Awesome! I Shot That!, Part 2

I guess there are no other photographs of Dutton's available on the web because after being published on Curbed LA, my pictures of Dutton's now appear on LAist.

Write Here, Write Now

I got my hair cut today. It's nice. My stylist is a really cool guy and he does a great job, not to mention that he only charges me $20. Despite being a stylist, he's straight. My gaydar says so, and he's engaged to be married next month and has a daughter, but I suppose these things in themselves are not proof that he is, indeed, heterosexual. He did give me a hug today after my appointment, albeit a man hug--a hand shake followed by an embrace with the left arm and two taps on the back. I tend to be faithful to my stylists but I've never been hugged by one before. This was a first, and I like it! I'm all for the personal touch.



After work yesterday I headed off to Dutton's in Brentwood for James Morrison's reading of his new book, The Lost Girl. Prof. Morrison was my writing instructor in graduate school, and he's a wonderful teacher, so I was more than happy to come support him and his new book.

I would love to be a working writer, but to be one I need to write. Since graduating last year, I have been a terribly undisciplined. I've started a couple of stories but have yet to finish one. I also have yet to send out some of my better pieces to be published. Laziness is partly to blame, but fear is also a factor. I suppose by not trying I can say that I'm not a writer yet because I simply haven't made an effort. But should I try and still not succeed it would be a heartbreaking disappointment. It's possible I could succeed, but the fear of failure is overriding that possibility in my psyche. I need to just bite the bullet and make a go at it. No excuses!

Being at the reading last night reminded me how much I'm letting myself down. I really could do better, and I need to learn that failing isn't so bad. It's how you respond to failure that distinguishes a man. Then again, I've said and thought all this before and see where I am. I know what needs to be done but I just need the courage to do so.

As Mariah Carey once said: make it happen.

Pick up Prof. Morrison's new book. I hear it's quite good.

Your New Favorite Waster of Time

I think I'm going to spend the next week or so digging through the UCLA Library's browsable website of 5,700 images from the three million Los Angeles Daily News and L.A. Times news photographs it owns. I love seeing how the city and the region looked years ago. It's a reminder of how--for better or worse--the area keeps evolving and shifting to meet the demands of its residents.

One of my favorite images is this one of an old Victorian house called "the Castle" that used to sit atop Bunker Hill juxtaposed against the rising behemoth of a skyscraper.



This picture defines much of what goes on in L.A. The old must give way to the young. It's still true today.

It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I discovered that the downtown I knew, the downtown I used to work at, was a recent development. Little did I know that gorgeous Victorian homes once stood where my old office building was, in an area that used to be the Brentwood of its day prior to the arrival of movie stars. I've seen old pictures of Bunker Hill and it's just about unrecognizable. Modern downtown LA has its charm, but it would have been something wonderful had both the new high rises could have co-existed with the old Victorians. The house shown above was supposed to have been preserved and restored, along with another house from Bunker Hill--the Salt Box, at the newly founded Heritage Square Museum. Both houses were moved with great effort to a park site in Lincoln Heights. Unfortunately, vandals broke in to the museum and carelessly caused both houses to catch fire and burn to the ground. Heritage Square now houses eight other marvelous structures, but none of them are from Bunker Hill.

Here are some other pics I found depicting life in Covina the way I don't remember it:


There was cattle grazing in Covina as late as 1976? I didn't even realize the land was used for ranching. I thought it was all citrus and walnut groves in the area.


I remember this campaign stop. I didn't attend, but it was a huge deal. I was in the fifth grade at the time. It's hard to fathom that this was almost twenty years ago. Sheesh!

It looks like I won't be bored for a good while with 5,700 pictures to sift through. Thanks, UCLA!

* * * * *

Speaking of preserving local heritage, I attended a book signing tonight at Skylight Books for Chris Nichols's The Leisure Architecture of Wayne McAllister. It's quite an absorbing and beautifully presented book. As someone pointed out tonight, though built for practical, disposable gratification, McAllister's buildings were designed with a great deal of whimsy and personality, a far cry from the sterile, lifeless "leisure architecture" of today. McAllister is best known locally for Bob's Big Boy #6 on Riverside Drive in Burbank. He also designed the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.

Photos courtesy of the UCLA Library

Festival of Books

As promised I attended the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books today for the first time in many years. It's even bigger than I last remembered. The very first year it was mostly isolated in Dickson Plaza. With more exhibitors, though, the festival spread to more areas of the campus, including down at the bottom of Janss Steps.

I was only planning on being at the festival for half the day. I was going to walk around and if I managed to get into a panel I will stay a little longer. I wound up getting to the festival a little after 9am and stayed until 7:30pm when everything was being taken down.

I sat in on two panels today. The first one was a very entertaining discussion on Inland Empire Fiction moderated by Tod Goldberg. Gayle Brandeis, Michael Jaime-Becerra, and Susan Straight were the panelists. The panel was lighthearted, aided by the fact that all four appear to be good friends. There was a lot of banter but the panel maintained its focus. I'd question, however, the inclusion of El Monte as part of the Inland Empire. Not quite. The east San Gabriel Valley certainly has many of the qualities as the Inland Empire. For one thing, it's inland. However, most experts agree that the I.E. only goes as far west as Montclair.

After the panel I walked around for a bit. I got hungry and decided to visit my old lunch hangout as an undergrad: Panda Express inside Ackerman. Back in my day a Panda Bowl (or Bruin Bowl then) cost less than $4. Today it cost me just under $5.

There were still tickets available for the 2:30 discussion on Fiction: Taking on the World, so I decided to sit in on that one, too. It was a lot less fun than the IE discussion and decidedly more serious and earnest. The questions tended to be amorphous and enigmatic, with the words "politics," "identity," "Truth" being bandied about. Still, I found it interesting even though overly political statements tend to make me cringe. I doubt there were very many Bush fans in attendance, or if they were they probably walked out after Tony D'Souza called Bush the worst president ever. It's hard to argue with that statement, though. I got my copy of Whiteman autographed by D'Souza and I engaged him in a discussion on a murder case he was reporting on in Nicaragua involving an American who was convicted for murdering his ex-girlfriend even though he had a sufficient alibi. Quite a nice guy and clearly passionate about his writing and his beliefs. I wish I had a fraction of that intensity.

I killed an hour by reading and then lined up for a screening of Sarah Polley's Away From Her starring Julie Christie. Christie is quite good in the film, and it's a fine debut. The film suffers from being too sedate and meditative, though. Polley, being a young woman, also couldn't connect strongly enough with the plight of her older characters. She infused the characters with verve and life but the lived, shared life of these people just didn't translate. The film's pacing was too slow with Polley favoring too many dissolves as scene transitions. Polley displayed a lot of maturity in her first film, but perhaps it was just too mature.

For being out there all day my legs aren't too tired. I walked a lot. Being on campus also made me miss college badly. I looked at some of the students and wished I could be in their shoes except armed with the knowledge of life that I have now. Youth is certainly wasted on the young.

All in all, a good day. Tomorrow I'm driving back to Westwood for a second interview. That's a lot of driving in two days.

Saturday, Sunday...

Keep it under perspective...
Originally uploaded by CláudiaM.

So what is everyone doing this weekend? There's not a lot worth seeing in movie theatres, but thankfully there are a lot of things going on that ought to keep everyone busy. If none of them appeal to you, you can always just pick up a book and read.

The last weekend of April is recognized as the best weekend weather of the year in southern California. It rarely rains on that weekend and the weather tends to be pleasant. This weekend, though, is bucking that trend. It's going to be hot. However, the big events scheduled for the weekend are still on: Coachella should be raging at this moment and the Festival of Books will be starting up tomorrow and wrapping up on Sunday.

I'm planning on hitting the Festival of Books on Sunday. The panels I would want to check out are on Saturday, but I'm too busy tomorrow to trek over to Westwood. Even if I don't sit in on a panel on Sunday, it would be pleasant to walk around campus and take pictures. It has been a few years since I last went to the Festival of Books. I went the first five years and enjoyed it immensely. My schedule just never worked out these past few years. But Sunday I shall arise bright and early to beat the crowds and enjoy the scenery of UCLA...fight! fight! fight!

On Saturday I'm going to get up early and help out at the Rose Bowl for TNT practice as well as get in my own run. Later in the evening a friend is hosting a party at his house in the 909. Somewhere in there I need to do laundry.

This weekend is also a busy time for marathons. A contingent of lady friends--the Glamour Girls--are in Nashville this weekend to run the Country Music Marathon tomorrow. I was hoping I would be able to join them, but it didn't work out. FJ is in Big Sur to run a marathon there on Sunday. It's supposed to be a hilly course and unseasonably warm, but he's incredibly fit and ought to do well. Best of luck to them!

Vonnegut is Dead

Kurt Vonnegut died. He was 84.

A Case of the Wednesdays

The New York Times is conspiring to prevent me from moving to my neighborhood of choice. By the time I get everything in order to move I'm sure I won't be able to afford a place in Eagle Rock. Damn Yankees!

Maybe if I wait it out in West Covina a little longer it will become the hip place to live and I can claim to have lived there before it was cool.

Nah.

Minor Tidbits

-My knee is feeling a little better. I have to constantly remind myself to not run. But I miss it so. Everytime I see someone jogging I get sad. At least I'm not wishing they break their knee.

-The wrong couple was eliminated on "Dancing with the Stars." It should have been Billy Ray Cyrus and his partner.

-The world is made up of two types of people: Chris R. fans and Blake fans. I'm firmly in the former camp. I have a feeling that Blake fans are people who would kill puppies just to watch them die. They're also most likely to have never heard anything by 311 and are mistaking the cute Muppet's renditions of these songs as inventive. They are wrong on so many counts.

-Oprah chose Cormac McCarthy's The Road as the next Book Club selection. I'm guessing after the Jonathan Franzen fiasco that the Harpo folks cleared McCarthy's appearance first. The great thing about McCarthy is that he has more than proven his credentials so that accepting the selection won't be seen as whoring himself. The Road also received stellar reviews and sold well, so it's unlikely to be seen as an act of desperation.

-Pitchfork was a little harsh on Fountains of Wayne. It's not their best album and it's very disappointing, but I would argue with Pitchfork's assertion that Fountains of Wayne are horrible lyricists. Their lyrics miss their mark in Traffic and Weather, which is why I'm disappointed, but their lyrical ingenuity has been proven in their previous albums. Even if they aren't great lyricists as Pitchfork claims, the band more than makes up for it with undeniable melodies and hooks. Unfortunately those hooks are less sharp in their new album.

I think that just about covered all my various interests.