From the category archives:

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Megastorm Watch 2011 and Beyond!

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Local television news anchors and their producers must be salivating. Scientists are warning that the Mother of All Storm Seasons may soon be headed our way.
No, it’s not due to global cooling, global warming or climate change (whichever term is in vogue nowadays). Rather, like our region’s major earthquakes, such megastorms are natural phenomena that [...]

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More Trash Talk From Victorian Los Angeles

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Ever eager to view our region’s current events through the prism of its off-the-wall history, Friday’s garbage post (below) got me thinking: How did Angelenos handle their refuse problems, say, a century or so ago?
As you might expect, the answer isn’t very pretty.
Ralph Shaffer, history professor emeritus at Cal Poly, Pomona, has written an interesting [...]

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Check It Out: The Haunting of America

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From time to time your humble blogger likes to share some of his library finds with Dateline>City of Angels visitors. This week I finished The Haunting of America, a fascinating look at our nation’s ongoing obsession with the paranormal, from the Salem Witch Trials to Harry Houdini’s attempts to unmask modern Spiritualism.
It’s a strangely perfect [...]

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Do You Blog Like a Girl?

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Well, do you? (Not that it’s a bad thing, especially if you are a woman.)
More importantly, which great writer do you emulate? Jane Austen? Homer? H.G. Wells?
Thanks to computer nerds with way too much time on their hands, the answers to these questions are just a few mouse clicks away.
Enter your blog URL (or any [...]

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Check It Out: The Original Foxfire Book Series

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With the 1970s making their retro-glorious comeback, Dateline>City of Angels readers might want to check into the popular Foxfire book series that debuted during that decade.
I was reminded of these books while making my recent post about Grannie’s breadbox. As those who lived the 1970s will recall, “returning to nature” and “the basics” were prevalent [...]

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Check It Out: W.W. Robinson’s Los Angeles Profile

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If you’re into the latest best sellers, head on over to the New York Times book reviews. If, on the other hand, you’re willing to check out reading material that’s a little more “dated,” you’ve come to the right place.
Once again, I’ve let this blog languish the past several weeks while indulging other pursuits — [...]

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Grab a Trowel and Live to Be 100

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Amid all the usual tips for weekend getaways, this season’s hottest succulents and making your cramped living spaces look bigger, the latest issue of Sunset Magazine includes a curiously uncharacteristic fluff piece on “How to Live to 100.”
Announcing that “One hundred is the new 70,” the article purports to “uncover the secret to why people [...]

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A Bridge Too Far-Fetched?

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Catching up on my web browsing, I see that the Big Orange Landmarks blog recently got to the Shakespeare Bridge in the Franklin Hills neighborhood, managing to attract the attention of a Los Angeles Times literary blog in the process.
Kudos to Big Orange’s blogger, who writes under the pseudonym Floyd B. Bariscale! Whoever he is, [...]

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One More Clip for the Ol’ Portfolio

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I must be the only writer in L.A. without a script in the oven. I say this, because whenever I tell people what I do at a party or cocktail gathering, they instantly light up with questions about my TV and movie credits.
Upon explaining that I’m not a script writer — that my work is [...]

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Southland Streets: The Untold Stories

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L.A.’s love affair with the automobile has left a special mark on the Southland: a massive tangle of streets bearing iconic names. Some are wistfully romantic-sounding, others obviously named for historic figures or events. But more often than not for us modern-day commuters, the monikers are merely puzzling signposts to a forgotten past.
If you’ve ever [...]

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