Chinatownland

Chinatownland a photo by neonspecs on Flickr.

This isn't there anymore, but I really liked it. It held so much meaning for the sign-enthusiast geographer in me.

In the process of doing some genealogical research, I learned some semi-interesting things. Yay Wikipedia!

1. Lynwood, a city in south Los Angeles county, is not a "wood" like a tree-filled area. It is named after someone actually named Lynn Wood.
   
2. Maywood is really proud of the fact that it's supposedly the first American city to outsource all of its city services. Sounds more like something you should be really ashamed of to me, Maywood!
   

'the hidden geography of production'

'the hidden geography of production'
Originally uploaded by neonspecs

I googled the title I gave to this picture when I posted it. Google has never heard of it. So it's probably something from one of my college geography classes. It's pretty clear what it means, right?

Reyner Banham Loves LA and Laura Loves Reyner Banham

I really should have tagged all these posts I write about Reyner Banham, but now, perhaps, it's too late to start. This is a really awesome picture of Banham cycling on a dry salt lake in California! Awesome! Thank you East of Borneo.

Listomania

Awesome. Louis Armstrong.
Buy me this book please.
I now know what a pot walloper is.
Nancy Pelosi, the Anna Wintour of Congress!
"Bank Failures Strike a Blow to City's Art"
DO clap between movements!
Y'all know how much I love maps. Here's an interesting one. All of USA could fit into New Hampshire!
The Yet-But

It's that time again.

 

It's "mistakes" like these that make Thom Andersen mad. 

Removing the 2008 Edition to make room for the 2010 Edition. 2008 was either a year I actually read a lot or I actually remember to at least list them here. Of course, I highly recommend all Chandler, but my favorite is still The Long Goodbye. Read it, stat! Also, the L.A. River book is really illuminating. Y'all know how much I love the L.A. River. (Everytime I write LA now, since watching Los Angeles Plays Itself, I feel a pang of guilt and have to put in the periods).

Books I Read: 2008 Edition

• Blake Gumprecht - The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth
• Edna Bonacich & Jake B. Wilson - Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution
• Edward Thorpe - Chandlertown
• Elizabeth Ward & Alain Silver - Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles
• Gordon G. Whitney - From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plan: A History of Environmental Change in Temperate North America from 1500 to Present
• K. Bruce Newbold - Six Billion Plus: World Population in the Twenty-First Century
• Massimo Livi-Bacci - A Concise History of World Population
• Philip Durham - Down These Mean Streats a Man Must Go: Raymond Chandler's Knight
• Raymond Chandler & Robert B. Parker - Poodle Springs
• Raymond Chandler - Farewell, My Lovely
• Raymond Chandler - Little Sister
• Raymond Chandler - The High Window
• Raymond Chandler - The Lady in the Lake
• Raymond Chandler - The Long Goodbye
• Raymond Chandler - Trouble is My Business
• Ruth Wilson Gilmore - Golden Gulag
• Stephen Ambrose - Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
• The Imagineers - Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making the Magic Real

I need this necklace.

Please, please, please. Channukah present?!?

Notes taken out of context.

In the process of cleaning my room (the room I spent more than half of my childhood in, the room I just moved back into after not living in for four years a.k.a. there was a lot of stuff just stashed in random places room), I have discovered lots of little pieces of papers, post-its, business cards, what-have-yous with notes on them, either that I noted to myself or received. Sometimes I remember what they mean or what they come from, frequently I don't. I am going to share a few. Feel free to claim you're the one who said any of them. This may become a new series (if I ever resume regular posting), semi-inspired by Erica's affinity for my (is "to" actually the correct word here?) letter series.

"Looks like a 502, he's really weaving." "Give him a ball of yarn; he could make us both a sweater."

"Call him on it, be like, 'that dog just ain't gonna hunt.' Yeah, maybe the idiom is too much, but my point remains." (okay, honestly, I now remember exactly who said this and what/who it was about, but I didn't when I found it and it's kinda too much to get into for a blog post but makes me chuckle and thus I deem it post-worthy).

Perhaps a good way to remember the order of the streets downtown: "Wouldn't it be grand to hope to pick flowers on Figueroa?"

"1848 was charming only through an excess of the ridiculous"

"It is not theft to steal from thieves; it is merely irony."

OK, this last one I wrote down sometime during 2006. I know this because other stuff on the paper happened that year. I also know gkla told/IMed/somethinged this to me, but I have no idea what it is referencing: "Laura, you may now proudly say of yourself, "Today I was riding dirty." So fantastically dated, right?!

A few notes on basketball.

1) The people they show cheering before the game are not live, because they don't expect fans to be loud and such during winter break.

2) We won by 51 points today--113-62! (side note, when did I start caring about basketball?).

3) During half time, they have a "super shot" contest, in which one can win prizes if one makes certain shots. Half court shot winning the ultimate prize of a year's tuition and books. You sign up before the game if you want to participate. In no way was I ever planning on signing up for this. Apparently, someone thought it would be a really great idea to sign me up without telling me! And I was picked! SERIOUSLY. I didn't think I was even going to make a lay up, nonetheless a half court shot. yeesh. I was so nervous, shaking like I was about to get some sort of shot a the doctor's office. Oy, the announcer makes jokes about you the whole time! But, at least, I did make a lay up. One usually gets one Muscle Milk (such a lame prize) but they ran out (thankfully), and so I got a free burrito from Chipotle.

3a) I have only eaten at Chipotle twice previously. Both times were because I got free burritos.

4) Oh my god, I love James Keefe. This is mostly because he was in one of my geography classes, but also because he is quite good looking and a pretty solid basketballer.

Side note: I haven't done a Royce celeb update in a while. Both super pregnant Jennifer Garner and super high-heeled Patricia Arquette were at The Nutcracker this past Saturday.

Things I learned yesterday

1) Apparently, it took only 12kb to get to the moon on Apollo 11. (I didn't do any research to confirm this). This got me thinking a lot. I find it hard to believe that if, today, we tried to send a man to the moon on only 12kb we could still do it. Have we lost the ability to do things the way they were done pre-new technologies? By the way, Andrew Dawson is performing at UCLA's Little Theater tonight through Sunday; I highly recommend it!

2) I always knew what the "Twinkie defense" was, but now I know where it came from! Yay movies teaching you things.

3) The 800 block of Pico Blvd. in Santa Monica is actually pretty sketch. Surprising. Watch for the establishments named "Cash N Run" and "Sober Inn."

Roommates and Supertramps

Sometimes I wonder if my roommate thinks I am as crazy for watching so much Murder, She Wrote and Law & Order as I think she is for watching so many Lifetime Movie Network and what I like to call Judge Phil (Judge Judy, the People's Court, and Dr. Phil).

I know dandelions are, but I am have no idea about this pretty tree.

In other news, I am in the process of (intermittently) reviewing my notes for tomorrow's biogeography final. My professor, by the way, is basically David Hasselhoff as a lacrosse athlete who for some reason ended up studying geography in China. Anyways, several weeks ago we learned about "supertramps"--species that spread widely and easily. Oh, Professor Zackey!

Edit: Upon some quick googling, it turns out that the "supertramp" was coined by the one and only Jared Diamond, the UCLA professor who makes his students write essays to get into his classes. According to Wikipedia:

The name was coined by Jared Diamond in 1974, as an allusion to both the itinerant lifestyle of the tramp, and the then-popular band Supertramp.

This is kinda hilarious.

Dear Kevin Roderick,

Thanks for using the phrase "Holy Geography, Batman."

I now love you,
Laura

Curiosities of Note

This 'cycle' of America's Next Top Model's Saleisha is always referred to as 'oh, that commercial girl with an edgy haircut.' I really cannot comprehend how her haircut is so edgy, since it is just basically a bowl cut. Oh, and the fact that it looks exactly like the haircut of Tootie from the Facts of Life. ummmm, not edgy. Sorry. Please compare:

Secondly, what the hell is Saleisha? Especially the way they say it Silesia, like the oft-contested region in central Europe (the region from which my mother hails!).

On a side note, Donald Sutherland was at Freud Theater this afternoon to see the super creepy Teatr Zar's Gospels of Childhood.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Brandon Boyd and another Incubus member were eating at Mao's Kitchen last night whilst I was there. He is not a handsome person.

Another edit: I just realized how awesome this post is. Teatr Zar is from Silesia!!!! Oh man! So perfect.