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Unearthed Bottles and Bartered Babies at LAVA's Sunday Salon
On July 25, LAVA put out a call for culturally curious Angelenos to gather in the upstairs dining room of Downtown's historic Clifton's Cafeteria for our fifth monthly Sunday Salon.
After scattered conversation and dining, an eager group gathered 'round Visionary Miguel Angel Corzo as he shared his experiences adapting the 1888 Brunswig building opposite Olvera Street into a modern, seismically-sound cultural institution, the soon-to-open LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes--quite an accomplishment considering nobody knew until work began on the project that the five-story brick building had no foundations! A highlight of his talk came when Miguel Angel displayed a few recently excavated beer, wine and perfume bottles discovered during construction, which are believed to date from circa 1840-50.
Next up, Visionary Joan Renner spoke on the dark and nefarious history of L.A.'s old Chinatown (where Union Station stands today). From opium dens to fallen women, bartered babies to subterranean tunnels of vice, Chinatown embodied the weirdest fantasies of early 20th century Angelenoes, and Joan's illustrated talk was both fascinating and horrifying. And then Visionary Mike the Poet closed the proceedings with a rousing rhyme celebrating the common language shared by all LA people: East Side rock and roll.
For video of the archeological discoveries, click here. And for photos of the Salon and subsequent walking tour of Olvera Street (hosted by Richard Schave) and preview walkthrough of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, click here. A short video excerpt from Richard's walking tour, about Christine Sterling's complex motivations for preserving Olvera Street, is here.
The Sunday Salon is always held on the last Sunday of the month, from noon to 2pm upstairs in Clifton's Cafeteria at 7th & Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles. Put it in your calendar, and we hope you'll join us on August 29, for surprises soon to be announced.
Pleats and Players at LAVA's Sunday Salon
On June 27, LAVA put out a call for culturally curious Angelenos to gather in the upstairs dining room of Downtown's historic Clifton's Cafeteria for our fourth monthly Sunday Salon.
After scattered conversation and dining, an eager group gathered 'round Visionary A. Laura Brody as she unveiled a selection of repurposed movie industry fabric scraps and, wielding a wicked set of shears and a blazing fast stapler, commenced to craft a custom fashion creation on the graceful back of celebrity elder-blogger Barbara "Cutie" Cooper of The OGs, after which she dressed Cutie's granddaughter Chinta in an equally original item, all while spouting witty bursts of recycling philosophy sprinkled with a lesson in historic clothing design. Next, Visionary Manny Pacheco delighted the crowd with an entertaining discussion of his new book, Forgotten Hollywood, Forgotten History, an alternate chronicle of the social changes of the 20th Century told through the lives and struggles of beloved character actors. Part two of Manny's talk addressed his adventures in self-publishing, which he can certainly claim to be expert in, since his recently-published book has already turned a profit and will soon be joined by a sequel. Among the Visionaries spotted at Manny's table after his talk was GHOULA founder Richard Carradine, whose grandfather John is a featured player in the book. As the Salon broke up at 2pm, many LAVA guests were seen eagerly clutching Manny's hand-out explaining best practices for effective self-publishing.
Before and after the presentations, conversations around the room ranged widely, as Visionaries and honored guests connected over mac 'n' cheese, lemon meringue and shared passions. Numbers were exchanged, ideas floated, and laughs laughed in this extraordinary monthly gathering of interesting folks who care about the city, the arts and one another.
The Sunday Salon is always held on the last Sunday of the month, from noon to 2pm upstairs in Clifton's Cafeteria at 7th & Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles. Put it in your calendar, and we hope you'll join us on July 25, for surprises soon to be announced.
And if you missed this one, here are some photos to whet your whistle, and a video of Cutie's lightning-fast fitting.
Bob Baker A living Treasure
One of L.A.'s amazing living treasures is Bob Baker, who discovered his purpose in life that the age of 7 (he is now 86) by entertaining kids young and old through the art and magic of marionettes. It was not until I was in my 40's that I saw any of his shows that he presents at his little theater near the border of downtown and Echo Park. (actually I may have when I was younger but my memory may be fading) Now only does he produce these amazing shows but makes all the puppets himself.
His group will be giving a free performance at the Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena tomorrow at 7PM and will probably give a performance at the Levitt Pavilion in MacArthur Park as well (but I don't have that date yet).
So please come and see the amazing marionettes!!!
Peeping into Pandora's Box at LAVA's Sunday Salon
On May 30, LAVA put out a call for culturally curious Angelenos to gather in the upstairs dining room of Downtown's historic Clifton's Cafeteria for our third monthly Sunday Salon.
After scattered conversation and dining (the daily specials were pot pie and prailine-topped sweet potato pie), an enthusiastic and lively group gathered 'round featured Visionary Joan Renner as she shared highlights from her seldom-seen collection of vintage cosmetics packages and spoke about the history and social context of cosmetics through the centuries. From intentionally toxic Italian powders meant to "accidentally" poison unwanted husbands to the startling adaption of the Art Deco style to mass-produced make-ups in the middle 1920s, her talk captivated LAVA attendees, who craned their necks to view the lovely preserved treasures in their glass cases and binders.
Before and after the presentation, conversations around the room ranged from ghost hunting to UFO cults, lost Jackson 5 recordings to BookExpo, philosophy to urban preservation, new soundtracks for silent films to peculiar musical scores, neo-vaudeville to customized wheelchairs as art -- and beyond. Friendships were formed, collaborations proposed, and all kinds of hungers slaked in this extraordinary monthly gathering of interesting folks who care about the city, the arts and one another.
The Sunday Salon is always held on the last Sunday of the month, from noon to 2pm upstairs in Clifton's Cafeteria at 7th & Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles. Put it in your calendar, and we hope you'll join us on June 27, for surprises soon to be announced.
And if you missed this one, here are some photos to whet your whistle.
Scrolls unroll at LAVA's first Sunday Salon
On March 28, LAVA put out a call for culturally curious Angelenos to gather in the upstairs dining room of Downtown's historic Clifton's Cafeteria for our first monthly Sunday Salon.
We hoped a couple dozen people might take us up on the offer, but the LAVA party filled half the huge room easily, and the volume of enthusiastic conversation and pie fork rattling presented a challenge when Arts District curator and LAVA Visionary Terry Ellsworth got up, without amplification, to bring the afternoon's proceedings to order.
An impromptu catwalk of dining tables had been constructed in the middle of the room for the auspicious first exhibition anywhere of LAVA Visionary Gene Sculatti's unfurled cityscape scroll drawings. Following Terry's short introduction which placed Gene's work in its context as something done from the heart and for no other audience than himself, Gene stepped forward to unroll an early cityscape, a primitive imaginary California city drawn when he was about 15/16 years old (circa 1962-63). This charming juvenile work impressed the audience, and they enjoyed peering close as Gene pointed out family in-jokes and favorite buildings and human characters (an element which disappeared from later scrolls).
But when he unrolled his current cityscape, three years in the works, the mature Gene Sculatti style blew everyone away--among them several close friends of many years standing who had no idea that he'd been nurturing a secret life as an outsider artist. Folks leaned in close over the dense and cohesive city, exclaiming over the exquisite color sense, compelling rhythms and seemingly endless surprise details running along the length of the table. After about half an hour, as Gene rolled up his scrolls and returned them to his shoulder bag, there were small sounds of disappointment and a strong sense that something truly extraordinary had been shared.
The party broke up around 2pm, with a number of attendees heading west on Seventh Street to take LAVA founder Richard Schave's "The Flâneur & The City: Historic Core" walking tour. The Sunday Salon was a wonderful first gathering for the larger LAVA community, and we look forward to future Sunday Salons, when we'll shine the spotlight on more members of the Visionary community and encourage anyone who'd like to be a part of this new cultural consortium to join us for hearty comfort food, good company and unexpected discoveries like Gene Sculatti's cityscapes.
The Sunday Salon is always held on the last Sunday of the month, from noon to 2pm upstairs in Clifton's Cafeteria at 7th & Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles. Put it in your calendar, and we hope you'll join us on April 25, for surprises soon to be announced.
And if you missed this one, here are some photos to whet your whistle.
A Star is Born Memory Map
The fabulous Robbie Cress over at the Dear Old Hollywood blog revisits the actual locations featured in the Judy Garland version of "A Star is Born. "
What a treat to look upon '50s era Los Angeles with new eyes, treating the background landscape as the main attraction.
Did you know that the Jack in the Box at Cahuenga and Sunset was once a big deal drive-in with car hops and everything, called Roberts Drive-In? It's where Norman Maine finally tracks down Esther Blodgett.
Kinda weird and cool that the drive-in was replaced by a drive-tru, but sad that Jack in the Box was too inflexible to reference its predecessor in design or ornamentation.
Hitting L.A.'s Psychic Hot Spots
In 1939, Semyon Kirlian discovered that it was possible to create photographic images demonstrating the "life force" which is manifested as an individual's aura. Other Russian scientists have proposed that the earth's surface is covered with a series of interconnected nodes much as acupuncturists view the human body as a network of energy centers.
On Saturday, March 20, my fellow Visionary Maja D'Aoust, "White Witch of Los Angeles," led Esotouric's "Maja's Mysteries: Rapture & Release" bus tour. Over a period of four hours, we visited a number of locations which I would describe as "psychic hot spots." So, what is a psychic hot spot? This has to be my definition because, to my knowledge, no one else has used this nomenclature. Let me describe some of my personal hot spots. When I get off the subway at Lenox and 135th Street in Harlem, I feel an incredible surge of energy rise from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. At the Capitoline Museum in Rome, I have discovered an 1800-year-old marble bust that could be my portrait. On my only trip to the souk in Fez, Morocco, it all looked familiar. I knew that I had been there before. After discussing these experiences with Maja, she concurred with my perceptions.
Following Maja to a number of locations, mostly around Hollywood, I knew that I was moving in and out of psychic energy fields. On the surface, each one appeared to be a conventional Los Angeles location; however, I knew that there was something special to be explored at each location. Here is a recap of the highlights from my point of view.
Vedanta Society (1946 Vedanta Place, Hollywood, 90068)
Perched above the Hollywood Freeway, one is transported into the world of a sanctified Eastern religion with the peace and quiet that it embodies. "Vedanta teaches that man's real nature is divine, that the true object of human life is to unfold and manifest this divinity, and that truth is universal." Here one finds a temple, a convent, a monastery and an outstanding bookstore devoted to Eastern religions.
The Aetherius Society (6202 Afton Place, Los Angeles, 90028)
"The Cosmic Teachings of The Aetherius Society were given by Masters from Beyond this Earth, operating mainly within our own Solar System and speaking through yoga Master Dr. George King." We saw a video projection of Dr. King taking us on a terrestrial journey. Unfortunately, I slept through most of it. This recalled a similar somnambulist experience when I was in a graduate school art history seminar. When the lights came on, my professor pounded the table yelling "Mr. Schoener we don't sleep in my classes." I should have apologized to our hosts, but was too embarrassed.
The finale was a visit to the Parsonage of Aimee Semple McPherson's Foursquare Angelus Temple (1801 Park Avenue, Los Angeles, 90026). Our guide, Jackie Muller, never actually met Sister Aimee, but she provided a knowledgeable and impassioned tour of her private quarters. Hundreds of thousands of people in thirty countries became disciples of Sister Aimee's Four Square Gospel evangelism. The first years of her ministry were spent in tents, tabernacles and auditoriums. Sister McPherson felt led by God to build a permanent headquarters in Los Angeles. The Angelus Temple, adjacent to the parsonage, opened on January 1, 1923. Together, they serve as monuments to the memory of this extraordinary person.
Is Los Angeles special because of its psychic hot spots? I would definitely say so.
Illustration: Sister Aimee's personal bathroom in the parsonage, photo: Kim Cooper
Inside Dope on My Outsider Scrolls
WHAT: Visionary Gene Sculatti exhibits his scrolls at the LAVA Sunday Salon, March 28, 1pm at Clifton's Cafeteria. More info.
I've never engaged in this kind of thing before: publicly promoting these scrolls or "cityscapes" as Kim calls them. But here's the deal: On and off since I was 9 or so (I'm now 63), I have done pen-and-crayon (with some watercolor) drawings of imaginary cities, mostly informed by the way L.A., S.F. and California appear to a largely untrained illustrator.
They're full of streets and buildings, people, freeways and beaches, power plants and broad, palm-lined arterials. They're mostly drawn on white shelf-lining paper, and the longest one (1960-62) is 60 yards long. Because they were drawn over many years, they in effect comprise a rough chronological snapshot of what (mostly) Cali has looked like to me: sprawling suburban tracts announced by "Vets No Down!" billboards (60s), the mansard-roofs of fast-food franchises (70s), theater and concert venues whose marquees hype long gone films and idealized pop-music bills.
Somehow, though, it is, like the weekly radio show I do, all sort of contemporaneous, the accretion of architecture, signage and sensibility all meant to bear the time signature of the eternal Now, which, I suppose, is a key part of the California Dream that informed my growing up and lifelong residence here. I started the latest cityscape, "Majestic Blvd.," in February 2006 when I lost my last real job. It's just under 60 feet now and growing. I will also bring and show one scroll of earlier vintage.
Quentin Tarantino, Benefactor
Quentin Tarantino has been called many things in Los Angeles. But the moniker "home town hero" may fit best. On February, 19, 2010, the Hollywood Reporter shared the news that Tarantino had provided financial aid to the New Beverly revival theater, and L.A. landmark, when it was in danger of closing. New Beverly's owners had a right of first refusal/negotiation option to buy the building themselves but had difficulty raising the cash. When its landlord announced that it had found a willing buyer for the building, Tarantino, who had been semi-quietly paying the theater's $5,000 rent since 2007, stepped in and purchased the building outright.
Like many native Angelenos, Tarantino had spent formative years at the New Beverly, absorbing classics and hard to find flicks. It's nice to know that those trips to the New Beverly instilled an appreciation for old theaters. Perhaps he's saved the L.A. theater in recompense for blowing one up in "Inglourious Basterds."
Civic History as Loop
To borrow a phrase from Michael Jackson, L.A. tends to always “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin.’” Not as in fights & feuds, but as in flashpoints & geneses. Was reminded of this with all the Olympics coverage of snow-boarding, a sport clearly spun from So-Cal skateboarding, itself an adaptation of California-popularized surfing—each one an under-the-radar activity that later wowed the world. This week I also watched the just-out DVD of The T.A.M.I Show, the 1964 Santa Monica Civic concert (Chuck Berry, Rolling Stones, James Brown, Supremes, etc.), whose frontispiece has Jan & Dean skateboarding from Hollywood to the Civic. Stop-frame and squint and you’ve got vanished history at hand. Last night it was The Real Beach Boy, a sad and touching BBC documentary on Dennis Wilson. In Hawthorne, bandmate David Marks walks the camera past a plaque commemorating the group (another auspicious startup), then gestures to the two-story berm and onramp behind it: “This wall of dirt here was where the Wilsons’ house was… and mine was right over there, where that dirt is.” Now I’m wondering if the dozen under-construction, city-block-size apartment complexes changing the face of H’wood and the Wilshire Corridor will turn into the tenements of 2040, warrens for poor, newly arrived Angelenos, thence to be ’dozed and carted off in time for another cycle to start. If you love the town, catch it while you can.
Gene Sculatti’s occasional column about Cali-bashing, ‘They Hate L.A.,’ appears at www.sofein.com .
