Dark Beach
Topic: Light and Shadow
Santa Monica, Thursday, January 4 - and who imagined the place could seem a scene of alienation? Below, a street down to the beach, as Edward Hopper might have seen it, had he not been a New Yorker. 
Hopper had his famous Nighthawks place. Here's the California equivalent on Ocean Avenue, Chez Jay, right next to the Rand Corporation, the think-tank that plans our wars for us.
Even the pier looks a bit like something from Hopper. But the only famous Hopper in these parts is the actor Dennis Hooper, who lives a few miles south in Venice Beach.
It's not all Hopper alienation. It's sometimes just mildly surreal - the bronze surfer with the briefcase at the Lowe's hotel, across from Chez Jay.
Ah, the kids still play at the beach, in the long winter light at noon.
But all is not well here, at least on Lincoln Boulevard.
Pacific Views
Topic: Light and Shadow
Tuesday, December 19 - achingly clear, almost cold windy days and lows at night in the forties, with frost warnings out in the valleys. Winter has come to Los Angeles. The Pacific is a flat mirror in the long afternoon light. This is the view from Mulholland Drive - visibility unlimited. 
Winter Bird
Topic: Light and Shadow
A backlit Marbled Godwit (Limosa fedoa), with bubbles, Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles, 12 December 2006. It's not much of an avian study, but the composition might give you a sense of winter at the beach.
Noted in Passing
Topic: Light and Shadow
In one of the minor local newspapers out here, in this case the Marina del Rey Argonaut (published Thursdays with a print run of 42,000), there's this - The always graceful and dignified tall ships Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain are again paying a visit to Marina del Rey - from Thursday through Wednesday, December 7th to 13th.
They are in town just long enough to conduct some educational cruises for children, open their decks to the public for tours and day trips and take part in the annual Holiday Boat Parade.
While many have seen the square-rigged brig Lady Washington on the silver screen in the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean films, now the community can enjoy the reality of both of these most accurate replicas and take a journey into the late 1700s, when a life at sea was probably the most risky and threatening work there was.
The rest of the item covers the history of the two ships and days of sail and all that sort of thing. Here's they are, passing Venice Beach on their way in. Marina del Rey is just a mile south.
We're Not in Kansas Anymore
Topic: Light and Shadow
| We're Not in Kansas Anymore |
Thursday, November 30, 2006 elsewhere - Storms that roared through the Northwest and Rockies earlier in the week blew into the southern Plains and Midwest on Thursday, bringing the first significant ice and snow of the season. A man was killed in a crash on an icy Oklahoma road.
The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings from Texas to Illinois for Thursday and in some northern areas through noon Friday. Some parts of eastern Kansas were forecast to get up to 12 inches of snow, while others braced for more than an inch of ice.
Thursday, November 30, 2006, Santa Monica, California, late afternoon -
