Just Posters
Topic: Insider Stuff
Posters for sale in the window of Melrose Music, 7714 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles
The first is of the old icons, the second of the new one - 
Jay Stakelon on Melrose Music here -
Amid Melrose Avenue's many DJ shops, this oasis caters to indie rockers and headbangers alike.
The Scene - Rock and roll might not be dead, but it's sure hard to find among the beat-heavy, vinyl-centric DJ shops on Melrose Avenue. Enter Melrose Music, which eschews electronic beats and hip-hop for a strong collection of new and used punk, metal and indie rock.
The Goods - Everything from Pennywise's frat-ified punk rock to old-school hard-core essentials from Minor Threat and Gorilla Biscuit to The Get Up Kids and Weezer for the cardigan-and-Converse set. Metal also gets preferential treatment, with an impressive assortment of death metal for those who find Pantera and Biohazard too sedate. Grab a cold drink from the fridge in the front of the store while browsing the DVDs and videos, and check out posters suitable for dorm room or den.
Visit, if that's your thing.
Architecture: Fine Living in Hollywood's Golden Age
Topic: Insider Stuff
Architecture: Fine Living in Hollywood's Golden Age
The establishment alternative paper out here, the LA Weekly, lists it as an LA Classic, and it is the classic Hollywood apartment building from the golden age, and none the worse for wear.
It's the El Mirador Apartments at 1302-1310 North Sweetzer Avenue, West Hollywood. The El Mirador was named for its awesome views of the Los Angeles basin - designed by S. Charles Lee in 1929 for the California Builders of Homes. Lee was a theater designer - Glendale's Alex, Inglewood's Academy, Westwood's Bruin - and this is very theatrical. It's seven stories in a mix of Spanish Colonial Revival and Churrigueresque styles - not bad for a guy who was born and raised in Chicago and graduated from the Armour Institute of Technology. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1922 at the age of twenty-two to open his architectural business out here, and it seems he really got into the Hollywood Glamour thing. He also did the thirties makeover of the Max Factor building in the center of Hollywood.
The El Mirador is an amazing and perhaps rather silly building, but mid-afternoon, Sunday, August 13, the sky was amazingly blue and the lighting right, and the camera was in the car, and there was a parking space open on the street. So here are some details. A full array of shots will be posted this coming Sunday in the weekly Just Above Sunset.
In case you were wondering...
Topic: Insider Stuff
In case you were wondering…
Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 2:10 pm Pacific Time
The Location:
The Silent Movie Theatre
611 North Fairfax Avenue, Hollywood, California 90036 (a half block south of Melrose Avenue)
From Los Angeles City Search this -
The Background
Rumors of blood on the lobby carpet and ghosts in the projection room have titillated Angelenos for years. Silent-film fans John and Dorothy Hampton opened this movie house with Cecile B. DeMille's "The King of Kings" in 1941 just as Nora Desmond's close-up was fading to black. But it was the headline-grabbing murder of their slick-talking protege, Laurence Austin, by a hired gun who sprayed the theater with gunfire in 1997, that cemented the house's place in Hollywood lore.
The Appeal
After rescuing the theater from certain demolition, songwriter Charlie Lustman rehabilitated the interior. Today, the only ghosts lurking are those of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, who frequently headline along with vamp retrospectives and the occasional 3-D night. The theater regularly fills with kids, octogenarians, and all ages between. Drop by for live piano accompaniment, cartoons and shorts - and don't miss the new art deco coffee shop and back garden.
From Flickr
this -
The Silent Movie Theater in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles had been founded by a couple of dreamers after the Second World War. After they had become old and decrepit, Lawrence Austin appeared to help them. He was a felon, having served a term in California prison for embezzlement. He induced the old couple to sign over the property to him; they were dispatched to a nursing home.
The crook seemed, at last, to have found his vocation: he refurbished the old theater, and employed musician/composer Robert Israel and other musicians to provide live musical accompaniment for the many rare and remarkable films which the theater promoted and screened with fanfare and style.
Unfortunately, Lawrence Austin was shot to death during a screening. He had kept a catamite, and had foolishly made the boy his heir. The catamite - eager to get his inheritance - had hired an assassin.
Eventually the gunman was caught. He confessed the plot. Both gunman and catamite were convicted of murder, and are now in prison.
Unfortunately, the Silent Movie Theater's only valuable asset was its collection of rare prints of silent movies. It was sold. The movie house remains, but its program of regular screenings of rare and classic films from the silent era has been discarded.
Catamite (noun) - from Latin
catamitus - a boy kept by a pederast.
Hollywood in One Shot
Topic: Insider Stuff
All of Hollywood summed up in one shot - an alley on Wilcox, behind the Hollywood Studio Building, an old Spanish Revival thing (1927) on the boulevard, Saturday morning, July 15. The details say it all. 
Oddities: Fooling the Eye in Hollywood
Topic: Insider Stuff
Oddities: Fooling the Eye in Hollywood
This in an interesting film industry supplier just down the hill, a company that rents vintage clothing to the entertainment industry, and not open to the public at all - but it always catches your eye as you drive by.
The place is Palace Costume and Prop Company, 835 North Fairfax Avenue - founded in 1970 after starting out as a vintage clothing store down on Melrose Avenue.
From the Los Angeles Business Journal, October 26, 1998, this -Melody Barnett's costumes have been featured in thousands of television shows and movies, and studio costume designers rave about her store's huge selection and excellent customer service. On a recent afternoon, the phone at her Palace Costume & Prop Co. was ringing off the hook as a steady stream of costume designers and stylists came into the store.
"It's very accessible. I can't think of any other place in L.A. that's like Palace Costume where you call just walk in once you're on account and not have to make an appointment or give them your first child," said costume designer Mark Bridges, who has worked in the industry for 15 years.
... The offerings include more than half a million pieces of distinctive clothing - racks and racks of men's jackets and shirts, women's fur coats and exotic costumes and jewelry from Africa, China and India.
In fact, Barnett's collections have adorned the bodies of the beautiful and famous in thousands of television shows and movies, including "Austin Powers," "Chinatown," "Forrest Gump" and "What's Love Got To Do With It."
... "Every film with a period piece in it probably utilizes Palace Costume," said Tom Bronson, director of the costume department at Burbank-based Walt Disney Studios. "Her clothes are in great shape. Some people think she's overprotective of her clothes. If shoots run longer than expected she will charge more and she should. It's her livelihood and it's extremely difficult to replace or even find an authentic piece of vintage clothing."
Years of amassing everything from Victorian dresses to '80s power suits have required Barnett to keep expanding her space, adding about 1,000 square feet to the shop every year.
... Rather than put unsightly iron gates across the building's exterior. Barnett had a wooden/stucco facade constructed that features hand-painted characters in period costumes.
And that's what you see here.
It's very odd, next to a nursing home, across the street from a seedy hot dog stand, and in a neighborhood where most everyone speaks Russian. On the other hand, the site says Palace provided some of the some of the costumes for Lasse Hallström's Chocolat (2000, Miramax), so Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench and Johnny Depp might have been wearing what was rented here. And that was a classy film, or wanted to be.
Of course places not open to the public should offer the public something, and in this case the public is offered eye candy.
Photos - Friday, June 9, 2006
