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Pasadena’s Windy Malady Lingers On

Life in Angel City

The aftermath of Wednesday night’s Santa Anas lingers on in Pasadena, which was hit hard by the blusters. This morning I came across the above scene at the intersection of Foothill Blvd. and Altadena Drive: Cleanup from a triple-car collision caused in part by a pair of non-functioning signals that were both snapped in two [...]

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Those Devilish Santa Ana Winds

Odds and Ends

Whether summery hot or wintry tepid like the ones shown above that are currently ravaging Pasadena and the Greater Los Angeles area, Southern California’s fiendish Santa Ana winds are the stuff of legends.
In his story Red Wind, Raymond Chandler described them as “those hot dry [winds] that come down through the mountain [...]

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Toxic Flora: Dayhiking Amid the Poison Oak

Life in Angel City

The upside to the February and March rains we get here in the Southland is that our dry chaparral suddenly springs to life, making hillside hikes all the more enjoyable once the sun comes out. The downside is that same breathtaking chaparral along the trail includes lots of poison oak.
Western poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum) [...]

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Caution: Never, Never Wake the Dead!

Cryptic L.A.

Not to beat a dead horse, but having unearthed numerous pioneer skeletons at the abandoned Placita churchyard, LA Plaza officials might want to think twice before messing with the spot any further. Construction crews assembling an amusement ride in Britain have apparently disturbed a similar old cemetery, resulting in menacing visits by a headless monk.
Here [...]

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Bearing Christmas Greetings

Life in Angel City

Decorated for the holiday season, this Santa Bear guards the Ferndell entrance to Griffith Park. Someone has apparently taken it upon himself to ensure the statue is always dressed appropriately for every occasion. A few weeks ago the bear was wearing a winter sweater. During the summer he’s bare (bear?) naked.
The bear was a gift [...]

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Moon to Glow Yuletide Red This Monday Night

Odds and Ends

While it won’t compare much with the Star of Bethlehem some 2000 years ago, the heavens are nonetheless aligning to deliver us Left Coasters our own special astronomical phenomenon just in time for Christmas.
According to a NASA alert, a holiday lunar eclipse will begin Monday, Dec. 20 at 10:33 p.m. PST, taking a “dark-red bite” [...]

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Sorry, These AREN’T the 12 Days of Christmas

Odds and Ends

Everyone has a pet holiday peeve. Mine is the ongoing misconception that the song The Twelve Days of Christmas is a countdown to December 25.
Gritting my teeth in L.A. freeway traffic this morning, I heard this popular mistake repeated again and again by local radio ads, newspeople, and rock stations announcing the start of their [...]

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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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More Trash Talk From Victorian Los Angeles

Reading Room

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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Get Ready to Pay Through the Nose for Dumping Your “Illegal” Trash

Life in Angel City

Fines for dumping illegal garbage in Los Angeles have skyrocketed drastically, thanks to a new city ordinance. Yet, strangely, officials waited weeks to launch their public awareness campaign for the new regulations, which actually took effect last month.
Aimed primarily at businesses, the law allows trashy offenders to be charged “administrative” fines of $500, $750 and [...]

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Stowed Baby Mummies Spark Film-Noir-Like LAPD Investigation

Cryptic L.A.

Sometimes it’s best not to snoop through somebody else’s old, abandoned luggage. Still, you can just picture the scenario as it unfolded Tuesday afternoon…
Rummaging down in the basement of an aging Westlake Neighborhood apartment building, the rental manager and a friend find three rustic steamer trunks. The discovery naturally piques the female pair’s curiosity. Do [...]

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Corpse Flower Creates Big Stink at Huntington

Cryptic L.A.

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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Anonymous Billboard Urges Boycott of Los Feliz’s Vermont Hand Wash

Life in Angel City

At first I thought this new billboard along Sunset’s 4400 block might be the work of advertising amateurs — or possibly a lone disgruntled customer angry enough to splurge on an outdoor display. The slogan’s catchy enough, but there’s nothing to support the message or make us care. For all we know, the alleged “injustice” [...]

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Check Out Silver Lake’s Gleaming New Neutra-Inspired Library!

Life in Angel City

It was a long time in coming, but Silver Lake finally saw the much-anticipated opening of its new $12-million library this morning. The residents’ campaign for the building actually began in the mid-1990s, but considering how Silver Lake’s elite history dates to the early 1900s, you wonder why it even took that long.
In any event, [...]

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Everything Comes Up Roses With Capt. Sully

Odds and Ends

If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s for Tournament of Roses officials to bring a trademark “rosy optimism” to each New Year’s celebration.
For a year overshadowed by malaise like 2010 promises to be, could they have done any better to lift our spirits than naming Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger as the parade’s Grand [...]

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A Halloween Post Mortem

Life in Angel City

Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. I guess it still is, but I just don’t seem to enjoy it as much nowadays.
The past several years a busy work schedule usually kept me on the road for the holiday. No costume parties, no Day of the Dead processions at Olvera Street, no ghosts, ghouls or [...]

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Back From the Dead

Cryptic L.A.

The pumpkins are carved, the skeletons are hanging from the rafters, dusk has descended, and the witching hour is upon us.
Yes, it’s the Eve of All Hallows, and at long last the resurrection of this blog after its recent crash. Most of the infrastructure has been repaired, so, fittingly, I plan to recommence regular posts [...]

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Forest Lawn, the Ultimate Celebrity Neverland

Cryptic L.A.

This week it was announced that pop-singer Michael Jackson will be laid to rest at Forest Lawn, Glendale, on what would have been his 51st birthday, Aug. 29.
Dateline>City of Angels can’t think of a more appropriate choice of cemetery, given how for nearly a century Forest Lawn has served as a virtual Neverland for [...]

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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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Goodnight and Goodbye, Ramses, My Big Puppy

Life in Angel City

Your humble blogger hasn’t felt much like blogging lately. This past week our household had to say goodbye to our proud red Doberman, Ramses, roughly a month short of his eighth birthday.
We knew this day was coming. On average, Dobermans live about nine years, making Ramses a senior dog. Yet even in his advancing age, [...]

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