Alphabet: Variations in C Minor

Alphabet: B * Be * Bee

Bill: I’m calling you a killer. A natural born killer. You always have been, and you always will be. Moving to El Paso, working in a used record store, goin’ to the movies with Tommy, clipping coupons. That’s you, trying to disguise yourself as a worker bee That’s you tryin’ to blend in with the hive. But you’re not a worker bee. You’re a renegade killer bee. And no matter how much beer you drank or barbecue you ate or how fat your ass got, nothing in the world would ever change that. 
 — Kill Bill 2, 2004

Alphabet: A is for American

Documentarian: So what was the theme of the pageant last year? 
Gladys Leeman: Last year? It was, “Buy American.” 
Documentarian: And the year before that? 
Gladys Leeman: “U.S.A. is A-okay.” 
Documentarian: Can you remember the theme of your favorite pageant? 
Gladys Leeman: Can I? “Amer-I-Can!” People ask me where I get this. 
I don’t know, it’s, maybe a gift from God or somethin’.
— Drop Dead Gorgeous, 1999

LACMA’s Launches an Online Reading Room

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new mini-site, nicknamed the “Reading Room,” has launched with ten exhibition catalogues from the 1960s and 1970s, with an emphasis on  West coast contemporary art. In addition to featuring rare art catalogues, as the site grows it will also feature other books and literature than may otherwise be difficult to access. The mini-site provides the ability to browse publications page-by-page, perform text searches and download pdfs. In a way, it’s more exciting than Google books — since the materials are being presented with a theme, or in conjunction with upcoming exhibitions, the mini-site makes the online selections feel like specially-curated events. According to the Los Angeles Times blog, Culture Monster, there will soon be a series linked to an April exhibition, “Myths, Legends, and Cultural Renewal: Wagner’s Sources,” coinciding with the Los Angeles Opera presentation of the Ring cycle.
Above: the cover of Billy Al Bengston, by James Monte, 1968

Drive-By Shootings: Mac and Retna

It’s a good day in Los Angeles when I spot another mural by Mac and Retna, whose work has been shown at the Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica adorns buildings everywhere from Montreal to Miami. I’m sad to say I missed out on seeing a recent creation, a 44-foot Ave Maria, last time I was in Salt Lake City. 
Here are some snapshots of their work around town, including one at a tire shop that I blogged about last year:

mac-arte.blogspot.com; elmac.net; digitalretna.com; estevanoriol.com

I’m Alarmed, Too

The Decade That Was

The Ambassador Hotel, former home of the Cocoanut Grove and site of Robert Kennedy’s assassination, was knocked down on January 16, 2006, one of many landmarks to be razed during the past decade. Curbed LA has compiled a video featuring the Ambassador and several other demolished buildings, including Jayne Mansfield’s iconic Pink Palace, the Casablanca hangar at Van Nuys Airport, Bob’s Big Boy Wilshire, but what seemed to upset the most recent readers who posted comments was the mass banishment of the ficus trees that once dotted Santa Monica Boulevard.

Lost in the Aughts from curbed los angeles on Vimeo.

Happy 2010

The House of Davids -- Youngwood Court -- in all of its glorious, festive, royal splendor.