April Showers Bring LA Flowers

RAIN IN L.A. Every Angeleno's nightmare. It makes us all wonder, how does Nor Cal do it so well? My dad always said that Californian's can't drive in the rain, so be EXTRA careful if you even see a cloud in the sky. We can't even function driving our cars, forget riding bikes, making it to meetings on time, or catching up with that friend for dinner across town. The whole city seems to stop what it's doing on those perfectly gloomy days (except for the traffic, of which there is inevitably more) and go inside for hot tea and a good book.

We like to think of ourselves as the happy people that they make us out to be in the ads sometimes, but when the rain comes, were just as grouchy and blah as everyone else on earth. That's when we realize that it's all to do with the warm glow of our Pacific sun. Its our secret. If I could count every time I have heard a person say that they couldn't live in a rainy place, they would be depressed if they did, Seattle has the highest suicide rate because of the rain or some variation of those, it would probably equal ten times the amount of rainy days I have ever lived through in LA. That's how much we hate it. I mean, personally, I love it. Love the sound it makes against the windows, the way it clears a place out, and the way it makes people pensieve, it forces them to think. And of course, it cleans up that LA skyline! There is nothing like a clear and crisp rainy "day after" to brighten one's spirits. But, of course, I use the collective "we" because, well, Angelenos really don't like the rain.

-- Kimberly Dennis

(photo credit, kimberly dennis)

Psychic Consultants and Spiritual Healers – LA Mysticism

WHENEVER I STROLL along the sidewalk to make a beer run to Bristol Farms, I often pass by a strange little store conspicuously wedged between the oil smeared lot of an automotive shop and an upscale crepe and coffee shop. The neon sign posted on the side mirrors of the store advertises its prophetic claim of what its services can achieve – an insight into your future. When I pass by this shop I’m reminded of David Fine’s comments of the psychics and radical spiritualists that have come to form LA’s unique, if not strange, spiritual landscape and its part in constructing LA’s identity:

“One would be hard pressed to find a Los Angeles novel written between the 1920s and the 1960s without the inclusion of a bizarre cult, spiritualist, prophet, or medical quack. While it is tempting to exaggerate their significance in the city’s history . . . their centrality to the city’s fiction cannot be denied. Spiritualists and ‘psychic consultants’ (Raymond Chandler’s term) have been permanent and conspicuous residents in the fiction about Los Angeles…In the literary construction of the city, the charlatans and cults signal the fusion, or confusion, of reality and illusion, fact and fantasy, that has been one of the recurring themes of Los Angeles fiction.”

This elicits several philosophical questions to debate and consider. Is LA a city that is starved and deprived of traditional forms of spirituality that it indulges itself in the world of mystics? same mystics and spiritualists gave rise to so many different religious cults that prospered in the LA area such as Theosophy movement and the Four Square Gospel? Or is it a city that likes its spirituality peddled to them like everything else is on large billboards and page long ads in the paper? After all Miss Cleo was not the first or the last psychic that offered services to those desperate to seek out an answer, an epiphany, a secure knowledge of their future. This shop is but one among many that are no doubt strewn across the city of Los Angeles as sites that often blur the lines between illusion and reality.

If I was a psychic consultant, I wonder what would my sales pitch be?

“Are you uncertain about life’s big decisions? My crystal ball has all the answers.”

“A doctor can heal your body but I can heal your soul…for a small fee.”

“You want to find the love of your life? No pain. No hassles. No time wasted. I can help you find the one.”

“I can guide you to your utopia.”

--Thomas Kim

Mythmaking in L.A.: Wear Clothes, Don't Speak

WHAT DOES it take to be a working model in Los Angeles?

There are currently hundreds of girls living in LA believing the false hopes and empty promises of the modeling industry. About four years ago, I too fell into the trap of believing I could become the next ‘supermodel.’ But it only took a taste of mega-dysfunctional hypnosis that eventually led to a rude awakening.

One day while shopping at a local mall, a man came up to me and asked if I had ever considered a career in modeling. “Not really” I said as my cheeks turned red. “Here’s my card, give me a call so we can talk about your future.”

I was a junior in high school, and a varsity swimmer and basketball player, but a model? I bought into the lure of superstardoom and quit sports because I was told they make me “bulk up” and learned how to starve in the name of potential. At my first “test shoot” in New York, a photographer laid on the floor aiming the camera upwards, a trick used to make my body appear longer and leaner as he told me to “look sexy” and “seduce the camera.”

A few months later I am a “new face” with two modeling agencies in Los Angeles. Going to castings was miserable; I would drive for hours in traffic just to wait several more hours before being called into the room. There seems to be this myth about LA that models are these glamorous prototypes for beauty and fashion which every woman should aspire to become. However, in reality the working models I waited with at casting calls were a far cry from what anyone should aspire to look like; cheek bones protruding from their face, eyes sunk so deeply into their skull it’s impossible to tell their color, knees are the widest part of their legs, and their concave stomachs make you hungry at the sight.

When it was my turn to meet the client, they would take my comp card instead of asking my name; then holding a camera, ask me to face forward, click, turn to the side, click, turn to the other side, click, then they would take my measurements and ask me to leave. Two minutes was all it took for them to determine my fate and the fate of every girl who walked in that room.

As a working model, I was always imperfect to the modeling industry. “Just another five pounds” they would say, but when five pounds were shed, “just five more” was all I would hear. After four months of wasting my first year of college trying to become a professional hanger, I finally broke through the shiny plastic cover of that dark, cruel world of self-hatred and mutilation—I quit, escaped, ran away and only look back in sympathy for those hundreds of girls still blinded by the stars in their eyes.

-- Lauren McHale

(photo credit: Seth Sebal)