Saturday, 18 February 2006
No Posting: Technical Issues
Topic: Photos
No Posting: Technical Issues
I am attempting to publish the weekly edition of Just Above Sunset, the weekly magazine-format parent to this daily web log. The seventeen new pages and all the photographs are ready to upload and index, but the hosting service, Earthlink, is having some major difficulties. Politics? Social commentary? Not today. Today is hours on the phone with the Earthlink help desk, but mostly on hold as they've been flooded with calls. Soon or later I'll reach a technical wizard and work this out. For now? Every computer trick I can think of.
In the meanwhile, stare at this. It says a lot about Los Angeles, a pretty cool place.
Thursday, 16 February 2006
A Taste of Hollywood at Oscar Time
Topic: Photos
At Taste of Hollywood at Oscar Time
Not politics today.
The seventy-eighth Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, March 5, 2006 - at the Kodak Theatre at the Hollywood and Highland Center. That's just a mile or two east, so for those of you who follow such things, here's the scene there Thursday, February 16th, sixteen days before the event, as preparations begin, and the tourists mill about. You'll also find photos from a side trip a few miles west to a fine old movie palace in Westwood Village, just south of the UCLA campus.
The album of fifty shots is here - A Taste of Hollywood at Oscar Time
Samples:
Big Fake Oscar in the Courtyard next to the Kodak Theater, Hollywood and Highland
A few steps away, history - the Hollywood Museum in the old Max Factor Building -
The best old movie theater - Fox, Westwood Village
Thursday, 9 February 2006
A Day at the Beach
Topic: Photos
A Day at the Beach
Thursday is photography day, not a day for political commentary. That meant a drive west to the beach, to seek out the unusual.
The results are in two photo albums –
The Edge of the Pacific - as photographed Thursday, February 9, 2006, the very edge of the Pacific, at Venice Beach. The Santa Ana winds are blowing in off the desert and on the sand it's in the eighties just before noon. Late morning the shops are just opening, the dancing rollerblade folks aren't there yet, but the surfers have been out there in dawn, and the surf isn't bad. (Sixteen shots.)
Walls and Folk Art, Venice Beach, California - murals, architectural detail and general oddness, photographed Thursday, February 9, 2006, at Venice Beach. Tourists flock here for the madness on the strand - skaters and oddballs and Muscle Beach and all the little shops and strange food and loud music. Here are the details they often ignore. (Thirty shots.)
Many of these, and a few others, including the usual botanical shots, will be posted Sunday in the new issue of Just Above Sunset, the weekly magazine-format site that is the parent of this daily web log. There they will be in much higher resolution.
From the first album - love and madness on the edge of the Pacific -
From the second album, this ominous fellow -
Saturday, 4 February 2006
Hollywood Landmarks - Worldly and Otherworldly
Topic: Photos
Hollywood Landmarks - Worldly and Otherworldly
When the national and world news gets too burdensome it's always best to explore the neighborhood here and take some pictures. Here's an odd pairing, just down the street. Three shots below, and there are sixteen shots in this online album.
This is what you'll see.
As photographed Thursday, February 2, 2006, Crossroads of the World (6671 Sunset Boulevard - Robert V. Derrah) - built as "the world's first modern shopping center" in 1936 - Streamline Moderne, Spanish Colonial, Tudor, Moorish and French Provincial styles, all mixed together. It's listed on National Register of Historic Places. In the 1993 film "Indecent Proposal" Demi Moore worked in a real estate office here. It plays its part in the 1997 film noir "L.A. Confidential" - Danny DeVito worked for a tabloid in one of the offices. It's in many other films. It's very odd. It's kind of a cruise ship and kind of not.
Next door is The Church of the Blessed Sacrament (6657 Sunset Boulevard - Beezer Brothers, architects, 1928) - the first Catholic Church in the Hollywood area (1904), and the parish church for Irene Dunne and Loretta Young, where Bing Crosby married his first wife (Dixie Lee) in September 1930. The funeral of Carole Lombard's fiancé Russ Columbo was held here in 1934 - pallbearers Bing Crosby, Gilbert Roland and Zeppo Marx. A bit back an episode of the television series ER was filmed here, with guest star James Cromwell as a bishop.
This is an odd place.
The Jesuits were here first -
Crossroads of the World - Establishing Shot
Crossroads of the World - Nautical Detail
Thursday, 2 February 2006
Eye on Hollywood - No Politics Today
Topic: Photos
Eye on Hollywood - No Politics Today
Thursday is photo shoot day, so no discussion of current events for the day.
Instead, two new photo albums -
Gritty Hollywood - a walk through the streets a block north and a bit west of the famous intersection of Sunset and Vine. The streets are Ivar and Cosmo, and Selma and Wilcox. Visually interesting. The glamour is elsewhere. But this is how Hollywood actually feels. Twenty-nine photos.
Groundhog Day Blooms - back east in northwestern Pennsylvania, in Punxsutawney, the groundhog saw his shadow. Six more weeks of winter. Here in Hollywood, these were in bloom, in the quiet residential streets just south of Sunset Boulevard, a few blocks west of Vine . This is the middle of winter here. A dozen blooms.
To be posted soon -
Crossroads of the World (6671 Sunset Boulevard) - historic landmark built as "the world's first modern shopping center" in 1936 - Streamline Moderne, Spanish Colonial, Tudor, Moorish and French Provincial styles, all mixed together. It's listed on National Register of Historic Places. In the 1993 film "Indecent Proposal" Demi Moore worked in a real estate office here. It plays its part in the 1997 film noir "L.A. Confidential" - Danny DeVito worked for a tabloid in one of the offices. It's in many other films. It's very odd.
De Longpre Park - a "pocket park" in Hollywood a block south of Crossroads of the World (De Longpre Avenue at June Street) where young Rick Nelson, on a break from nearby Hollywood High, wrote "Travelin' Man" on a tree-shaded bench, or so he said. The Nelson family lived nearby - for forty years at 1822 Camino Palermo. The odd thing in this park is the two sculptures honoring Rudolph Valentino. Go figure.
The Good Ship Coca-Cola - in the warehouse district of Los Angeles, east of the city, the old Coca-Cola bottling plant was designed to look just like an ocean liner. Major kitsch.
Politics resume here tomorrow.
From the albums -
Hollywood News on Wilcox (1930) - the building is for sale, and will probably become condominium for the trendy. The place is empty at the moment - no linotype machines or anything in there.
A bee gathering pollen on Groundhog Day in De Longpre Park, just to the left of the bust of Rudolph Valentino -
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