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Fun Stuff

Memory Lane: 1950s Los Angeles

Automobiles with fins cruising broad boulevards and open freeways; street cars and paper boys; well-dressed people lining up to dine at the Pantry; industry and commerce — these are just a few of the sights recorded in this nostalgic view of 1950s Los Angeles. If you grew up Angeleno during that era, enjoy the trip [...]

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L.A.’s Forgotten Lizard People

The KCRW Shortcuts blog has a new post exploring the facts and fiction surrounding Los Angeles’ oft-ignored network of underground tunnels. The post includes links to several in-depth features on the topic by local news outlets.
Worthwhile as the item is, however, it unfortunately left out an entertainingly bizarre story about L.A.’s subterranean landscape: the mysterious [...]

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An Out-of-This-World Moonsuit

The year was 1960 when NASA development engineer Allyn B. “Hap” Hazard donned his stellar design creation to take a runway strut around Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
According to the Kevitivity blog, where I stumbled across this vintage photo, the goofy suit was the inspiration for Mattel’s Major Matt Mason, the action figure for Space [...]

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Weekend Matinee: Vervet Monkeys With a Drinking Problem

Just for comic relief from this blog’s recent spate of death-related posts, here’s a video of a lively bunch of Caribbean Vervet Monkeys who really enjoy an afternoon of cocktails on the beach.

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BlogoBuzz: Statuary With Style and Flair

Inspired by Griffith Park’s oddly dressed bear statue, the gang at Curbed LA have taken it upon themselves to outfit other local statuary in the latest styles. Click on over and decide if their fashion sense merits a big thumbs up, or a surprise visit from Stacy and Clinton of TLC’s What Not to Wear.

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L.A. Coroner’s Little Shop of Horrors Now a Dying Business

Considering how death rates trend upward during the holiday season, this macabre December 25 New York Times article profiling the L.A. Coroner’s Skeletons in the Closet store is oddly timely. (Still, it probably would’ve been better timed before Christmas to help last-minute shoppers needing gift ideas for those hard-to-please people on their lists.)
Ever on the [...]

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L.A. Auto Show a Trip Down Memory Lane

Life in Angel City

Unless you’re totally pedestrian, you probably know the L.A. Auto Show has made its yearly return to the Los Angeles Convention Center, running Nov. 19-28. I’m headed that way tomorrow, filled with anticipation. It’s always hard to say which I enjoy most — seeing the exciting new automotive technologies and concept cars or bumping into [...]

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Speaking of the Lincolns…

Call me a sucker for GEICO commercials. As a MarCom professional myself, I not only admire the auto insurer’s inventiveness, but also have to confess to a tinge of jealousy at all the fun the company’s creatives must be having behind the scenes. After all, who wouldn’t want to work for a corporation with a [...]

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Corpse Flower Creates Big Stink at Huntington

This past weekend, crowds lined up at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, wanting to catch a glimpse of a flower known both for its humongous size (6 to 10 feet tall!) and its stench. The plant producing this startling, malodorous bloom is known by botanists as Amorphophallus titanum and by laypeople as the [...]

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Metropolis: A Must-See for Cinema Buffs!

Seeking 2 hours and 45 minutes of golden silence on the silver screen? You can’t do any better than Fritz Lang’s historic 1927 film masterpiece Metropolis, now playing on the Laemmle’s Theatre circuit.
Set in the 21st Century, the silent classic envisions a futuristic world in which a seductive female android goads subterranean proletariat workers to [...]

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Winter Wonderland, SoCal-Style

Life in Angel City

The return of these tumbleweed snowmen to Stadium Way can only mean one thing: It’s officially Christmas time in the City of Angels.
It’s amusing how ingrained the concept of a White Christmas is in our pop culture. Even here, at the edge of the Mojave Desert, these are the lengths we’ll go to in “recreating” [...]

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Dateline>City of Angels will resume regular posting after the holiday weekend. In the meantime, enjoy this Gloria Gaynor parody, courtesy USA Green Card Center.

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Ghosts and GHOULA at Olvera Street’s Casa La Golondrina Mexican Cafe

Readers with a thirst for spirits — both the distilled and paranormal kind — should consider some monthly barhopping with GHOULA, the Ghost Hunters of Urban Los Angeles.
Last night the group’s “Spirits With Spirits” gathering descended on Olvera Street’s famous La Golondrina Mexican Cafe for dinner, drinks and an impromptu tour of the not-so-public upstairs [...]

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Introducing the Cute Little Puppy From Hell

Life in Angel City

Allow me to introduce Diablo, the latest addition to our Echo Park household.
While our entire family still very much misses Ramses — and realizes no dog can ever fill the void left by his passing — life must go on. Plus our surviving Dobie Isis desperately needs a companion, having slipped into an obvious funk [...]

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Altadena’s Weirdly Mysterious “Gravity Hill”

Recently your humble blogger picked up a copy of the wondrously offbeat Weird California (left), a “travel guide to California’s local legends and best kept secrets.” Written by folklorist triumvirate Greg Bishop, Joe Oesterle and Mike Marinacci, the 2006 book devotes several pages to so-called “Gravity Hills” throughout the Golden State, including one in [...]

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Running With the RC Crowd

Whenever there’s a lull here at the ol’ blog, you can bet I’m pouring all my energy into some paid writing gig. One of the great things about being a writer is the opportunity to learn all sorts of interesting stuff about a variety of subjects and then share those discoveries with readers.
Take for instance [...]

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Do You Blog Like a Girl?

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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Weekend Matinee: Recalling Beverly Park and Ralph Story

Life in Angel City

For your weekend enjoyment: An excerpt from the PBS program Things That Aren’t Here Anymore, narrated by Ralph Story, a guy who (sadly) isn’t here anymore.

Beverly Park operated at the current site of the Beverly Center from 1945-1974. Having never been there as a kid, your humble blogger lacks any personal recollections of it. However, [...]

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Pop Quiz: SoCal’s Most Notable Flora

Thanks to the region’s famous mediterranean climate, Southern California boasts one of the richest mixes of native and exotic plant life found anywhere in the world. But here’s a thorny pop-cultural question for you…
What does the Bird of Paradise pictured here have in common with the rose, camellia and California Golden Poppy?
One little hint: We’re [...]

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Spirited Getups for the Easter Season

Life in Angel City

I like Halloween as much as the next person, probably more. But when it’s over, it’s over — right?
Not for the good people at the Spirit Halloween Co., who’ve become incredibly innovative in their attempts to keep the seasonal marketing going, and going, and going.
Back in October I purchased a hanging skeleton at their Silver [...]

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