are trickling in, finally. These are all Margarita’s panorama shots from our inspiration trip to Peru!
our beach day:
the contemporary art museum
overlooking the bridge of souls in Barranco
a square in Lima
the main square in Lima
more to come!
lots of articles, rebuttals, retorts and concessions last week regarding Richard Florida’s creative class that was supposed to rise all boats. Florida said in the Atlantic: “On close inspection, talent clustering provides little in the way of trickle-down benefits.”
Sociologists can be wrong, but this one in particular had a consulting company making a lot of money off of hard-hit cities hoping to use Florida’s theory to woo creative types (and the $$$ that was supposed to follow).
Joel Kotkin takes aim on Florida in the Daily Beast here. And then Florida has a good rebuttal here.
It’s all good content: and it’s fun to see sociology take the front stage:)
sometimes i love LA for all the LA reasons. Right now, Figueroa St is all dressed up like it’s the 1940s or 50s: all the empty storefronts (and the real ones) have new signs, new fronts, fake merch, etc. It’s all for filming “the Real Gangsters” but that might not be the real name. Spiderman was filming on York with a fake name last week.
What’s really great, is that the signs that are above the windows (and maybe above the camera line) have been left.
it’s a bit sad to me.
Highland Park has gone through some economic shifts: but even though it used to be a richer neighborhood, I don’t think it would ever be considered a wealthy neighborhood, but at some point, probably all of the storefronts were filled, not covered in graffiti, not selling all weird discount stuff, but also not selling fancy stuff, just supporting the families than ran them, who sold things to support a community.
behind this kitchen appliances storefront is a store that sells plastic-y shoes and a surprisingly colorful assortment of synthetic blend bras and underwear.
this storefront is usually empty.
this hello kitty store couldn’t resist putting it’s sign and pink succulent outside
and as you can see: this notions store….
is usually the rock factory: where you can get manic panic and striped socks and probably fuzzy dice and and spiked tongue rings
Isaac and I bought land in Highland Park!
We closed on Wednesday, and had wine and pizza that night on the lot. from where we sat, we could see the Highland Park Theater lights, mountains, and lot’s of lightning from the impending wind storm (that proceeded to knock out the power in our place till…well currently, actually).
here are our amazingly unviewable iphone pictures from wednesday
It’s been a pretty long process already, and we’ve been tracking it on our new blog, Fifth From the Top. We’ll be posting a total step by step of the whole process as we go: and it will get a lot more exciting once we really get in the ground!
is in downtown LA: its the creatively named Little Tokyo Shopping Center.
If i was rich or threw parties or worked for a large retail company: i would take out all the leases (the mall is mostly empty) and just do pop ups and small boutiques and night time parties and bars and maybe a rock climbing wall. not really a rock climbing wall. it would be awesome.
what IS currently in the mall is mitsuwa marketplace. I go to the one on the westside pretty often: i had no idea this one was here. That makes two wonderful japanese grocery stores in little tokyo (there is also marukai market in the astronaut street).
there is also beard papa amazing cream puffs
they have karaoke, and
an arcade and
a japanese bar restaurant Honda Ya Izakaya that looks AWESOME!
and sushi go 55, the second oldest sushi bar in us
and shojin, an organic and natural restaurant (which seems at complete odds with this mall).
if you can’t find me sometime, i will probably be at the little tokyo shopping center.
we got back from mexico and the california biennial last night.
it was awesome…
we watched an amazingly beautiful and exciting performance of their piece: Non Western, Our Western by My Barbarian at Lui Velaquez project space.
if you are ever anywhere that they are performing: GO.
and then treked to an old movie theater called multiculti with no roof where kids danced till dawn and you could imagine what the future would be like if the world ended.
or something to that affect: with the recession and all the other fun news recently, i don’t think i’ll be buying a house anytime soon.
And, our apartment is cute and i like the way it looks, but there is something about being in a friends’ actual house and you feel its really them.
for the time being, i will just live vicariously by looking at images from inventive interior design like these in the new york observer.
I’m posting on this a bit early: but sept 19th is park(ing) day here in LA, you still have a chance to reserve your party/political/pacifist/pacific parking spot here.
more on the event closer to the event.
I like LA a lot, but sometimes it can feel like I like it as an individual, not as a part of a community. For time to time though, I go to things that remind me there are lots of other individuals in LA making their work, doing their thing, and occassionally everyone comes out at the same time for something cool.
Lat night we went to the 1830 space in Echo Park, and watched short movies and a play on the roof. It was packed, it was a beautiful night, and it happens every wednesday night this summer.
details here.
