Talks

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The LAVA Salon — Jim Tully: A Hobo in Hollywood

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Registration for this event is closed.

All seats for this event have now been reserved. There is limited SRO space available for anyone who is eager to attend and doesn’t mind standing or sitting on the floor. If you are eager, please use the contact link to request a spot on the SRO list.

ABOUT THIS EVENT:

WHAT: The LAVA Salon presents “Jim Tully: A Hobo in Hollywood,” featuring Mark Dawidziak & Paul Bauer.
WHERE: The Larry Edmunds Bookshop, 6644 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90028.
WHEN: Monday, October 15, 2012 from 6:30-9pm.
COST: Free admittance and light snacks and beverages, but space is extremely limited and reservations are required. See above paragraph for directions on how to register.
FOR MORE INFO ABOUT THE EVENT: Send an email through the LAVA contact page or call Kim Cooper or Richard Schave at 213-373-1947.  Subscribe to the LAVA newsletter to stay informed about future literary Salons

OTHER TULLY EVENTS: Laughter in Hell screening at the American Cinematheque (October 10); Bonnie Cashin Lecture at UCLA Special Collections (October 11); Jim Tully’s Hollywood walking tour (October 14).

ABOUT JIM TULLY: The son of an Irish ditch-digger, Ohio-born Jim Tully (1886-1947) hit the road in 1901, spending most of his teenage years in the company of hoboes. While chasing his dream of becoming a writer, Tully rode the rails and worked as a tree surgeon, boxer, and newspaper reporter. All the while, he was crafting his memories into a dark and original chronicle of the American underclass. When he began to set his experiences onto paper in a style that was Hard Boiled before the genre existed, he became a literary sensation.

Read the Jim Tully ‘One Sheet’

At October’s Salon, Jim Tully’s biographers Mark Dawidziak and Paul Bauer will seek to answer the fundamental question: “Why isn’t Jim Tully still a household name?” Tully exploded onto the scene with a stream of critically acclaimed novels, among them Beggars of Life (1924), Circus Parade (1927), Shanty Irish (1928), Shadows of Men (1930) and Blood on the Moon (1931). Yet the books were out-of-print for decades, their author forgotten.

To answer this question, Mark Dawidziak and Paul Bauer must look to the Hollywood of 1912, to the sleepy little suburb that Tully found and watched grow up around him, as he built his incongruous twin careers as motion picture publicist and independent writer. From his piercing insights into and deep ambivalence toward his longtime employer, Charlie Chaplin, to anecdotes of great friendships with W. C. Fields, Jack Dempsey, Damon Runyon, Lon Chaney, Frank Capra, and Erich von Stroheim, Tully exhibited a lust for life which was only surpassed by his devotion to his craft. By 1930 Tully was a major American author, and had launched a parallel career as a successful journalist. Both his novels and journalistic exposés shook the country and his peer group in Hollywood.

But Tully’s novel Ladies In The Parlor (1935), was declared obscene and most copies destroyed, and Chaplin successfully prevented Tully’s publisher from releasing a biography of the actor. By the mid-1940s, crippling physical ailments and family heartbreak left the writer on the ropes. With his death in 1947, his name quietly slipped from the front ranks of American Letters and into obscurity.

Since 2009, Kent State University Press has been rectifying this long neglect with a series of Tully reprints. And in 2011, it published Mark Dawidziak and Paul Bauer’s definitive biography, Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler, drawing on new information found in the Tully papers at UCLA Special Collections.

The time is ripe for a revival of interest in this fascinating American character, and we invite you to play a part in it at the October Salon.

Paul Bauer cowrote Frazier Robinson’s autobiography, Catching Dreams: My Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues. And, with Mark Dawidziak, he is the coauthor of Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler. He is a used and rare bookseller and lives in Kent, Ohio.

Mark Dawidziak has been the television critic at the Cleveland Plain Dealer since 1999. A theater, film and television reviewer for more than thirty years, his many nonfiction books include The Barter Theatre Story: Love Made Visible, The Columbo Phile: A Casebook, Mark My Words: Mark Twain on Writing, The Night Stalker Companion, Horton Foote’s The Shape of the River: The Lost Teleplay About Mark Twain, The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Dracula and, most recently, with Paul J. Bauer, Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler.

Also appearing at the Salon is Howard Prouty (Acquisitions Archivist at The Academy Foundation/Margaret Herrick Library and proprietor of ReadInk) presenting on a famous Los Angeles book seller, the latest in his ongoing Salon series. This time, this takes the form of a conversation between Howard Prouty and Aaron Epstein, son of Louis Epstein, founder of Pickwick Books.

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Robert Benchley Society Awards Dinner

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It’s time for the 10th annual gathering of the Robert Benchley Society. This national group holds its annual Robert Benchley Awards dinner in a new city each year. This year’s gathering is in Los Angeles, home to Mr. Benchley and Mrs. Dorothy Parker from the thirties through the fifties. This year the Society will gather for various activities the weekend of October 12th, including an Awards dinner hosted by “LAUGH IN” star, Arte  Johnson, at a private club in Santa Monica on Saturday, October 13th.  Evening dress or 20s-30s attire required at the Awards dinner. Must purchase ticket in advance. 

Details and registration are at

https:// www.robertbenchley.org/ AG2012/registration.htm

 

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The First Annual Dearly Departed Weekend

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LAVA Visionary Joe Oesterle, author of the Weird Hollywood book will be a special guest at Dearly Departed Tours‘ First Annual Dearly Departed Weekend. Joe will be there on the evening of Saturday, Oct 6th. Click the link to get your tickets, and check out this very WEIRD event. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

About Saturday’s events: Death Hags will gather in Los Angeles to meet new friends, tour amazing places, and hear fascinating people speak about horrible things. In one day you can tour a disaster scene AND rub shoulders with the Los Angeles County Coroner. On Saturday morning we’ll depart Los Angeles by coach for a day trip. The first stop will be in Santa Clarita for the site of the St. Francis Dam disaster. Just before midnight on March 12, 1928, this newly constructed dam designed by William Mulholland burst, creating a 140 ft wave of over 40 billion gallons of water that killed over 450 people. There we’ll examine the ruins that still exist. Then we’ll motor on down to Pasadena for an exploration of the Arroyo Seco Bridge – better known to our crowd as The Suicide Bridge. An expert on hand will share some of the colorful tales of this majestic / tragic landmark. Back to Hollywood to primp and preen for The Main Event – Saturday Night Cocktails (of course) and a buffet dinner in the Mountain View Mausoleum. Hosted by Scott Michaels, guest presenter is Hollywood Remains to be Seen and e-book pioneer, author Mark Masek. The main speaker of the evening will be Craig Harvey, Chief Coroner Investigator & Chief of Operations Los Angeles County Department of Coroner. There will be several pleasant surprises throughout both evenings. There will be a silent auction and a raffle, both to benefit a grave marker for a yet undetermined notable Hollywood individual. Raffle items and the grave marker recipient to be announced.

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Dead Men Do Tell Tales: A Post-Mortem Affair

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 Music, lectures, and films about dead things (Or nearly dead things. Or things that might eventually die, which I guess opens the night up to pretty much any topic). Featuring:

–Horror rock music (or horrific rock music, their detractors might say, but it depends on context) from Rosemary’s Billygoat–featuring Mike Odd, host of Knott’s Berry Farms’ Halloween Horror Nights.
–Films from the Art of Bleeding (Bleeding is an art form, blood is not, blood is only a medium of expression), and the Art of Bleeding Nurses will be on hand to distribute free diseases.
–Sicilian Sex Ghost lecture by Dr. Paul Koudounaris, author of The Empire of Death, with a full slideshow.
–Clowns and Fetuses present stories about the deaths of famous authors, with a soundtrack of divinely-inspired music from the theramin of Paul Wilkins.

 

Arson Murders and Fire Death Investigation
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Arson Murders and Fire Death Investigation

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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.

Visionary Professor Donald Johnson, in association with LAVA and Esotouric, invites you to participate in a special four-hour event at LA’s regional crime laboratory, on the campus of Cal State LA. Space is very limited and pre-reservation required for this unprecedented opportunity to tour the crime lab, learn from working forensic investigators and educators, and discover the real art and science of crime scene investigation.

“Arson Murders and Fire Death Investigation” is is hosted by Ed Nordskog, an active arson/bomb detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and is a half-day exploration of the scientific investigation of fire-related felony offenses, revealed through methods of evidence analysis, profiling and select case histories. Attendees will also have an opportunity to tour Cal State LA’s state-of the-art teaching and research facilities in the Criminalistics Department of the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center.

This program will explore the extraordinary challenges of dealing with fire death investigations. The destructive effects of fire and fire department suppression operations greatly skew an already complicated death scene. In addition to an in-depth a discussion of the Sandi Nieves case (Santa Clarity resident convicted of asphyxiating her four daughters in their home in 1998, then staging a fire to obscure her crime), the program includes discussion of body dumps and staged suicides involving fire.

Please note that the presentation includes extremely graphic crime scene photos, and is not for the faint of heart. No children will be admitted.

ABOUT ED NORDSKOG: Ed Nordskog is an active arson/bomb detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. He has been a detective since 1990, working specifically in the arson and explosives world since 1997. He has conducted over sixteen hundred fire investigations and as of this writing has personally arrested and interviewed over 250 persons who were convicted of fire setting and related crimes. He has testified in court as a recognized expert in this field on over fifty-five occasions. He has been consulted by prosecuting attorneys on death penalty cases involving arson and murder on three occasions. He has been personally involved in over twenty serial arson investigations. The author has a master’s degree in emergency services management and is certified as a fire investigator by the California State Fire Marshal and the California Conference of Arson Investigators. He is a graduate of the National Fire Academy Arson Investigation Course, the ATF Advanced Arson Investigation Course, the Forensic Fire Death Investigation Course, and numerous other arson investigation courses. He is involved in course development and teaches fire scene investigation, major arson case investigation, serial arson investigation, and arson murder/fire death investigation. He is a course developer and instructor for the state of California’s Arson and Explosives Investigation Course. He is an instructor for the state of California’s Homicide Investigator’s Course. In 2004, the author was named Arson Investigator of the Year by the International Association of Arson Investigators and Law Enforcement Officer of the Year by the International Association of Special Investigations Units; both of these awards are for his work as the lead investigator on a massive arson for hire scheme, involving fifty-five burned properties. He has received over eighty-five commendations, awards, and medals throughout his law enforcement career related to successful criminal investigations. He is author of the book ‘Torchered’ Minds: Case Histories of Notorious Serial Arsonists. His website is here.

Of Scrap & Steel: free rooftop screening of rare 1949 color film set on Main Street, Downtown L.A.
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Of Scrap & Steel: free rooftop screening of rare 1949 color film set on Main Street, Downtown L.A.

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To sign up for this free event: First register as a user on this site, and then return to this page. Refresh the page and the signup tab will appear just to the left, above this paragraph. Click “signup” and reserve your spot. No plus-ones; each guest must register individually.

ABOUT THIS EVENT:

LAVA – The Los Angeles Visionaries Association is pleased to announce a free roof-top screening of a newly-discovered circa 1949 short color film of Main Street and other downtown Los Angeles locations, the Union Rescue Mission-produced Of Scrap & Steel. The screening is in conjunction with a new series of downtown stories on the In SRO Land time travel blog, featuring material from the Union Rescue Mission Archives. 

ABOUT THE FILM: In mid-1948 the Board of Directors of the Union Rescue Mission approved the expenditure of $5,000 to make the 30-minute film Of Scrap & Steel which portrays the redemption and good works of Arthur Hawkins, an alcoholic executive who ended up on the streets of Los Angeles and whose life was saved when he turned to the URM for help. Porter Hall (Arthur Hawkins) is one of only two actors in a film otherwise populated by real Los Angeles characters. (You may recall Hall’s performance as the pesky guy on the train in Double Indemnity.) 

Of Scrap & Steel  was only shown in screenings organized by the URM or related organizations, and would have been completely lost if Liz Mooradian, URM historian, had not saved a deteriorating 16mm print and had it transferred to video before it was too late. Of Scrap & Steel is just one of the remarkable artifacts discovered in the Union Rescue Mission archives and explored in the In SRO Land blog.

This entertaining and powerful short film is a compelling snapshot of life on Skid Row (Main Street) circa 1949, and a fascinating document of the important work that the URM continues to do with the most needy in the community. Although downtown Los Angeles features in numerous noir films, it is extremely rare to see color images of eastern downtown, and rarer still to see full-color live-action footage of the vibrant street scene that included rescue missions, pawn shops, amusement parlors, bars, restaurants and the ever-patrolling paddy wagon in search of drunkards to haul away to jail or County work crews.

This free rooftop screening is jointly organized by LAVA – The Los Angeles Visionaries Association, the In SRO Land time travel blog and the Union Rescue Mission. Seating will be provided, and attendees are encouraged to dress warmly for the cool night air. 

Gourmet box dinners: “Meals with a purpose” will be available for purchase ($7, cash only), with a choice of sandwich (vegetarian, roast beef or chicken), cookie, fruit, chips and beverage. 100% of proceeds from your meal donation goes to the URM, and the proceeds from each dinner will feed two other people.

This screening is held in conjunction with the Skid Row Walking Tour, a separate free event beginning two hours before the screening. Separate registration for each event is required if you wish to attend both the screening and walking tour.

Nearest Metro station is Little Tokyo.

Limited free parking is available at the URM’s underground parking lot. Just tell the attendant you are there for the film. Please carpool: if each guest arrives with one other person in their car, there should be enough parking for all. Those arriving later will have to leave their keys with the parking attendant. Should the URM lot fill up, there is also off-site, paid parking available at Joe’s parking lot at the SW corner of 2nd & San Pedro (MAP). A free shuttle will run between Joe’s parking lot and the Union Rescue Mission before and after the event. 

Schedule

6pm Doors open (reserved guests check in at the main entrance and are sent up to the roof)

7pm-8pm Box dinners available for purchase, guests can watch the sunset (7:45pm)

8pm

  • Introduction to the URM by Rev. Andy Bales, CEO
  • Historians Nathan Marsak & Richard Schave introduce the film in the context of the neighborhood’s history, and their work on the In SRO Land time travel blog.

8:30pm Film screening

9pm Q & A

9:30pm Event ends

 

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George Mann’s Lost Los Angeles

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LAVA – The Los Angeles Visionaries Association and the On Bunker Hill time travel blog in association with the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection and Photo Friends present George Mann’s Lost Los Angeles, a celebration of a newly-discovered treasure trove of mid-century photographs captured by the one-time Vaudeville dance sensation, and projected for the first time tonight in stunning 3-D Kodachrome. Join us as historians Richard Schave (Esotouric) and Nathan Marsak (On Bunker Hill) contextualize the places, 3-D experts Susan Pinsky and David Starkman (Reel 3-D) demystify the format’s history and technology, and Bunker Hill native son Gordon Pattison takes us on a virtual tour of his beloved neighborhood.

The event is free but space is limited. Arrive early to ensure a seat. 3-D glasses will be provided. For parking rates and lot locations, see https://www.lapl.org/central/parking.html

George Mann just might be the most interesting Los Angeles photographer you’ve never heard of. His color scenes of the lost Victorian neighborhood of Bunker Hill, taken just before it was demolished fifty years ago in a misguided urban renewal project, have transformed our understanding of downtown through their presentation on the On Bunker Hill history blog and a recent exhibition at Gary Leonard’s Take My Picture gallery.

Now LAVA- The Los Angeles Visionaries Association, the On Bunker Hill time travel blog and the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection and Photo Friends are delighted to announce an evening celebrating the photographic work of the late George Mann (1905-1977) as it was meant to be seen: in jaw-dropping Kodachrome 3-D. George 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. The event celebrates the recent donation by the George Mann Archive of a portfolio of Bunker Hill prints to the Los Angeles Public Library.

The free presentation of George Mann’s Lost Los Angeles takes place in the Mark Taper Auditorium of the Central Library on Wednesday, November 14, from 6-7:45pm. Space is limited, and early arrival advised.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM:

George Mann’s Lost Los Angeles is hosted by LAVA co-founder Richard Schave and based around the remarkable 3-D projections of Mann’s vintage Kodachrome 3-D slide photographs, overseen by Susan Pinsky & David Starkman (Reel 3-D). They will give an introduction to the technical aspects of the 3-D photography and projection process, share the curious story of how they purchased most of George Mann’s custom motorized 3-D viewing machines after the photographer’s 1977 death, show off a vintage King Vitamin cereal box (for which Mann was the model) and explain their current work with the George Mann Archives to digitize and improve the appearance of Mann’s vintage 3-D transparencies before projecting them using twin projectors aimed at a silver screen for a result that is brighter, clearer and altogether more magical than was possible when George Mann shot his photos in the 1950s and 1960s for display in standalone viewing devices. Attendees will be captivated as they see a lost Los Angeles live again in three dimensions. 3-D glasses will be provided.

Accompanying the projected images, historian Nathan Marsak (On Bunker Hill, Los Angeles Neon) will provide lively and informed narration on the images of Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s, and Bunker Hill native son Gordon Pattison will share personal memories of his beloved old neighborhood as it is recreated, in vivid Kodachrome 3-D, four decades after it was demolished by bulldozers.

Join us for an evening celebrating the rediscovery of one of Los Angeles’ most interesting photographers, and the extraordinary places that captivated him, as George Mann’s 3-D photographs are projected to the public for the very first time.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:

SUSAN PINSKY & DAVID STARKMAN (Reel 3-D) discovered the excitement of 3-D photography in 1976 and have been enjoying every aspect of it ever since. They published a 3-D hobbyist newsletter “Reel 3-D News” from 1978 to 1980. Requests from subscribers unable to find necessary supplies for 3-D photography led to the production of their “3-D Catalog,” which later evolved into a business of selling 3-D supplies and literature called Reel 3-D Enterprises, Inc. Reel 3-D operated full-time from 1984 to 2004. Since then Reel 3-D has been selling wholesale to businesses around the world. 3-D information and references to 3-D supplies sources may still be found on their web site www.reel3d.com. They are active 3-D photographers. They are both Associates of the Photographic Society of America (APSA). Both are past presidents of the Stereo Club of Southern California (www.la3dlclub.com). Both have been on the board of directors of the Photographic Society of America, the Western Photographic Collectors Association, the Stereo Club of Southern California, the National Stereoscopic Association, and the International Stereoscopic Union. They have been an official Stereo Pair since they were married in 1977 (dimensionally documented in View-Master and Stereo Realist formats to prove it!), and continue to enjoy pursuing and sharing this wonderful extra dimensional hobby. In addition to making shows with their own 3-D photos they have worked on many shows which are compilations of recent or vintage images by both known and anonymous stereographers, and putting them into a 3-D projectable format for large audience enjoyment.

NATHAN MARSAK, GORDON PATTISON & RICHARD SCHAVE are contributors to On Bunker Hill (www.onbunkerhill.org), part of the 1947project series of time travel blogs. NATHAN MARSAK is a Los Angeles historian, preservation advocate, and is perpetually restoring his Highland Park home. He is the author of Los Angeles Neon. His forthcoming projects include a book on the American mortuary, and something involving all those postcards he’s collected. GORDON PATTISON is a third generation resident of the lost downtown neighborhood of Bunker Hill. His family’s iconic mansions, The Salt Box and The Castle, were the last two Victorian properties left standing after the Community Redevelopment Agency seized the hill and evicted 9000 people in the largest eminent domain action in American history. The Salt Box and The Castle were recognized as landmarks and moved to Heritage Square, where they were promptly consumed in a fire set by vagrants. With his wife Kim Cooper, RICHARD SCHAVE runs the eclectic tour company Esotouric, offering bus adventures into the secret heart of Los Angeles that celebrate writers (Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Charles Bukowski, John Fante), architecture, true crime and Southland spirituality. He is host of the quarterly LAVA literary Salon at Musso & Frank, leader of LAVA’s Flaneur & The City series of free downtown walking tours, and a stalwart preservation advocate.

ABOUT BUNKER HILL, the ON BUNKER HILL blog and GEORGE MANN:

Bunker Hill in the 1870s was early Los Angeles’ most distinguished address, an enclave of grand Victorians, gorgeous gardens and clear-skied views out to Catalina and beyond. By the 1910s the wealthy had moved on, and the Hill’s mansions became rooming houses. Up on the Hill, life moved at a different pace. Writers Raymond Chandler, John Fante and Charles Bukowski came and were captivated by the place. Painters Leo Politi, Kay Martin and Millard Sheets made its rotting hotels and sad-eyed residents the subject of their art. And down at City Hall, planners schemed about how Bunker Hill could be declared a slum, its old houses pulled down, its people moved along, leaving a blank slate where skyscrapers could grow. By 1970, Bunker Hill was a field of dirt. In 2008, the time travel bloggers of 1947project.com turned their attention to Bunker Hill. Over a year, the blog grew into a house-by-house survey of the great old downtown residential neighborhood that was demolished to create the high rise district that shares its name, but none of its charms. The blog’s contributors, including authors, historians, librarians and tour guides, delved deep into historic archives to uncover the most fascinating tales of more than a century of life on Bunker Hill. 1947project is the brainchild of Kim Cooper, pop music historian (“Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth”), tour guide (Esotouric bus adventures) and preservation activist (Save the 76 Ball). She was joined ON BUNKER HILL by author Nathan Marsak, LAPL history librarian Mary McCoy, Esotouric’s Joan Renner, LAPL Acting Senior Librarian – Photo Collection Christina Rice, Esotouric’s Richard Schave and author John Toomey.

George Mann’s Los Angeles photos were discovered in his archives by daughter-in-law Dianne Woods in 2010. While researching the images, she found the On Bunker Hill blog, and offered to let the blog feature Mann’s Bunker Hill images, online and in archival prints for sale. Since then, Mann’s family has also shared with On Bunker Hill some of the short films he made featuring fellow Vaudevillians like The Three Stooges and W.C. Fields, and dozens of photos of landmark Los Angeles restaurants.

Born in Santa Monica in 1905, by his early 20s George Mann 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.

To see George Mann’s rediscovered Los Angeles photographs and learn about his fascinating career that took him and his diminutive sidekick Dewey Barto (real-life pop of TV’s “Rhoda’s” mom Nancy Walker) from the stages of west coast vaudeville to the Great White Way, visit all the On Bunker Hill blog’s George Mann pages at https://onbunkerhill.org/taxonomy/term/507

See Barto & Mann dancing in “Broadway Through A Keyhole” (1933)

Note: we regret that Dianne Woods, previously announced as a speaker, will not be able to join us tonight.

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The Wisdom of Teeth: A forensic odontology workshop with Dr. Cheri Lewis

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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.

Visionary Professor Donald Johnson, in association with LAVA, Esotouric and the California Forensic Science Institute, invites you to participate in a special four-hour event at LA’s regional crime laboratory, on the campus of Cal State LA. Space is very limited and pre-reservation required for this rare opportunity to visit the Cal State LA School of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics at the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. Learn from working forensic investigators and educators. Discover the real art and science of crime investigation.

Imagine yourself as a forensic scientist on the scene of a massive disaster, with many lives lost and the victims unrecognizable through conventional means.

Modern forensic science offers a variety of tools by which badly damaged human remains can be accurately identified, and next of kin notified. You are probably familiar with the basics of DNA-based identification, but that’s just one tool in the forensic scientist’s arsenal. In today’s seminar, you’ll get up close and personal with a fascinating and little-known identification method, as you learn how to use the unique markers on human teeth to give names to the unknown in a hands-on disaster simulation workshop.

Join Dr. Cheri Lewis for a half-day crash course in forensic odontology, a branch of forensic medicine that deals with teeth and marks left by teeth (as in identifying criminal suspects or the remains of a dead person). Dr. Lewis has worked as a forensic odontologist for several decades, and in the course of her work has developed her own hands on method (Locator System, or LS) for identifying large collections of dental remains, which used in combination with computer systems (WinID), has proven to be the fastest method of identification available to the forensic disaster response team.

For the first part of the workshop Dr. Lewis will review relevant dental terminology and introduce the methodology behind her Locator System (LS), which is predicated on the commonality between the right and left side of the mouth, and classification of dental remains into six basic categories—ranging from teeth with no fillings to no remaining teeth.

Once participants are familiar with the LS method of sorting dental remains efficiently—very much like one would sort a deck of cards into hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds—they will be ready to begin the part of the workshop which is a very sophisticated game of concentration. This is a hands-on lab where the task of using the LS algorithm will be given over to several small groups of the attendees for sorting through postmortem files (unidentified victim’s dental fragments) and matching them up to antemortem files (possible victims’ dental records). Dr. Lewis will circulate amongst the groups providing feedback and guidance as the teams race the clock to come up with as many positive IDs as possible within sixty minutes.

The last part of the workshop will be a debrief on the interactive lab, a comparison of the LS method to the modern computer methods WinID, and how a combination of LS with a computer program is the most efficient way to work through IDing remains in a disaster.

Backstory: The history of algorithms and Computer-aided methods for ID’ing dental remains

In 1985 Colonel Lou Lorton developed the CAPMI (Computer-Assisted Postmortem Identification) system and ran a simulated disaster to test its effectiveness within Los Angeles. A year later, after the mid-air collision between Aeromexico Flight 498, a chartered DC-9 and a Piper PA-28-181 Archer over Cerritos, CAPMI was used by the forensic team.

What followed was a series of technological advances and an airline disaster which transformed the field of forensic odontology. With the release of Windows 95®, Dr. James McGivney began work on his WinID system, which came out of a general frustration with CAPMI’s DOS-based user-interface and the code base frozen when Col. Lorton left the military. Then on January 31 2000, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 experienced a fatal accident over the Pacific Ocean about 3 miles north of Anacapa Island. The two pilots, three cabin crew members, and 83 passengers on board were killed and the aircraft was destroyed. The forensic team, which included Dr. Lewis, used WinID.

What Dr. Lewis found was that WinID was not always accurate with its match recommendation giving a number of false leads. However, specialists who had culled the dental records of presumed victims were able to find matches with the fragments by playing close attention to characteristic fillings and root anatomy. At that point Dr. Lewis to begin to codify her LS system, which leveraged the pattern matching talent of dental specialists.

By 2002 Dr. Lewis began to publish research comparing computer systems and later studies compared computer systems to LS. A number of studies were conducted by her with models of 100 to 300 (simulated) victims in forensic science journals on the effectiveness of computer systems and LS-both as stand-alone methods and in conjunction with each other. By 2007 she published the last of her studies simulating a 300-victim disaster where LS was combined w/ WINiD and that proved to be the most effective for identification.

Felonious Flappers: Bad Girls of the Art Deco Era

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Prohibition literally fueled crime during the 1920s.  Flappers flaunted the law by drinking in speakeasies and wearing garters equipped with a handy flask filled with bootleg hootch – or a gun! The good times wouldn’t last forever, the giddy drinking and partying that characterized the 1920s came to a screeching halt in October of 1929 with the stock market crash. 

Former beauty pageant winner Hazel Belford Glab was handy with a gun, and she wasn’t afraid to use one to further her agenda.  When her husband threatened to divorce her, Hazel hatched a plan to cash in before Mr. Glab could bail out.

During the Deco Era when a wife wasn’t taking deadly aim at her husband, it’s probably because she’d focused instead on the “other woman”.

When neighborhood gossip hinted at a love affair between Clara Phillips’ husband and an attractive young widow, Clara became a woman with a mission, to remove the woman she thought was a rival for her husband’s love by any means necessary.

The Depression of the 1930s resulted in the perpetration of darker crimes. Women became involved in bandit gangs, and they were active participants in kidnappings, bank robberies, and murders.

During the early 1930s Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were on the run from the law in the Midwest.  In Los Angeles, Burmah and Thomas White were also on the run. The nineteen year old bride and her twenty-eight year old groom spent their honeymoon on a deadly crime spree.

While some women blatantly committed crimes on the streets of Los Angeles, other women went quietly about their evil business in the comfort of their own homes.

You’ve heard of someone keeping a skeleton in their closet – Walburga “Dolly” Oesterreich kept her murderous secret in the attic of her home, and when it was finally revealed it was so unbelievable that it made headlines.

Curvy killers have always been a part of the fabric of Los Angeles, and whether you empathize with them, or find them repellent, you are certain to be fascinated by Felonious Flappers!

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Silent Footsteps: Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd in Downtown Los Angeles

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The silent-era comedians filmed extensively on the streets of Los Angeles, capturing everyday life in the background of their films. Using archival photographs, vintage maps, and scores of then and now comparison photographs, author John Bengtson will lead a virtual tour across the lost-and-found neighborhoods of Bunker Hill, Court Hill, and the downtown Los Angeles Historic Core, as documented in the films of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. 

John Bengtson is a business lawyer, film historian, and author. His latest book, Silent Visions: Discovering Early Hollywood and New York Through the Films of Harold Lloyd, follows Silent Echoes about Buster Keaton, and Silent Traces about Charlie Chaplin, to complete his highly acclaimed trilogy about the giants of silent film comedy, hailed by The New York Times as a “Proustian collage of time and memory, biography and history, urban growth and artistic expression.” Each book features a foreword by Academy Award-winning film historian Kevin Brownlow. Bengtson is a frequent speaker at events hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, and the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and has provided bonus programs for several Keaton and Chaplin DVD/Blu-ray releases. Those unable to attend may access written tours at https://SilentLocations.WordPress.com

L.A. in Focus: Images from the LAPL Photo Collection is a free lecture series presented by Photo Friends of the LAPL • photofriends.org

For information, visit https://events.lapl.org

Parking is available at 524 S. Flower St. Garage (show your LAPL library card at the Central Library’s information desk to receive a validation for reduced rates). Handicap accessibility available.

ABOUT PHOTO FRIENDS: Formed in 1990, Photo Friends is a nonprofit organization that supports the Los Angeles Public Library’s Photo Collection/History & Genealogy Department. Our goal is to improve access to the collections and promote them through programs, events, and online exhibits.

 

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