Art Night in Pasadena: October 12

Free admission to 16 art and music venues in Pasadena!  Free shuttle bus!  Just add your own coffee and dessert afterwards and you'll have a fun night on the town in Pasadena.

Some of the highlights:

Pacific Asia Museum has an exhibition of Kimonos in the 20th Century.
The Norton Simon offers still lifes through the centuries.
Pasadena Museum of California Art is showing a large exhibition of California impressionist painter, Edgar Paine.
One Colorado, a shopping/entertainment square in Old Town, is hosting Chris Burden's Small Skyscraper installation.
Alliance Francaise de Pasadena has mounted an exhibition of abstracts by French artist Blandine Saint-Oyant.
Art Center College of Design is celebrating the book with its new exhibition entitled Pages.

And there are 10 more venues and lots more art.  It all starts at 6 p.m. and runs until 10 p.m.

Good Eats Pasadena on Saturday

Ever eat ice cream made with a bike?  Well, you can on Saturday, September 8th in the Playhouse District in Pasadena.  Peddler's Ice Cream will be there, along with more than 25 other foodie favorites at an event called Good Eats Pasadena.  All the delicious treats will be less than $10.  And you get music, too.  Better yet, no admission fee.  Good Eats Pasadena runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Madison and Colorado. 

The Lake Street Station is the closest to the Playhouse District, but if you disembark from the Gold line at the Memorial Park Station, you can stop by the Pacific Asia Museum to see a sand mandala being created by Tibetan monks.  By Saturday the mandala should be nearly complete.  On Sunday, September 9th, the mandala will be blessed and destroyed.  I've seen this before in Santa Barbara and it is fascinating to watch.

The Pacific Asia Museum is at Los Robles and Union in Pasadena.

2 Changes at Mission--no--South Pasadena Station

A new name for the Mission Gold Line Station:  it's now the South Pasadena Gold Line Station.  And this change only makes sense.  I'm sure quite a few people thought that the Mission Station was close to the San Gabriel Mission when, in fact, the actual Mission is miles and miles away.

Another change.  The sign that read "Irish Pub Coming Soon" at the South Pas station now reads: Griffins of Kinsale.  So that's the name.  Inside it's all wood and dark.  Since I was there at 9 a.m. on Labor Day, it was closed, so I don't know much about it.

Another change--nothing to do with South Pas:  I have launched a new blog at www.lacitypix.wordpress.com  I've been taking street photos around greater Los Angeles for years.  This new blog will have stories about people and places in L.A.--including neighborhoods and areas you may not know about.  The first post is about my recent encounter with a security guy at the Scientology headquarters near Los Feliz.  It was funny!

Where are you now Vampire Lestat?

Move over Anne Rice, Carlos Fuentes's new book, Vlad, brings a new vampire to the literary world.  And he is nothing like Lestat, the over-the-top, rock n' roll vampire created by Rice, or even Lestat's sensitive, conscience-stricken pal, Louis. And Vlad couldn't be further from the wimpy vampires living in the forests of Washington State in the Twilight series.

The book, actually more of a novella, brings back a vampire that could be a cousin to Nosferatu, the infamous movie vampire of 1922.  Hideous, ghoulish, utterly without a conscience--but apparently with tons of money and some new skills that Lestat never had.

If vampires are a reflection of a time and place--which the 1980s Lestat certainly was--Fuentes has created a rather horrifying view of Mexico City today.  In contrast to Nosferatu who functioned in small, enclosed societies--a village, a ship--Vlad views the millions of citizens of Mexico as an enormous blood bank in which he can practice his evil ways anonymously.  Fuentes, however, humanizes his story by telling it from the viewpoint of an upper-middle class married lawyer who becomes ensnared in Vlad's transition from the Old World to the Western Hemisphere. 

And while on the topic of vampires, I just learned that Christian Grey, of 50 Shades of Grey, began his life as a vampire.  E.L. James started writing the novel as a fan spin-off of the Twilight characters--even using their names from the book series.  Twilight fans objected strenuously, so she changed a few things, including the names.

The Christian Grey in the early part of the trilogy would have been a terrific vampire for the 21st Century! A young telecom/shipbuilding gazillionaire mogul with a taste for kinky sex. ( It was Anne Rice who defined vampires as sensual but basically non-sexual).  E.L. James had the opportunity to create a new kind of sexy vampire and she blew it.  Alas, James turned him into a typical romance hero who goes from being a knight in shining armor with some hidden flaws to a married guy living in the 'burbs redeemed by the love of a good woman.

Then there is the Twelve where a dozen vampires run rampant in Eastern Europe during one of those old horse and saber wars.  These vampires do more than suck blood.  They are utterly ghoulish and their actions are described in bloody detail.  I did not get far into the book before I returned it to the Pasadena Library. 

So ghoulish Vlad and ghoulish Twelve seem to be the current roles that the undead are playing in literature these days.  Vampires feasting on the masses are apparently the reflection of this era.  I'd prefer a kinky Christian Grey vampire any day of the week. 

Asian street market in Pasadena

This Saturday, July 28th the streets of Pasadena will be filled with the excitement, sounds, smells and ambiance of a busy Asian street market from more than 150 vendors offering authentic foods, goods, music and entertainment of Asian culture. The event covers about a six-block area surrounding City Hall.

A lot of the streets around the market will be closed off, so take the Metro Gold Line to the Memorial Park station.  Go left when you come out of the station.  The street market will be about two blocks to the east.

Utterly shameless

This is definitely a ta-da moment!

I just published my first ebook, Write Your Memoir in One Day, on Smashwords and Kindle.  (Links are below.  You can get a free sample at both sites and you don't even need an e-reader to do it at Smashwords!) 

Based on a memoir writing class I offered for several years at a couple of California Community Colleges, this ebook gives you a fast and simple way to write an insightful mini-memoir--or write a longer one, if that is what you have in mind.  Not only will you get proven guidance about how to start, where to start, what topics to include (and some to avoid), you will also learn some writing techniques to make your memoir exciting and never boring.

I also include information about economical ways to self-publish your memoir.  Learn how to copyright it and why it is important and, better yet, super-easy!  Hey, you don't want someone to turn your uncopyrighted memoir into a blockbuster movie or bestseller, do you, and leave you out in the cold!?

For a free sample of Write Your Memoir in One Day on Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/177659  (This is a longer preview than on Kindle.)

Smashwords is the largest publisher of indie ebooks and they provide the books to Barnes and Noble's Nook, Apple's ibooks, Sony Reader, etc.

At the Kindle bookstore you can find it at:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008GMRLM4  (This is a very short preview.)

Monster Drawing Rally June 17

25 artists will be at work in one hour shifts drawing at the annual Monster Drawing Rally on June 17 at the Armory Center for the Arts.  This event--complete with food trucks, crafts beer, DJ Trolley Parker and more--is the official launch of a new partnership between the Armory Center and the Outpost for Contempoary Art.

And hey--you can buy the artworks the artists create for only $75!  

The Armory Center for the Arts is about a block to the west of the Memorial Park Gold Line Station.

Edgar Payne at PMCA: Too Much Good Stuff

Like the south of France, California's landscape and light seems to lure Impressionist artists, among them Edgar Payne back in the early 20th Century. 


In honor of its 10th Anniversary, the Pasadena Museum of California art has devoted almost all its exhibition space to a comprehensive show of Payne's work.  And it is almost too much of a good thing.  Mounted by subject matter, one sees painting after painting of the majestic Sierra mountains.  Painting after painting of the surging ocean near his home at Laguna Beach.  Painting after painting of the Southwest.  And painting after painting of Breton fishing boats.  Yes, Payne went to Europe for a couple of years, later in his career.  He wasn't hanging out in Paris with the art crowd.  He was busy making paintings he could sell back in the U.S. to support his family.

So if you love California Impressionist paintings in a massive display, go see this show. 

Much smaller and more dramatic is a sculpture installation by artists Lisa Little and Emily White in the entry to PMCA. 

It projects through the window out beyond the facade of the building.



The Pasadena Museum of California Art is close to the Memorial Park Gold Line Metro Station.

Jacarandas bloom early in 2012

The purple jacaranda trees just around the corner from the Del Mar Gold Line Station are now gloriously in bloom! 

After the enormous destruction during the wind storm in December I wondered if these beautiful trees would blossom at all this year.  After that violent storm the debris lining Del Mar under the trees was 3 feet tall and about 8 feet wide--all the way from Raymond to Lake Avenue.  That's a lot of branches and leaves!  But the city hauled all of it away.

You can't see it in this photo but some of the trees are obviously very damaged.  If you walk up to Marengo and Del Mar you can see where large branches snapped off.  But Mother Nature won't be stopped; new twigs, new leaves, new branches are beginning to grow. 

If you want to see the jacaranda in bloom visit soon because the blossoms are already beginning to fall and create a carpet of purple along the street.

Pasadena LitFest on Saturday May 12

LitFest Pasadena was rained out earlier this year, but the weather should be great on Saturday for the LitFest in Central Park, just across the street from the Del Mar Metro Station.  And it isn't only for book buffs!  Food trucks and a special Chef's area will be set up in and around Central Park. 

In case you hadn't heard about it, LitFest, in its third year, is the lite version of the LA Times Festival of Books.

Jacaranda update:  the jacaranda have already begun to bloom along Del Mar, but because of the extensive damage to the trees in December, this year's early bloom may not be as glorious as previous years.

Save the date! Big City Forum on May 2nd

Well, the two previous BCF events at Pasadena's Armory Center have been fascinating so I am looking forward to the upcoming forum on May 2nd at 7 p.m.   The topic: Design Thinking.  Participants:

Featuring:
Nik Hafermaas - Chair Graphic Design, Art Center
Marc Mertens - Principal, SESO Design
Kali Nikitas, Chair Communication Arts, OTIS
Joseph Prichard - Principal J Prichard Design and Graphic Designer, Public Affairs, Cal Arts
Moderated by: Rebeca Mendez, faculty UCLA Design/Media Arts

Big City Forum events are always interesting, as well as being free.

The Armory Center for the Arts is a block east of the Memorial Park Gold Line Station on Raymond.

Drone crash at Rose Bowl -- but it's all for art

If you missed the World War II style drone being crashed outside the Rose Bowl back in January, you can see the video and the art created by the crash at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena.  The work, entitled Accidents in Abstract Painting, is the brainchild of Richard Jackson. 


Jackson, however, did not stop with a drone crash.   Also on view at the Armory as part of the Pacific Standard Time initiative, is an installation called War Room.  You will see, among other things, big plastic ducks, clearly echoing good old Donald Duck in helmets, spouting paint from their private parts. 

Like the LA Raw exhibit at the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) this show may not be for everyone, for all ages.  But because it is a small exhibit, you can easily combine it with a trip to the LA Raw show.  Both museums are within easy walking distance of the Memorial Park Station on the Metro Gold Line.

What are they thinking?!

I listened with some dismay and some enthusiasm at the Big City Forum on Wednesday evening.   The four presentations and presenters were provocative and stimulating.

And I certainly plan to attend the next Big City Forum at the Pasadena Armory Center on April 4th.   Wouldn't miss it for the world!

As the evening unfolded, I listened and being polite, I didn't leap up and start arguing about social engineering in land use and 1960s left wing biases that seemed to flood from a couple of the presentations.  The legacy of the late Mayor Tom Bradley, who wanted to transform L.A. into New York, certainly was apparent.

Here, however, are some things I wanted to challenge:

The speakers and many in the audience seemed to express regret about Governor Brown's recent defunding of Community Redevelopment Agencies (RDA).  My response:  Applause for the Governor!  RDAs have been around since the 1960s and their time has come and gone.  They began as a perceived solution to the fact that people were abandoning city centers and fleeing to the 'burbs.  The idea, then, was to sweep away old buildings in city centers and hand the land over to developers to build something new which would lure people back downtown.  More inmportantly, the new downtown buildings would have higher assesments and generate more taxes for the city to spend! Over time, the RDAs became a big, fat subsidy for developers (members of the 1%, of course!) who profited enormously by obtaining valuable land for cheap.

The next is a small item, but irritated me:  one speaker asserted that people who live in gated communities are bigots.  Not true.  I've lived in a gated community and can confirm that they are no better or worse than any other community with a homeowners' association that has power over residents.  One fact the speaker overlooked is that homeowners' associations do not decide who can and who cannot buy into the community.  Only co-ops--a type of home ownership which is very rare in California--can make those kind of yes/no decisions.

Another topic mentioned in passing: the bankruptcies of cities.  Again, one speaker (the same one!) deplored the fact that cities were going bankrupt.  I spoke up on this topic and said that it is the big spending city governments that are going bankrupt; the cities will still be there after bankruptcies.  The speaker's answer:  "But they would have to cut social programs."   My thought was : "Well, maybe they should rethink their priorities."

And then there are single family homes which seemed to be regarded with distain by almost everyone on the panel. And they also deplored the fact that people in India and China are following L.A.'s model. I couldn't control myself and defended single family homes as great places to raise a family.  For god's sake, not everyone wants to live in an apartment or condo!  Especially with energetic young children.

Rather than go on and on with this rant, I would like to applaud Jennifer Varner, an architect, professor and writer, who spoke about how L.A. is not at all like the image she had of the city before she arrived from the mid-West, via Yale.  Among other things she mentioned: she can walk to work and walk to the grocery store.  Since arriving here 3 years ago she has compiled/written a book of oral histories about people living in the city and their experience of Los Angeles. 

Okay, the next Big City Forum will be on April 4th at 7 p.m.  The topic is Socially Engaged Aesthetics.  Sounds as if it is about contemporary public art.   The location is the Armory Center for the Arts at 145 N. Raymond, Pasadena.  It's about one block west of the Memorial Park Gold Line Station.

For more information visit www.bigcityforum.blogspot.com

Big City Forum at Pasadena's Armory Center

For the past couple of years Big City Forum has held a series of panel discussions of urban arts, communications and architecture issues around greater L.A.  Now Big City Forum, founded by Leonardo Bravo, the education director at the Music Center, will host several events at the Armory Center in Pasadena. 


The first one is Wednesday, March 7th at 7 p.m.

This panel explores new directions for urban planning and architecture with the following Los Angeles-based architects, theorists, and planners:

·         Dana Cuff, Director of cityLAB, a think tank within UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design.

·         Roger Sherman, Co-Director, cityLAB; principal, Roger Sherman Architecture and Urban Design.

·         Jessica Varner, Co-Editor, No More Play (Hatje Cantz, pub.); founder, SmallerLarge, a publications studio focused on ideas about architecture, urban studies, art, and culture.

·         Edward Soja, postmodern political geographer and urban planner; Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA; Visiting Professor, London School of Economics.

·         Linda Taalman, Principal, TaalmanKoch Architecture; Assistant Professor of Architecture, Woodbury University.

·         Ava Bromberg (Moderator), Director, Atwater Crossing (ATX) a project of Creative Urban Solutions; Doctoral Candidate, School of Urban Planning, UCLA.

I've attended some of these panel discussions and found them to be interesting and provocative.  The speakers are always very well informed!

The next Big City Forum is on May 2nd at 7 p.m.
The last in this series is June 6th at 7 p.m.

The Armory Center is on Raymond Ave., one block west of the Memorial Park Gold Line station.

Cheap thrills: the Lantern Festival on March 3rd

Disembark from the Metro Gold Line train at Union Station then simply walk out the Union Station front door and across the street to the Lantern Festival.  Held in El Pueblo de Los Angeles (better known as Olvera Street), this festival is a re-creation of a Chinese village street fair with lantern displays, acrobatics, lion dancers, arts and crafts and music.  Admission is free.   And travel on the Metro is cheaper than gas and parking!

In truth, bring the kids and/or your camera.  It is not a crowded event, but colorful and there are lots of activities for children. 

Art Night Pasadena - free admission to museums

Get your art and culture fix all at once on ArtNight Pasadena.  It's March 9th between 6 and 10 p.m.   Admission to the 12 venues is free.  The shuttle bus from place to place is free.  And here are a few highlights:

Armory Center for the Arts - Accidents in Abstract painting.
Art Center College of Design - The History of Space Photography
Lineage Dance - contemporary dance and live music
Norton Simon Museum - centuries of classic art including lots of ever-popular impressionists
Pasadena Museum of California Art - L.A Raw, figurative art from 1945-1980.  Great show, but not for children.
Pasadena Museum of History - Artistic Eden II, paintings of San Gabriel Valley life by nationally recognized artists.

Two pieces of advice: start early if you plan to visit more than one or two shows and count on the LA Raw show at PMCA being packed.

Too much is about right

I went to Mission Street in South Pasadena on Saturday to check out a new Irish Pub near the Gold Line Station.  It's not open yet, so I wandered down to the Fair Oaks Pharmacy and indulged in their Classic Sundae.  Too much ice cream, too much caramel -- which means it was just right.  I'd rather eat ice cream than drink Irish ale any day of the week.  Including the tip it was $9 which is a bit pricey but worth every penny.

There are a couple of other places to get ice cream and frozen yogurt along Mission: Busters and Menchies.  But neither place comes close to the Fair Oaks Pharmacy, which has been in the same location (Mission and Fair Oaks) with its soda fountain since the early 1900s!  

You can have your banana split or cheeseburger at the outside tables and watch the world whiz by, if you wish. Inside, the soda fountain is the star of the show and most of the rest of the floor space is devoted to wacky, whimsical gifts, rather than bottles of aspirin and stacks of cosmetics.  The actual pharmacy is small and tucked into the back.

In the same block are several trendy boutiques filled with clothes by young designers.  Lots of other stores, too, for an afternoon of shopping along Mission in South Pasadena.  And if you'd rather drink your Saturday indulgence instead of eating it with a spoon, stop at the Mission Wine Company for a wine tasting until the new Irish pub is open.

Letraset?! I'd forgotten all about Letraset!

Time for another book review--this one about graphics arts on the screen in front of you and in front of your eyes everywhere else--including the signage for the Metro Gold Line.  The book is entitled Just My Type.  It is an insightful and hilarious overview of type faces, trends in typography and the history of type faces from Gutenberg forward.

Author Simon Garfield writes in brief, snappy chapters about technical aspects of type development and type readability studies. He goes on to explain printing presses, hot type, linotype and monotype as well as phototypesetting.

Then there was that enormous breakthrough, Letraset, which cracked open the door to type decisions made by the masses.  Even a church office secretary could carefully press down the Letraset letters--say in Baskerville Bold--to create a church bulletin that looked sort of nifty.  Now, of course, type faces by a thousands are easily managed, changed, made hideous or improved by millions around the world.

If all this sounds boring, it's not. At times I laughed until the tears ran down my cheeks.  Garfield has a British sense of humor and the visual references in the book are contemporary, including, for example, a discussion of what typefaces are being used by various professional football teams.  Not to mention album covers old and new, and ads from the 1890s to the 1960s, and what typefaces subway systems around the world use to tell you where to go.

Garfield also shares words of wisdom from famed type designers, both alive and dead, among them Jim Parkinson (updated Rolling Stone logo), Matthew Carter ( typeface: Georgia), Luc(as) de Groot (typeface: Calibri, currently a Microsoft default) and Eric Gill (typeface: Gill Sans -- and a shocking personal life!) 

If you have ever changed the typeface on your computer to other than the default, you will probably enjoy Just My Type.

Happy Hour and Art Night in Pasadena

The Second Annual Pasadena Happy Hour Week is going to be two weeks long.  You can down your favorites at bargain prices between March 1st and March 15th at 20 restaurants in the Old Town area including:

1810 Argentinean Restaurant

72 North

a/k/a American Bistro

Bar Celona

Café Santorini 

Crème de la Crepe

Dog Haus Biergarten 

Equator Café

Haven Gastropub

Ipic Theaters (formeraly Gold Class Cinema)

Ix Tapa Cantina

Kings Row Gastropub

Pita Jungle

Pop Champagne & Dessert Bar

Redwhite+bluezz

Roxolana Restaurant & Wine Bar

Sushi Roku

Vertical Wine Bistro

Villa SORRISO

Wokcano

Art Night in Pasadena is March 9th.  Free admission to museums and other art venues in Pasadena between 6 and 10 p.m.  Be sure to see the LA Raw exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.  You can read my review of this show below on this blog.

Eat. Cook. Be happy at the South Pas Farmers Market

For years the Thursday night South Pasadena Farmers' Market was sort of a sad little market.  Not many farm booths.  Not many prepared food vendors.

But all that has changed. 

Now you can step off the Metro Gold line at the Mission Station after 4 p.m. and plunge right into an excellent and diverse (if somewhat overpriced)  farmers market.  Of course you will find great heaps of organic veggies and herbs from several farms.  Close by there is a booth with a half a dozen different kinds of  potatos.  In yet another booth are bags of dates, including my favorite, the sweet caramel Bahri dates.  A few steps away is the mushroom lady and in the other direction, a woman selling raw milk and cheese. 

Bill's Bees, the honey guy, is selling his wares as are the folks from Homeboy bakery.  But I cannot pass up the scones and tea at Sugarbird Sweets and Tea.  Their scones are among the best in greater L.A.  Apricot ginger - yum!

If you want to skip the part about cooking your own food, get ready to chow down on the spot.  Robin's BBQ, a carry-over from the previous South Pas market, is still cookin' up barbeque.  For Mexican you have a choice of Euro-Mex gourmet tomales or Homegirl cuisine.  The Happy Inka dishes up Peruvian food and nearby, the Grill Master truck serves delicious garlic potatos and rotisserie chicken. And there are more.  Just bring your wallet and your appetite.

Now about that over-priced comment above.  Most farmers' markets these days are high priced.  I buy my fruits and vegetables at Super King up in Altadena. They have a huge selection and really affordable prices!!  But Super King doesn't have the Sugarbird scones, so I go to South Pasadena every once in a while.  It is so easy to get there on the Metro.

One more item of note: the South Pas Farmers' Market is very child-friendly.

Art and Internet Game Development

Listen up, all you game developers!

Artist Gwyn Stramler, formerly of Pasadena (her husband taught at Art Center) and now living in Grass Valley has her eyes on creating an internet game based on her most recent Blue Wave Train exhibition-- a show she told me she almost called "The Storyboard".   After seeing all sorts of lovely pictures in galleries during a recent visit to the Nevada City area, Stramler's work was a surprise.  It would stand out --and maybe even sell out--in any gallery here in Los Angeles.

An internet game player herself and a big fan of Farmville, her recent paintings certainly reflect both her abstract expressionist background and familiarity with Japanese anime.  The figures in Blue Wave Train are animals painted on wood and mounted on canvas so there is a sculptural quality to these paintings. 

So keep an eye out for her game, based on this art.

You can see more of her work at www.gwynstramler.com

Death and Sex in Pasadena

After World War II Abstract Expressionism became a dominant force in the art world.  But the L.A.Raw exhibition at PMCA (Pasadena Museum of California Art) shows what non-abstract artists in Southern California were doing at that time.  This show of figurative art is filled with images of death.  And sex.  And all the wrenching human emotions that go with them.

Subtitled Abject Expressionism in Los Angeles: 1945 to 1980, the 50 artists whose works are shown, were, in many cases, young men who were survivors of World War II.  It shows in the anguish and anger expressed in many paintings.  And it shows in the sexual images of voluptuous women.  After all, what do young men want when they come home from war: young women to help them put the violence and death behind them. 

Instead of the war violence left behind, other artists painting in the 1960s and '70s, expressed on canvas the tumult and upheaval that surrounded them in that era.

Among the most notable in this show is Hans Burkhart's "My Lai".  On a monumental canvas he spread the colors of camouflage in thick layers then embedded skulls he had found in ruined Mexican graveyards.  Yes, real skulls.  Seeing it at first from a distance I thought the work would probably be called "The Killing Fields", after the death fields of Cambodia.  But it was Vietnam that gripped him.  Other artists in this show spilled out their emotions about civil rights and sexual freedom--for both men and women.

You will find sculpture and paintings by Edward Keinholz, Betye Saar, Rico LeBrun, and Judy Chicago in this exhibition but also works by artists like John Outterbridge, a self taught sculptor who worked with found materials to create remarkable sculptures from fabric. Three from his series of "Captive Images"  are in this outstanding exhibition.   (See photo to left.)

This is definately a "do not miss" exhibition. (But be aware that there are images which may not be suitable for everyone, especially children.)

LA Raw is part of  Pacific Standard Time, the city-wide survey of art from 1945 - 1980 organized by the Getty.

PMCA is located on Union Street in Pasadena about 3 blocks east of the Memorial Park Gold Line Station.  If you are driving, there is free parking on the ground floor of the museum building.

Roller Derby After-Party

A couple of weeks ago we spent a Sunday afternoon cheering the Derby Dolls at the L.A. Roller Derby on Temple just east of Alvarado.  This amateur sport is not as violent as its previous professional incarnation on TV back in the 1970s--or was it the '80s?   Now the young women skaters, half of them wearing Barbie pink, half wearing Goth black, all with fantasy noms-de-rink, jostle and bump each other in an attempt to block their opponents, but none of them go flying dramatically out of the circular banked track into the spectators. Shoving an opponent with two hands is forbidden these days.  One of the two teams won.  I can't remember which, but it doesn't make much difference.  It was a fun afternoon.  And everyone survived to skate another Sunday.

The official after-party was downtown at Bar 107, but with a teenage girl in our group, we headed east to Wurstkuche, a gourmet sausage hangout in the arts district around Little Tokyo.  This place is incredibly popular with the young crowd living in nearby lofts and condos.  The line in front of us was relatively short--only about 8 people.  (When we left the line stretched out the door and down Third for a block.  I don't think I'd stand in a line that long for a sausage, no matter how good it was.)

After a short wait, we ordered at the front counter and went back to the dining area and bar which has to be among the loudest in L.A.  Then found seats at one of the long family-style tables.  An official from the Derby was seated nearby.

When you order, you get a choice of two from their list of 4 condiments--carmelized onions, saurkraut, sauteed sweet red peppers or spicy peppers--on your sausage in a roll.  Sadly, the carmelized onions are not carmelized; they are just sauteed.  On the tables in the dining area are 5 mustards and ketchup, so you can load up your sausage in a bun with stuff or leave it pristine plain.

I'd been at Wurstkuche previously and had the bratwurst.  This time I ordered the kielbasa.  Others in our group had the hot italian and the vegetarian italian.  All of them were good.  But as far as I am concerned, their Belgian fries with white truffle oil glaze outshine the sausages.  They are great!  And the dipping sauces for the fries are imaginative, ranging from Thai peanut to chipotle aioli to buttermilk ranch.  My fav was the curry ketchup.  I know, it sounds strange but is delish!

The Wurstkuche menu lists 20 sausages including some exotics like alligator and pork andouille sausage and rattlesnake and rabbit with Jalapeno peppers along with bockwurst, chicken/apple and others.  And about 50 Belgian and German beers. 

Wurstkuche is located at the corner of Third and Traction about three blocks from the Little Tokyo Gold Line station.

Weegee in Lalaland

It was inevitable, I suppose, that paparazzi would have a moment in the sun.  That moment--actually months  longer than that--is at MOCA Grand Avenue as part of the city-wide Pacific Standard Time exhibitions.  Gallery after gallery is filled with Weegee's L.A. photos and photos of him, Mr. King of Self Promotion.  Movie stars and adoring fans were the primary targets for his lens--nothing new about that, even back in the late 1940s.

He began to manipulate some of the movie star photos, distorting the faces of Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and others. This darkroom development effort seems to be the basis for Weegee's claim in the art world. That, plus the book of New York crime scenes he published, entitled Naked City.

In my opinion, it would have been so much better to give over the space at MOCA to the photography of Max Yavno who was photographing L.A. at the same time--with brilliantly original results.

To get to MOCA on Grand Avenue take the Red Line to the Civic Center Station and walk the 3 blocks to the museum.  After you have skimmed through the Weegee show, take a downtown public art tour with MOCA as your starting point.  Just head south along the walkway behind the museum.  If you want to see the Weegee show, keep in mind that it ends on Feb. 27, 2012.  Not a moment too soon.