From Jeffery Herr, curator of Hollyhock House:This past spring the New York Times was permitted to do a photo shoot regarding an architecture and fashion spread for the Sunday magazine in Hollyhock House, Frank Lloyd Wright’s house in Los Angeles. That piece is in Sunday’s NYTs issue. I hope you will have an opportunity to view it either in hardcopy format or on line.
It is very interesting to see how the photographer and fashion expert collaborated to juxtapose the architectural details of HH with the structural details of the garmets used in the shoot. Check it out here: NY Times Sunday Style Magazine
The Dwights - It was sweet but not great. I usually love these sorts of comedy dramas though, but the young couple in the movie weren’t awfully convincing. I am
Damages – Awesome! The twist at the end of the show was excellent. This looks like “Must See TV” to me! I came in late to the show and thought it was so good I wathced the second airing that took place right after the first.
Looking forward to ‘Talk To Me” with Don Cheadle I just read a review and it sounds wonderful, although I wasn’t a big fan of the directors previous movie, “Eve’s Bayou”. I think about 12 people went to see that movie!
The Silverlake Chamber of Commerce had a mixer week ago Thursday. What an interesting group of people. It was held at a store called the “Living Room”, and “Sustainability” was the topic.
It is so tough to do things right. The presentation was on packaging. The big overall question on the business people’s minds were “What actually is sustainable?” Some items he presented were biodegradable, but the city had no mechanism for pick up. just makes you realize how far we have to go to get there, even in the “civilized” world!
I heard a disturbing piece of news the other day…China has suppressed some sort of Environmental Impact Report. I can only assume that the news is worse than expected and that with all the bad news out of China over quality control and corruption, China felt it better to forget the whole statement. I keep looking around for some follow up news to this item, but nothing so far in the mainstream media.
In more cheerful observations, LA Times Business section has “Green By Design” LA Times Business (check the archives) a great piece on how two different homeowners went green by Abigail Goldman. Really great on the kind of information that you need to know to weigh the options. My condo association looked into solar panels at one point, and it is a tough call as the expenses of installing this stuff is no small thing. You can’t stress economy enough. And it is good to hear the city does provide real incentives, if you know where to find them.
And while looking for the China mention in this morning’s LA Times, there is a great little piece on the LA River. If you have a bike, get down the River by Los Feliz and you can ride for several miles either way, this article is about more efforts to improve the river neighborhood by neighborhood and the debut of the Green Street Project. Find it at: Steve Hymon’s Q & A: Local Government
Last Saturday night I went to the Track 16 Gallery for the opening of their current show. Although the big publicity went to Glen Wexler and his Secret Life of Cows exhibit, two other shows that debuted that night out shined it. It was Gail Greenfield Randall’s Case Histories curated by Kristine McKenna which consisted of a delightful assortment of shadow boxes, and Paul Joyce’s Hollywoodland, with celebrity curator Dennis Hopper that were more interesting. I liked several of the paintings, but wasn’t drawn to them emotionally like I was with the precious objects of Greenfield Randall’s meticulously displayed shadow boxes.
Glen’s work was also meticulous, but you can see that it was all sort of a romp for photographer Wexler. As he said in his Los Angeles Times article, he isn’t into cows much, they bore him. The whimsy of it was fun, and apparently Wexler wasn’t planning on doing anything but a book, but Track 16 talked him into blowing up the photos for display, and as a publicity event it was awesome, but as art, well, cow fans (and there are a surprising amount of them) will snap up this quirky coffee table book in a minute, but I don’t know who else will.
AB 1634 is a bill put forward to the California Assembly by Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) to make it a requirement to spay all cats and dogs after the age of 6 months, with exemptions for breeders and work/show/agility dogs etc – or face a stiff fine.
To go right to a great source and read all about it here:
www.petpacnonsense.com
There is a great white paper in .pdf file located on this site for a summary:
AB 1634 For / Against
The pet industry has gone crazy over this bill and has formed a well-funded political action committee headed by a ‘hired gun” political activist and their aggressive “Swift Boat Veteran” like tactics has encouraged extreme behavior to take the forefront, as this a PAC that is seeking to incite “pet libertarians”.
This issue is something I feel strongly about as well, but I also feel strongly about staying far away from animal activists on both sides of the issue. I donate money and adopt abandoned animals when I do get a pet, but the intensity of the activists is greater than my own.
However, this reaction to AB 1634 is too much and it has motivated me to publish this blog, which I have just started keeping. We should insist that people spay their pets unless they have a reason for them to breed. The weight of public welfare for the animals that are born to die every year and the cost to taxpayers outweighs the profitability of the pet industry.
Here are some highlights, and a link to a great site that is on the side of the humane society, responsible pet ownership and smart fiscal policy:
The bill requires the spaying of all dogs and cats unless there is a business or personal reason not to, and registration of all breeding pets in the state.
- Because of this, the AKC (American Kennel Club) realizes that many businesses will have to register with the state and part time enthusiasts might stop breeding. This could drive down profits from fees to register litters and dogs.
- Many breeders of show, security or work dogs, are small and admittedly have slim profits and operate as cash businesses, but do register with the AKC.
- A PAC called PetPAC, run by a longtime political operative named Bill Hemby, is inciting all sorts of outrage by publicly claiming that this is will make pets instinct, that out-of-state breeders cannot bring their “intact” animals in for shows or trials and all sorts of nonsense that has already been taken care in the bill in amendments. He has repeatedly tried to associate AB 1634 with animal rights and animal extremist groups, although such groups have had no input, financial or otherwise, into AB 1634.
- In addition, Pet PAC is reaching out of state to get other small businesses associated with the AKC to send automated faxes to our Assembly members.
- Part of their strategy has been to launch a personal attack on the bill’s author Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), a brave man who deserves our respect, at least on this matter. His website is:
www.cahealthypets.com/home.htm
I am sure there are concerned citizens who believe this is wrong, but they seem to be small portion of the group that is pushing the hysterical message that could derail AB 1634. I wish the Pro AB 1634 group wins this one. Yesterday the bill was shelved until January; so, there is plenty more action to come.
I cannot help but be interested in current affairs, it is so important to living well. However, it can be a dismal pastime. It is lively now, but scary too. The Bush Whitehouse politics is getting more bizarre everyday. If I did not know a little U.S. history, I would think it was the start of the end of democracy, the way they think they are above the law.
Although once you learn some history of the city of Washington, you can see that the likes of them has been around for a long time. I have been to D.C. twice and walked with an AIAA guide to the city both times. I picked it up in a gift store at the small museum practically across the street from the Whitehouse. I would go to a destination like the Fisk Museum and map my course back through the neighborhood reading about its history through architecture. The previous builders, city planners, politicians and citizens were a hardnosed and ruthless bunch with only a few exceptions. To find out that the national mall was once a stinking sweating marsh with canals, and what it went through over the years to how it appears today changed the way I looked at it forever. The greatest thing about looking at a city through its great buildings is that they are beautiful to look at, and you get to see a little bit of almost everything that shaped it, large and small. I found dynamic, wonderful stories from all parts of that city. This is especially true of Washington D.C. where there is so much to see and where the inhabitants have been such an ambitious group. I marvel on how notions of freedom and equality, the rule of law, and doing the right things survive as well as they have so far. I hope they continue to do so, as our President and his team stall themselves through the end of their term.
July 4th in LA isn’t such a bad place to be, especially near the beach. Our location had a view from a bluff overlooking the LA Basin and LA County coast. Our host’s wide angle 180° view gave us gorgeous panorama of a city that loves its fireworks, as you see them ignite from Malibu to Pacific Palisades inland to Griffith Park Observatory and south to LAX, at least 10 different displays of all sizes. We sat on a rooftop deck in Playa Del Rey, overlooking the famously undeveloped Ballona Wetlands, the evening a pleasant respite from the heatwave of the last several days. A damp marine layer had taken over the night, giving last night’s light shows white smoke backdrops. None of the fireworks were as elaborate as I saw last year on a trip to Boston under a similar cloud cover, but they weren’t expected to be. In Boston they had fireworks that formed smiley faces, serenaded by an orchestra, nothing so state of the art last night. But while I am glad I got to see the state of the art in Boston last year, our cozy little party with its generous hosts, their good taste in food and drink to nurture us, was as good as a hometown can get. Seeing that great glittering Los Angeles Urban bowl flare up with fancy looking sparklers couldn’t look anymore expansive or lively.
