L.A. - an icon

The color white, can it be considered a color at all? After all, white is merely a configuration of shades stimulated by the perception of light in the human eye. Often times, the shade of “white” crosses the mind when thinking of the city of Los Angeles. Bright lights, platinum blonde babes, and hazy skies- all things notoriously found in the alluring region of southern California. Needless to say the shade engulfs the city and manipulates the masses in the idea that “white is the new black”.

Roaming the streets of the stars, this iconic theme presents itself in a different type of instance. Hollywood. A distinctive type of social atmosphere and a signature thread holding together the unique quilt of Los Angeles. Walking down the strip, you can see the desperation in people’s faces. The eagerness to fit in, and the desire to be included; a blank and white gaze overcomes their appearance. At times, walking down the strip is like walking through a morgue- except these dead bodies are wandering around, aimlessly looking for a place to go where they will feel alive, only momentarily. Blankness, another feature of Los Angeles is a commonality when thinking of the iconic city.

The concept of living in a bubble also reiterates the appeal to LA. However, this bubble we all think surrounds us and protects us, is actually in fact a thick layer of smog encircling the area we call home. This white smoke that makes us sick and causes our world destruction is our oasis. Many of us have become immune to the constant allergies; however, the moment we step out of our “bubble” and into clear skies and clean air, we immediately wonder for a brief second why we continue to go back to the polluted place we cannot live without.

Why, if the bright lights and white skies are so bad for us, is LA so intriguing and desired to settle down in? Are we all that addicted to the idea of Los Angeles, or are we all living here to find something that has been idealized and force fed to us through the concept of “white being the new black”? It’s a funny concept to ponder because Los Angeles is like a drug, it has an appeal, a high, and a come down. It’s an addiction many of us try to fight, however, can never get passed the relapse. White. It’s all around us, and it makes our world go round. The shade perceived by our human eyes represents much more than a reflection of color, but also a way of living and a way of distinguishing real from imaginary. Except in this case our eyes are jaded, probably because we have been staring into the light for way too long.

-Chelsea Vogt

(Photo by ohsweetsunday.blogspot.com)

Arteries of Memory: The Streets of Los Angeles

IT'S a given: Certain thoroughfares in Los Angeles are so famous that it is nearly impossible to think about them without conjuring some larger-than-life, cinema-screen-size association.

That's what happens when your city is a movie set.

Mulholland Drive is known for its edge-of-the cliff beauty, its startling gemstone-lights views, but also for its snaky treacherousness if traversed with a potent combination of high speed and willful carelessness.

Nowadays, Sunset Boulevard feels less like a destination and more like an aging myth we still revisit and retell because we've become so accustomed to that ritual. Immortalized in movies and still the marquee draw on the double-decker tourist bus routes, the 24-mile stretch hasn't lost its power; it still beckons, luring the hopeful -- many of them teenage drifters who arrive in vast numbers via Greyhound or risky hitched rides.

You don't need a GPS to find some of the more well-traveled, high-profile roadways. Most everyone can point you to Hollywood Boulevard and its faux glitter Walk of Fame. Pacific Coast Highway, which stretches out, luxuriously along the gentle curve of coastline, offers its own set too-good- to-be-true promises. Looming just above that east/west thoroughfare, you'd find Laurel Canyon Boulevard, a winding rustic road, it's higher reaches associated with a certain era of barefoot and fringed Southern California musician. Much further east and angling south, Central Avenue powers along the city's working-class spine. In a long-ago incarnation -- before its reputation was scared by insurance red lining, poverty and violence, a short stretch of it played host to the West Coast's golden age of premiere jazz sounds.

Because we Angelenos spend so much time in our cars, traversing roads that carry us from one edge of the city to the other, the streets we travel most over time begin to gather complex, personal meaning. They recall a certain moment in our lives, a particular escape route or perhaps signify a road that was a route to a significant life transformation.

Even in our traffic-distracted state, we watch them change: they become narrowed or broadened or "beautified." They get closed-off and turned into gentrified "walk streets." They go from being secret shortcuts to being outed by Caltrans' fluorescent-orange flags and detour signs as viable alternate routes for any and all to plunder.

No matter. Somehow, they always seem to remain "ours."

Over the next few weeks, under the "Arteries of Memory" banner, a few guest bloggers will be reminiscing about city streets -- some famous, some infamous and some hidden slivers of afterthought -- and the side-roads of memories that they travel to when they find themselves passing over them.

You too might have an L.A. street that speaks to you, that transports you to a destination that isn't just a physical place, but a series of memories, a thoroughfare that evokes , stories, sounds, textures. Maybe you'd like to join the mix too. (It would be your extra credit "close-up.")

(please pitch via email, thanks.)

-- L.G.



(top photo: hollywood hills downward, by clinton steed via flickr creative commons
bottom: hollywood walk of fame via http://www.wildnatureimages.com/images%202/060309-015..jpg)

Amoeba Music

NOT just a playground for hipsters and musicians, also a fantastic rainy day activity.

SO what do you do on a rainy LA day? That’s right… the movies. But if you’re headed to Hollywood, the famed Arclight cinemas are right next to Amoeba music, a great place to explore, kill some time, and stay dry!

What started in Berkley as an independent haven for music lovers amid corporate giants such as Tower and Virgin is now a landmark in Hollywood as well. They’ve outlived the majority of their corporate competition, have incredible customer service and offer everything from CDs, DVDs, vinyl records, and cassette tape to posters and books. I thought record stores were a thing of the past, but after nearly an hour I could barely tear myself away! For $9.28 I walked back into the torrential rain with four new CDs, random selections from different sections of their clearance racks. If that’s not an economical and horizon-expanding way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles, I don’t know what is. They have bands play in the store regularly and the walls are covered in signed memorabilia.

To top it off, the expansive collection of DVDs rivals Blockbuster, and although you can’t rent these movies, the majority of their collection cost as much as a new release weekend rental. And when you’re through with it, bring it back – Amoeba will buy used CDs an DVDs any time.

--Sarah Kruberg

Photo Credit: Sarah Kruberg

The Profile: Roger Ebert

THIS, of course, is not quite about L.A. but it is about the "factory" that makes its home here: Hollywood and movies. Last week, we talked a bit about the arc of the profile and I shared some samples of stories with the class. Below, you'll see another link as well -- "ways in" to a story, but I wanted to post Chris Jones' Esquire profile about film critic Roger Ebert's battle with cancer here and, today, Ebert's own response in the Chicago Sun-Times, his hometown paper. Below, a sample that speaks to what we discussed about observation and a writer's choices (note the comment about the "commissioned portrait"):

It was also well written, I thought. "When I turned to it in the magazine, I got a jolt from the full-page photograph of my jaw drooping. Not a lovely sight. But then I am not a lovely sight, and in a moment I thought, well, what the hell. It's just as well it's out there. That's how I look, after all. . . . . My theory was that if Chris had an article to write it was not my place to write it for him as a favorable press release about myself. Let him write what he observed. Oliver Cromwell is said to have commissioned an official painting of himself, "warts and all." He apparently never said any such thing, was misquoted a century after his death, and his official portrait showed no warts, but never mind: He should have said it."

-- L.G.
photo caption: Film crtic, Roger Ebert
photo credit: Esquire magazine