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Why There’s Traffic In Silverlake

18 Sep

Two and a Half sitcom writers left in L.A. is a nondescript story about the state of affairs in the business of Hollywood concerning it’s now mostly out of work writers. In reality, maybe it’s bigger than that, as my Producer neighbor is now in the bread line. It’s the economy, it’s Wall Street, it’s the mortgage crisis, or it’s because the amateurs are taking over.

The Thumbs Up for Leslie Hall

Many outlets, such as YouTube and Napster, are channels that can circumvent institutional and expensive (i.e. to apply for industry jobs, you’ll need a short film as a CV, costing upwards of $20,000) obstacles standing in the way of unrecognized brilliant and marketable ideas, like a big F-U to a system that doesn’t easily let anyone but Ivy Leaguers get in; a way to communicate with masses of people who would support and demand more of what you put in front of them by way of cold hard cash through media deals and artist partnerships. As in, Leslie Hall and her Gem Sweater riffs.

I can’t wait to see where this gets us.

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CK

4 Sep

Photo by Chloe Scheffe

Chuck Klosterman uses words like abject, schism and ungulate. I sulkily admit I had to look up their meanings. Reading a half hour of Chuck Klosterman’s disquisitional essays in A Decade Of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas is mind-blowing on this level. I assume a well-thumbed thesaurus is always with him; but I have no proof beyond his particular, intellectual and varied, speech staccato peppering all his work. I’m in awe, but not in love.

I’m alone in my lovelessness – there are those who are head over heels: two friends of mine are crushing on Chuck because, as Lauren Salazar from Daily Intel put it, he’s got a ‘nerdy hotness’ about him that makes you sympathize with his wistful fictional characters (he says that “No one ever has sex in his books because he identifies more with people being rejected”) and quirky personal real-life stories. Just select a piece from Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, a running commentary on pop culture and its icons – an extension of his comprehensive work – and you’ll find a man colored by hilarious juvenile tales and a keen awareness of how to translate what happens around him into a contextualized concept.

When asked if he had a critical aesthetic, which sounds to me like a question about his particular brand of presentation, he says, “I don’t know that I have an aesthetic, really. If I do, it would be that I think there are people who want to think critically about the art that engages their life, and I think you can do that with any kind of art. There’s this belief that some things can be taken seriously in an intellectual way, while some things are only entertainment or only a commodity. Or there’s some kind of critical consensus that some things are “good,” and some things are garbage, throwaway culture. And I think the difference between them, in a lot of ways, is actually much less than people think. Especially when you get down to how they affect the audience. So when I write, I don’t think it necessarily matters what I’m writing about. I think it matters the way I think about it. The chord changes, and the lyrics on a record have value, but their real value is how they shape the way people look at their own lives.”

Although Chuck states that no one can really write an objective piece because it’s based on the author’s “subjective objectivity,” he nevertheless strikes a chord with partakers of pop culture; I think that chord is a collective sense of cynism. In his own words, “I think there’s an element of cynicism in my writing, but I’m an optimistic cynic.”

Photo by Ellen Choi

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Moshi, Moshi Foreigner

29 Apr

The dream: to know a foreign language yet not to understand it: to perceive the difference in it without that difference ever being recuperated by the superficial sociality of discourse, communication or vulgarity…to undo our own “reality” under the effect of other forumulations, other syntaxes…in a word, to descend into the untranslatable.

-Roland Barthes, Empire of Signs
Lea Jacobson, Bar Flower

I experience a certain anxious ecstasy in anticipation of learning a new language. I am not frustrated with grammatics or limited vocabulary, but rather, simply salivating to speak aloud the alluringly foreign, lusty new words. The newest (and always easiest sentences) I learn, roll off my tongue and curl in my mouth. I am in heaven in my ignorance of the future. Too soon, pronunciation becomes embarrassing, and I fear any native would cringe to listen. This is xenocentrism at its worst, as I am morbidly fearsome of what the natives will think; my world now revolves around theirs and my self-awareness culminates in terror – cutting me off at the throat. I will never learn like this. And sometimes, I simply cannot bear it anymore, and my only action is to put the reference book back on the shelf. However, my new obsession will not allow such submissive action. So, I took one Sunday afternoon and drove to downtown L.A. with a singular stop in mind – to find inspiration.

Little Tokyo provides an expanse of opportunities to speak with Japanese, the limits of which I will (in all likelihood) never test. I can see my future: it is a breeding ground for my now insatiable appetite for all things related to modern Japan and it’s pop culture, including red bean Mochi and Death Note Manga.

I ended up here one Sunday afternoon, trying to search out the origin of my favorite Mochi brand, Mikawaya. Thinking I would discover a costco of a mochi manufacturing plant, I was happily disappointed to find the shop to be a small, almost empty confection store. Offering different Mochi flavors I hadn’t discovered, alongside additional confections similar in texture to the rice covering of Mochi. Once satisfied with 6 pieces and coconut ChiChi, I left the shop to explore the town.

Little Tokyo is exactly that, little. The surrounding apartments and housing stretches further than I can see or know, but the “cultural” center, most likely dedicated to serving tourists than the actual residents, is fairly small, seeing as how a 10 minute walk takes you through most of the shops and two levels of related stores (assuming you’re not doing much shopping). However, I find that this superficial Tokyo offers a Japanese video store and many a small eateries offering Japanese cuisine unrelated to Sushi. This place is not solely a tourist trap. Still, my suspicions that the center is more of a tourist shop than real cultural experience are somewhat confirmed, as the first store I enter sells cheap but beautiful chopsticks and small sake sets alongside Hello kitty pencil sharpeners and Totoro aprons.

Mystery breeds creativity, and mystery awakens the imagination. ~Lea Jacobson, Bar Flower

This exploration will or must culminate in the commencement of learning and tedious study of the minutiae that is the Japanese language. Listening to the language is fun in itself; hearing the girls voices especially – talking quickly in high voices, giggly and cute-as-a-button adorable in their fashionable clothing and brand name bags. The language manages to sound elegant and delicate.

I have yet to forgive myself for not property devoting myself to learning the French language, so the responsibility of learning another looms ahead; intimidating but still enthralling, the love affair having just begun.

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Dov Charney Hates L.A.

15 Apr

The class act that is Dov Charney, the child porn photographer and all-around sleaze, continues to be his offensive self. As you can see, in the front yard of his porn emporium, aka Charney’s L.A. home, sits a bronze statue giving the bird to downtown L.A. To a city that’s given him so much – naive girls, factory workers to sexually harass and a tolerant advertisment policy – you’d think that hand would be a little more welcoming.

I’m confused, are the girls of L.A. not so agreeable lately? Did he run out of parting gifts?

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For The Love of Dov Charney

11 Mar

That Los Angeles lothario of legal soft porn advertisements has charmed yet another. Per Copyranter, read this article by the latest AA model, and “think back fondly to a time in your life when you were such a naive little tabula rasa.”

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Licked

8 Mar

Dawn licks the serrated edges of the city, threatens to douse the night in lurid illumination.  The darkness quivers, and I stir from sleep.

It is the City Of Angels, but only devils brood here.  They draw new blood everyday. The dark heart of Los Angeles is seeded by baneful demons.  I was an angel once, but the devils breathe smoky strife. Their noxious breath infects the plumbing and pollutes the air. I am here; never immune. The infection spreads from one person to the next. As each betrays the other, our dystopia threads the angst that frisks our bodies, setting in, a virile mix.  Love is lost. Another empty vessel emerges into day from the depths of unrequited love.

We are here; Stripped bare, beaten up, hearts set firmly in ice.  We drive in heated traffic, scratching at the walls that surround us, at our isolated existence. Anger sets in. It burrows deep into our flesh impregnating our bodies with unhappiness.   LA promised.  We were moths to the flame, we never had a chance.  I am a remnant, left in the fire to burn to ash.  Not knowing what to make of the evil devices against us, we hide in protective crevices, which avail nothing.  We are bloodied by the dawn.

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Erin

5 Mar
Couldn’t take my style cues from a better girl, my fave model – Erin Wasson. Somewhere between the lingo and her predilection for bloody mary’s I think, we’d get along pretty well.A day in the life of a supermodel multitasker – Style.com
Since she won a local modeling competition in her native Texas in 1999, several things have set Erin Wasson apart from her pretty peers. There’s the mole, the pout that won’t quit, the legs—and then there’s her personal style. This last bit, a scruffy but pulled-together look that’s all her own, is what’s been getting rave reviews lately. The designer Alexander Wang asked her to be his in-house stylist last season, and was so pleased with the results he asked her back. We sent Derek Blasberg to catch up with Erin as she prepped for Wang’s fall show and finished a day of errands.
“You’ve gotta feel this stuff,” Erin Wasson says as she caresses the exotic skins and leathers strewn about Alex Wang’s lower Fifth Avenue studio. “It’s so yummy.” This morning isn’t all fur appreciation, however; after a brief directional meeting, Wasson leaves Wang’s studio to find chains that she will link together for the Fall show. Asked what her best skill is, Alex responds, “Just being herself is her best talent. She knows what looks good.”
Meet Erin Wasson’s boyfriend for the next few weeks. “Until the show, it’s just you and me, buddy,” she teases outside Wang’s studio. “Wait, this is a girl.”
It takes a few minutes—Erin only remembered this destination because it had a Starbucks nearby (hardly a good locator in New York)—but we finally found her first stop, Beads World on Broadway, where she looks for feathers and biker chains. “How often do you get a tour of midtown?” she asks, defending her lack of direction.
“I didn’t style before this per se,” says Erin, admitting, however, that her own stuff would often end up in the final shots on shoots. “So Alex has given me an awesome opportunity. When he asked me, I was floored but thought it could be fun. It was.” At Metalliferous, where she continues her metal hunt, we ask if this is a possible new career. “Every day is a new day, and I don’t expect anything from this. I’ve already been so blessed.”
It’s not all work and no play for Ms. Wasson. She’s got a party to go to, so she decides to swing by the Chanel offices to see if there’s anything to borrow that tickles her fancy. “I hope they don’t mind that I’m not trying anything on,” she sighs. “I’m good at knowing what I want immediately.” She wasn’t kidding: Erin was in and out in ten minutes.
Outside the Chanel store, Erin gives her own personal double-C logo. Her own shoes attract some compliments, but she’s not trying to fool anybody. “I got these on the street for like $50,” she says. “This ain’t no Balenciaga shit.”
Although she came by only to pick up a feathered headdress for tomorrow night’s event, she couldn’t not try on a pair of black handmade leather fringe pants at Lost Art. “These are ridiculous,” she tells designer Jordan Betten. “You’ve got some dope stuff going on here.” Jordan, for his part, was happy to play dress-up. He’d be hard-pressed to find a more excited model.
An appointment with a designer, two shops for chains, a fitting, and a stop at a leather shop—not bad for one day. So to celebrate, Erin heads to her favorite spot, the Antique Garage, in Soho for a Bloody Mary. “Oh yeah, that hits the spot,” she says. “Another full day over.” It’s only now that she reveals she got off the red eye from L.A. that morning and has a 5 a.m. call time for a Maybelline print ad the next day. “But I’ve got something to look forward to,” she says with a sly grin. “This weekend is my birthday, and all my friends are going back to Texas to party.”

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