanchard and McBride

Atlantic and the 5 Fwy


The Canter Brothers (Boyle Heights)


The Floral Drive-In, East L.A.

All photos from "Who Remembers East L.A.?"

Chandlertown -- Raymond

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AS WE round the corner into the 1930s and 1940s how about a taste of Raymond Chandler-- L.A.'s noir writer laureate.