Los Angeles

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

At times, I could almost hear my heart breaking as I read Tattoos on the Heart by Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who works with hardened gang members in Los Angeles and assists with reintegrating them back into society through his organization Homeboy Industries. Boyle founded Homeboy Industries to provide encouragement and support in the form of jobs and vocational training to former gang members who have expressed a desire to rehabilitate themselves.

Not only did my heart break more than once while reading Tattoos on the Heart, I found myself inspired by Boyle’s recounting of his experiences during the past twenty years in the barrios of East L.A. What kept this book from being flat out disheartening in terms of the obstacles that Boyle and the gang members are up against (Boyle has officiated at the funerals of hundreds of children, adolescents, and adults over the years as a result of gang violence) is Boyle’s sense of humor and faith that glimmers in the stories that he tells. His stories reminded me of homilies strung together to create a beautiful testimony to faith and humanity amongst tragedy and despair.

Boyle is also well schooled in the street language of his homies, which adds even more reality and credibility to his retelling of events. This is a priest who used to ride around on his bike to some of the most dangerous parts of L.A. at all times of the day or night to tend to his flock. Boyle doesn’t share these stories as a means to laud his bravery or piety, but to tell the stories of lost generations of individuals who find themselves in a seemingly unbroken cycle of violence, and to remind us of their humanity. Many of these former gang members were abused by parents or left to raise themselves with no resources or role models. Boyle writes of taking some of his homies to a sit down restaurant for the first time and how these normal day-to-day experiences that we take for granted are as foreign to them as riding a spaceship. Boyle also tells of the death threats he has received as a result of his work from people who don’t believe gang members can or should be rehabilitated.

According to the text, there are:

1,100 gangs encompassing 85,000 members in Los Angeles County, and Boyle Heights had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. Since Father Greg—also known affectionately as G-dog—started Homeboy Industries more than twenty years ago, it has served members of more than half the gangs in Los Angeles.

I laughed and cried while reading this book. Boyle has a master’s degree in English and has received numerous awards, including the California Peace Prize. He sprinkles quotes of famous spiritual leaders of all faiths throughout his text, including Mother Theresa and Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk, poet and peace activist. While I found this book painful to read at times, I also found it to be transformative.

Written by: Gita Tewari, July 16th 2010

A Day in LA: A Conversation with Kevin McCollister

admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Interview with Kevin McCollister

Kevin McCollister is a serious and shy man who spends his days working in a Los Angeles office and his nights walking around the city’s less stylish neighborhoods snapping photographs of churches, taco stands, mariachis, the homeless, and LA landmarks like the Fourth Street Bridge, Union Station, and Olvera Street. His photographs feature the LA that its natives know to be true, but fail to see after so many years of dodging street characters and fighting traffic on freeways just to get to their next location.

McCollister began his career as a poet, and in 2005, shortly after moving to Los Angeles, he decided to start a photography blog as a way of showing his friends the sights of his new surroundings. The mission was simple: explore the “easily misunderstood city” by foot, camera in hand, shooting the images that are counterintuitive to what people usually associate with the City of Angels. (Don’t believe that old Missing Persons song: people do walk in LA, and they’re not just photographers either.)

Nearly a year ago, McCollister’s beautiful, gritty images caught the attention of If Pub's founder Brooks Roddan, whose publishing company specializes in limited edition art and poetry books. After Roddan saw McCollister’s photographs, they decided to publish a collection of fifty-five photographs that would become East of West LA.

Tell me about your background. Where have you lived?

I grew up outside of Cleveland, Ohio. I think that's what gave me a taste for grime over glitz. Then for several years I was based in the French Quarter of New Orleans, and that was pretty wild. I was working and living on boats that went up and down the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers—pretty much a total retreat from modern life. I saw lots of small, mid-American towns and, of course, the rivers themselves were fascinating. After that I lived in a place that was the exact opposite of New Orleans: Cambridge, MA right in Harvard Square. I felt at home there, more than in LA actually, but the weather was horrible.

How did you transition from being a poet to a photographer?

I went to school at Ohio University and Harvard Extension, but I'm not a graduate of anywhere, and I never studied photography in school. Whatever it was that sparked my interest wasn’t conscious, but it certainly was natural. I began to see that you can convey a lot of emotion within a photograph, and that photography doesn't come with all the alienating artsy-ness of poetry. Plus, it got me out of the house. Walking can be very meditative, at least for me.

Who are your influences?

It all begins with Walt Whitman; He's very city-centric and acknowledges the whole spectrum of being alive. He and William Carlos Williams deal in very concrete images, and there's very little that's grandiose about either of them. Whitman can get carried away with himself, but it’s clear the claims he makes for himself are true for everyone. Frank O'Hara and James Schuyler are two other poets that have been a big influence.

If you settled in any other city, do you think you would have felt compelled to photograph it the way you’re photographing Los Angeles?

I honestly don't know. I'd certainly try. The idea of living in a smaller, less mixed-up city than LA gives me the creeps. Here, there's certainly a place for whatever mood you're in. I can go to Abbot Kinney where I'm just another blip or to Breed Street in Boyle Heights where, until the crackdown, they had all the outdoor food stalls. I don't speak Spanish at all, so it’s pleasantly disorienting.

What do you find yourself drawn to photographing?

Well photography is a compulsion; I admit to that. Every so often, I go to Inglesia Nuestra Senora Reina de Los Angeles, the Catholic mission next to Olvera Street. It attracts some extremely devout people. Outside the church there are street people who have absolutely nothing. It seems the church has a pretty tolerant policy about them. I also check in on some vendors and street people as I make the rounds. Some I see often, some seem to disappear.

**Who are your favorite photographers? **

I really respect Mexican photographers, specifically Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Tina Modotti. They're very elemental, uncluttered, and direct. I also like Helen Levitt and Lisette Model. Generally speaking, I'm much more in the Wegee world than the Ansel Adams one. My favorite photograph is "Main Street, Saratoga Springs" by Walker Evans.

What inspires you?

Knowing that someday all of this, especially me, won't be here anymore and that for all the jokes about being a city of wanna-be TV stars and models, there are a ton of people in this town who are doing great things.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, March 6th 2010

Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, And Lipstick Lesbians

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:00:00 +0000

By Lillian Faderman, Stuart Timmons

University of California Press

California: Land of the free, the brave, and the gay. This heart-lifting literary biopsy of gay rights’ progression in Southern California (Los Angeles, specifically) is a delight to read. For those of you who have ever stood in the face of adversity, protest poster in hand, Gay L.A. will remind you exactly why you did so. For the rest, it will open your eyes to the continuing need for civil rights activism on all planes.

The non-fiction novel is a chronological retelling of the way gay community has evolved in the past hundred years. Though both stories and people vary, the one element that does not change is each generation’s responsibility to push the envelope a little more than its predecessor. After all, where would Lindsey Lohan be today if Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo hadn’t been gender-bending wearers of pants? In the closet, of course!

From scintillating behind-the-scenes tales of Hollywood’s 1920s heyday, to the rigid role-playing of the 1950s, to the moving protests against the government’s indifference in the face of the AIDS epidemic, this historical work reads like a novel. All the work big Hollywood names of the '20s and '30s had to go to remain closeted is fascinating. Gay L.A. states that celebrities could be open and “out” in private circles, but they kept their flamboyancy far from public eye. Thanks to Twitter, paparazzi, and camera cell phones, celebs no longer have this luxury—which makes reading about the elaborate lengths famous gay people went to in those days all the more interesting. (Did you ever wonder where the term “beard” marriage came from? Even “lipstick lesbian” is an invention of a bygone era.)

As far as an accurate representation of the GLBT community, I’d have to say that these authors did a fairly evenhanded job. They are able to approximate the delicate balancing point between the telling of gay men’s and lesbian’s stories—although less attention is paid to transgender narratives. This gap in information might just be due to the lack of research and archived information on transgender identities, which is accurate for the time periods covered but still somewhat disappointing.

The amount of GLBT history that I gleaned from this book is astounding. For instance, I’d never heard the gay agenda addressed in a respectful and literal way. I’ve always wondered why conservatives fling the phrase around to depict gays as child-molesting monsters seeking world domination. The “gay agenda” always sounded so ludicrous to me, an offensive mischaracterization of a disenfranchised group’s fight for equality. Apparently such a thing actually existed at one point! Take, for example, the difference between L.A.’s early gay rights political activists fighting for domestic partnership benefits and a satiric website like The Homosexual Agenda. We have the ability to be flippant about the “gay agenda” in the 21st century because of the hard-won battles fought by those who went before us.

Gay L.A. is a two-fold motivational work: it is both a call to action and to remembrance. It ends on a hopeful note, reminding us that the battle has not been won but that much progress has been made. It also reminds modern-day civil rights proponents of just how much blood, sweat, and tears it took to get us where we are today.

Written by: Sam Williams, November 26th 2009

The Music Teacher

admin — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:21:00 +0000

By Barbara Hall

Algonquin Books

The Music Teacher is a story of failure. It is the story of what could have been, but wasn’t—because of neglect, because of abuse, or for the simple reason that not everyone succeeds. Most people fail.

Protagonist Pearl Swain is one of these failures. Swain was a gifted violinist, but her father hated (and feared) her passion for music so strongly that he burned her violin in a backyard fire. Now Swain is a violin teacher rather than a professional musician, an occupation which she views as a failure. Her marriage is also a failure, having recently ended with her professor husband impregnating another woman and leaving her.

Now, Swain’s life revolves completely around the music store where she gives her lessons, and the staff there, with whom she socializes and debates favorite music and artists a la High Fidelity. Her romantic prospects are limited to the men at the shop. Her life as a music teacher changes when an orphan named Hallie comes in for lessons. Swain identifies with Hallie, who is gifted but lacks the support system necessary for success. While Swain is enamored of the girl’s talent, she discovers that Hallie’s personal problems are far more dangerous than she suspected. But is it already too late? Is Swain already involved enough in Hallie’s life to be harmed?

Hallie acts as the catalyst for many of Pearl’s realizations, about the process through which talent becomes achievement, about parents and family, about her own childhood, and her marriage. Although bitter, Swain is ultimately likeable. The book stands out because of its exploration of failure and its unique juxtapositional setting. (Swain lives in a trailer park in Los Angeles, the city of stardom.)

Unfortunately, neither the writing nor the story is remarkable enough to stay in a reader’s head for long, unless he or she is particularly interested in the career of a professional musician.

Written by: Elizabeth F.A. Meaney, July 21st 2009

Death by Leisure: A Cautionary Tale

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:51:00 +0000

By Chris Ayres

Grove Press

Maybe the current economic meltdown the world-over has got me down, but I found Chris Ayres’ Death by Leisure: A Cautionary Tale a hard pill to swallow. Could it be that the time for cautionary tales has long passed? Every other fiction new release, it seems, touches upon environmental disaster, or endless war, or the disaster wrought by people living en masse beyond their means; this book touches upon all three. While the topics may be more relevant than ever now, Ayres would have done well to take a fresher approach if he wished to stand out from the ever-growing crowd of heralds trumpeting in the End Times.

Ayres paints a picture of Los Angeles through the eyes of an English transplant who is both repelled and possessed by the culture of consumption. The city is smothered in smog and mind-numbingly hot temperatures, while its inhabitants live out their lives blissfully unaware, drifting from air-conditioned apartments to air-conditioned cars. His L.A. is grit, sweat, anxiety, neuroses, and desperation, glossed over with a barely-there sheen of glamour and luxury.

Particularly in his romantic pursuits, Ayres exhibits a calculated level of self-deprecation and apathy. Sent to L.A. as a journalist and correspondent for a British newspaper, Ayres daily life is structured by assignments and demands from The Beast on the other end of the telephone line. It becomes clear that whatever journalistic zeal he arrived with, Ayres has lost. Rather, he uses his credentials to score access to exclusive parties, to which he invites women he hopes to woo. Ayres is no fool; he can see the writing on the wall, and the writing spells certain destruction, environmentally and financially. It’s his refusal to act outside of his own needs, in spite of this knowledge, that remains his least endearing quality throughout the book.

The real estate bubble of the United States is stretched to its limits, poised to burst, nowhere more obviously than in Los Angeles. Yet Ayres wheels and deals with reckless abandon to finagle a “piggy back” mortgage while the getting’s still good that will land him in a multi-million dollar home he has no prayer of affording. Reader, bear in mind, the protagonist has been hawking furniture on CraigsList to pay the rent on his apartment. Toxic assets, sub-prime mortgages, financial acrobatics—oh, what a twisted web, and all that. His high jinks couldn’t be more timely, or infuriating.

Yet, under the guise of a jaded Los Angeles satire, there are grains of wisdom to be found in Death by Leisure: A Cautionary Tale. When there is nothing left to be done, get the whole mess down on paper and don’t take yourself too seriously. Find someone to make a home with and try to be happy. Wean yourself off the things you don’t need. Have a baby, even if you’re not sure this is a world you want to bring a child into. That mess you got down on paper, however sarcastic or seemingly apathetic, might start to mean something. It may not be too late for that cautionary tale.

Written by: Kelly Moritz, April 29th 2009

Moon Metro Los Angeles, 3rd Edition

admin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:52:00 +0000

Edited by Naomi Adler Dancis

Avalon Travel

From Argentina to Cancun to New England, Moon Maps are available online and through guides like Moon Metro Los Angeles. The slender book is thick with fold-out maps of the City of Angels so you can conduct a self-guided tour. It’s not an “LA for Dummies,” but makes the effort to be accessible to first timers, as well as those who are map-challenged, like me.

Moon Metro Los Angeles divided Los Angeles up into eight specific areas, which are color coded to help the tourist quickly identify where they’re going. You may own a navigator that will get you around even as you walk, but a map can often give a wider view of what’s ahead in an area; at least, that’s been my experience with my navigational system and its 3.5 inch screen.

The guide also offers advice on tourist traps, which can be fun if you want to tell people you saw or experienced, but really aren’t the best value. Case in point are the “star tours” or “star maps” that lead you to think you’ll see the stars at their homes. Remember just how high those greens were when Ozzy Osborne threw a ham over his shrubbery? Map authors point out that homes may be recessed far enough from the street that you can’t see them taking out the trash, or (again with the shrubbery) with landscaping that is designed to cloud your view.

Hot "star spots" are mentioned: places you might not expect to see them at, such as delis or coffee shops. Bank on the fact they may love one place, but switch to another if the shine gets too bright from fans’ smiles.

Restaurant price ratings and other expected data are included in the map as well. It’s worth a pickup prior to your visit, so you can program destinations in your navigator, data phone or other electronic accessories, but is a good backup in case any of your electronics fail, and you’re still rarin’ to go.

Written by: Cheryl Ellis, March 20th 2009

Bright Shiny Morning

admin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:51:00 +0000

By James Frey

Harper Collins

I have no beef with James Frey. I think he’s a talented writer; a zeitgeist of a generation; a younger and less punctuationally-correct Don DeLillo, of a sort; and I believe Oprah is a mean and deceitful ratings leech. I think memoir is a complicated genre at best, and I tend to believe most (if not all) of the story as told in this recent Vanity Fair article. I have a soft spot for the downtrodden that come out stronger after the fight, and I happen to think straight men with lisps who say “fuck” every third word are wildly underappreciated.

Enter Bright Shiny Morning, Frey’s third book and first in the wake of his much publicized fall from literary grace (also known as being “outed” for writing a memoir with a—gasp!—fictional flare in 2003’s A Million Little Pieces). A rather widely praised follow-up, Frey seemed to have rebounded with relative ease, considering the slander he has endured. I had the good fortune and required five dollars to see Frey in Boston last month, and his in-person readings are much like he writes—mostly stream-of-consciousness and unpretentious—particularly entertaining, even if you weren’t previously a fan or haven’t read anything he’s written. A man not bothered or interested in anyone’s perception of him or his work except his readers, I was excited about the book before I had my own copy, just because I like his no-nonsense attitude about the literati and run-on sentences.

Frey himself has called the novel, a fast moving 500 pages, a “love letter” to Los Angeles, and it certainly is in many ways. It also portrays a series of troubled characters in all their complicated glory and, for me, created mental images of deserted mini-golf courses and seedy motels that I still haven’t been able to shake. The novel haunted me for the week after I speedily read it while stuck in uncomfortable transit zones, like airplanes and airports, and in fact, I suspect I consumed it too fast. Processing a wide range of emotions so quickly made me feel like I’d just gone through all the stages of a serious relationship and breakup in less than seventy-two hours.

Vignettes coupled with four main storylines created a perfect blend of the static and constant, reflecting life as I understand it. These, interspersed with random “facts” and histories of Los Angeles, kept me turning the pages frantically, wondering when my favorite story lines would return, loving the pages that held a single sentence, wondering often what was a true detail about L.A. (despite the publisher’s insistence that not one word of the novel should be taken as fact).

Without giving too much away, Bright Shiny Morning is a novel for postmodern, hopeful cynics, who believe in universal truths and the beauty of sadness. It has my highest recommendation.

Photo credit: Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen

Written by: Brittany Shoot, July 10th 2008

Lonely Planet: Los Angeles & Southern California (2nd Edition)

admin — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:54:00 +0000

By Andrea Schulte-Peevers, Amy C. Balfour, Andrew Bender

Lonely Planet

Writing guide books for cities as widely visited as Los Angeles can be challenging. One is faced with the question: what’s left to write about? All the usual suspects make an appearance in the _Los Angeles & Southern California _entry of Lonely Planet’s guide series: Universal Studios, Disneyland, Rodeo Drive, the Ivy. For readers – most notably L.A. and SoCal first-timers - the descriptions of these California icons are servicable, though they don’t offer anything new.

As is expected with a guidebook outfit as thorough as Lonely Planet, there are loads of unexpected sites and entries, as well: the Museum of Tolerance, a must-see and much-needed antidote of reality for the artifice that can be pervasive in Los Angeles; a fun stop for history buffs, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library is also highlighted – which promises a revamped Watergate exhibit; for the science buff as well as the architectual fetishist, the Salk Institute, housed in a classic Louis Kahn building, is a popular stop; and entertainment junkies who tire of the film and television-oriented Los Angeles can travel to San Diego, which is home to the Old Globe Theaters that host the summer Shakespeare festivals (though fans of the Bard are cautioned that other works are also performed).

Like other Lonely Planet guides, this entry could’ve had more photographs; though there is a copious amount of maps, highlighting sites, restaurants, and hotels. There are four pages of features sites, all in attractive color pics. Another section, dubbed “SoCal Speaks” gives various locals (including Los Angeles mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa) a chance to trumpet their favorite part of Los Angeles. It’s an interesting and harmless section, though more pictures of the city and the surrounding areas would be more helpful.

Another issue with the guide, though this could be attributed to the city it’s reviewing, is how celebrity-mad the authors seem to be. Los Angeles is more than just superstar-country and the authors’ constant name-dropping (even going as far as using the tabloid-friendly “first-name only” style – i.e. “Britney, Leo”) only add to the cliché. That said, the book has a lot going for it, as long as readers get into the spirit of the kind of vacation a trip to Los Angeles is. It’s not a cultural eye-opener that a jaunt to Sri Lanka or Kenya would be. And while it’s easy to deride California as the cultural wasteland of the United States, a look through this book would set any narrow-minded prejudice straight.

The authors take a strong and critical look at Los Angeles in the opening sections of the book, giving readers socio and economic background information – an important point the book makes is that the richest and the poorest in the country live in Los Angeles. Rougher areas - like Compton and South Central - get mentions, though understandably, they’re not as highly recommended as Beverly Hills or Santa Monica. It’s commendable of the authors to mention these underserved areas; there is a great mention of the Watts Towers, and the authors make a point of not glossing over the Watts race riots.

Another difficulty the authors tackle with aplomb is the sheer volume of information available. There’s a lot to see in Los Angeles and Southern California, and there are a lot of places to eat at and stay. The suggestions are helpful – they are broken down by area and price-range (though, potential visitors are warned in the opening section that Los Angeles is a prime destination for budget-travelers). The descriptions of the restaurants and hotels are personable and often include shout-outs to the owners, if they made impressions on the authors. There are also suggestions for shopping, and the authors make sure that out-of-the-way and unique shops get mentions as well (you can dress up like a storm trooper or a Klingon after a spree at It’s a Wrap – a shop that sells wardrobe castoffs from TV and movie studios).

Gay and lesbian travelers can also use this book as a resource – though the information is pretty limited and there are loads of books that cater specifically to LGBT travelers. Still, there is a good amount of information about gay-friendly areas and businesses. As expected with the limited amount of space devoted to the subject, most of the information is not really all that new (West Hollywood is gay? You’re kidding).

Traveling to California, of course, includes trips to the beach – the authors realize that the water would be a major spot for vacationers and do an excellent job in this respect. Beaches are well described, and activities (such as surfing and fishing) are highlighted in specific beaches that are best suited. Also, for surfing virgins, various surfing-lessons are listed, with prices.

A trip to California can be daunting to plan when faced with all that there is to do. Lonely Planet has mapped out all there is to do in Los Angeles and surrounding Southern California in an easy-to-read guidebook, which lets readers plan out their own itineraries. The sights are carefully separated according to location – so that when planning a trip, it’s easy to check-off what you’re going to visit. Major sights, such as Disneyland, get an exhaustive description and helpful tips (pricing, lodging, and eating). For more adventurous travelers, there are great points to visit as well. That this guidebook is very versatile isn’t a surprise when looking at other excellent entries in the Lonely Planet’s library.

Written by: Peter Piatkowski, May 13th 2008