LAVA’s Blog

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George Mann’s Lost Bunker Hill exhibition and Jim Dawson book signing

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On Bunker Hill and the Los Angeles Visionaries Association are delighted to announce the debut Los Angeles gallery exhibition of the photographic work of the late George Mann (1905-1977).  Mann’s rediscovered color images of mid-century Los Angeles are astonishing, and a must see for anyone who loves the city and wants to know it better.

George Mann’s Lost Bunker Hill opens at Gary Leonard’s Take My Picture Gallery for the Downtown Art Walk on Thursday, July 12 (info), followed by a book signing for Jim Dawson’s Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction’s Mean Streets and Film Noir’s Ground Zero! (The History Press, 2012) on Saturday, July 14. George Mann’s photos  of Bunker Hill will be on view at the gallery during regular hours and by appointment, and framed prints are available for $100/each. Call 213-622-2256 for more info. 

July 14 event: Join writer Jim Dawson as he signs copies of his new book Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction’s Mean Streets and Film Noir’s Ground Zero! (The History Press, 2012). Also present during some or all of the evening and available to answer your questions will be George Mann’s daughter-in-law and keeper of his archive Dianne Woods, On Bunker Hill bloggers Richard Schave and Kim Cooper, and Bunker Hill native son Gordon Pattison. 

ABOUT BUNKER HILL AND GEORGE MANN

Bunker Hill is a ghost, and though you may today walk streets named Grand and Hope and imagine you stand where once were grand Victorian homes turned flophouses, you are in fact one hundred feet beneath the old roads, which the city shaved away to make a wider footprint for the high rise tenants that replaced them. Look up, ten stories up, and if you’re a dreamer you can almost see the big houses bobbing there between the towers, old men and women toddling out onto the porches and down the avenues, exchanging gossip, feeding the cats, collapsing under some junkie’s fists, boarding Sinai or Olivet for the ride down to Grand Central Market, pruning the roses, taking a nickel every time someone parks on their lawn, a taxi dancer and her mother hearing angels dictate a mystic book, pretty girl children rolling hoops, raucous longhaired boys sledding downhill and crashing into the side of Hazard’s Pavilion, John Fante dreaming of girls who won’t date him, carrier pigeons conveying messages from Avalon, phony mediums and real ones spewing ectoplasm in shadowy parlors, Kay Martin and Leo Politi painting the old houses just ahead of the wreckers, The Crockers and the Bradburys spinning in their ballrooms, landladies, bankers, writers and bums, all the possibilities of a great neighborhood as it is born, flourishes, fades and is demolished.

Enter George Mann.

Born in Santa Monica in 1905, by his early 20s he was a vaudeville star as the hilariously taller half of the comedy dance team Barto & Mann. Of their east coast debut, Zit’s Theatrical Newspaper raved “Ten minutes before they went on at the Palace last Monday afternoon nobody thought very much about Barto & Mann; ten minutes after they came off stage, the whole Broadway world was talking about them.” As Vaudeville faded, Barto & Mann joined the Broadway cast of Hellzapoppin’ with featured billing from 1938 through 1942. The team split up in December 1943.

In his post-performance life, George Mann turned his imagination to entrepreneurial enterprise and professional photography, which brought him to Bunker Hill. In the late 1950s, when the neighborhood’s days were known to be numbered, he arrived atop the peak with his camera to document some representative scenes, returning in November 1962 for additional shots. These long forgotten color images of old Bunker Hill were originally displayed in 3-D viewers of Mann’s own design, which were leased to various Los Angeles restaurants, bars and doctor’s offices. Mann would swap out the photo selection every two weeks, so if these evocative scenes of Bunker Hill weren’t available, one might peep at Calico Ghost Town, Catalina Island, Descanso Gardens, Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, Pacific Ocean Park, Watts Towers or Palm Springs. 

In his Bunker Hill set, created to distract anxious patients and hungry tourists, George Mann captured a seldom seen side of this lost Los Angeles neighborhood: the gracious avenues and genteel decay, the old people, their cats and their gardens, abandoned newspapers, vacant lots, the shadows and the sunlight. We are in his debt.

George Mann died in 1977. We trust you will enjoy these rediscovered images of Los Angeles’ most beguiling lost neighborhood from the George Mann Archives, maintained by Mann’s daughter-in-law, Dianne Woods.

 

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George Mann’s Lost Bunker Hill exhibition and history presentation

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On Bunker Hill and the Los Angeles Visionaries Association are delighted to announce the debut Los Angeles gallery exhibition of the photographic work of the late George Mann (1905-1977).  Mann’s rediscovered color images of mid-century Los Angeles are astonishing, and a must see for anyone who loves the city and wants to know it better.

George Mann’s Lost Bunker Hill opens at Gary Leonard’s Take My Picture Gallery for the Downtown Art Walk on Thursday, July 12, followed by a book signing for Jim Dawson’s Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction’s Mean Streets and Film Noir’s Ground Zero! (The History Press, 2012) on Saturday, July 14 (info). George Mann’s photos  of Bunker Hill will be on view at the gallery during regular hours and by appointment, and framed prints are available for $100/each. Call 213-622-2256 for more info. 

July 12 event: During the Downtown Art Walk (7-9pm), join On Bunker Hill bloggers Richard Schave and Nathan Marsak, and Bunker Hill native son Gordon Pattison, for an informal presentation and Q&A on the rise and fall of downtown’s most beguiling residential neighborhood, from the mansions of silver kings to the era of grand hotels, the rooming house years, the looming threat of redevelopment, the fight to save Angels Flight, the evictions (Bunker Hill is the largest eminent domain land grab in American history), the hill’s flattening, the slow process of redevelopment and how Bunker Hill still resonates in the imaginations of Angelenos almost fifty years later. On Bunker Hill blogger Kim Cooper will also be present to answer questions about George Mann’s 3-D photographic viewing machines and the rediscovery of his photographs. The presentation will begin at 7:30pm and again at 8:30pm. 

ABOUT BUNKER HILL AND GEORGE MANN

Bunker Hill is a ghost, and though you may today walk streets named Grand and Hope and imagine you stand where once were grand Victorian homes turned flophouses, you are in fact one hundred feet beneath the old roads, which the city shaved away to make a wider footprint for the high rise tenants that replaced them. Look up, ten stories up, and if you’re a dreamer you can almost see the big houses bobbing there between the towers, old men and women toddling out onto the porches and down the avenues, exchanging gossip, feeding the cats, collapsing under some junkie’s fists, boarding Sinai or Olivet for the ride down to Grand Central Market, pruning the roses, taking a nickel every time someone parks on their lawn, a taxi dancer and her mother hearing angels dictate a mystic book, pretty girl children rolling hoops, raucous longhaired boys sledding downhill and crashing into the side of Hazard’s Pavilion, John Fante dreaming of girls who won’t date him, carrier pigeons conveying messages from Avalon, phony mediums and real ones spewing ectoplasm in shadowy parlors, Kay Martin and Leo Politi painting the old houses just ahead of the wreckers, The Crockers and the Bradburys spinning in their ballrooms, landladies, bankers, writers and bums, all the possibilities of a great neighborhood as it is born, flourishes, fades and is demolished.

Enter George Mann.

Born in Santa Monica in 1905, by his early 20s he was a vaudeville star as the hilariously taller half of the comedy dance team Barto & Mann. Of their east coast debut, Zit’s Theatrical Newspaper raved “Ten minutes before they went on at the Palace last Monday afternoon nobody thought very much about Barto & Mann; ten minutes after they came off stage, the whole Broadway world was talking about them.” As Vaudeville faded, Barto & Mann joined the Broadway cast of Hellzapoppin’ with featured billing from 1938 through 1942. The team split up in December 1943.

In his post-performance life, George Mann turned his imagination to entrepreneurial enterprise and professional photography, which brought him to Bunker Hill. In the late 1950s, when the neighborhood’s days were known to be numbered, he arrived atop the peak with his camera to document some representative scenes, returning in November 1962 for additional shots. These long forgotten color images of old Bunker Hill were originally displayed in 3-D viewers of Mann’s own design, which were leased to various Los Angeles restaurants, bars and doctor’s offices. Mann would swap out the photo selection every two weeks, so if these evocative scenes of Bunker Hill weren’t available, one might peep at Calico Ghost Town, Catalina Island, Descanso Gardens, Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, Pacific Ocean Park, Watts Towers or Palm Springs. 

In his Bunker Hill set, created to distract anxious patients and hungry tourists, George Mann captured a seldom seen side of this lost Los Angeles neighborhood: the gracious avenues and genteel decay, the old people, their cats and their gardens, abandoned newspapers, vacant lots, the shadows and the sunlight. We are in his debt.

George Mann died in 1977. We trust you will enjoy these rediscovered images of Los Angeles’ most beguiling lost neighborhood from the George Mann Archives, maintained by Mann’s daughter-in-law, Dianne Woods.

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Scenes from LAVA’s visit to Stendahl Galleries

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On April 22, 2012, LAVA – The Los Angeles Visionaries Association invited the public  to an Open House at the historic home/gallery of LAVA Visionary April Dammann and her husband Ron Dammann, president of Stendahl Galleries, a participating gallery in Pacific Standard Time.

April gave informal gallery tours and spoke about her new book, Exhibitionist: Earl Stendahl, Art Dealer as Impresario, which chronicles the life and times of her husband’s grandfather, a pioneering art dealer in Los Angeles. Exhibitionist made book critic David Kipen’s top ten list of “Best Books” published in California in 2011. See scenes from the day here.

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Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice

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From the founding of the city through the 1940s, downtown was the true center of Los Angeles, a lively, densely populated, exciting and sometimes dangerous place. After many quiet decades, downtown is making an incredible return. But while many of the historic buildings remain, their human context has been lost.

This downtown double feature tour, hosted by Kim Cooper, Joan Renner and Richard Schave, is meant to bring alive the old ghosts and memories that cling to the streets and structures of the historic core, and is especially recommended for downtown residents curious about their neighborhood’s neglected history.

The Hotel Horrors portion is a true crime and oddities tour featuring some of the wildest, weirdest, goriest and most memorable happenings in historic hotels like the Alexandria, St. George, Barclay and Cecil. Get on the bus to see inside some of these legendary locales and find out where Night Stalker Richard Ramirez liked to stay and the hotel that saw a visit from the Skid Row Slasher, and where two traveling chocolate salesmen laughed so hard they fell backwards out a window to their deaths. You’ll also explore the fiery curse that repeatedly leveled the St. George Hotel. Included are some light hearted stories to help the blood and gore go down.

The Main Street Vice portion is a social history tour celebrating the ribald, racy, raunchy old promenade where the better people simply did not travel, but kicks were had by all who did. Burlesque babes and dirty picture parlors, mummified western outlaws and old time tattoo parlors, wax museums and pawn brokers, “professors” offering sex lectures and magazine peddlers with nudie Marilyn Monroe calendars under the counter, sophisticated steak houses and nickel donut dives — these were the pleasures and the people to be found along Main during the first half of the 20th century, a street that every Angeleno knew offered more (yet less) of what could be seen anywhere else. On this tour, we’ll visit the scenes of some more unforgettable debaucheries and share stories of crime, smut, passion and commerce.

Climb aboard for a time travel journey back to the downtown that’s not there anymore, and the surprising amount of gems that survive.

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Maja’s Mysteries: Rapture & Release

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MAJA’S MYSTERIES is a guided excursion to some of the city’s most fascinating spiritual sites hosted by Maja D’Aoust, the White Witch of Los Angeles, in association with Kim Cooper and Richard Schave of Esotouric. Come join us on an Esotouric bus adventure into the hidden realms of Los Angeles spirituality, with stops at some of the most unique and compelling worship spaces in the Southland.

 TOUR THEME: This tour explores the fundamental contradiction in the two primary paths to salvation: Grace or Karma. The concept of Grace sees salvation and the Messiah (rapture) as imminent and tangible. Karma is predicated on reincarnation, the cycle of many, many lives lived through selflessness and right action as the soul strives to achieve release. These two notions, while irreconcilable, both inspire real and profound relationships with God in Los Angeles, from the church basements where believers speak in tongues, or in brightly light congregation rooms praying over gigantic crystals. Join Maja as we explore tantric Vedic practices, the Pentecostal rapture, the channeled Venusian stylings of an alien entity and other fascinating paths to salvation.

 

TOUR LOCATIONS: The Aetherius Society. A center for cosmic consciousness and healing founded in 1955 by UFO contactee Dr. George King, where we will hear actual recordings of an extraterrestrial voice conveying significant messages. Krotona Apartments. A former Theosophical retreat founded in 1914, where we will have a rare opportunity to visit the central courtyard and view the Rosicrucian window of this now-private residence. Parsonage of Sister Aimee Semple McPherson. On the northern edge of Echo Park lake is the rock upon which Sister Aimee Semple McPherson built her Foursquare Church. One of Los Angeles’ most charismatic characters, Sister Aimee spread her technologically-inspired Pentecostal gospel from the Angelus Temple, while enjoying quiet moments in her adjoining Parsonage home. Recently restored, the Parsonage is now a museum of her life and work, which to this day contains to ring clear to millions of believers worldwide. The Vedanta Society of Southern California. Founded in 1930 to bring sacred Hindu philosophy to the West, where we will be given a presentation on the Society’s history and programming, and browse in its fine gift shop.

PRESS CLIPS: Whole Life Times feature on Maja’s bus tour.

 

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John Fante’s Dreams from Bunker Hill

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Early editions of this Esotouric tour lamented John Fante’s obscurity. On April 8, 2010, the City of Los Angeles declared the corner of 5th & Grand, beside the Central Library, JOHN FANTE SQUARE. Today John Fante might be best described as the most famous unknown writer in America. Climb aboard to hear his story and that of the lost neighborhood where he found his voice.

Before Kerouac, before Bukowski, there was John Fante, author of “Ask the Dust,” “Dreams of Bunker Hill,” “Full of Life,” “The Road to Los Angeles” and “Wait Until Spring, Bandini.” This five-novel cycle, written over sixty years, introduced the world to Arturo Bandini, an outspoken, down-and-out Mr. Hyde to Fante’s Dr. Jekyll.

As Bunker Hill’s prodigal son, Fante-as-Bandini chronicles a forgotten Los Angeles neighborhood teeming with immigrants, criminals and dreamers like himself. With genuine compassion and wonderful craft, he sketches the hopes and dreams which fly round their heads, and in the process finds his own voice, a revelation which carries him all the way to Hollywood. Once there, he is distracted by fame and fortune, and settles for easy answers to the questions of faith in oneself, the nature of inspiration, and the duality of failure and redemption. “Dreams of Bunker Hill” was dictated by a blind Fante two years before his death, and “Road to Los Angeles” was published posthumously. Bunker Hill is gone now, flattened, its mansions torn down, long since redeveloped by corporate and civic interests. But in today’s downtown communities the same stories play out, in thriving micro-climates where artists and writers find their voices, where some are making it big and others breaking up on the reef, some moving away and others coming back in search of what they have lost. Arturo Bandini is alive and well, and his lament is as relevant today as it was 75 years ago. So please join us as we follow in his footsteps, to the Goodwill store, King Eddy’s, Clifton’s Cafeteria (“pay what you can”), the Los Angeles Library’s Reading Room and the Post Office Terminal Annex (important landmarks for Bukowski and Fante), aboard the newly-restored Angels Flight Railway, and other evocative scenes of old L.A.

This tour is a meditation not only on John Fante, but the preservation of Public Space. The depopulation of Bunker Hill in the early 1960s became the benchmark for Community Redevelopment across the country-the term “Federal Bulldozer” came out of the many lawsuits filed against the city at the time. And now that corporate interests have decided it is time to repopulate western downtown Los Angeles with market-rate housing the ensuing catastrophe has spawned many new monikers (elegant density is one of the more polite ones) and problems. Public Space downtown can be saved and Arturo Bandini can lead the way. Please Note: This tour will have several sections which involve walking through parts of Downtown for up to ten minutes at a time. Walking shoes and sunscreen are advised.

 

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon: Susanna Dakin, An Artist for President

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather in downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community.

Special program at the November 27 Salon:

• LAVA Visionary SUSANNA DAKIN is a sculptor, performance artist, writer and once upon a time publisher of artists’ books, magazines and a community newspaper. She is currently on the Board of the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, California. She has taught sculpture and drawing, exhibited both in solo and group shows, and completed a few large-scale sculpture commissions. She has done several unique performance pieces at various venues in southern California. Dakin’s most well known work was a year-long performance campaign around the United States as “An Artist for President” in 1983-84, in which she advanced the idea that “The Nation is the art work and we the people are the artists.” The book about that campaign, as timely today as it was then, is being published in fall 2011. Dakin will reprise the campaign as a book tour.  About “An Artist for President”: In 1984, Reagan was running for his second-term, while pursuing what would become a relentless, multi-decades long retreat from democratic ideals. Susanna Dakin, sculptor, performance artist and High Performance Magazine publisher, had an outlandish notion: she declared with the Federal Elections Commission as an Artist/Candidate for President of the United States. Now a compelling and high-entertaining book, as timely today as it was then, An Artist for President makes a case for the vital role of art and creativity in all aspects of life, including politics. This “biography of an event,” records the loony ideas people hold about woman, artists and the political process. November is Election Month, so cast your vote for art, civil liberties and freedom of expression, by attending this fun refection on where we’ve been and where we’re going.

 

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Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits’ L.A. tour

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This is the definitive tour of Tom Waits’ formative creative life in Los Angeles, and the people, places and late night pastries that shaped it.

Calling all rain dogs, gin-soaked boys and Gun Street girls! Climb aboard as your hosts David Smay (author of the new 33 1/3 series book on “Swordfishtrombones”) and Esotouric’s Kim Cooper (a Zoetrope Studios intern who’ll tell how she used teenage subterfuge to arrange a private concert by Tom) lead you on a scrupulously researched ride through Tom’s epic misdeeds and shenanigans, from the Trashing of the Troubadour to epic nights at the Tropicana.

And oh, there are such tales to tell, from food fights with L.A. Punks and smackdowns with L.A. Police. We’ll crawl through the Sewers of Paris, tattle on the Ivar Theater, and get the lowdown on Tom’s legendary performances at the Wiltern and elsewhere. Before departing for points rural, Tom left his mark all over L.A., from Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios to Sunset Sound to Skid Row. We’ll show you where Tom found his true love and collaborator, Kathleen Brennan, and how all the pieces came together to transform a drunken, desperate singer into the multi-faceted, multi-media artist he’d become.

Raised near San Diego, Tom Waits launched his musical career in L.A., signing with David Geffen’s Asylum Records in 1972, living at the raunchy Tropicana Hotel (where he sawed off the kitchen drain board so his piano would fit), and building a reputation as a songwriter willing to risk his own health and sanity to get inside the sad sack characters that peopled songs like “The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me),” “On The Nickel” and “Pasties And A G-string (At The Two O’clock Club).”

By 1980, Tom was 31 and starting to feel the effects of his hard living. While scoring the music to Francis Ford Coppola’s “One From The Heart,” he met Kathleen Brennan, whose influence would completely transform his life and his art. After a whirlwind courtship the pair married and began a 28-year creative and personal partnership, beginning with the revolutionary album “Swordfishtrombones,” the subject of tour host David Smay’s new book.

Marking the symbolic passage from lonesome bar hopping to family joys and sobriety, the tour begins at an important downtown site. Passengers gather in the King Edward Saloon, the last surviving Skid Row bar with the Christmas 2007 loss of Craby Joe’s, before boarding Esotouric’s luxury coach class bus, where the mood is set with vintage photos and live footage.

“Crawling Down Cahuenga” spans Tom’s personal city, from The Nickel (aka Skid Row) to once-ratty West Hollywood, favorite strip clubs and midnight diners, recording studios, night clubs, record labels and film studios, before rolling back downtown for a last tipple at the King Edward Saloon.

ABOUT THE HOSTS: Longtime collaborators David Smay and Kim Cooper co-edited the books “Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth” (“quite simply the most fun music book I have ever read.” -Bucketfull of Brains) and “Lost in the Grooves: Scram’s Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed” (“the perfect book for the advanced record collector” -Ear Candy) before penning their solo 33 1/3 series books on Tom Waits and Neutral Milk Hotel. Kim gives Esotouric’s rock history and true crime tours. David Smay lives in San Francisco, where he is working on a history of the Beats.

 

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon: The Krampus Choir

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather in downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community.

Special program at the November 27 Salon:

LAVA is proud (and not too terrified, since we’ve been good this year!) to present the KRAMPUS CHOIR, who will literally kick-start the holiday season with their odes to the Real ghost of Christmas, Lord Krampus. You’ve heard all about Santa’s Evil Twin, who follows the Jolly One with burlap sack in hand, taking gifts away from miscreant children and giving them a thrashing to boot! This long-toothed, tongued charmer now has his very own CHOIR, who, in dulcet harmony, will regale our Visionaries and guests with such favorites as, “Bleeding through the Snow,” “O Shining Lump of Coal,” and “Bring a Switch, Jeannette Isabella.” King Krampus himself will be on hand to autograph your child’s deficiency notices. Don’t miss this one-time-only event!

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon: Mona Jean Cedar – Andy Ben – Joe Oesterle – Count Smokula

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather in downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. Special program at the October 30 Salon. • Science and art can play well together as evidenced in “Circuitry & Poetry” where LAVA Visionary JEFF BOYNTON’s DIY electronics accompany LAVA Visionary MONA JEAN CEDAR’s communicative arts of dance, poetry and sign language. More black art than science, circuit bending entails the subversive act of ripping open inexpensive electronics devices — ranging from children’s toys to professional keyboard instruments — exposing their circuit boards, and attacking their vulnerable insides by poking, probing, and prodding in the spirit of exploration to search for new sounds which are then activated at will. Mr. Boynton’s deep classical music background influences his performances on these ingenious circuit-bent instruments, providing a soundscape over which Mona Jean Cedar performs. Ms. Cedar creates her singular multi-layered approach to spoken word and movement by composing and choreographing with sign languages, both American and foreign. Concurrently cryptic and clearly communicative, the highly visual nature of sign language exponentially increases the expressiveness of the poetry and the dance. Together their unique talents create performances that astound with sound, pique with poetry and delight with dance. SALON WEEK UPDATE: In proverbial “Good News; Bad News” fashion, Mona Jean Cedar wished to share the following: The “Bad” News is that Jeff Boynton will be unable to join us at the LAVA presentation because — ta da! — he has been chosen to be a finalist in Moog’s (as in synthesizers) 2nd Circuit Bending Contest in Asheville, North Carolina next weekend! In his stead will be fellow bender/musician/actor/partner-in-art, ANDY BEN. Andy will be explaining and demonstrating a few of Jeff’s toys and some of his own. We will be bringing props from our marching band, The Thursday Evening Gentlemen’s Society Circuit Bending Marching Band and Ladies’ Auxiliary and perhaps even recruiting marchers. • Back by popular demand, LAVA Visionary JOE OESTERLE, author of the newly-released Weird Hollywood and the classic Weird California and Weird Las Vegas. Joe will be reading some spooky stories from his books as well as sharing some anecdotes from his weird road travels. Joe also promises to bring along one of the real life Weird Hollywood characters from his book. The multi-talented Joe Oesterle is a former Senior Editor of National Lampoon, a visual artist, musician, animator and curator of the strange and marvelous. Joe will be signing copies of Weird Hollywood.

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Where the Action Was rock history tour

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Announcing a very special edition of Where The Action Was, co-sponsored by Esotouric and 100.3 The Sound, and featuring special guest pop star Ian Whitcomb and on-air personalities from 100.3 and a reception at Capitol Records.

Where the Action Was is Esotouric’s Hollywood and West Hollywood rock and roll history tour, co-hosted by pop music historians Kim Cooper and Gene Sculatti.

In the mid-1960s, the Sunset Strip and Hollywood were ground zero for musical teen youth culture, with scores of great clubs, music shops, recording studios, boutiques, hipster hangouts, radio stations, record stores, and film and TV studios. On the Esotouric bus, you’ll travel back in time to map the musical history of Hollywood and West Hollywood, from Beatlemania and folk rock, glitter rock through punk. Along the way you’ll follow the career highs and lows of a selection of fascinating LA artists: Bobby Fuller (was it murder or suicide?), Phil Spector, Arthur Lee & Love and the Byrds.

From the teen riots over the closing of Pandora’s Box (inspiration for the Buffalo Springfield hit “For What It’s Worth”) to the late night Canter’s Deli scene, from adolescent groupies holding court at Rodney’s English Disco to the wild dances invented at Ciro’s, and so much between, Where The Action Was is a high-energy voyage to a time when music was thrilling, immediate and deeply rooted to the city of LA.

Passenger feedback: “Just wanted to say how much I thoroughly enjoyed the recent “Where the Action Was” rock tour. Wow! The perfect blend of history and pastiche. Amazing that you can pull this off so smoothly in such a difficult city to traverse. I have been living and walking the streets of the tour area for the past six years and never realized half of the history behind all of those great venues I passed. You truly enlightened me in such an insightful, fun manner. I will be sure to recommend your fantastic tours to everyone I know.” (Matthew Turner, Writer/Producer of THE JUKEBOX: FROM EDISON TO IPOD)

 

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon – August 2011, The music of Ruthann Friedman & Al Guerrero on The Night Stalker

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.

Special program at the August 28 Salon: 

• LAVA Visionary Ruthann Friedman wrote the early bubble-pop anthem “Windy” for The Association while crashed out on Crosby’s couch, swung with Zappa’s crew, and she almost got that Jefferson Airplane vocalist slot before bitch goddess Grace slunk in. Ruthann’s 1970 LP Constant Companion is a recording of sublime beauty and abstract folky ruminations which should’ve sent ol’ Joni running to Essra Mohawk and Judee Sill for consolation (and inspiration!) — but sadly recognition was a long time in coming. Friedman’s lone 45, “Carry On (Glittering Dancer)” is another bit of genius, fleshed out by captivating Van Dyke Parks arrangements a la Smile or Song Cycle. At the Sunday Salon,  Ruthann will sing reflections of her life growing up in Los Angeles in the fifties and sixties, and let you in on intimate personal stories that have a universal appeal. Accompanied by her own guitar and the bass playing of David Jenkins, she bridges the gap between generations.

• Local artist and historian Al Guerrero is the LAVA Visionary behind the “Richard Ramirez – Night Stalker Walking Tour.” For the Sunday Salon, he will be conducting a short presentation and discussion on this bloody chapter of L.A. crime history. Attendees will experience a chilling narrative of the fear and terror that gripped the Los Angeles area during the fearful, hot summer 1985, during the Night Stalker’s wave of terror. Al will share first-hand accounts and reveal little known facts and gruesome details of the case, including details about the Night Stalker’s haunts in the downtown area surrounding the Salon. Immediately following the Sunday Salon, Al Guerroro’s “Richard Ramirez – Night Stalker Walking Tour” will depart from Clifton’s Cafeteria (This tour is now sold out; limited standby spots may be available on tour day). This event was a complete sell-out last year, so reservations are strongly recommended. Al advises guests as to the graphic nature of some portions of the tour. For further tour information, please visit this link or email nightstalkertourATgmailDOTcom  

• Sorry, THE UKULADY’S previously announced appearance has been postponed until the September 25 Sunday Salon.

Clifton’s Cafeteria is at 648 South Broadway, near the corner of 7th Street. There are numerous paid parking lots nearby, and the closest Metro station is Pershing Square. Clifton’s is online at https://www.cliftonscafeteria.com

 

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The 6th-Annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar featuring L.A. Noire architecture tour & virtual Bunker Hill excursion

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Los Angeles history comes alive at the 6th-annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar. Organized by L.A. as Subject and presented by the USC Libraries, the annual event celebrates the diversity of Southern California’s history. For scholarly researchers, journalists, history buffs, and those simply interested in exploring the stories of Los Angeles, discovery awaits everyone at the Archives Bazaar. This event is free and open to the public.

The Archives Bazaar draws its strength from the breadth and variety of its participants’ collections. Large institutions such as the Autry National Center of the American West and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County will be represented at the bazaar along with smaller organizations and private collections whose materials fill the gaps left in the city’s official history. Other participating organizations include the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, the California African American Museum, El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, and the Japanese American National Museum. In all, more than 70 archives are expected to be represented. The USC Libraries serve as the host institution for L.A. as Subject, an alliance of libraries, museums, and other archival and cultural organizations. The relationship complements the USC libraries’ strong Regional History Collection and is a natural outgrowth of the libraries’ efforts to preserve and expand access to the primary sources of L.A. history.

Numerous LAVA Visionaries will be on hand representing local history organizations, including Kim Cooper & Richard Schave of Esotouric, and Joan Renner of the Los Angeles Police Historical Society.

Schedule of Esotouric table programs

11:00am – 12:00pm – Using vintage photographs and film stills, Bunker Hill’s native son Gordon Pattison leads a virtual walking tour of the lost neighborhood of his childhood, including the two iconic Victorian mansions owned by his family, The Salt Box and The Castle, which were the last two homes left standing before the hill was cleared. Bunker Hill is gone, but it lives on in the memories of the few remaining Angelenos who loved it and lived it. Join us to learn just how special this community was, straight from the heart of a boy who knew it well. 

1:00pm – 2:30pm – As a follow up to their sold-out LAVA walking tour The Flâneur & The City: Downtown Los Angeles in the age of digital reproduction, architectural historians Nathan Marsak and Richard Schave will be demonstrating the new video game L.A. Noire and taking visitors on a live journey through the downtown cityscape that has been digitally re-created in the game. Using rare vintage photographs, postcards and film clips and stills for comparison, they’ll explore how Rockstar/Team Bondi’s simulacrum of 1947 downtown Los Angeles holds up, where and how it succeeds and fails —  the game developers failed to build L.A.’s most iconic lost neighborhood, Bunker Hill — and why you should care. Featured locations include the Spring Arcade, a 1923 reproduction of London’s iconic Burlington Arcade (1819), the Barclay Hotel (whose halls and color palate have been borrowed for various other places within the game), Clifton’s Brookdale, Angels Flight, and various historic sites which no longer remain, but which “live again” in one of the most ambitious video games ever released. Plus, see a side-by-side comparison of the game’s virtual recreation of 1947 L.A. and the recently unearthed circa 1949 Columbia Pictures b-roll footage which has made quite a splash in the L.A. history community. Expose yourself to the review that L.A. Noire‘s publisher didn’t want you to read. Nathan Marsak’s April blog post at 1947project previewing the game by criticizing its architectural accuracy has been viewed by nearly 10,000 people, was widely discussed on game sites and history blogs and resulted in multiple requests from the game’s publisher that it be removed from the internet. It remains the top search engine hit for “L.A. Noire accuracy.”

Also featured at the Esotouric table, a raffle for free tickets for upcoming Esotouric bus adventures and a slide show of newly-discovered color images of Downtown’s Main Street and Skid Row from the Union Rescue Mission’s 1949 short film “Of Scrap and Steel,” which is getting its first screening in fifty years on the roof of the URM on Thursday, October 20, with an introduction by Nathan Marsak and Richard Schave. The screening is free, but reservations are required from LAVA – The Los Angeles Visionaries Association.

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon – July 2011, L.A.’s eclectic spiritual history

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.

Special program at the July 31 Salon:

• LAVA Visionaries Maja D’Aoust, Librarian at the Philosophical Research Society and host of the July 30 Esotouric bus adventure Maja’s Mysteries: Rapture & Release, and Rev. Paul Nugent of The Aetherius Society will host a joint presentation / conversation on the history of Los Angeles as a magnetic spiritual center: a place where people of all faiths and backgrounds have come to seek enlightenment since the turn of the last century. Maja will introduce us to some of the major esoteric groups and thinkers that have made Los Angeles their home, revealing the shared aims beneath a seemingly disparate collection of seekers. These will include The Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), Manly P. Hall and his Philosophical Research Society and The Theosophy Society, to name a few. Then Paul will give a brief history of The Aetherius Society, the spiritual organization which was brought to Los Angeles by Yoga Master and extraterrestrial contactee Dr. George King in 1959, as part of his mission to help humanity raise itself from universal suffering and ignorance. Dr. King’s initial communication with the Cosmic Master Aetherius occurred in 1954, spurring Dr. King on to found the Society in England the following year (he ran it until his death in 1997; Paul Nugent was a personal assistant to Dr. King and is a current Director of the organization’s American headquarters). Part of the work of The Aetherius Society is predicated on Prayer, and the mental direction of positive energy towards the world’s trouble spots in a manifestation of the concept that consciousness can impact objective reality. The presentation will provide an overview of the Southland’s fascinating spiritual history and ongoing role in the development of new religious thought and action.

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LAVA’s 19th Sunday Salon

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.

Special program at the September 25 Salon (additional programs may be added closer to Salon time).

•LAVA Visionary THE UKULADY & The Evil Sandwiches return to LA after a triumphant & adventure-filled residency in Barra De Navidad Mexico!  Dubbed The Love Child of Pee Wee Herman & Cyndi Lauper, The Ukulady will share songs & stories of Mexico, LA & their cultural similarities, differences & more!  Interactive Crafting, Photo-Ops with the Unicorndog, The Evil Sandwich & Dr. Steve Chicken.


• LAVA Visionary and PhD in Art History PAUL KOUDOUNARIS will discuss the research for his new book, The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses. Five years in the making, the book will be available for the first time at a signing and photo show the night prior to the Sunday Salon, and the LAVA talk will be the author’s first public presentation on the work. The research for this unique book took the author to over 70 preserved charnel houses and skeletal shrines on four continents, to document the otherwise forgotten history of the veneration of the dead in Christian culture through the direct presence of human remains. The presentation will not only illuminate a forgotten history, it will also reveal the surreal saga of the research itself: among other tribulations, in the course of completing his research, the author was pursued by malevolent spirits, handcuffed to a table in a striptease bar by a prurient monk, forced to undergo a religious pilgrimage and exorcism, and arrested by the Austrian police.

(Click below to pre-order Paul’s book.)

 

Clifton’s Cafeteria is at 648 South Broadway, near the corner of 7th Street. There are numerous paid parking lots nearby, and the closest Metro station is Pershing Square. Clifton’s is online at https://www.cliftonscafeteria.com

 

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LAVA’s 20th Sunday Salon (note new location)

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather in downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. Please note that due to ongoing renovation work at Clifton’s Cafeteria, we are moving to a nearby location. 

Special program at the October 30 Salon.

• Science and art can play well together as evidenced in “Circuitry & Poetry” where LAVA Visionary JEFF BOYNTON‘s DIY electronics accompany LAVA Visionary MONA JEAN CEDAR’s communicative arts of dance, poetry and sign language. More black art than science, circuit bending entails the subversive act of ripping open inexpensive electronics devices — ranging from children’s toys to professional keyboard instruments — exposing their circuit boards, and attacking their vulnerable insides by poking, probing, and prodding in the spirit of exploration to search for new sounds which are then activated at will. Mr. Boynton’s deep classical music background influences his performances on these ingenious circuit-bent instruments, providing a soundscape over which Mona Jean Cedar performs. Ms. Cedar creates her singular multi-layered approach to spoken word and movement by composing and choreographing with sign languages, both American and foreign. Concurrently cryptic and clearly communicative, the highly visual nature of sign language exponentially increases the expressiveness of the poetry and the dance. Together their unique talents create performances that astound with sound, pique with poetry and delight with dance. SALON WEEK UPDATE: In proverbial “Good News; Bad News” fashion, Mona Jean Cedar wished to share the following: The “Bad” News is that Jeff Boynton will be unable to join us at the LAVA presentation because — ta da! — he has been chosen to be a finalist in Moog’s (as in synthesizers) 2nd Circuit Bending Contest in Asheville, North Carolina next weekend! In his stead will be fellow bender/musician/actor/partner-in-art, ANDY BEN. Andy will be explaining and demonstrating a few of Jeff’s toys and some of his own.  We will be bringing props from our marching band, The Thursday Evening Gentlemen’s Society Circuit Bending Marching Band and Ladies’ Auxiliary and perhaps even recruiting marchers.

• Back by popular demand, LAVA Visionary JOE OESTERLE, author of the newly-released Weird Hollywood and the classic Weird California and Weird Las Vegas. Joe will be reading some spooky stories from his books as well as sharing some anecdotes from his weird road travels. Joe also promises to bring along one of the real life Weird Hollywood characters from his book. The multi-talented Joe Oesterle is a former Senior Editor of National Lampoon, a visual artist, musician, animator and curator of the strange and marvelous. Joe will be signing copies of Weird Hollywood.

The Los Angeles Athletic Club is located at 431 West 7th Street, on the north-east corner of 7th and Olive Streets. When you enter the Athletic Club, inform the person at the desk that you are there as a guest of club member Richard Schave attending the LAVA event. They will sign you in, and send you upstairs to the fourth floor. It will be possible to order light meals of sandwiches in the 8th floor snack bar, however, please note that service will be slower than at Clifton’s, and that arriving early and ordering promptly will be very helpful. We recommend parking under Pershing Square at Fifth and Olive, which is also the nearest Metro Station. If you order food, the Athletic Club will validate for their parking lot. 

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LAVA’s 21st Sunday Salon (note new time and location)

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather in downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. Please note that due to ongoing renovation work at Clifton’s Cafeteria, we are moving to a nearby location, and starting the Salon one hour earlier. 

Special program at the November 27 Salon:

 • LAVA Visionary SUSANNA DAKIN is a sculptor, performance artist, writer and once upon a time publisher of artists’ books, magazines and a community newspaper. She is currently on the Board of the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, California. She has taught sculpture and drawing, exhibited both in solo and group shows, and completed a few large-scale sculpture commissions. She has done several unique performance pieces at various venues in southern California. Dakin’s most well known work was a year-long performance campaign around the United States as “An Artist for President” in 1983-84, in which she advanced the idea that “The Nation is the art work and we the people are the artists.” The book about that campaign, as timely today as it was then, is being published in fall 2011. Dakin will reprise the campaign as a book tour.  About “An Artist for President”: In 1984, Reagan was running for his second-term, while pursuing what would become a relentless, multi-decades long retreat from democratic ideals. Susanna Dakin, sculptor, performance artist and High Performance Magazine publisher, had an outlandish notion: she declared with the Federal Elections Commission as an Artist/Candidate for President of the United States. Now a compelling and high-entertaining book, as timely today as it was then, An Artist for President makes a case for the vital role of art and creativity in all aspects of life, including politics. This “biography of an event,” records the loony ideas people hold about woman, artists and the political process. November is Election Month, so cast your vote for art, civil liberties and freedom of expression, by attending this fun refection on where we’ve been and where we’re going.

• LAVA is proud (and not too terrified, since we’ve been good this year!) to present the KRAMPUS CHOIR, who will literally kick-start the holiday season with their odes to the Real ghost of Christmas, Lord Krampus. You’ve heard all about Santa’s Evil Twin, who follows the Jolly One with burlap sack in hand, taking gifts away from miscreant children and giving them a thrashing to boot! This long-toothed, tongued charmer now has his very own CHOIR, who, in dulcet harmony, will regale our Visionaries and guests with such favorites as, “Bleeding through the Snow,” “O Shining Lump of Coal,”  and “Bring a Switch, Jeannette Isabella.” King Krampus himself will be on hand to autograph your child’s deficiency notices.  Don’t miss this one-time-only event! 

The Los Angeles Athletic Club is located at 431 West 7th Street, on the north-east corner of 7th and Olive Streets. When you enter the Athletic Club, inform the person at the desk that you are there as a guest of club member Richard Schave attending the LAVA event. They will sign you in, and send you upstairs to the third floor. If you want to have breakfast, please arrive no later than 10:30am. The price per person for the buffet breakfast is $15.50 (including taxes and gratuity), and the buffet includes orange juice, hot and cold cereal, yogurt, fresh and dried fruits, eggs, bacon/sausage, potatoes, muffins, croissants, etc. (Alternately, the 8th floor snack bar, which is not in the Salon space, will be open serving sandwiches, wraps and salads after 11am.) If you want to attend the Salon, you should arrive by 11am. We recommend parking under Pershing Square at Fifth and Olive, which is also the nearest Metro Station. If you order food, the Athletic Club will validate for their parking lot. 

 

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LAVA’s 18th Sunday Salon

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.

Special program at the August 28 Salon: 

• LAVA Visionary Ruthann Friedman wrote the early bubble-pop anthem “Windy” for The Association while crashed out on Crosby’s couch, swung with Zappa’s crew, and she almost got that Jefferson Airplane vocalist slot before bitch goddess Grace slunk in. Ruthann’s 1970 LP Constant Companion is a recording of sublime beauty and abstract folky ruminations which should’ve sent ol’ Joni running to Essra Mohawk and Judee Sill for consolation (and inspiration!) — but sadly recognition was a long time in coming. Friedman’s lone 45, “Carry On (Glittering Dancer)” is another bit of genius, fleshed out by captivating Van Dyke Parks arrangements a la Smile or Song Cycle. At the Sunday Salon,  Ruthann will sing reflections of her life growing up in Los Angeles in the fifties and sixties, and let you in on intimate personal stories that have a universal appeal. Accompanied by her own guitar and the bass playing of David Jenkins, she bridges the gap between generations.

• Local artist and historian Al Guerrero is the LAVA Visionary behind the “Richard Ramirez – Night Stalker Walking Tour.” For the Sunday Salon, he will be conducting a short presentation and discussion on this bloody chapter of L.A. crime history. Attendees will experience a chilling narrative of the fear and terror that gripped the Los Angeles area during the fearful, hot summer 1985, during the Night Stalker’s wave of terror. Al will share first-hand accounts and reveal little known facts and gruesome details of the case, including details about the Night Stalker’s haunts in the downtown area surrounding the Salon. Immediately following the Sunday Salon, Al Guerroro’s “Richard Ramirez – Night Stalker Walking Tour” will depart from Clifton’s Cafeteria (This tour is now sold out; limited standby spots may be available on tour day). This event was a complete sell-out last year, so reservations are strongly recommended. Al advises guests as to the graphic nature of some portions of the tour. For further tour information, please visit this link or email nightstalkertourATgmailDOTcom  

• Sorry, THE UKULADY’S previously announced appearance has been postponed until the September 25 Sunday Salon.

Clifton’s Cafeteria is at 648 South Broadway, near the corner of 7th Street. There are numerous paid parking lots nearby, and the closest Metro station is Pershing Square. Clifton’s is online at https://www.cliftonscafeteria.com

 

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The Birth of Noir tour

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Southern California 1931: Amongst the burgeoning urban sprawl built atop bulldozed orange groves and the bitter realization that you can’t eat the sunshine, recent emigré James M. Cain found a kernel of truth and his voice, which would eventually distill through his novels, ”The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Mildred Pierce” and “Double Indemnity” and subsequent film adaptations into the unique American genre: Film Noir.

How did this East Coat sophisticate go from managing editor of “The New Yorker” to populist novelist accused of writing dirty books? The tour explores Cain’s L.A. from Hollywood to Glendale and along old Route 66, and includes illuminating visits to Forest Lawn Memorial Park (a Glendale institution and site of the funeral of Mildred Pierce’s “other” daughter, Ray), the Glendale Train Station where the “Double Indemnity” murder plot played out, and the punch line to a Billy Wilder joke so subtle, it’s taken 63 years for anyone to get. The tour will also cover the artisans who transformed Cain’s tales into film, including Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler, Joan Crawford and Lana Turner, each an important contributor to the Film Noir canon.

 

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon – June 2011, Science Fiction and Fantastical Cities

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Special program at the June 26 Salon: 

• Special guest Milt Stevens, a long time SF fan who has been a member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society for a bit over fifty years, will give a presentation on this illustrious southland organization–the world’s oldest science fiction club, which for many years met right here at Clifton’s Cafeteria. Milt will give a brief history of the LASFS and discuss its current activities, with a focus on memorable anecdotes about the writers and fans who have been part of this remarkable entity.

• Back by popular demand, LAVA Visionary Gene Sculatti, outsider artist and pop culture critic (The Catalog of Cool) returns to show off the new “construction” on his newest fantasy cityscape scroll Majestic Boulevard, which has been developed in response to the daffy and inspired suggestions of January Salon attendees. New developments suggested by LAVA Visionaries include: the world HQ of Ian Whitcomb’s ITW Industries and the consulate general of Smokessylvania, submitted by Count Smokula. Gene’s pitch to virtual developers: “Come live the Jet Age California dream when you stake out a virtual half-acre along Majestic Boulevard and plan the commercial development of your dreams. Maybe it’s tiki-themed bowling alley… or a no-tell motel named after your secret crush… or the lone Victorian farmhouse left behind when progress came to town.” Six months in the works, Gene returns to the Sunday Salon to unveil the expanded scroll to the lucky “property owners.” Also on view: Untitled #1,  whose theme might be ‘Imagining SoCal.’ This is a 13-inches-by-53-feet job, drawn from 1969-71, and was the last one the artist did before moving to L.A. The inspiration is mostly Southern California, and the work covers all four of Reyner Banham’s ecologies. Bonus: a portion has the experimental “smog coat” the artist devised to make it “more like L.A.” ABOUT GENE SCULATTI’S SCROLLS: Since the age of 9, Sculatti, 63, has created imaginary horizontal cities packed with fascinating details that reflect his evolving obsessions: googie signage, soaring bridges, skyscrapers, suburbs, amusement parks and much more. Join us for a rare opportunity to get close to these beautiful and strange artworks, and to hear the artist discuss his inspirations, working methods, and how the scrolls have stayed with him for more than four decades. To learn more about Gene’s cityscapes, see photos from the March 2010 Sunday Salon exhibit of Gene’s scrolls here, read Gene’s musings here, or view his work-in-progress sketches here.

 

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon – May 2011, Theosophy and Shipwrecks

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Special program at the May 29, 2011 Salon:

• Artist / musician and LAVA Visionary Rich Polysorbate 60 was born five years after the shipwreck of the S.S. Dominator off Palos Verdes. The wreck served as his tree fort and nautical womb. He would hallucinate and dream about fusing as one with it. The Dominator would feed him memories and stories related to those who died on it after it split in half and was scattered among the rocks. Rich will be on hand today to share mementos and clues in the way of a film/poetry presentation with live theremin accompaniment from Paul Wilkins (PWE/Clowns and Fetuses).

• LAVA co-founder Richard Schave hosts a discussion on the history of The United Lodge of Theosophy, a unique Los Angeles institution. The forces that impacted founder Robert Crosbie from his arrival in 1911, and how he and his brethren shaped their spiritual and educational environment over the decades, are a fundamental narrative of the city. Theosophy, like Los Angeles, straddles two kingdoms, the finite and the infinite, imbued with fascinating contradictions: love, wealth, greed, power and release. Victoria Prinz is a member of the ULT, and she’ll take some of these themes as a starting point for this discussion on the extraordinary legacy of the ULT in Los Angeles.

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.

Special program at the July 31 Salon (additional programs may be added closer to Salon time): 

• Preservationist,  tile historian and LAVA Visionary Brian Kaiser will give a talk on Artistic Tile in Southern California. The main body of the presentation is a slide tour of the house that Rufus Keeler built for himself in South Gate in 1924. Mr. Keeler was founder, plant manager, and sole ceramist of the Calco (1923-1932) and Malibu potteries (1926-1932). His house is tile from start to finish, and was made from Calco Tile, a pottery that preceded Malibu Tile. Meant to be a showcase for the use of clay products in home construction and decoration, the house still stands as a magnificent example of one of the finest ceramists in all of California during the 1920s and 1930s.

• LAVA Visionaries Maja D’Aoust, Librarian at the Philosophical Research Society and host of the July 30 Esotouric bus adventure Maja’s Mysteries: Rapture & Release, and Rev. Paul Nugent of The Aetherius Society will host a joint presentation / conversation on the history of Los Angeles as a magnetic spiritual center: a place where people of all faiths and backgrounds have come to seek enlightenment since the turn of the last century.  Maja will introduce us to some of the major esoteric groups and thinkers that have made Los Angeles their home, revealing the shared aims beneath a seemingly disparate collection of seekers.  These will include The Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), Manly P. Hall and his Philosophical Research Society and The Theosophy Society, to name a few. Then Paul will give a brief history of The Aetherius Society, the spiritual organization which was brought to Los Angeles by Yoga Master and extraterrestrial contactee Dr. George King in 1959, as part of his mission to help humanity raise itself from universal suffering and ignorance. Dr. King’s initial communication with the Cosmic Master Aetherius occurred in 1954, spurring Dr. King on to found the Society in England the following year (he ran it until his death in 1997; Paul Nugent was a personal assistant to Dr. King and is a current Director of the organization’s American headquarters). Part of the work of The Aetherius Society is predicated on Prayer, and the mental direction of positive energy towards the world’s trouble spots in a manifestation of the concept that consciousness can impact objective reality. The presentation will provide an overview of the Southland’s fascinating spiritual history and ongoing role in the development of new religious thought and action.

 

Clifton’s Cafeteria is at 648 South Broadway, near the corner of 7th Street. There are numerous paid parking lots nearby, and the closest Metro station is Pershing Square. Clifton’s is online at https://www.cliftonscafeteria.com

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon (note new location – this month only)

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! This month only: due to unforeseen circumstances, the LAVA Sunday Salon will not be held at Clifton’s Cafeteria, which is closed. Instead we will gather on the third floor of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, which is just two blocks west of Clifton’s, on the north-east corner of 7th and Olive Streets. For walking directions from Clifton’s Cafeteria, click here. When you enter the Athletic Club, inform the person at the desk that you are there as a guest of club member Richard Schave attending the LAVA event. They will sign you in, and send you up to the third floor. It will be possible to order light meals of sandwiches in the 8th floor snack bar, however, please note that service will be slower than at Clifton’s, and that arriving early and ordering promptly will be very helpful. We recommend parking under Pershing Square at Fifth and Olive. If you order food, the Athletic Club will validate for their parking lot. 

ABOUT THE SUNDAY SALON: On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread. 

Special program at the June 26 Salon (additional programs may be added closer to Salon time): 

• Special guest Milt Stevens, a long time SF fan who has been a member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society for a bit over fifty years, will give a presentation on this illustrious southland organization–the world’s oldest science fiction club, which for many years met right here at Clifton’s Cafeteria. Milt will give a brief history of the LASFS and discuss its current activities, with a focus on memorable anecdotes about the writers and fans who have been part of this remarkable entity.

• Back by popular demand, LAVA Visionary Gene Sculatti, outsider artist and pop culture critic (The Catalog of Cool) returns to show off the new “construction” on his newest fantasy cityscape scroll Majestic Boulevard, which has been developed in response to the daffy and inspired suggestions of January Salon attendees. New developments suggested by LAVA Visionaries include: the world HQ of Ian Whitcomb’s ITW Industries and the consulate general of Smokessylvania, submitted by Count Smokula. Gene’s pitch to virtual developers: “Come live the Jet Age California dream when you stake out a virtual half-acre along Majestic Boulevard and plan the commercial development of your dreams. Maybe it’s tiki-themed bowling alley… or a no-tell motel named after your secret crush… or the lone Victorian farmhouse left behind when progress came to town.” Six months in the works, Gene returns to the Sunday Salon to unveil the expanded scroll to the lucky “property owners.” Also on view: Untitled #1,  whose theme might be ‘Imagining SoCal.’ This is a 13-inches-by-53-feet job, drawn from 1969-71, and was the last one the artist did before moving to L.A. The inspiration is mostly Southern California, and the work covers all four of Reyner Banham’s ecologies. Bonus: a portion has the experimental “smog coat” the artist devised to make it “more like L.A.” ABOUT GENE SCULATTI’S SCROLLS: Since the age of 9, Sculatti, 63, has created imaginary horizontal cities packed with fascinating details that reflect his evolving obsessions: googie signage, soaring bridges, skyscrapers, suburbs, amusement parks and much more. Join us for a rare opportunity to get close to these beautiful and strange artworks, and to hear the artist discuss his inspirations, working methods, and how the scrolls have stayed with him for more than four decades. To learn more about Gene’s cityscapes, see photos from the March 2010 Sunday Salon exhibit of Gene’s scrolls here, read Gene’s musings here, or view his work-in-progress sketches here.

Clifton’s Cafeteria is at 648 South Broadway, near the corner of 7th Street. There are numerous paid parking lots nearby, and the closest Metro station is Pershing Square. Clifton’s is online at https://www.cliftonscafeteria.com 

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.

Special program at the May 29 Salon: 


• Artist / musician and LAVA Visionary Rich Polysorbate 60 was born five years after the shipwreck of the S.S. Dominator off Palos Verdes. The wreck served as his tree fort and nautical womb. He would hallucinate and dream about fusing as one with it. The Dominator would feed him memories and stories related to those who died on it after it split in half and was scattered among the rocks. Rich will be on hand today to share mementos and clues in the way of a film/poetry presentation with live theremin accompaniment from Paul Wilkins (PWE/Clowns and Fetuses).  

• LAVA co-founder Richard Schave hosts a discussion on the history of The United Lodge of Theosophy, a unique Los Angeles institution. The forces that impacted founder Robert Crosbie from his arrival in 1911, and how he and his brethren shaped their spiritual and educational environment over the decades, are a fundamental narrative of the city. Theosophy, like Los Angeles, straddles two kingdoms, the finite and the infinite, imbued with fascinating contradictions: love, wealth, greed, power and release. Victoria Prinz is a member of the ULT, and she’ll take some of these themes as a starting point for this discussion on the extraordinary legacy of the ULT in Los Angeles.  

Post-Salon happenings:

• Following the Salon, a limited number of people will join LAVA co-founder Richard Schave and architectural historian Nathan Marsak for a free L.A. Noire-themed walking tour, part of the series The Flâneur & The City. This event is now sold out (info here), but all may attend Nathan’s pre-walk presentation upstairs at Clifton’s on Downtown Los Angeles Then/Now as represented in the game play of the new video game L.A. Noire. Nathan’s talk will begin around 2pm, as the Salon concludes.

Clifton’s Cafeteria is at 648 South Broadway, near the corner of 7th Street. There are numerous paid parking lots nearby, and the closest Metro station is Pershing Square. Clifton’s is online at https://www.cliftonscafeteria.com 


 

 

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LAVA’s March 2011 Sunday Salon video

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If you missed the Salon festivities at Clifton’s on March 27, don’t fret, for the spirits of the woodland were busy videotaping the proceedings, from Jon Alloway’s preview of his Cacophony Society documentary to Gene Sculatti’s hilarious tales of record promotion men run amok (with a sidebar from Salon attendee Ian Whitcomb on the original “Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man”) to Al Ridenour’s explanation of his post-Cacophony adventures in Art of Bleeding. Join us again on April 24 for another afternoon of discoveries and connection.

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Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: South L.A. tour (hot rod edition)

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“I learned to drive in order to read Los Angeles in the original” -Reyner Banham, Architecture of Four Ecologies

This provocative Esotouric bus adventure begins downtown and works its way south through Vernon, Bell Gardens, Santa Fe Springs and Downey, and through the past two centuries, exploring some of L.A.’s seldom-seen gems. Turning the West Side-centric notion of an L.A. architecture tour on its head—just like Banham’s book did for the historical monograph – the bus goes into areas not traditionally associated with the important, beautiful or significant, raising issues of preservation, adaptive reuse and the evolution of the city. The locations all speak to the power, mutability and reach of the Southern California Dream. Some of the tour stops are:

Rancho San Antonio (1808). One of the oldest adobe structure in Los Angeles County, it was built by the Lugo family, whose rancho spread all the way to South Gate–the south gate of the property. This fascinating home sits smack dab in the middle of a 65-year-old trailer park on the banks of the Rio Hondo River in Bell Gardens. Between the layers of context at this site is the history of migration and growth in the Southland, from Spanish land grants to the dust bowl to the vast waves of stucco suburbs.

The Clarke Estate (1920). A lost masterpiece by tilt-slab concrete architect Irving Gill, this Mission Revival-inspired dwelling features symbolic leaves pressed into the walls and feels like a time capsule from a simpler California.

Johnie’s Broiler (1958/2008). A cautionary tale about historic preservation, this beloved Downey diner with its landmark neon sign was illegally demolished by a renter who wanted to park use cars in its place. The site was barred from further commercial use due to public outcry, and is now being restored as a Bob’s Big Boy.

The special guest on this May 1 edition of the “Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: South L.A.” tour is legendary automotive engineer GALE BANKS, who grew up in Lynwood and learned his trade in the region’s hot rod scene of the 1950s and 1960s. Gale Banks holds the record for the World’s Fastest Passenger Car (1987 Pontiac GTA, 277mph), is recipient of the 2009 Automotive Hall of Fame Distinguished Service Citation, and a living legend of the hot rod, drag race and turbocharging worlds who today is exploring green fuel technologies. His fifty years of automotive innovation are on display in the ongoing Gale Banks Automotive Technology Exhibit at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona. Gale’s personal recollections about the incredible characters of the mid-century Southern California hot rod scene, told at the scenes where they worked and played, will make an unforgettable addition to this offbeat Southern California history tour.

No other city has so fascinated architecture critics and scholars of urban and cultural studies than L.A., that sprawling, self-referential zone of mystery and glamour. British writer Reyner Banham was the first to love Los Angeles for what she was, her ugliness as well as her beauty. In the early 1970s he abandoned his academic preconceptions to revel in this city of freeways, foothills, beaches and suburbs, built on mobility and flux by a series of invaders. Along the way, he discovered extraordinary spaces in neighborhoods that were often overlooked for being too remote, too industrial, or simply occupying invisible “flyover country” beneath the great L.A. freeways.

In this city on the edge of the western dream, nothing was like what came before. Status was no longer communicated through the construction of stone palaces that looked like they fought every step of the journey over the Rocky Mountains, but rather by freeway access and wacky drive-thrus, light, ventilation, organic design and a sensitivity to a built environment— commercial and architectural innovations which would have been unthinkable anywhere and anytime else.

Gone was the unified vision of a city, and yet there was a method to L.A.’s madness. What Banham saw was something far more complicated: behind this urban sprawl was a pattern, almost a language, which could not be understood through old modes of architectural and urban criticism, but which had to be viewed through the organic facts of its own ecologies.

Esotouric guides Richard Schave and Kim Cooper studied under Banham as undergraduates at UCSC, and both were deeply influenced by his work. In Fall 2007, we launched the “Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles” architectural series in tribute to our late professor, who showed us our native Southern California through fresh eyes.

ABOUT REYNER BANHAM: Reyner Banham(1922-1988) was a prolific architectural critic best known for “Theory and Design in the First Machine Age” (1960) and “Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies” (1971). Professor Banham taught at the University of London, SUNY Buffalo and the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he was Chair of the Art History Department.

 

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Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: Route 66 tour

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Esotouric’s “Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles” tours each explore themes of industry, infrastructure, architecture and the built environment.

In this third installment in our ongoing architecture series, we explore California’s Mother Road and the building of its dream. The dream manifests at the turn of the 20th century as we explore how the climate was sold, the growth of the citrus industry and Tuberculosis hospitals. Then come the programmatic roadside architecture of the 1920s and 1930s and postwar V-8 visions fueled by gasoline and good climate (too bad you can’t run an engine on it).

The Reyner Banham tour series is dedicated to revealing greater L.A.’s infrastructure, history, the built and natural environment, transportation corridors, drive-ins, attractions and oddities.

This tour will focus on the built environment along the Mother Road with an emphasis on old and historic alignments of Route 66 as well as signage.

Highlights of the Route 66 tour include:

E. Wald Ward Farm. Purveyors of fine preservatives and other delicacies. We will visit the barn store of this venerable Sierra Madre citrus family which has been in business of producing and selling the highest quality preserves from their orchards since 1918. We will tour the orchard and hear more about the history of this family from 4th generation member, Jeff Ward. Please peruse their price list and call ahead with your order!

Aztec Hotel. Though really Mayan in decoration, this 1924 Robert Stacy Judd-designed gem in the San Gabriel Valley’s crown is becoming the place again to get your kicks. Judd’s buildings in Southern California were an important influence on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mayan houses.

The McNeil & Vosberg Residences (The Feuding Slauson Sisters of Azusa). A hidden gem of Azusa lore, and family dynamics. It also serves as a reminder of the fragility of ecologies to the incessant crush of progress.

Fairmount Cemetery, a remote and fascinating Civil War-era hillside burial ground.

This four hour tour will include a complimentary coffee and cookies stop in the early afternoon. We recommend bringing a sandwich from Clifton’s or a bag lunch as well. Please note: comfortable walking shoes recommended. One of our shorter tour stops takes us over slightly rugged ground, and less agile passengers may prefer to remain on the bus.

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon

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Video of this past Sunday Salon is here.

On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.

Special program at the April 24 Salon: 

• In keeping with the Easter Sunday theme, LAVA Visionary The Ukulady and her band the Evil Sandwiches will sing quirky songs on ukulele, banjo and omnichord while Visionaries and honored guests craft Egg-centric & Bunnyriffic crafts, including magnets, pins, pipe-cleaner jewelry, egg dioramas and more!

• LAVA Visionary Ian Whitcomb will lead us on a ramble through his checkered past: how, while still a student at Trinity College Dublin, he came to Los Angeles in 1965–as a Justin Beiber-style teen idol with his lubricious hit, “You Turn Me On.” How he fell in love with the glamor–surf, girls, bodies in general, onion rings, and what not–and how, over the years, although the glamor has faded, he is even more entranced with L.A as a city of hidden treasures and odd folk, who are now his friends. He made a BBC film about the GB colony, he has been a radio host since the early 1980s ( KROQ, KCRW, KPCC) and now talks about his life here on his XM (Channel 152,Extreme Radio) and Luxuriamusic.com radio shows and also in his monthly “Letters From Lotusland” posted online. While online travel to YouTube and see Ian in his rock  star splendor and go through the years with him as he transforms from rocker to ragtimer and finally to ukester–you can even watch the BBC documentary mentioned above–it’s heavy with sex and nudity) He will illustrate his ramble with extracts from his latest book, “Letters From Lotusland–An Englishman In Exile” (especially from the episode where his dog Rollo is taken for a ride by a Hollywood scam audition outfit ), and, with his ukulele he will sing his song , “Come And Make Your Heaven In L.A.”  (as featured in the horrible slasher feature, “Bloody Movie” and on You Tube). Ian, by the way, was instrumental in the  revival of the ukulele– back in the 1960s and early 70s on Dick Clark’s “Where The Action Is” and Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” and, of course, though his hit single “Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go With Friday On Saturday Night?”

 

Clifton’s Cafeteria is at 648 South Broadway, near the corner of 7th Street. There are numerous paid parking lots nearby, and the closest Metro station is Pershing Square. Clifton’s is online at https://www.cliftonscafeteria.com 


 

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LAVA’s February 2011 Sunday Salon

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If you missed the Salon festivities at Clifton’s on February 27, don’t fret, for our frisky elves were busy videotaping the proceedings, from John Dullaghan’s talk about Charles Bukowski’s youthful downtown days to the musical stylings of The Ukulady and her Evil Sandwiches (with an unplanned interlude featuring The Ukulady, Charles Phoenix and the Clifton’s dessert bar). Join us again on March 27 for another afternoon of discoveries and connection.

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John Fante’s Dreams from Bunker Hill tour

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Early editions of this Esotouric bus adventure lamented John Fante’s obscurity. On April 8, 2010, the City of Los Angeles declared the corner of 5th & Grand, beside the Central Library, JOHN FANTE SQUARE. Today John Fante might be best described as the most famous unknown writer in America. Climb aboard to hear his story and that of the lost neighborhood where he found his voice.

Before Kerouac, before Bukowski, there was John Fante, author of “Ask the Dust,” “Dreams of Bunker Hill,” “Full of Life,” “The Road to Los Angeles” and “Wait Until Spring, Bandini.” This five-novel cycle, written over sixty years, introduced the world to Arturo Bandini, an outspoken, down-and-out Mr. Hyde to Fante’s Dr. Jekyll.

As Bunker Hill’s prodigal son, Fante-as-Bandini chronicles a forgotten Los Angeles neighborhood teeming with immigrants, criminals and dreamers like himself. With genuine compassion and wonderful craft, he sketches the hopes and dreams which fly round their heads, and in the process finds his own voice, a revelation which carries him all the way to Hollywood. Once there, he is distracted by fame and fortune, and settles for easy answers to the questions of faith in oneself, the nature of inspiration, and the duality of failure and redemption. “Dreams of Bunker Hill” was dictated by a blind Fante two years before his death, and “Road to Los Angeles” was published posthumously. Bunker Hill is gone now, flattened, its mansions torn down, long since redeveloped by corporate and civic interests. But in today’s downtown communities the same stories play out, in thriving micro-climates where artists and writers find their voices, where some are making it big and others breaking up on the reef, some moving away and others coming back in search of what they have lost. Arturo Bandini is alive and well, and his lament is as relevant today as it was 75 years ago. So please join us as we follow in his footsteps, to the Goodwill store, King Eddy’s, Clifton’s Cafeteria (“pay what you can”), the Los Angeles Library’s Reading Room and the Post Office Terminal Annex (important landmarks for Bukowski and Fante), aboard the newly-restored Angels Flight Railway, and other evocative scenes of old L.A.

This tour is a meditation not only on John Fante, but the preservation of Public Space. The depopulation of Bunker Hill in the early 1960s became the benchmark for Community Redevelopment across the country-the term “Federal Bulldozer” came out of the many lawsuits filed against the city at the time. And now that corporate interests have decided it is time to repopulate western downtown Los Angeles with market-rate housing the ensuing catastrophe has spawned many new monikers (elegant density is one of the more polite ones) and problems. Public Space downtown can be saved and Arturo Bandini can lead the way. Please Note: This tour will have several sections which involve walking through parts of Downtown for up to ten minutes at a time. Walking shoes and sunscreen are advised.

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon

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On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.

Special program at the March 27 Salon – PRANKS & TOMFOOLERY:

Video of this past Sunday Salon is here. 

• LAVA Visionary Jon Alloway talks about and previews his new documentary “Into the Zone – The Story of the Cacophony Society,” as recently seen at MOMA as part of the Juxtapoz “All the Wrong Art” show. This hilarious and exciting Dada-documentary follows the evolution of the prankish group from its origins in the San Francisco Suicide Club through the creation of the Burning Man Festival, the irreverent Los Angeles Cacophony Society and beyond. This is the history of a significant American underground cultural movement, featuring astonishing footage never before seen by normal people. The Cacophony Society is a national network of creative provocateurs serving as prototype for Chuck Palahniuk’s “Fight Club.”  Throughout the 1990s, the Society’s notorious Los Angeles lodge orchestrated hundreds of darkly absurdist culture-jamming spectacles ranging from the detonation of a pyro-charged 80-foot replica of Disney’s It’s a Small World ride to a Christmas face-off between a two-hundred-strong mob of Santas and a riot squad. The credo of the Cacophony Society is  “You May Already be a Member!” 

• LAVA Visionary “Reverend” Al Ridenour, the former “Grand Instigator” of the Los Angeles Lodge of the Cacophony Society, will be sharing insights into his years coordinating Cacophonist activities. Al will also be talking about his current project, The Art of Bleeding, a performance collective that gathers together a number of former LA Cacophonists for absurdist medically-themed stage shows and events. The Art of Bleeding produces ego-destabilizing programs on safety and medical education for both live and video presentation. Often staged from an actual ambulance, their performances utilize a perturbing mix of cartoonish costumes, puppets, vintage educational films, animation, and thinly veiled medical fetishism to create a sort of “paramedical funhouse” in which the groping ego may ultimately experience TRUE SAFETY CONSCIOUSNESS.  

•From his music-biz research archives, LAVA Visionary Gene Sculatti presents TALES FROM THE FLIPSIDE, a recounting of some of the more colorful and outrageous scams, tricks and stunts used by promotion men to get their records played. Hear some of what it took to land some of your favorite artists on the charts. Featured: the Peter, Paul & Mary riots, the consequences of being the fake Duke of Earl, and the saga of the singing cop Saverio Saridis.

Clifton’s Cafeteria is at 648 South Broadway, near the corner of 7th Street. There are numerous paid parking lots nearby, and the closest Metro station is Pershing Square. Clifton’s is online at https://www.cliftonscafeteria.com 

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LAVA’s January 2011 Sunday Salon

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If the rain, the park or other things kept you away from Clifton’s on january 30, let this video be your cheat sheet for LAVA-themed conversations long and lustrous. This Salon featured contributions from Visionaries Gene Sculatti, Joe Oesterle and Count Smokula, and a delightful time was had by all. Join us again on February 27 for another afternoon of discoveries and connection.

 

 

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LAVA’s Sunday Salon

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Salon Video Part One – link

Salon Video Part Two – link

On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather on the third floor of the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in Downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community. We also recommend the shortbread.

Special program at the February 27 Salon (with more Visionary presentations to be added closer to Salon day):

• LAVA Visionary John Dullaghan, director of Bukowski: Born Into This, leads a discussion about Charles Bukowski’s youthful experiences in Downtown Los Angeles, from rooming house living on Bunker Hill to early employment at the Biltmore and Los Angeles Times, teenage excursions to the burlesque houses of Main Street, curious forays into the world of broken men along Skid Row’s Nickel, and to the Central Library, where he found Ask The Dust by John Fante and a model for the writer he knew he could become.  

Following the Salon, a limited number of people will join John and LAVA co-founder Richard Schave for a free Charles Bukowski-themed walking tour, part of the series The Flâneur & The City. For reservations or info, click here. (Sorry, the Bukowski walking tour is now sold out, but you can still reserve a spot on Richard Schave’s Bukowski bus tour, next scheduled for April 10.)

• An acoustic set from LAVA Visionary The Ukulady and her Evil Sandwiches, a bass, banjo and omnichord ensemble playing Music To Eat Pie By. 

Clifton’s Cafeteria is at 648 South Broadway, near the corner of 7th Street. There are numerous paid parking lots nearby, and the closest Metro station is Pershing Square. Clifton’s is online at https://www.cliftonscafeteria.com 

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