Downtown Re-mapped

IN YOUR READING for tonight, Norman Klein writes about how downtown L.A. in particular is often used metaphorically in films. I was able to find the opening sequence of this film, Criss Cross (1948) on YouTube, which opens with a really shaky helicopter shot over L.A. which looks like a quaint little village compared to what you see in the Michael Mann clip from Heat.


And this? This is downtown nightlife before the art walk, etc. Looks fun.



-- L.G.

L.A. City of Light, Michael Mann-Style

IN YOUR READING for this week, urban theorist Norman Klein talks about how the point-of-view (and thus reading) of Los Angeles from above -- particularly at night -- has changed over the decades.
Here is the clip from director, Micahel Mann's Heat where Robert DeNiro stands musing over the striking city grid. His monologue comes in around 10:02.

Myrna Loy Returns to Venice High

FEW STARS MOVED as easily from silents to talkies, as Myrna Loy. Most famous for her Nora Charles role in the Thin Man movies with William Powell, Loy grew up in Los Angeles and (according to the L.A. Observed site) attended the Westlake School for Girls when it was indeed situated in the old Westlake neighborhood on Alvarado across from what is now MacArthur Park.

For decades a statue of Loy, titled "Inspiration," graced the front of Venice High School (protected by a fence). Over the weekend, the statue was rededicated on the school's front lawn. The statue figured prominently as plot point in Bret Lott's 2008 novel, Ancient Highway, a fictionalized account of his family's trek to Los Angeles.

Here's my L.A. Times story about the book, a haunting family story where Los Angeles figures as one of the main characters. I spent the day walking around with Lott in his old neighborhood in Echo Park; it was a profile of place as much as it was about the author himself.

-- L.G.

Sense Memory: The Mid-morning Snap

THERE'S A QUALITY of morning light in Southern California where you can almost feel the increasing intensity of brightness in the mornings. It is the sibling of that late afternoon time known by photographers and filmmakers as The Magic Hour, the hang time between sunset and dusk where the quality of light is both bright and indirect, often orange and blue bleeding its last ember of watercolor brightness into evening. But it's morning sister is more ephemeral, fluid, a flash-paper of heat and light that lasts only long enough to evaporate the dew and charge the cool morning air. It's the first tickle of a warm day getting itself up to speed. This is the Mid-Morning Snap.

Two blasts of a horn, two or three metallic reeds bleating out of tin cones atop the van, and the Helms Bakery Truck compliments The Mid-Morning Snap of my childhood. Twice a week the pale yellow box-on-wheels with blue trim would park itself on the corner of our block delivering fresh breads, donuts, and custom cakes to the housebound homemakers of Southern California. Drifting down the path from our apartment building to the curbside wagon, the honeysuckle air of The Mid-Morning Snap would mingle with a scent I would forever only call crust. The Helms Bakery Truck smelled like warm, brown, hearthy crust.Standing near the open doors, I would wait for driver to open the wooden drawers that held within them the various baked goods so fresh from the Culver City bakery that they were still warm. Inhaling these smells was how I learned to distinguish a good donut from a bad without having to taste it. A steamy aroma of fresh oils that was anything but heavy, it was the promise of lightness and cakiness and spongey yeastiness, an education is baked goods that bypassed the tongue because my mother would rarely by anything but the most basic loaf of bread.

The truck itself was the one vehicle most like the toy trucks I played with. Its utilitarian design stood out from the clean lines of American cars and the curves of Volkswagen beetles that surrounded it. Later in life I'd have pangs of Helms truck memories whenever I saw seaside fish-n-chip trucks in British films, another boxy vehicle that promised nourishment from the faint whiff of cooking oil in the air. As housewives began to buy into the corporate supermarket ideal, the trucks disappeared and with them the promise of something good in the air. Without warning or notice,The Mid-Morning Snap became nothing more than a transition, easily missed once we were in school and caught up in learning to write cursive. It was a sensation that disappeared with the last Helms delivery trucks in the late 1960s.
-- David Elzey

photo credit, top, helms bakery district
middle: curbside delivery, tlc, picasa
photo credit, bottom, reseda bear, flickr, creative commons

More Dreams from Bunker Hill

THIS WEEK, the corner of 5th Street & Grand Avenue moved up in the world.
The City of Los Angeles is formally naming the intersection after the author of Ask the Dust and Dreams from Bunker Hill. It's a symbolic choice of course, as 5th and Grand sit at the foot of the old neighborhood, Bunker Hill we've been talking about and looking at in class. It was where he once lived -- and suffered. It was also a quick walk to the Central Library, a place that the author haunted. Years later, a young poet happened upon his books in the stacks, and they in turn inspired him to become a writer. Charles Bukowski would champion Fante for the rest of his life.

For those interested in a long-look back there will be a bus tour, John Fante's Dream's From Bunker Hill, on April 17 sponsored and hosted by the Los Angeles Visionary Association. Check here for details.
-- L.G.
(photo: Fante's Bunker Hill duplex, credit: fishbowl, l.a.)

Sight Seeing in Our City

EVEN THOUGH I grew up in Los Angeles, I often feel like I have done less in my city than those visiting or those who have relocated here.

This weekend I decided to do something I have heard so many people talk about, but have never done myself. I took my little sisters -- who have grown up in Los Angeles, but also have never been -- on a hike up at the Griffith Observatory.

Because it was a beautiful Saturday morning, the 101 Freeway to the 5 Freeway -- which I had no idea would take me to Los Feliz Blvd. and to the observatory and the L.A. Zoo -- was a zoo itself. It took us 45-minutes to get from Studio City, the south end of the San Fernando Valley, to Los Feliz only a few miles away.

We then got lost for awhile on Los Feliz Blvd. in a neighborhood full of amazing historical houses before, like tourists in our own city, we began to follow the signs up past the Greek Amphitheater, the golf course, and finally to the Observatory itself. Parking was hectic and the trails were packed, with what seemed mostly with tourists (real tourists), but once we got to the top of the trail we saw sights of our city that we had never known existed. All of a sudden we became tourists ourselves while observing the 360-degree view of the city we have been born in and never left. could not determine downtown from Century City or Santa Monica or Burbank. As we were standing there turning in circles and trying to figure out which direction the beach was a man came up to us and asked us what we were looking for. We explained to him we were trying to figure out which way the beach was and within five quick minutes he mapped out the whole city for us from the foothills of Pasadena to the tip of the peninsula. Assuming he was a native Angeleno I asked him what part of Los Angeles he was from. His response: “I’m just here visiting for the weekend from Wisconsin.”

Only in Los Angeles would a tourist from the Midwest know the city better than a native. With that experience in hand my sisters and I decided were going to make it a point once a month to explore and knew part of our city and get to know it a little better.

-- Danielle Rosenthal
(photo credit: danielle rosenthal)

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)

"I'd Like Hidden L.A. to Stay That Way"

THIS IS A no joke (or semi-no-joke) to the Hidden L.A. site/page on Facebook (& webpage). It's done with great spiky humor. Even Lynn Garrett commented on her page today:

Hidden Los Angeles has a new favorite FB page (after ours of course). We are sorry for having to ban this gentleman off our page for being "unhelpful" during our first giant surge in traffic... but we *adore* his response. If we knew how to un-ban people we would... so anyone who knows him, please let him know that he's made us laugh out loud and has been un-banned in our hearts. Tell him to write us at contact@hiddenLA.com... we'd like to give him something for his pain and suffering. ;)

Lovely.
-- L.G.

photo from "i'd like hidden l.a. to stay that way."
photo caption: "this is pretty much what every main thoroughfare in the city looks like."

Old Los Angeles TV Special

A QUICK NOTE for anyone interested in seeing the Los Angeles of the past: KCET has a re-occurring documentary special narrated by veteran broadcaster (now deceased) Ralph Story, called "Things That Aren't Here Anymore"- Los Angeles edition. There is also a second part which is fittingly titled, "More Things That Aren't Here Anymore". I haven't seen either yet, but my Grandparents were overly enthusiastic about how it made them feel and wouldn't stop ranting about the memories that it inspired of times past. The T.V. schedule can be found on KCET's website. I couldn't find the DVD anywhere but the networks website (even on Amazon), where it is quite expensive, but here is a description of the film:

"Los Angeles’ golden past: couples crowding the dance floor at the Cocoanut Grove…the sounds of Jazz and Rhythm and Blues filling the nights on Central Avenue…a romantic glice aboard an Angel’s Flight. In those early years, you could wake up to the mouth-watering aroma of fresh baked bread delivered by the Helms Bakeries…have countless thrills at Pacific Ocean Park and bask in the glories of Hollywood at Schwab’s. From the 1920s to the 60s, these well-loved icons helped define the colorful character of Los Angeles. Although many of these relics of the past are no longer with us, they’re certainly not forgotten. "Things That Aren’t Here Anymore" brings it all back in this memorable video scrapbook filled with personal photographs, film clips, home movies and reminiscences gathered from the attics and collective memories of Angelenos who shared their personal experiences of the things they saw and the places they enjoyed. Veteran broadcaster Ralph Story is your guide on this remarkable journey!"

I'm working on appropriating the funds for the set and possibly bringing it to class?

-- Greg Boss

Blue, Blue Easter

EASTER SUNDAY GROWING up in my family always meant the same thing- egg hunts and fresh Southern California, welcome to the Spring time and 80 degrees, melted chocolate. Those were the two certainties of waking up knowing that we were going to spend that day trudging around the Grandparents outdated, hydrangea drenched backyard. Having grown older (and undoubtedly wiser?) I've come to realize that the routine of Richard and Lillian Boss on Easter Sunday goes somewhat as follows:

• Wake up, as every morning, at 6 am. Hiding the eggs today is priority number one, the earlier the better in order to avoid a long concentration of direct sun.
  
• Grandpa brews the coffee, while Grandma peruses the yard hiding plastic eggs that, if in human form, would be classified as dull or depressed due to a lack of vibrant color.
  
• The 7 baskets (one for each kid in the family) are placed on the 40 year old un-weathered patio furniture next to the backdoor. 5 dollars in each basket and job done. Breakfast time, 7 am.
  
• The family arrive always with a lack of promptness around noon (1pm)
• Needless to say, the eggs have been left in the sun for half a day, the chocolate is syrup in a foil wrapper. I wouldn't be surprised if they put raw eggs out in the morning, knowing that they would cook and become "hardboiled" by the time we arrived.

Living North of Los Angeles, by the San Gabriel Mountains, in an area that many consider to be an extension of the valley, the heat kicks in at the end of March and grows progressively stronger until mid September. For this reason, Easter in my mind is characterized by extraordinary blue skies, a re-emerging heat and melted chocolate. As a result, I felt lost spending the Easter of 2010 in the snow of Park City, Utah, having lobster and remote control car races on the hard wood floors of their overly sprawling, "we spend too much time indoors", mountain getaway.

-- Greg Boss