Books

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Sold out! Serial Killer Summer Session: The Night Stalker & The 60 Freeway Slayer

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This event is sold out. If you’d like to know more about the event, or to get on the waiting list, click here. If you’d like to be contacted when another crime lab tour and lecture are scheduled, subscribe to LAVA’s occasional Crime Lab Newsletter.

Join us in the Cal State Los Angeles teaching crime lab for an afternoon’s inquiry into the history and practice of forensic science in Los Angeles, in support of new research coming out of the Criminalistics Department. 

Presentation #1: Stalking The Night Stalker

Almost exactly thirty years ago, Richard Ramirez was captured by a mob of enraged East Los Angeles community members, ending the reign of terror of the self-proclaimed Night Stalker, who laid siege to the city through a series of vicious home invasion attacks in the spring and summer of 1985.

Giselle Lavigne is a forensic investigator for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department who worked on analyzing the physical evidence used for Richard Ramirez’ murder trial. She will present in great detail on the full complement of forensic evidence that was gathered, revealing the actions of the killer through the trace, blood and other evidence he left behind.

Presentation #2: The 60 Freeway Slayer

Professor Donald Johnson, our host and the Director of the Criminalistics Department, will present on six murders of prostitutes in 1993-94, which were initially attributed to an unknown “60 Freeway Slayer.”

When Professor Johnson was a forensic investigator for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, he investigated the murders, and gathered the evidence which, almost a decade later with the introduction of DNA evidence into the courtroom, would result in the conviction and death sentence of the “60 Freeway Slayer,” who DNA evidence showed to be incarcerated felon Ivan Hill. The case is a pivotal example of the remarkable impact that new forensic technology has in the courtroom and the lab.

By the afternoon’s conclusion, attendees will have a deeper understanding of the evolving toolkit used to gather and interpret physical evidence for the benefit of investigating officers and juries, from the 1980s to the present.

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LAVA’s 42nd Sunday Salon

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Please note that, due to limited room capacity, attendees must register to attend the LAVA Sunday Salon. To sign up for this free event: First register as a user on this site, or login to your existing account and then return to this page. Refresh the page and the signup field will appear just to the left of this text. Enter your email address. No plus-ones; each guest must register individually. If you find you are unable to attend, please return to this page and cancel your reservation. Also, note that the Sunday Salon has a new time slot: 2-4pm.

Join poet and memoirist Joan Jobe Smith for an afternoon of poetry & storytelling at the LAVA Sunday Salon. The newly published Tales of An Ancient Go-Go Girl by long-time Long Beach, California resident Joan Jobe Smith, is a picaresque True Tale, a 50-year Glotessey spanning the 1965 Los Angeles Watts Riots, near death at the hands of a homicidal ex-husband, the counter-culture go-go swinging let-it-all-hang-out 1960s-‘70s, single Motherhood and Feminism. Rarely does a natural poet and historian such as Joan Jobe Smith endure such ordeals and challenges and survive to tell the tale. It is a Tale written with go-going panache and patois, and heart, courage and humor to make our lives richer and wiser. The event will be a series of short Q&As with LAVA’s Richard Schave on milestones from the memoir, punctuated by Joan reading poetry selections which span her career.

Excerpts from 5-Star Reviews of Tales of An Ancient Go-Go Girl:

“Charles Bukowski said the inimitable Joan Jobe Smith’s writing ‘has the reality of force properly put down on paper; she cuts herself loose into the stratosphere.’ Joan’s heart is so damned big. She’s not only cut herself loose into the stratosphere, she takes anyone who wants to go with her along for the ride. And now we have this raw-edged, honest, beauty of a book…” —L. Jakiela, Creative Writing Professor, University of Pittsburgh

“Vividly conjures up the dark shadows and wisecracks of a Film Noir, set in 1960s-‘70s L.A., with a cast of glamourous yet vulnerable dancers, slimy bosses, wharf rats (both rodents, ex-husband and customers) with walk-ons by celebrities (Dick Dale, Ike and Tina Turner) amongst the burgeoning pop music and drug counter-culture of the era. Energized by Joan Jobe Smith’s poetic eye and exuberant syntax, these true Tales will enthrall readers, revealing its author as a brilliant chronicler of her Noir-ish life and times.“—Jules Smith, London’s Times Literary Supplement

“I just finished reading Joan Jobe Smith’s Tales of An Ancient Go-Go Girl. She has such a descriptive, poetic talent for words as she weaves her true life tales of love, jealousy, near murder and trials. Bukowski advised her to write about her go-go girl years. I admire her ability to bring scenes from the ’60s and ’70s so vividly to life.”–Linda King

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From Pop to the Pit: Gary Leonard Presents Music Photos 1978-1989

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Culled from the Herald-Examiner photo archive and the Gary Leonard Collection, Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection presents a glimpse into a decade in the musical life of a city that produced scores of hit singles, strikingly diverse genres, and tremendous excitement. Join us in reliving an extraordinary time in Los Angeles’ music scene with rarely seen images of the bands that helped define the era.

On Display in the History & Genealogy Department from January 8 to June 28, 2015

In conjunction with this photo exhibit, the Los Angeles Public Library and Photo Friends are excited to present a special lecture series featuring notable local music photographers. Gary Leonard will present images from his book, Make the Music Go Bang, and talk about his connection to the LA music scene, which will include “then and now” portraits of LA musicians.

Saturday, March 14, 2015 at 2 pm in the Mark Taper Auditorium, Central Library. Seating is on a first come first serve basis, with doors opening approx. 1/2 hr. before the program.

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LAVA’s 41st Sunday Salon

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Please note that, due to limited room capacity, attendees must register to attend the LAVA Sunday Salon. To sign up for this free event: First register as a user on this site, or login to your existing account and then return to this page. Refresh the page and the signup field will appear just to the left of this text. Enter your email address. No plus-ones; each guest must register individually. If you find you are unable to attend, please return to this page and cancel your reservation. Also, note that the Sunday Salon has a new time slot: 2-4pm.

Architectural Historian Nathan Marsak, the LAVA Visionary of the Year for 2015, presents on the forgotten architectural landscape of nineteenth-century Los Angeles—a lost world whose most salient impulse was toward the imposing, rough-hewn blocks of the Romanesque.

The common narrative regarding the visual development of early Los Angeles usually involves the native vernacular of the pueblo, which one may still visit in any number of extant adobes; from there, following some historic boom times, we Angelenos and visitors alike are regaled by the wondrous Beaux-Arts high-rises of downtown. If pure Victorian architecture is considered, one likely turns attention to the Eastlake and Queen Anne examples along Carroll Avenue, or to the used-car lot of gingerbread, Heritage Square.

This does a disservice, asserts Marsak, to the wonderland of Richardsonian Romanesque, Romanesque Revival, and Romanesque-hybrid office blocks and civic structures that once defined our city. A confluence of money and local pride, primarily in the late-1880s, resulted in what was arguably America’s greatest center of the style, short-lived though it may have been. The ethos of the City Beautiful movement, skyscraper construction, and other factors contributed to its demise.

It is especially striking that these structures, whose construction exuded solidity and permanence, should have been removed on so great a scale. Besides illuminating twenty of the most notable lost masterpieces, Marsak’s lecture will visit those few remaining examples of the style. Attention will be given as well to the styles that fought for dominance in defining Victorian Los Angeles, e.g., French Empire.

Hot Lead and Hot Leads: Forensic Firearm / Gang Communication Analysis forensic science seminar
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Hot Lead and Hot Leads: Forensic Firearm / Gang Communication Analysis forensic science seminar

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To purchase a ticket for this special event, click here. If you’d like to be contacted when another crime lab tour and lecture are scheduled, subscribe to LAVA’s occasional Crime Lab Newsletter.

Join us in the Cal State Los Angeles teaching crime lab for an afternoon’s inquiry into the history and practice of forensic science in Los Angeles, in support of new research coming out of the Criminalistics Department. 

Presentation #1: The Secrets of Forensic Firearm Analysis with Forensic Firearm and Toolmark Examiner Michael I. Kelley

For our first talk, join Michael I. Kelley, who works with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department as a trainer in the Firearm Identification unit, and who previously presented on his crime scene reconstruction of Pat Tillman’s death in Afghanistan, for an in-depth presentation on law enforcement techniques for analyzing projectiles and weapons from criminal investigations.

In this introduction to the science of forensic firearm analysis, illustrated with real crime scene photographs and casework, Mike will cover:

  • Examination of ammunition.
  • Microscopic comparisons of fired bullets, cartridge cases and toolmarks.
  • Distance Determination.
  • Serial number restorations.
  • Physical fracture matches.
  • The Cross Fire (IBIS) System
  • Toolmark identification

Presentation #2: Murder Behind Bars with LASD Team Leader and educator Nick Guskos

For our second talk, join LASD Team Leader and educator Nick Guskos, co-author of the 2013 textbook Criminal Investigation: An Illustrated Case Study Approach, for an insightful presentation inside the hidden world of gang communication. Nick takes us deep within the investigation into a case of a murder which occurred inside the walls of the Los Angeles County Jail. You’ll follow along as the case unfolds and is eventually solved through intelligence gathering. Intelligence gathering is the key to understanding all complex criminal organizations, including terrorism. This latter area is the topic of Nick’s doctoral dissertation, and will be covered at the conclusion of his talk.

By the afternoon’s conclusion, attendees will have a deeper understanding of the real work that’s done in the field by forensic investigators, and the tools and techniques used to interpret physical evidence and analyze intelligence for the benefit of investigating officers and juries.

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LAVA’s 40th Sunday Salon (Reservations Now Full)

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UPDATE: Please note that reservations for this event are now closed, as we have reached capacity. If you would like to try to attend but have not yet reserved, please note that we will begin admitting ticketed guests at 1:30pm on 2/22. At 2pm, any ticketed guest who has not arrived will forfeit their reservation, and we will then admit non-ticketed guests on a first come, first served basis until the room reaches capacity. You may come to the venue and put your name (just your name, no +1s) on the waiting list starting at 1:30pm. 

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Please note that, due to limited room capacity, attendees must register to attend the LAVA Sunday Salon. No plus-ones; each guest must register individually. If you find you are unable to attend, please return to this page and cancel your reservation. Also, note that the Sunday Salon has a new time slot: 2-4pm. 

Join LAVA Visionary and art historian Dr. Paul Koudounaris, author of “Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs” and “The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses” for a very special presentation inaugurating the relaunch of the monthly LAVA Sunday Salon at Library Bar.

Demonically-Possessed Cats with Dr. Paul Koudounaris

Does your cat do things like:

spit fire?

speak in tongues?

levitate?

shape shift?

wantonly kill people for no apparent reason?

This behavior may be more than simple bad kitty syndrome—your cat may be possessed by a demon. But don’t worry, you’re not alone. In fact, there is an entire history of demonically-possessed cats. Felines were once considered by theologians to be easy prey for demons, who could enter their bodies and wreck incredible havoc on mankind. And did you know… demonically-possessed cats are still believed to be with us today?! Dr. Paul Koudounaris has immersed himself in the study of demonic cats, in order to to give a talk on this sadly neglected topic. Cat lovers will like this lecture, and cat haters will like it even more. Neither side will ever look at a domestic cat the same way again.

Please note this lecture has been given by Dr. Koudounaris in abbreviated forms about town, but this only time he will present the full lecture in Los Angeles.

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The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain’s Southern California Nightmare 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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Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles tour

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Bungalows. Crime. Hollywood. Blondes. Vets. Smog. Death.

This was Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles, which resonated under deft and melancholy fits from his writer’s bow.

Join Esotouric as they go down the mean streets that shaped his fiction, and that in turn shaped his hard-boiled times, in a four hour tour of downtown, Hollywood and surrounding environs: The Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Larry Edmunds Bookshop, the Hotel Van Nuys, Paramount Studio’s gates, and much, much more, including a Chandler-themed gelato stop at East Hollywood cult favorite Scoops.

Through published work, private correspondence, screenplays and film adaptations, we trace Chandler’s search for meaning and his anti-hero Philip Marlowe’s struggle to not be pigeonholed or give anything less than all he has, which lead them both down the rabbit hole of isolation, depression, and drink. 

Exclusive on this tour: the fascinating story of Raymond Chandler’s lost comic operetta “The Princess and the Pedlar,” a bombshell in Chandler studies, discovered by co-host Kim Cooper in 2014.

Tour passengers will have the opportunity to purchase an autographed copy of Kim Cooper’s mystery novel “The Kept Girl,” inspired by this tour and starring the young Chandler and the real-life Philip Marlowe on the trail of a cult of murderous angel worshippers, as well as the new “Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles.”

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Pasadena Public Library Talk: Kim Cooper and Richard Schave on “The Kept Girl”

retro
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Join us in the gorgeous National Register Pasadena Central Library, as true crime historian/novelist Kim Cooper discusses and reads from “The Kept Girl” (Esotouric Ink, 2014), a 1920s mystery starring the young Raymond Chandler, his devoted secretary and the real-life Philip Marlowe all on the trail of a murderous cult of angel worshippers. Accompanying Kim is husband Richard Schave, her partner in Esotouric bus adventures and LAVA – the Los Angeles Visionaries Association, and the designer of this 1940s-inspired paperback, the debut publication of their L.A.-centric press, Esotouric Ink. Kim’s illustrated talk will draw on her years of research into the lost lore of Los Angeles, with a focus on the bizarre Great Eleven cult, which ensnared dozens of credulous Angelenos in their mystical rites before one disgruntled ex-believer brought the whole enterprise tumbling down. You’ll hear about Raymond Chandler’s pre-literary life as an oil company executive, the idealistic L.A. policeman who is a likely model for Philip Marlowe, the real woman who inspired the character of Chandler’s secretary Muriel, and the terrible secrets revealed by the fraud investigation in the Great Eleven’s activities. Richard will share insights into how he used cutting edge computing tools to evoke the look and feel of a mid-century book, and Kim will talk abut the deluxe Art Deco wraps created for the Subscribers, whose pre-publication support covered a big chunk of the print cost.  The talk will be followed by a Q&A, and copies of “The Kept Girl” and “The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles” will be available for purchase and signing by the author.

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Haunts of A Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski’s Los Angeles tour

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“[This tour is] a poetic journey full of rare insight into the life of a man who’s come to represent the ghettoized contingency of the City of Angels.” (Tanja M. Laden, Flavorpill)… “Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski’s LA” from Esotouric focuses on Bukowski’s great passions: writing, screwing and Los Angeles. We’ll take in the canonical locations of his life and myth: the Postal Annex Terminal where he gathered the material for “Post Office,” the De Longpre apartment where he briefly experimented with marriage and fatherhood, one of his favorite bars and liquor stores, and many other spots. Along the way, we’ll explore the people and ideas that made up the warp and weft of Buk’s rich inner life. This Esotouric bus adventure is hosted by Richard Schave. The tour spans Bukowski’s personal city, from Skid Row to once-genteel Crown Hill, to Bukowski’s favorite East Hollywood liquor store, the Pink Elephant. Esotouric has made its name with true crime bus tours (Black Dahlia, Pasadena Confidential) and explorations of literary LA (Raymond Chandler, John Fante, James M. Cain). Now they turn their creative attentions to Bukowski, the prolific poet, novelist and screenwriter whose rough-hewn tales of boozing, wild women and rotten jobs never obscure the deep vein of sweetness and hope that runs through all his work. 

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