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Superstar rapper, actor and all around fly individual Ice Cube has come a long way from his days in the gangsta rap group N.W.A., or has he?
Turns out this boy from tha hood once studied Architectural Drafting, to perhaps design his own hood some day, and he found inspiration in the husband and wife design team Charles and Ray Eames.
The Eames’ have created everything from furniture to toys to architecture, and Ice Cube has chosen to celebrate the style and simplicity of the Eames House as part of the series PacificStandardTime: Art In L.A. 1945-1980 .
He’s got a lotta love for the Eames’ and the City of Angels, so haters need not apply.
–via BoingBoing
We all played with cardboards when we were kids, but surely not like Ana Serrano! The Los Angeles artist has re-created the City of Angels in (almost) life-sized cardboards in her exhibition "Salon of Beauty," as commissioned by Rice University Art Gallery.
Take a quick look:
Photo:
Nash Baker
Still from film by Walley Films
Alissa Walker of FastCo wrote about Serrano's work:
While her pieces are not exact replicas of specific buildings, Serrano's work both celebrates and memorializes these seemingly inconsequential decisions by homeowners and businessowners to say, paint the bars outside their windows hot pink, or build a wall using stacked concrete blocks. Just as Serrano gathered her inspiration by driving through South Los Angeles and photographing her favorite details, she hopes that highlighting these quirky details will allow anyone to see the simple, handcrafted beauty in their own urban environment. "I do hope that people notice these details in a different light than what they are usually perceived as," she says. "But ultimately it's up to the viewer to decide what the impact of the work is going to be for them."
Previously on Neatorama: Cartonlandia, also by Ana Serrano
Tired
of incessant yapping of your neighbor's dog? Well, the city of Los Angeles
is on your side: they've decided to levy fines on the owners of dogs that
bark excessively (and if that doesn't make 'em silence those pooches fast,
I don't know what will).
Under the changes, dog owners would face fines starting at $250 for a first offense, $500 for a second and $1,000 for a third if a hearing conducted by the Department of Animal Services determines that a dog barks too much.
But exactly how much barking is too much?
The changes approved in the 12-0 vote would make that clearer to animal services officials, Assistant City Atty. Dov Lesel said.
A dog's barking would be considered excessive if it continued for 10 minutes or more, or intermittently for 30 minutes or more within a three-hour period, Lesel said.
I sympathize with those harrassed by barking dogs (one of my neighbor has a dog that barked all night for years) but ask any dog owner and they'll tell you that dogs are dogs and they will bark. Sometimes they bark a lot, especially if something unusual is up. And what happens if you're not there to silence your dog, say if you have to work and the dog is in the back yard?
Will the new rule penalize those in working-class neighborhood, who keep dogs for protection against break-ins? Or will it finally give peace to sore ears?
Los Angeles is a gorgeous city filled with movie stars and sunny beaches, right? As it turns out, the city is also loaded with oil rigs. You’d never know it though because the city carefully and cleverly conceals the rigs so you’d never notice them unless you were specifically looking for them. For more cool secret operations that are hidden in plain sight, be sure to check out this cool Cracked article.
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As an art experiment, Julie Kim put a coffee table in a bus stop in Koreatown, Los Angeles, and filmed the results from a distance:
The table—set with a newspaper and a vase of flowers—becomes a hub of interaction for the corner. People not only flock to the table, they end up talking to each other about it. Kim says she was surprised to see so many serendipitous moments in what amounted to only eight minutes of video. "The number and variety of people milling about—workers, kids, the elderly, of every ethnic group—surprised me," she says. "I thought I'd have to shoot for at least an hour to capture anything worthwhile."
Anybody who built tracks for their Hot Wheels as a kid will drool when they see this incredible setup! Metropolis II is an amazing, kinetic work of art by Chris Burden that measures 20×30 feet, and features over 1200 matchbox cars that travel at speeds up to 200 scale mph. John Farrier first wrote about this spectacular feat of micro-engineering back in November of 2010, and now it can be seen, live in all its massive glory, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art beginning this fall. Watch the short doc, made by the same folks who made Catfish, and you’ll see just what the hype is all about.
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Did
you get a red-light camera ticket? Did you pay the fine? If you did, then
you're a sucker.
That's the message that motorists in Los Angeles got when it was revealed that red-light camera fines - some of which were as high as $476 - were actually "voluntary."
The Los Angeles Times has the story:
City officials this week spotlighted a surprising revelation involving red-light camera tickets: Authorities cannot force violators who simply don't respond to pay them. For a variety of reasons, including the way the law was written, Los Angeles officials say the fines for ticketed motorists are essentially "voluntary" and there are virtually no tangible consequences for those who refuse to pay. [...]
Unlike other moving citations, which are issued directly by a police officer to a driver who signs a promise to appear in court, red-light camera tickets are mailed to the registered owner of the vehicle allegedly involved in the violation.
That has limited the Los Angeles County Superior Court system's willingness to aggressively enforce camera ticket collections for the city and 32 other photo enforcement programs in Los Angeles County, officials said.
Under state law, court officials have discretion over how they pursue those who do not respond to camera-generated citations. Los Angeles County Superior Court officials, as a matter of fairness, said that for the last decade they have chosen a less forceful approach partly because the person receiving the ticket may not be the person who was driving the car.
Link (Photo: Glenn Koenig)
John Belitsky and pal Dan Wuebben wanted to do something "magical" so the pair hopped on a taxi cab in New York … and ordered a cross-country trip to Los Angeles:
The 2,448-mile trip took six days and included a stop in Las Vegas where the friends won $2,000. [...]
On 22 April, after their winning streak in Las Vegas, he tweeted: "Woke up Alam to a shower of $100 bills at sunrise."
Link | John’s documenting the trip on his Twitter page
Artist Jon Jackson has lived his entire life in Los Angeles, but has decided to move to New York City to further his career. He’s saying goodbye to his city, or rather, breaking up with her. So Jackson put up 5 billboards expressing why it’s important that they both move forward and start seeing other cities.
[YouTube - Link]
Ross Ching’s video, “Running on Empty” is a time lapse vision of an LA without cars. Ross was inspired by Matt Logues’s E M P T Y L.A., a photography exhibition that showcases eerily abandoned streets in the city of angels. You can read about Ross’s work in his own words, here:
Spectacular time lapse pieces have sprung up all over the internet. I have even developed some awesome relationships with some of the creators. However, the majority of them seem very similar — like they should be on the Discovery Channel or in a visitor center. There needs to be originality. There needs to be pioneers. There needs to be something more than beautiful shots. There needs to be a human element. There needs to be a story.
Via /Film
Flickr user SiLver sKY spotted a street performer near Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. He was wearing an outfit composed of mirrors, from head to toe. More pictures at the link.
Link via Nerdcore | Photo: flickr user SiLver sKY used under Creative Commons license
Tired of going to the beach and other touristy places for a vacation? Try this instead: the Los Angeles Gang Tour, which gives tourists a look at the cradle of the nation’s gang culture, including the the birthplace of the Crips and Bloods.
The L.A. tour comes after months of planning, and is offered in a spirit of education and public service. Lomas, who will lead tours at first, plans to talk about important chapters in the development of the city’s core, such as how racist housing restrictions shaped ethnic enclaves and the formation of gangs.
Other aspects may raise eyebrows. Selling shirts painted on the spot by a graffiti "tagger" is one thing. But one backer said he also hopes to stage dance-offs between locals; tourists would pick a winner and fork over a cash prize. It wasn’t long ago that organizers decided against a plan to have kids shoot tourists with water pistols, followed by the sale of T-shirts that read: "I Got Shot in South-Central."
"It’s going to be fascinating — but really controversial," said Francisco Ortega, a field staffer with the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission and a respected mediator and neighborhood advisor in South L.A. Ortega said there could be great value in "sensitizing people, connecting them to the reality of what’s on the ground."
"But the other side is that it could come across like a zoo or something," Ortega said. "You’re being carted about: ‘Look at that cholo over there!’ It could be perceived as demeaning for the people who are living in these conditions. I don’t know how they’re going to manage those perceptions."
At only $65 per adult, it’s a steal (though I’m not sure it guarantees that you won’t get robbed). Scott Gold of the LA Times has the story: Link (Photo: Michael Robinson Chavez / LA Times)
A grocery store with 500 flavors of soda? You betcha, and the owner of Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles knows his sodas. In this video, learn about Romanian rose soda, the best-tasting diet soda, why glass bottles are better, and other fascinating facts about soda pop. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend
Previously mentioned in: Four Neat Things About Los Angeles.
The retro-fitted futuristic world of the film Blade Runner starring Harrison Ford may not be as far away as one might think. Director Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic dealt with such classic questions of “what does it mean to be human” while depicting the city of Los Angeles in the year 2019 as a smoggy dystopian future, a cultural melting pot brimming with skyscrapers, flying cars and inescapable corporate advertisements. Almost 30 years later the film is hailed as an overlooked masterpiece and has inspired multitudes of designers, engineers and artists.
Now you can also add “Real Estate Developer” to that list. Sonny Astani, a Los Angeles real estate mogul, is hoping to make one part of the film’s dystopian future a reality with 14-story animated billboards.
The plan is currently undergoing environmental review and pending approval by city officials. Officials are wary of anything billboard-related at the moment as downtown L.A already has its fair share of distracting lights and signs that have drawn complaints from area neighborhoods.
From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by whitespace.
