viewfromaloft

Got to like this. Street Art Staycation.

 

In the pit that will someday be a downtown federal courthouse, a set of found -- or borrowed -- mannequins were made into a family sunning poolside. The staycation was brief, but in only a few hours made several commentaries:

A: Recreational options on unused public space.

B: Fashion District economy is laying off retail display resources and forced to pass the time.

C: Occupy LA is farming out protests.

Whichever version you choose, you have to admit that the scale of the one-block pit at First, Broadway, Hill, and Second made this installation above average for your everyday random downtown guerrilla art.

More at LAO's 'Urban seaside in the Civic Center' [view]

LAWeekly gets the low down on the artist. It's a new guy in town, a Calder Greenwood.

Downtown Vid Pick: "About LA Express Park"

 

Using a cast of good-looking downtowners, LA Express Park came out with a better then average video explaining the new program that will help drivers scout for available parking in downtown LA.  Street sensors monitor information that can be accessed by smartphone GPS or calling a number, which will be posted soon. One goal is to help lower the amount of cars circling blocks looking for a spot, adding congestion to busy streets.

Yet, if you are driving alone, and do not want to get a ticket for operating a phone while moving, do you pull over?  California has a ban on texting or talking on a hand held phone, after all.

According to the website, it's not like texting while driving:

The Parker service acts like a map app, similar to in vehicle navigation systems. The app does not involve texting or interacting with the device while the car is in motion.  The app can be used at the start of one’s trip and by passengers…and, all of the interactive features – such as paying for parking, setting a timer to remind you when your meter has expired, or noting a pin on the map to remind you where you’ve parked – are functions used once a motorist has parked.

If you have someone riding APP-gun, they can get up-to-date information while you are on the move. If you are solo in the car, how often would you find a parking spot via the APP, and have it be gone by the time you get there? Like, all the time, I would think.

Cost of Protest: $4.7 M

Restored City Hall South Lawn I Photo by Helen Ly

Costs related to Occupy LA could reach almost $5 million, said L.A. City Councilman Mitch Englander, who chairs the public safety committee.  Overtime for the Los Angeles Police Department and the Office of Public Safety were the bulk of the cost, and clean-up of City Hall’s south lawn alone reached $45,000, said reports citing City News Service.  After the two month encampment was removed by LAPD Nov. 30, the park was fenced off and workers restored the 1.7 acres, a makeover that features less grass and more drought-tolerant plants.

[KPCC] [LAist] [LA Parks]

Location Reveal of Color Photo of Charlie Chaplin

"Portrait of Charlie Chaplin" by Charles Zoller. © George Eastman House

This color photograph of Charlie Chaplin is touring Facebook, and my downtown Los Angeles bias guessed it was taken on the site of the original Chinatown, where Union Station now stands. That was based on all the footage and documentation of "The Kid," filmed in and around the slums of old Chinatown and Olvera Street in 1927.

Brady Westwater, downtown fixture and tour guide of the city's wild west roots, chimed in his theory it's a street on a studio lot:  "The proportions of the buildings aren't right, the doors aren't right, the sign is obviously fake, the panes in the windows of the brick building are even more fake, the street is too narrow," and so on, before adding "But if that street was real - it would have been in the old Chinatown section."

Can't argue with the L.A. Cowboy. Taking a look around, I found the orginal color photo was shot by Charles Zoller for George Eastman House on set for "A Dog's Life." That was Chaplin's first film for First National Pictures, and the first film Chaplin shot at his new studio at Sunset and La Brea. Chaplin broke ground in 1917, and the studio opened in January of 1918.

The screen shot and clip from "A Dog's Life," seen after the jump, matches the set with the color photograph.

Monday Morning Buffing

Monday morning became busier once filmmaker Jason Wawro tweeted out an instagram of a DCBID Purple Shirt painting over street art at Main and 3rd.  [KCET]

Above: Jason Wawro. Below: GoogleMaps.

Cinco De Mayo Moon

The super moon, a Cinco De Mayo super moon no less, just passed through 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than normal full moons. This lunar perigee is the brightest of 2012. Photo by Ed Fuentes.

Downtown Vid Pick: Cinco Por Mayo with La Santa Cecila

Tainted Love (2012)  La Santa Cecila  / Directed by Humberto Howard

La Santa Cecila latest video finds lead vocalist Marisol Hernandez, the alt-cumbia-nortena diva known as La Marisoul, bemoans about a Tainted Love with melancholic soulfulness. After making her lips a deeper red, she makes the song a confessional prayer, more thoughful than Soft Cell's 1981 slow moody synth cover and a quieter rage then Gloria Jones' original 1964 version. (The song is the lead cut off their new release, El Valor, which includes a cover of U2's "One")

The spirit La Santa Cecila was born on Olvera Street, where some of the band members got to know each other before they formed, giving the street an authenticty beyond generations of shopowners commiting to the myth. Hernandez' Grandfather was one of those merchants, reported the Los Angeles Times in 2011.

"She spent weekends among the tourist emporiums of Olvera Street, where her grandfather owned a shop, singing traditional Mexican boleros for spare change. Then, during the week, as a Hollywood High School student, Hernandez says, "I would dress in black, I was all about the Doors and the Beatles, and I was all dark. It was like two different lives."

After the jump, you can glimpse those two lives on one street in videos after the jump. First, La Marisoul and La Santa Cecila use Olvera Street as a backdrop for "Le Negra." The street has never looked better. The next video shows Marisol Hernandez planted in front of a "no loitering" sign.

I added La Santa Cecila covering U2 and The Beatles to make a set of five for the fifth of May.

 

ADD: June 22, 2012. NPR Take A Trip To Downtown L.A. With La Santa Cecilia

Marisol Hernandez tells NPR's Melissa Block: And, sometimes, we'd need a percussionist player, so we'd invite our friend Miguel and, one day, we went to a party, at a drunken night, we met Gloria Estrada, who plays the guitar. She later brought Alex, which plays the upright bass and that's how La Santa Cecilia started and we started playing cumbias and jazz and then rock and then rancheros and now it's been almost five years and here we are.

Ink and Links: Street Art and Murals

Washington Post has an online gallery inviting readers to send in their photos of street art. Los Angeles is represented with Joey Tranchina's photo of the Berlin Wall, with Kent Twitchell's work, on Wilshire. [WaPo]

The Google Doodle is all about Keith Haring. He would have been 54 today (May 4).  [National Post]

Sesame Street Art at Known Gallery [LAT[

JR's "Women are Heroes" is now a book [HuffPo]

In Culver City, Chris Breezy (Chris Brown) goes from song to street art. [Capital FM]

Street artist, Kai Aspire, converts hip hop's artists into medieval noblemen. [OC Weekly]

Street art for foodies. [HuffPo]

Stunning chalk art.  [MSNBC]

Baltimore has a new mural program; Open Walls. [Voice of America]

Azuza Pacific University launches Art Journal. First issue can be downloaded. [APU]

Cheech answer's the question "What is a Chicano?" [HuffPo]

Chicano Artist Xavier Viramontes is "Still Going Strong" in SF.  [New American Media]

San Diego's Chicano Park collective of murals are restored. [CityBeat]

Edvard "The Scream" Munch also did murals. One is in an Oslo building about to be sold. It is not likely to break any auction records. [BBC]

Downtown Vid Pick: "USC Remembers Junior Seau"

 

USC Remembers Junior Seau (2012) Posted by USCAthletics

Junior Seau, All-American linebacker for the Trojans, a member of USC's Club 55, and 20-year NFL veteran, was 43. LAT I SI I ESPN I TMZ

LAPD Seeks Help ID'ing May Day Protestors Caught Assaulting Officers

 

Update: "Brian Mendoza, 23, was arrested on Wednesday and booked on suspicion of assault on a peace officer, said Los Angeles police spokesman Richard French. He was booked for a felony and was being held without bail, according to the Sheriff's Department." LAPD are still looking for the Pallet Squad."  [Daily News]

Call Him "Little Drummer Hoy": This screen shot from a YouTube video shows a protestor (bottom right) just before striking female officer (center).  At first reported to be a skateboard, the object was a makeshift drum, as seen in the video "Cheap Shot On Cop."  LAPD now asking for the public's to identify this and other protestors caught on video assaulting officers during Tuesday's May Day protest in downtown Los Angeles.

This incident happened at 4th and Hill just after 4pm.

LAPD Chief Beck to hold press conference at 3 p.m. Wednesday "regarding LAPD Officers Assaulted during May Day," tweets LAPDHQ.

ADD: Suspect armed with drum arrested detained, but seach continues "for several masked suspects who attacked officers with a large wooden pallet in a separate incident" LAT

That video is here.