Within The Vicinity

10 Feb
Pay attention to your neighbors.I once took a six-week fencing class at the Los Angeles Community College. On the last day of class, I discovered that I had been dueling with very talented and successful writers, one producer and several amateur artists. One woman had come to L.A., after a stint writing for a succesful Canadian sitcom. This the great thing about L.A., the company you unknowingly keep can be a vast and untapped resource. Companions that I had little ambition to take note of (how very L.A. of me), until we sat after class discussing our respective careers and our teachers foray into screenplays. I was taken aback, surprised at the lack of ego and pretention and their willingness to share whatever insight they could offer into the industry culture and their estimated success in the bewildering Los Angeles landscape. At a theatre performance, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? starring Kathleen Turner, I sat next to a woman who translated the show’s events for the blind into a tactile experience. More recently, a co-worker of mine shared that unbeknownst to her until a week prior, the famous Korean actor named Rain (as in, famous like Brad Pitt) lived just a floor above.

Unfortunately, I have nothing to share here, but I want to point out that if you decide to move to L.A., don’t become a hermit. I happen to love my lonesome ways, and given my experience in the fashion showrooms here, an experience I liken to a mock celebrity environment (cut-throat and untrustworthy as it gets, with drug use on the side), it has been hard to trust people in this town ever again. Slowly, it gets better. My sister is far more social than I’ll ever be, and the high expense of entrance fees and drinks is enough to make you want to stay home, but she’s deftly focused her career and her friends have only widened her prospects.


Photo by Liz Chrisman

This is not new news, but just a helpful reminder. Even to myself.

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Hello, He Lied

9 Feb
Recommendinnnnnnnggggggggggg……If only Lynda Obst had been my mentor……I am the bright foreign exchange student. A truly relevant piece of non-fiction and a great introduction into the minds of Angelenos in the business of film & fashion.

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Il Pluie

6 Feb

It rains, it pours. We are lucky to feel so cozy inside on a Friday.

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With Skates On

6 Feb
I’ve always loved skate and surf culture. Imagining that if I had only grown up in Southern California, the lanky blond girl on a skateboard riding off into the sunset could have been me – but I grew up in the rocky mountains. It’s about hiking and the outdoors. White water rafting, rock-climbing, running, snowboarding. I never became the hippie this environment often spawns (healthy eating is a big concern, as is saving the environment in my hometown), but I certainly didn’t turn into the Abercrombie&Fitch wearing preppy college student either (also well-known in my hometown – the local University looms over the city). I settled in the middle, I rode a snowboard. When I moved to California, my skate fantasy began again. If I was going to learn to ride, it had to be now and not when I’m 40. It’s ridiculous now (maybe), even more so at an older age.
As a gift for my birthday, I received an Arbor longboard. Completely beautiful in its clear deck tape – to better show off the natural wood and stylized logo. Arbor boards are prized as an environmentally-friendly product; their company ideology advocates that “you can’t just be “green” for the sake of being green. If it were that easy we’d all be wearing hemp.” Their boards are made out of maple, wood and bamboo by-products created during construction. Their boards (skate, snow and surf) are breathtaking.
I learned. Slowly. One night on our way to a Brazilian dinner at a neighborhood restaurant – a perfect opportunity to ride my board down the street – I decided to take a chance down a hill. I was brought to my knees by my fast, uncontrolled ride and suffered a courageous scar. A knarly tear in my knee (see below), was the result. Damn. I am proud. I tried. My board nary suffered a scuff.

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You Forgot Your Shirt

19 Jan

Does anyone ever watch L.A. local morning news and think that maybe the female anchors just turned up to the set after clubbing all night?

I realize I live in the land of great tans and cosmetic surgery, but why FoxLA needs to broadcast serious morning news with women clad in outfits more appropriate in a line outside Hyde is really beyond my understanding.

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Accented

29 Dec

The Beverly Center, a mall so pretentious, it’s got a British voiceover to check you out of parking. It’s strange, this voiceover; undeniably there is a tranquility in hearing that accent – this voice directs me to two payment stations located to my left and right upon entry of the garage from the mall escalators (despite the sign at left of the 4, above), and calmly Thanks me for payment. I feel like I stepped into The Fifth Element. What with the throb of neon lights and British diction. All I’m missing is the Gaultier and red hair; the bad traffic and streetside refuse I have.

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Holiday Clean-Up

28 Dec

West Hollywood, Target: I suppose it’s the holidays – no time for pickup:

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Color Me Pink

17 Dec

L.A. ranks up there as one of the dirtiest cities in the nation. Therefore, I assume that car exhaust and industrial fumes are responsible for the following – because doesn’t toxic pollution paint the sky?

Pretty, don’t you think?

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Trash City

3 Dec

After two years, I’ve yet to make up my mind about sunny Southern California. Do I like the fact that driving five miles takes me forty-five minutes and that parking means a 20 minute ride around the block? Does anyone else miss the seasons? Meh. It has been a cloudy week, creating the cool winter I remember should exist about this time of year, and certainly it’s welcome. A walk on the beach however, it is not…


..and this is Santa Monica…

But the landscape under a cloudy sky feels immense.

Certainly, my walk to work the next morning was redeemable.

The jury however, is still out.

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Early Rising

4 Nov
For most of my life, the Holiday’s have been a tempestuous season I’d rather not dive into, but rather tiptoe around in hopes I get out with family ties intact. Two families since fifth grade meant schedules, two dinners, four parents, twice as many presents (to buy, not necessarily receive) and no rest; amounting to what was more of an anxiety ridden nightmare than a relish of Christmas spirit and wintry excess. Although it has been my misfortune to have had some stressful holidays, it is my fortune that I have. I know what I’m missing.
Muck Tree Christmas in The City: Photo by Piano Coctail
This year, November 1st came with a Holiday invitation, and I succumbed to an early Christmas fantasy. Thus ensued my Christmas catalog version of home – over every doorway, a garland laced with Christmas lights, red berries and dangling silver plastic icicles, a touch of fake snow settled on pine cones nailed to my exterior door. There is glitter everywhere and I’ve dropped only two bulbs. The Thanksgiving dinner menu is written up and I’ve already scoured the internet looking for the right place setting. Let’s spread the cheer. Despite my Christmas spirit, I suspect my neighbors are less inclined to participate in my celebration, their sneering glares at my early rising is something I understand.
At The Grove, a retail mecca meant to exact a European city center, the Christmas tree is being erected. It is “THE” Christmas tree because it is, for the last eight years, the only Christmas tree to be celebrated in style in Los Angeles; an annual event that attracts hundreds of Angelenos and results in miles of traffic bound cars on Fairfax Avenue and 3rd Street.
Trucked in every year and erected in record time, the tree is lit in incandescent fashion. Camera crews and carol singers gather around the monster, made all the more special with the appearance of wispy faux snowflakes pumped above the crowd, a cold midwest fantasy in our hot landscape. The tree is more than 100 feet tall, and takes a crane and small crew to set it in place. Branches are added to give it body and a large wrapped box will appear around the bottom 15 feet for presentation and safety’s sake. Thousands of ornaments in every color will be added, and as Santa’s House is built, the expectation of Christmas wishes fulfilled grows.

Trust: Photo by Sanjin Jaganjac
You can see it in the line of children that stretches around the block on December first; all ready to sit on Santa’s lap and take that endearing photo they will inevitably despise as teenagers. Retailers are baiting their customers and the holiday music is soon to follow. We’ll take in so much Christmas cheer, we’ll be sick of it at our own Christmas parties and happy to rid ourselves of the lit greenery by New Year’s.
I used to feel sick at this onslaught. Just a retailers game of numbers, which it undeniably is a retailer sales game – pushing employees to their hourly limits with last minute sales for shoppers who procrastinated. Angry crowds and loud crying children in malls. Too much traffic and too many people pushing shoulder to shoulder with large packages in tow. No less in Los Angeles, the city of road rage. However, it still manages to be a magical two months (one if you don’t start your holidays with the retailers.) Despite what family you have or urban sprawl to navigate, there is something about pushing each other into awkward situations in which you have to participate. Those evenings in which we try to forget why we annoy each other so much, that we really do care if each of our relatives and friends live or die creates a moment of fulfillment. We are loved, we are appreciated and we took the time to say that with presents or just our presence. I missed that valuable lesson growing up, in my naivete, I just wanted the scenery.
So here I am, a semi-adult, saddened by the inconveniences the Holidays present but satisfied that this time I’ve got it all (or most of it) figured out – the family, the scenery and the spiked eggnog. The upcoming movie starring Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn, Four Christmases, is a great reminder of the time honored tradition of avoiding family during this coming season, but maybe I can forget all that and remember, for just a few moments in Los Angeles, fake snowflakes falling lightly, it’s the happiest season of all.

Photo by Matt Charnock

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