Just Above Sunset
Links and Recommendations
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Just Above Sunset
Links and Recommendations
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________________________________________ Photo
Albums from Just Above Sunset - ________________________________________ The Edge of the Pacific - as photographed Thursday, February 9, 2006, the very edge of the Pacific, at Venice Beach. The Santa Ana winds are blowing
in off the desert and on the sand it's in the eighties just before noon. Late morning the shops are just opening, the dancing
rollerblade folks aren't there yet, but the surfers have been out there in dawn, and the surf isn't bad. (Sixteen shots.)
Gritty Hollywood - odd details of central Hollywood, just north of Sunset and Vine, February
2, 2006 (Twenty-nine photographs) Hollywood Landmarks - Worldly and Otherworldly - Crossroad of the World on Sunset Boulevard, and Blessed Sacrament next door, February 2, 2006 (Sixteen photographs) Groundhog Day Blooms - botanical close-up shots of what was in bloom in Hollywood, February 2, 2006 (Twelve photographs) Backstage: Building the Floats for the Tournament of Roses Parade Sixty-one shots of the floats under construction, and more, from Thursday, 19 December 2005 Christmas at the Beach – A Los Angeles Album Christmas 2005 in the Land of the Obscenely Wealthy Thursday, December 8, 2005, a trek to
the land of the obscenely wealthy - Rodeo Drive and the center of Beverly Hills - for Christmas photos of what's on display
in the windows of Saxs Fifth Avenue and Barney's and Neiman-Marcus - and what's on the streets. On Location: The Santa Monica Pier Thursday, December 1,
2005, late morning, fifty-eight shots of the Santa Monica Pier, where Route 66 finally
ends... On Location: Greystone Mansion You've seen this place in many, many movies. Location directors love the
site. Greystone Mansion, 905 Loma Vista Drive, Beverly Hills - a new album of
twenty-six photos from Wednesday, November 23, 2005, late afternoon… Melrose Avenue - Peculiarly Los Angeles Sixty photos from Thursday, November 10, 2005 - one of the oddest and hippest places on earth. A Tour of the Sunset Strip - thirty-nine shots, an
idiosyncratic view on a foggy fall morning - Thursday, October 27, 2005. Halloween is the 31st, but on Friday, October 21, you would see, in and around Hollywood,
the displays are up, and on Hollywood Boulevard the folks are out in costumes, but then, they always are. These thirty-one
shots, late morning, Friday, October 21, 2005, will confirm to those elsewhere that Southern California is a strange place. It's Only Rock 'n' Roll - "Guitar Row" on Sunset Boulevard Just down the street is a section of Hollywood - the seven thousand block of Sunset Boulevard
- known as "Guitar Row." Here you will find the Hollywood "Rock Walk." Photos
from late morning, Wednesday, October 12, 2005. Thirty-four photographs. Topanga Canyon - Its Own Place A full photo album, thirty-eight shots - the community of Topanga, about six
thousand residents, and home to those who play by their own rules - once the blacklisted in Hollywood, then counterculture
types (Neil Young, Jim Morrison), now a mixture of folks who won't ever give up the hippie thing, the rich, the famous and
the eccentric. Dead Hollywood: The Stars at Rest Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park - a hidden, tiny place covering about a city block. The final resting place of Marilyn Monroe, Donna Reed, Dean Martin, Natalie Wood, Roy Orbison, Carroll
O'Connor, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Peggy Lee, Mel Tormé, Peggy Lee, George C. Scott, Burt Lancaster, Eve Arden, Eva Gabor
and even Truman Capote. Frank Zappa's grave is unmarked - number 100. Sports Photography - NHL Hockey in Los Angeles The Los Angeles Kings
NHL Training Camp - first full on-ice session, Tuesday, September 13, 2005 Union Station, Los Angeles (1939) considered to be "The last of America's great rail stations." Twenty-eight photographs
from Tuesday, August 16, 2005 Watching the Hollywood Hills Burn Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - a wildfire in Nichols Canyon, here in the Holywood Hills.
Twenty-one photographs. A ride on the Goodyear blimp, "The Spirit of America" - Thursday, August 4, 2005. Fifty photographs of the craft, and aerial shots of Los Angeles. Malibu Calling: The Call to the Wall The annual "Call to the Wall" surfing contest in Malibu, shot Friday, July 22, 2005 - along
with some details of Malibu itself. Forty–two photographs. The fourth annual Bastille Day Los Angeles
held July 17, 2005 at the gardens of the Page Museum, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits. Supported by the French Consulate
in Los Angeles, the Bastille Day LA celebration is meant to "reinforce the undying ties between the French and American people
and to promote French heritage and culture." Twenty-two photographs. The Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits Twenty-one shots of the famous Los Angeles
natural history site and adjacent museum, from July 5, 2005 The Old Cars of the Very Rich: The Rodeo Drive Annual Concours The
Eighth Annual Rodeo Drive Annual Concours, June 19, 2005, Beverly Hills, California Fifty-seven photographs Paparazzi Time: Minor Celebrities and Major Oddities The 2005 West Hollywood Gay Pride Parade, Sunday, June 12, 2005 – Thirty Photos Late Afternoon Light and the Strangeness of Southern California - From the odder places at the beach, these are from Wednesday, June 8, 2005, almost all after 5:30 in the afternoon,
when the light starts to get long. Venice Beach and inland from Venice Beach. It can be strange out here. Forty-three shots.
Hollywood Rides - May 13, 2005 Auction: The George Barris Collection of Kustom Television
and Movie Cars and Other Properties A Day at the Beach - 6 May 2005 - A drive down to where the editor once lived, Manhattan Beach, and then on to Hermosa Beach, and, on the way home,
an encounter with a cherry 1954 Chevrolet Corvette, and a stop at the Western Museum of Flight, across the runway from Northrop
Aircraft, where the editor worked when he first moved to California… Fifty-One
Photos May Day 2005 - Botanicals and Oddities - From a backyard in
Carlsbad, a mile inland from the beach, a few miles north of San Diego… Twelve Shots A Flight to the Past: Thursday, April 14, 2005 - A media flight over Los Angeles
in a restored Boeing B-17G bomber from WWII. Twenty-three photographs. A weekend in and around Manhattan - The editor of Just Above Sunset spends a weekend in and around Manhattan. Sixty-one shots from the Battery up to mid-town and out to Princeton University. Local webcams of note…. If
your internet connection is speedy and you want to be elsewhere, even out here, this will take you to the live, real-time web camera on top of the Hollywood sign. And here are two pages of live feed from the security cameras watching over the sign. Watch
them rebuild the nearby Griffith Park Observatory – a live, real-time web camera and check out the still photos of the current reconstruction of the building, updated frequently. New Link: Velvel on National Affairs Friday
May 4 I received a note from the office
of Dean Lawrence Velvel of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover that said nice things about Just Above Sunset and recommended
this to me. So Just Above Sunset recommends
this to you - The
web log “sets forth the personal views of the Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, Lawrence R. Velvel, on national events. Occasionally,
the responses to his views or other interesting articles are also posted.” For
those of a legal turn of mind on current events, go there. Dean
Velvel is also author of this – Simon
Zheng - Photographer Bob Patterson, who writes
for Just Above Sunset as both The World’s Laziest Journalist and The Book Wrangler, told
me he was going to Pasadena last Sunday to attend the famous Doo Dah Parade - in Old Town, a block from where I work. I don’t know if he did. This parade is, of course, the ironic and surreal response to annual Rose Parade that
kicks off at dawn New Years Day and has something or other to do with the football game that follows, The Rose Bowl. I’ve worked on an off in Pasadena for many years. New Years Day is a good day to be somewhere else. Don Smith – Don Smith, who wrote this week (August 17th), first picked up a camera thirty-two years ago
and he's been visiting Paris on and off for thirty-four years. He earned his
BFA in photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. First of all, you will find his stunning photographs of Paris
at Left Bank Lens from Paris. Don also teaches photography workshops in Paris – Paris Photo Workshops Over at Visit Paris he has travelogues and trip planning information – click on Travelogues - 1999 Check
it out. [
One of mine, not one of Don's... ]
Highly Recommended - and the web log is finally back on line! Diversions If you have a high speed internet connection note this - Having (relatively) recently obtained over 100 versions of "Body and Soul", I've decided to share the wealth. Herein you'll find the first volume of what is planned to be a 5 volume set of my picks of the litter. This can also serve as a beginner's guide to jazz, as it moves from the most famous version by Billie Holiday, to the most influential version by Coleman Hawkins, to versions by such post-bop luminaries as Eric Dolphy and Sun Ra, to the most impressive recent version by Jason Moran. I plan (i.e. might) add some of the appropriate history of the various versions, especially those of Hawkins and Holiday, if I can dig up the tomes in which those nuggets are buried. Handy instructions are
included.
Needless to say, at tip of the hat to the web site Body and Soul. ______________
Hugh O'Mara is here in Hollywood and been creating artworks since 1974. What sort? “I work in a variety of styles
and media. My subject matter is varied. I refer to this approach as ‘symbolism and surrealism meets folk art and
some other things’ - a lot of things, anything and everything.” Visit his site. He found Just
above Sunset, and I found his site. Drop by and check this out!
A writer's adventures in Newfoundland Deborah Vatcher, whose fiction has appeared in Just Above Sunset
recently, here visits Newfoundland in a long, meditative piece with wonderful photographs and drawings.
A sample (click on the image for a full-size version):
Topical Links and
Links of Special Interest ________________________________ Be worldly. Understand the French. Get a daily does of Gallic insight.
You
might try Merde In France – and this claims to give you all you need to know about the French exception / Tout ce qu'il faut savoir sur 'l'exception française' … “More than 20 years behind enemy lines / Plus de 20 ans en territoire ennemi …” Or on its masthead – “The champagne of attitudinal weblogs / Le champagne des blogs à fort temperament.” The left column is in English, and the right column the same thing in French. Major attitude here from one Erik Svane. A
new press review in English - ¡No Pasarán! – comments on what’s
in the French press and in the English press about the French. Covers French
issues more than international ones.
Pascal
Riché est le correspondant de Libération à Washington – and he has a blog in French on the American presidential
race – La course à la Masion blanche – if your French is up to it. Libération is one of the major French dailies - actually one of the
founders was Sartre, or was is Camus? I forget. Libération is a bit to the left... well, it's a lot to the left.
I think I first noticed the paper back in the sixties when I saw Claude Lelouch's film "A Man and A Woman" (Un Homme
et Une Femme) - that was 1966 - and the gorgeous Anouk Aimée was reading a copy of Libération in bed and smiling. Ah, Anouk Aimée, né en 1932 à Paris. De
son vrai nom Nicole Françoise Dreyfus. HA!
Does anyone "accuse" her of that? And does anyone recall 1949's "Lovers
of Verona" specifically written for her by Jacques Prevert? No? I digress. Try the links. _______________ DEMOGRAPHICS: Slicing
and dicing odd kinds of data… So… plug in you zip
code here. People living in the same neighborhoods tend to have similar lifestyles, proving the old adage
that "birds of a feather flock together" still holds true. To a large extent,
you are where you live! My zip code (90046) is
cool – _________ Highly
Recommend! This is Louisa Chu's Moveable Feast NOTE:
This was former called Food, France, Now and was offline
for some months. The blog explains itself.
Louisa is in Paris, at the center of the gastronomical world, so to speak, having just finished a stint at Restaurant Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athenee. These are insider details. Heather
Stimmler-Hall in her Secrets of Paris Newsletter has posted the link too. She
calls the site "lovely stuff" and adds if you like foodies in Paris you should check out David Lebovitz's site full of good food humor. And
she adds this: Speaking of Odd Connections, I was just back in the US in January for two weeks, and it seems like everywhere I went
everything was "French" (even when it wasn't, like French Vanilla Coffee). Very bizarre, especially considering the
whole Freedom Fries thing... Indeed
so. And
Louisa comments I'm still waiting for my contract to go through at the Crillon - and my French working papers. Somehow the Crillon will have to justify hiring me to the French government -
kind of a tough sell when we're talking about why I'm a better French cook than a French guy - in a French restaurant. And the Crillon might be one of the Frenchest of French restaurants left in the world
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