Tomorrow morning I will be going on a pilgrimmage to LA to visit friends and attend religious services.  People can say what they will about LA – the plasticity of it, the sleaze of the entertainment industry, or that it symbolizes some of what is the worst about US and its pop culture - and I understand.  But every city has a definitive energy that can be picked up on and I feel energized every time I head to La-La-Land.  I may be picking up on the artistic energy coming from many directions and hovering in this place of dreams and hunger.  New York, of course, is like an electric socket of the best and the brightest that is impossible to resist.  Las Vegas (at least for me) makes me physically nauseous.  But LA definitely has a special vibe about it which I will probably be able to write more about once I am reminded this weekend.  Griffith Park Observatory, Viceroy, The K Center, Chateau Marmont and Aroma Cafe…I will descend upon you soon with friends. Not so jazzed about the whole flying thing though. What are you going to do.

Pod of dolphins in Sea of Cortez between Isla la Guardia and Bajia de Los Angeles.  So beautiful.

South Central Farmers CSA winter produce

My first box of produce from the South Central Farmers CSA arrived today! Everything is organic, local, and in season. I received a box full of spinach, multiple kinds of kale and chard, lettuce, bok choy, cilantro, mustard greens and broccoli, turnips, radishes, daikon and beets, all with their delicious leaves still attached for only $20, a portion of which supports gardening projects at Saturn Elementary School. I’ve already nibbled some of the leaves. The mustard greens went straight to my sinuses, the kale is bright and bitter. Everything is dusted with sparkling bits of earth. Some of these I have never before cooked. I am feeing up to the challenge. I hope to share good recipes very soon. In the meantime, look for a CSA in your area or join this one!

Ramen and Kirin

Southern California is being blasted by a rare winter storm. There have been reports of tornados and hail, flooding and landslides. Nighttime temperatures have dipped into the upper 40s. Grocery store shelves have been ransacked for supplies. This is our version of a blizzard, the kind that are given names like The Blizzard of ‘96. Ours is That Time it Rained for Several Days in 2010.

So, it was on the coldest, rainiest day in regional collective memory, that my friend wanted to drive downtown for lunch, park on the street and walk to an outdoor shopping center for ramen. I carefully weighed my desire for a steaming bowl of soup against the option of staying home under a fuzzy blanket. Soup won. I hoped that a healthy dose of miso and noodles would be the antidote to a blustery day.

We scored rock star unmetered parking on Los Angeles St. in Little Tokyo and pressed through the driving rain to Orochon Ramen, on the top tier of Weller Court. The bustling late-lunch crowd was slurping noodles from massive white bowls. Near the door I noticed a bulletin board pinned with photos of sweaty men with pained expressions and stained shirts proudly displaying empty bowls. Oh no. Looks like this place was featured on Man v. Food. Eat the spiciest bowl of ramen, get your face on the Wall of Bravery. Why am I here? Can the food really be good at a place that dares diners to eat? What’s that? Pitchers of Kirin are $12? Sweet.

I know as much about ramen as I do about shoveling snow. I do know that better ramen is to be had elsewhere in the city, and am happy to hear recommendations. The ramen at Orochon was plentiful and pretty good, with pork, bean sprouts, mushrooms, scallions, green peppers and bamboo. I ordered mine with an egg and extra bean sprouts. The salty miso broth had the perfect infusion of spiciness (number 3 on their scale of 1-7). This place is worth a visit, especially if you’re into daredevil eating.

Miso soup with ramen kicks chicken noodle soup’s ass in the good-for-you department. Miso, fermented soybean paste, is a concentrated protein source, rich in amino acids that keep skin firm and youthful. It is alkalinizing and provides a spectrum of minerals that strengthen the immune system. Ladies, keep in mind that miso regulates hormone levels and can reduce hot flashes in menopausal women. When you buy miso paste, look for unpasteurized miso, which will contain flora beneficial for healthy digestion.

Please check out this compelling, beautiful film about the South Central Farm, which was the largest and most biologically diverse urban garden in the U.S. What had been a junk-filled lot in South Central Los Angeles, became an oasis in a neighborhood besieged by poverty and violence. The 14-acre garden was cultivated by more than 350 families of mostly indigenous descent. It provided food security, health, opportunity and community to an even greater number. Traditional organic cultivation practices were passed from old to young, as was knowledge of medicinal and spiritual use of plants.

This film, The Garden, was meant to showcase the incredible community garden and the families who worked plots of earth in an otherwise concrete expanse, perhaps to show other urban centers what was possible. However, soon after filming began, an eviction notice was served to the farmers. Closed-door deals were made between the original landowner, Ralph Horowitz and city officials, allowing Horowitz to repurchase the land from the city at its 1992 price and sell it for immense profit.

Vigils, protests, court battles, celebrity activism, public outcry, pleas to city government officials, including the slippery Mayor Villaraigosa, and a $10 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation could not save the South Central Farm. It was brutally bulldozed in 2006. Forever 21 has petitioned to build a distribution center on the barren lot. A proposed community soccer field was funded but never built.

The Garden is a gripping documentary that kept me on the edge of my seat like a blockbuster espionage thriller. It is a tale that pits the fat cat against the underdog, whose needs and rights are once again eclipsed in the interest of power and greed. The action is fast-paced, dramatic, emotional. By the end, I was curled in a ball on the couch, sobbing and shaking my fist.

All hope is not lost. The South Central Farmers have never stopped fighting. They have relocated to 3-acres of leased land near Bakersfield, many of them driving north every week to sow, tend and harvest their crops. An organization called Farmlab associated with the Annenberg Foundation rescued the mature fruit-bearing trees before they could be demolished. The trees have been moved and remain together as a memorial.

South Central Farmers Cooperative is a now a Community Supported Agriculture Program (CSA). Local members pay a fee that helps sustain the planting, growing and harvesting of crops and in return receive boxes of seasonal produce. There are pick-up locations throughout the Los Angeles area. If there isn’t one in your neighborhood, find 10 friends who want a weekly or bi-weekly box of local, organic produce and South Central Farmers will create a new pick-up location. If you are not an Angelino, Local Harvest can help you locate a CSA in your area.

My neighbor is a teacher at Saturn Elementary, a school that until recently had only one tree on the entire property. She is involved with many of the fundraising projects aimed at greening the school with landscaping, fruit trees and a learning garden. I was thrilled when she told me that Saturn Elementary had teamed up with South Central Farmers Coop. Bushel boxes of fresh, seasonal produce will be available for pick-up at the school for $20. A portion of the proceeds from each box will go to the school. Count me in! People in the Mid-Wilshire/Miracle Mile area can sign up here. I can’t wait to pick up my first box on January 27, and to taste all of the new recipes it will inspire. Stay tuned.

We couldn’t help but notice that here in the City of Angels a lot of the billboards along the freeways these days seem to be living up to the civic nickname. Tough guys, it appears, wear feathers. Now both “Legion,” on the left with Paul Bettany, and “The Tooth Fairy,” on the right with Dwayne Johnson, have a wing, but do either of these Jan. 22 releases have a prayer?

“Legion,” which also stars Dennis Quaid and Doug Jones, appears to be the first shoot-’em-up seraphim movie in the history of Hollywood. When God finally loses faith in humanity (it was probably all the reality TV shows), he sends down his angelic legion to bring on the apocalypse. Bettany is the archangel Michael who makes a final stand for mankind with a group of strangers trapped in a desert diner. Scott Stewart makes his feature-film directorial debut with the movie.

“The Tooth Fairy” finds Johnson back in his now-familiar role as a brawny tough guy who learns valuable life lessons from youngsters in need of a big friend. In “The Game Plan,” he was a self-possessed pro football player who unexpectedly became a parent. In “Race to Witch Mountain,” he was a loner cabbie who became the reluctant protector of two alien kids. In “The Tooth Fairy,” he’s a surly hockey player whose bad deeds earn him a one-week tour of duty as the tooth fairy. Seriously. Expect a lot of dental humor. The indestructible Julie Andrews and “Little Miss Sunshine’s” Abigail Breslin costar.

Oh, by the way, have you heard about Johnson’s most recently announced project? It’s an action thriller called “City of Angels.”

– Geoff Boucher

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/

Some may think this looks like a mess, but to me it looks down right inspirational! I love my hand-built sewing area and closet. Right now I have piles of pieces to take on my trip to the city of angels come monday, piles to ship to The Closet, and piles to finish sewing. So to me this is organization at it’s best!

Isn’t She Beautiful!

I am completely fascinated with these jars, I can’t decide what to put in them…tea, coffee beans, glitter, confetti, buttons, sugar, really the possibilities seem endless.

Nothing like Grilled Cheese with Truffle Oil & Tomato Soup to warm you up on a Winter Day!

So I am pretty obsessed if you will, with this little door in the back hall way of our apartment building, I am convinced that if I open it I shall tumble-down to the bottom, drink a small bottle of magic potion, and find Johnny Depp. But if I did that I would never return, so I just stare at it and dream.

Lots of fun pieces to play with Ruth…I believe we shall return to the golden age of six at some point during my visit! My Orange Marc is just itching for me to put my carry on belongs inside!!!

My Mother and Papaw watch over me as I sew.

Michael laughed at me yesterday as I proudly carried home my new butterfly net as if I was Huck Finn ready to catch some fish, I told him I was going to catch snow flakes for now and put them in a jar, he seemed amused to say the least.

It is interesting the songs that still make me cry time after time, because you know I am listening to Fleetwood Mac and David Gray as I write this. I mean this in a good way I suppose because I don’t often have things to cry about and I feel it is emotionally satisfying to have a good cry now and then. I still think about my Papaw everyday and wish he was here, I don’t cry as often now, I know he wouldn’t like that, me crying that is. I still cry when I listen to James Taylor, Sweet Baby James, and I am alone, because I wish I could see my little brother more as he grows. I still cry when I hear Landslide and think of my Dad. But I don’t cry during love songs I use to cry to. When we were first moving to New York I loved the Avett Brothers, I and Love and You, it made me feel peaceful like I was going home, when we had to leave New York it made me cry… it doesn’t any more. Looks Like Rain by Grateful Dead used to make me cry often, I can finally enjoy the song. Songbird by Fleetwood Mac at last makes my heart feel like a bird after about five or six years of pulling at my heart. So now I am going to put on some Janet and Dance Damit!

I can finally say I feel nothing but peace and love at this moment for I have the most wonderful man in the world that loves me. I love you Michael. 

xoxox

The smog sets in thick and heavy
It fills my lungs, rattling in my chest
And I’m destroying my body living here
Too fast-paced, too heavy too light, too bright – always spinning and moving
It never stops
But I can’t leave
I love this city
The palm trees and purple shadows of the mountains in the distance
Blinding heat pressing down on my skin
Salty-sweet air of the ocean mixed with the poison-sweet smell of pollution
This city
City of angels
With it’s lights and sparks and colors
The junkies and drag queens walking over Marilyn’s handprints set in the sidewalk
Taco vans and spicy, greasy tex-mex
China town with its trinkety souvenirs and good luck red fortunes
The Hollywood sign with our names scrawled across the back
We were here.

seamana atat de mult cu tine, si cand ma uit la el te vad numai si numai pe tine, si e un om nemaipomenit..chiar e.. poate in timp..

noapte buna Zburatorule..

A.

This is where I live (some of the time).

The city of Los Angeles.

Only it doesn’t look like this anymore.  These are from 1899.

I found them at Shorpy.

Wim Wenders’ Der Himmel über Berlin (a.k.a. Wings of Desire, if you like your titles a bit more on-the-nose, a.k.a. The Film That City Of Angels Is Just Barely Based On) is undoubtedly a beautiful film to look at. Its visuals are a love letter to Berlin as much as to black-and-white cinematography. It’s also a film containing many gems: the image of many, many angels hanging out at the library, watching over us; Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander sitting in a show car, comparing notes; their conversation about the history of the world; almost every scene that Ganz has with Peter Falk, and the conceit of Falk being an ex-angel himself. There are many quietly beautiful, poetic, even funny moments.

And yet, in spite of the accolades the film has garnered, even after two viewings I can’t shake the impression that it tries way too hard to be poetic, to be art. The worst offender is the poem that the film picks up again and again, Peter Handke’s “Lied vom Kindsein”, that interminable bit of pretentious doggerel that begins with “Als das Kind Kind war…”. Not only does it offer the appearance of depth rather than the real thing, Ganz also keeps falling into this childlike singsong, making it wholly insufferable. It’s a series of idealising clichés about the innocence of childhood that make me want to hunt down the poem’s titular child and send it off to boarding school.

What bothered me even more, though, is the trapeze artist that Bruno Ganz’ Damiel gives up his angelhood for. Her lines – both her thoughts and her dialogue late in the film with newly mortal Damiel – are painfully faux-deep, making me think that if I was Damiel and had just given up immortality for her, I’d feel pretty ticked off right now. That whole last dialogue seems to boil down to “The meaning of life lies entirely in man and woman having it off, and that’s what makes life, like, deep, man!”

I guess that’s my main problem: when the film doesn’t try its damnedest to be deep and poetic, it actually becomes these things. When it aims at depth, it comes off as an overly earnest transcript of one of those conversations first-year students have at 2pm in the morning after lots of cheap red wine. I also had these conversations, I enjoyed them, but there’s a difference between being young and drunk, as much on wine as on one’s sense of understanding of the world and all, and having to sit through them as an outside observer.

I’ll probably end up watching the film again, five years or so down the road, because there are so many people who love it dearly. Perhaps Der Himmel über Berlin just isn’t for me, at least not in its entirety, but I keep thinking there’s something I’ve missed. Or perhaps I missed the opportunity of seeing this film first when I was younger. “Als das Kind Kind war” and all that jazz…

I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it.

- City of Angels

A heart can be broken; but it keeps beating just the same.

-Fried Green Tomatoes

You’re not perfect sport, and let me save you the suspense, this girl you met, she isn’t perfect either. But the question is whether or not you’re perfect for each other.

- Good Will Hunting

Love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. If you don’t start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. I say find someone you can love like crazy and who’ll love you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart. I’m not hearing any heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you’ll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love – well, you haven’t lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.

-Meet Joe Black

Summer romances begin for all kinds of reasons, but when all is said and done, they have one thing in common. They’re shooting stars, a spectacular moment of light in the heavens, fleeting glimpse of eternity, and in a flash they’re gone.

- The Notebook

I’ve kissed a guy… I’ve kissed guys. I just haven’t felt that thing…. That thing… that moment when you kiss someone and everything around you becomes hazy, and the only thing in focus is you and this person. And you realize that that person is the only person you’re supposed to kiss for the rest of your life. And for one moment you get this amazing gift. And you wanna laugh and you wanna cry, ‘cause you feel so lucky that you’ve found it, and so scared that it’ll go away all at the same time.

-Never Been Kissed

In reputable newspapers and magazines, articles have surfaced about how the gang scene has returned to Los Angeles, California.  Gang related violence has increased 143% in the last year because criminologists believe those arrested in the crazy crack epidemic bust in the late 1980s and early 1990s are slowly, but surely, opening the cell doors where they’ve served their sentenced time. 

“Hail Mary, Full of Grace…..please find me a parking space,” Keith thought to himself as he turned the corner around his office building trying to find a parking spot in downtown L.A.

Los Angeles is different from New York  City – different accents, different mentality, terrible PT system. The borders of many neighborhoods in Los Angeles are very sudden (you can be on one side of the street and be in a “sunny” neighborhood, and then cross the street and end up in a “shady” part of town… and I’m not talking about the weather.)  But, one headache is the same - Parking. Especially, if you’re late for work. 

After circling the fifth time in his black Prius, he gave in.  Keith had to drive down the block and park in the lot in the dodgy side of town.

He pulled up to the ticket booth, paid his entrance fee and found the closest parking spot for his eco-friendly stealth bomber. Keith got out of his car, put on his suit jacket without a wrinkle, picked up his briefcase and bid good morning to the security guards.  After he clicked the button to lock the car, He was ready to start his day.

BANG!  BANG! BANG! BANG!

Keith’s heart was racing!  He could feel all the nervous energy fall to his stomach.  Of course this would happen the only time he had to park in the lot farthest from his office.  Looking around to find the nearest cover,  Keith tucked his body as he leaped in the air and rolled underneath the nearest car for protection.

He saw the security guards sitting on two folding chairs looking at him –  puzzled – in what seemed like  two football fields of open war zone.

“What are you guys doing!?” Keith yelled over to the men, “Take cover! Can’t you hear the gun shots!?”

The men look at each other, trying to hold it in, but they just can’t. They burst out laughing.

“They’re filming a movie down the street,” one man chuckled to Keith.

Keith rose off the ground to his feet and brushed himself off.

“I was totally getting ready for my audition for the young Jack Bauer… did it look real?  You think I’ll nail it and get the part?” 

He walked away and went to work. 

….AWKWARD!!

Hit the jump for We The Kings’ Travis Clark performing a brand new song “City of Angels” unplugged.

“And I’d give up forever to touch you
‘Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be
And I don’t want to go home right now”–

I’d waste all my time so I could be close to him simply because I think something might happen. I think he’s the closest to true love I’ll ever find, which is a mistake. And when I have to leave him, I feel sad. When I watch him walk away from band practice, a part of me walks away, too.

“And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
‘Cause sooner or later it’s over
I just don’t want to miss you tonight”-

When I’m around him, I’m very self-conscious and I pick up every little detail about everything he does. But, sooner or later, I have to leave him, and I’ll be stuck thinking about him all night. And I feel bad because I could never date him without Katie murdering me. And she could never date him without me feeling especially desolate.

“And I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am”-

I don’t want everyone to see me when I’m thinking of him, or when I see him and blush or giggle. They wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t see why I like him. To them, he is just another guy in the background. At the same time, when hearts are made to be broken, I don’t want him to get too close to me. I just want him to know my name and not hurt me.

“And you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
And you bleed just to know you’re alive”-

He doesn’t know me, so he can’t cry over me. And he doesn’t know that I see truth in what he says even though it doesn’t mean anything. However, when everything is so dramatic around me, I keep hurting to know I’m still living in the present.

I love this song! It’s so amazing. One of my favorite songs. It’s extremely meaningful. Check it out!

The Heart of Downtown: The Los Angeles Theatre

So, I am inspired to write this week’s post on Los Angeles for a number of reasons, but mostly because there are so many thoughts about this city percolating in my mind, if I don’t express them soon, I think I’ll forget them.

Los Angeles, we’ve had issues. Every time I’ve visited, you give me a warm hug, a beautiful rainbow sherbet-dappled sunset and then leave me waiting for you in traffic.

Los Angeles, let me give you some feedback that is meant to be a compliment but you probably won’t take that way. You’re everyone’s dream of a city, everyone’s nightmare of a suburb, a paradise fit into a traffic jam. Some people point to Las Vegas as the quintessential American city, but in my book you will always be what I love about the U.S.A. You are boundless energy, countless people with strange dreams all striving for some piece of an American life that no longer exists.

OK, I’ll be honest, the first time I saw you I knew I had to know you. I watched The Muppet Movie religiously on VHS as a kid and each time that Kermit reached Hollywood I would rewind. It made sense. Where does a frog and a bear and a pig and a gonzo go in a Studebaker? Oh, duh, Los Angeles. The destination. You start in the swamp and if you’re really lucky you make it to Hollywood. If you’re not lucky, you’re stuck with a banjo and a dream. My family and I visited Disneyland when I was about eight and I was even more convinced—what other town has its own “Fantasyland?” What other place offers that experience? Disneyland Paris, but who wants to commute that far?

And then I moved here this past summer and I found another aspect of you. You’re not perfect. In fact, even though you offer everything, you really give away nothing. The metaphor for my six months here is the freeway—an unnervingly convenient eight lanes always packed with cars. You either see yourself in the adjoining cars’ reflection or you look out into the traffic and you see nothing, you see brake lights, endless lines of brake lights carelessly spreading to the ocean.

Los Angeles you are lights, pollution, people, traffic, sprawling suburbs reaching across Orange County or into the hills and the San Joaquin, cars stretching from beach to desert to valley and in between, careening everywhere and nowhere, constantly turning around, being stopped, crashing, washing away to the ocean. You are a monolithic scape constantly changing but never changed. On the sides of Boyle Heights bodegas are Stars of David, abandoned factories are newly renovated hundred-seat theatres, and former beauty salons on Wilshire are statuesque relics.

Los Angeles, you think you’re all that and you are. I have seen your best aspects, your Beverly Hills and Bel Airs and I am amazed. But I’ve also seen your slums and your shantytowns and I can’t help thinking that those things are even more indicative of your character. You are everything the movies, America, the world promises but you are the stark reality of those things coming true. You are heat, light, endless summer and the perpetual anger of living in a well-lit urban wasteland offering no escape.

Well, there is escape. I can just as easily leave as I came, I think. It doesn’t really matter, anyway, nobody will remember or care. But when I leave you, you’re gone and I will miss you. Where else do I go? Peoria? New Jersey? How boring! Imagine waking up and not being a stone’s throw from the Universal lot? How could you go to the grocery store in Akron in the middle of the night without expecting the paparazzi (even if they never come)? You are my city and here’s the tragic thing, you don’t even care.

Jon

This was a school project before my thesis film.
It’s a scene from “City of Angels“.
Shot with HD F-900 with zoom lens.