fall in december.

I know the rest of the country is already freezing and buried in snow, but not here.

I feel like the seasons have shifted in the last decade. October is the new August--you can always count on it being over one hundred degrees. And December is the new October--the peak of fall.

 I don't want to spark one of those "there are no seasons in L.A." debate, but I love that there are blazing red, yellow and orange leaves all around...

...while the roses, camellias and hibiscus are still in bloom.

this week.

I just wanted to mention that this past week was quite lovely. The temps started to drop; it really felt like fall has arrived. And just before Daylight Savings Time--imagine that. Here are a few happenings I thought were worth mentioning:

The Halloween decorations finally came out in the neighborhood. A little late this year--I have to admit I was a bit worried.

 
The one house that completely blew me away had the entire front yard decked out as an Edward Gorey's poem, The Evil Garden. Stanza for stanza, each accompanied by life-size cutouts.

"Alexa watches while her aunt 
Is pulled feet first inside a plant."

"The gorgeous flowers have a smell 
That causes one to feel unwell."

"Great-uncle Franz beside the lake 
Is being strangled by a snake."

--from The Evil Garden by Edward Gorey

A damp, wet fog settled in on Sunday morning, very San Francisco-esque. I found a new spot for hiking that I've wanted to check out: the Trebek Open Space, land that was bought and donated to the California parks system by Jeopardy's Alex Trebek. I stumbled on this area a few years ago when I first got Isabel and was looking for the Runyon's trailhead on Mulholland. I happily took a wrong turn and followed some dogwalkers through the space down to Wattles Garden.

The trailheads are pretty hidden for the Trebek Open Space. It's great because it means not a lot of people on the trail. But not a lot of people means more wild animals, too. In fact, a coyote ran right across the trail in front of me. If freaked me out for a second. Then I realized my dog wasn't with me, and I chilled.

 
I was very excited to attend a concert to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Disney Hall.

I was so bummed when I missed Salonen's farewell concerts when he departed the Philharmonic, especially the premiere of his Violin Concerto with Leila Josefowicz. How excited was I that they came back to perform it again?

It was a cool and mysterious, haunting concerto, and I loved every minute of it. Especially the part when the Josefowicz duetted with principal violist, Carrie Dennis.

I watched L'Avventura this weekend, and I felt like it was a rite of passage. I remember when I first learned about Blow-Up. I thought I was going to see this swingin' film about 60's Mod London, and a mystery to boot. Then it was not at all what I expected. I felt intimidated, because I didn't know what was going on.

I decided to just go ahead and watch the Criterion Collection issue with the commentary with film historian, Gene Youngblood. I know it's like watching the Cliff Notes version of a film, but it really helped to grasp the techniques of Antonioni's film making and his themes. I watched it slowly, but I was floored. I feel in love with Monica Vitti and her journey. She's a seeker, surrounded by bland, empty people who live only to fulfill their desires in bland, empty ways.

Now I want to watch La Notte and L'Eclisse, the two other films that complete Antonioni's trilogy of that era, then maybe return to Blow-Up and see I have a different experience with it. I like the idea of exploring one director's work at a time.

And the sunsets were off the hook this week! Check it out.

That's all. Halloween is here. Someone is excited!

Happy Halloween everyone, which by the way--at least here in L.A.--is celebrated through this weekend, aka Día de los Muertos, aka one of my favorite weekends of the year.

sleepy.

Hello! What have you been up to? Here are a few things I've checked out since I last checked in. It's looking to be a rather sleepy summer...just the way I like it.

Over the weekend, I saw Mud with Matthew McConaughey. My friend Gerry was excited to see it. He was big fan of director Jeff Nichols' first film, Take Shelter. 

Three dudes in a boat in a tree. How did it get there? We'll never know.

Mud is a sleepy, Southern-fried kind of movie. An alternate title would be "Men Love Purely, Deeply and Obsessively for All of Time, While Women are the Devil." I'm kidding. Kind of. That seemed to be the theme for most of the movie, however, it did surprise me and became a bit more complex towards the end, more about an adolescent boy trying to grasp the confusing and often sad nature of love as his own feelings begin to awaken. Mud has an emotional and an action climax, and both were powerful.

I ended up liking Mud a lot, a film that gradually settles in and lingers in your mind after you see it. And I find the renaissance of Matthew McConaughey almost as fascinating as that of Tom Cruise.

The soundtrack to Mud was largely performed by the band Lucero. Lead singer, Ben Nichols, is the brother of director, Jeff. Their mom must be so proud.

 The music in Mud sounds exactly like this photo looks. 
Courtesy of luceromusic.com

I mention Lucero, too, because they are one of the few bands grandma (that's me) has seen live (at the Echoplex) in the last decade. They have the unusual distinction of being one of the few bands I prefer to hear recordings of rather than see live. On stage, they come across as very Lynyrd Skynyrd--all tattoos, cigarettes, whiskey, and lumbering Southern rock. But in recordings, their music has more of a haunting, storytelling depth. Very Southern Gothic, and I love that kind of thing.

Some movies to check out after seeing Mud: Tree of Life (featuring lead actor, Tye Sheridan, who was great), Take Shelter (starring Michael Shannon--love him), and an early McConaughey effort (when he was being touted as the new Paul Newman--ahem), John Sayles' Lone Star.

I also attended Cinefamily's showing of Nobuhiko Obayashi's School in the Crosshairs.

As I've noted, Cinefamily is L.A.'s premier, jolly band of film fanatics. And only the die-hards could sit through this one, a flick that meanders with a touch of plot here and there, until exploding in the last 20 minutes into a bat-shit crazy, psychedelic phantasmagoria.

It was great fun listening to Cinefamily founder and director, Hadrian Belove, discuss what he does to bring these rare films to the screen. Because Blu-Ray and digital prints just won't do for the film nerds, he had the 35 mm reels shipped over from Japan. This costs a pretty penny, kiddos. Then he created his own subtitles from scratch, which he projected onto the print. Wow. That's a lot of work. A lot of love, too.

I followed up the event with my own home screening of Obayahsi's earlier classic, House, or Hausu.

Fantasy, Gorgeous, Kung Fu, Melody, some other girls with trippy names, and Blanche, the cat.

House is volume of the Criterion Collection, and I've always been intrigued by its cover. A Criterion horror movie--what could be cooler? But House is so much more--completely genre-bending and beyond definition.

I can't take credit for this, but I read somewhere that Hausu is too absurd to be horrific, and to horrifying to be a comedy. It's a bit like Sam Raimi's Evil Dead, but it's genre-bouncing nature reminds much of one of my favorite films, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

It's interesting how it was filmed before School in the Crosshairs, yet is a more fully realized vision of Obayashi's art. Freakish and psychedelic, terrifying, disturbing and hilarious, House is not a movie you only watch once. Oh no.

Can you think of any other movies that take a bunch of genres and mix them up in blender? If so, I'd love to hear what they are in the comments. I think that could be a fun blog post.

Moving on. Anyone who follows this blog knows I am completely enamored of the book, The Secret Stairs of Los Angeles. Last weekend, I tested out the Beachwood Canyon hike from Charles Fleming's book. What an amazing walk.

This is how we roll in Hollywoodland.

Climbing deep into the heart of the Hollywood Hills.

The staircases throughout Beachwood Canyon are extremely steep, and the stairs themselves are in pristine condition, built from the same granite rocks as the gates to "Hollywoodland."

As long as I've lived in L.A., as re-donk-u-lous as Hollywood has become, I still can't imagine this being the view from your back yard. Holy moly.

Ah, to live in Fantasyland. Oh wait, I do.

Fairy tale castles are everywhere in the Hills. You always see them in the distance from the 101, driving into Hollywood from the Valley. I've always loved that view.

Behold, Lake Hollywood. Can you believe this is smack 
in the middle of the nation's second largest city?

Guess what? Lake Hollywood is now open to the public. And by "lake," I mean "fenced-in reservoir."

In other news: there is nothing more I love than solving a mystery. And that happened this week...how exciting.

Driving to the Farmer's Market on Sundays, I pass the LOVE ME painted on a building on Fairfax Avenue. You know what I'm talking about. Then about a month ago, while driving through Culver City, I spotted the big love mural painted in the side of a building. I fell in love with it. Ha ha.

This week I find out this is all the work of one Curtis Kulig, a New York photographer and artist. I believe I discovered this after spending a little too much time on Instagram.

Dear L.A., Love me. Love, Curtis Kulig.

But enough about hipster graffiti art. Let's talk music.

 I came upon a couple of cool, new bands, courtesy of 88.5 KCSN. I love this radio station. It's like a slightly edgier, more interesting KCRW. Just one-and-a-quarter turns down the dial.

Behold Clairy Browne and the Bangin' Rackettes. While their name and music are both a bit kitschy, being blatantly in love with the lady soul bands of the 60's, this group still puts out some catchy and delightful tunes. They are from "Down Under." That is slang for "Australia."

Photos via clairybrowne.com

I always find how bands from other nations passionately love American rock music so endearing. A bit of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, a nod to Alabama Shakes and a dash of Janelle Monae, and you've got Clairy Browne.

I don't know if any of that is accurate, but it's what came to my head. While their big video-hit is a tune called Love Letter, I really dig another one called Lean Lanky Daddy, because it reminds me of a song from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. That's the second time I've mentioned that movie in this post. I think it may mean something.

A still from the video for "Love Letter."

I've also been listening to a band called Wake Owl, rekindling my love for alt country. This is what I mostly listened to between 1995 - 2008, until the classical music revival began.

Wake Owl are out of Vancouver, BC. Their sleepy Americana songs could be the score for a movie like..oh, say...Mud.

And now for a little love:

Love the mid-century signs that dot the main drag of Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake. I'm going to take pics of some more and maybe do a little TL write-up. Not necessarily this week, so don't get too excited, but some time before the year ends.

Love this book I picked up a while back at the beautiful Dragon Books rare bookstore when it was still in Bel Air (it's now on Abbot Kinney).

I did a Google image search on it, and this particular cover was nowhere to be found--which kind of thrilled me. Also, Mencken is one of those authors "I really should read." And he has a quote that's always stuck with me: "Misogynist: a man who hates women as much as women hate one another."

Love this photo of Anna Karina. I saw it once, then could never find it again, until it just popped up on Pinterest.

Love jacaranda season. A mystery yet to be solved? How to photograph it in all its amethyst glory.

This is the closest I've come.

Jacaranda blossoms--as close to "snow" as we get in SoCal.

Every blog entry seems to become a bit of an odyssey, but here we are, finally, at the end. Where will our journeys take us next? Only Isabel Archer knows.

See you soon!

neighbors, part ii.

More getting ready for tomorrow night around the neighborhood!

This ghost dance was one of the coolest things I've seen this year. I'm aware that I may be overdoing it with the camera apps. But they're so much fun. And Halloween kind of lends itself to crazy effects.

neighbors.

No wonder the dog is so freaked out when we go for a walk.

scary stuff.

Spotted lots of spooky scary stuff on my walk through the neighborhood last night.

Of course, the scariest thing had to be this...



Oh, dear. This just looks a little too camp-alicious for me. But I always ALWAYS appreciate a delicious word garden, especially when it's Liz Taylor-themed.