• It pains me to see an art movement who’s genesis is in part as a response to the elitism and exclusivity of the gallery world turn into a hipster fashion show…continue reading
• Graffiti comes to Resfest, with panels!
• Goldmine Shithouse comes to Subliminal, and blogs about it.

Because people don’t complain enough about traffic in Los Angeles, there’s a big closure scheduled for a downtown stretch of the 101 starting tonight at 10:00 p.m. and lasting until 6:00 a.m. Monday morning. The traffic reporters keep talking about it like the whole thing is going to be closed, but this is what Caltrans says:

SOUTHBOUND TRAFFIC IS REDUCED TO 2 LANES FROM ALAMEDA ST TO
MISSION RD /IN LOS ANGELES/ (LOS ANGELES CO) 24 HRS A DAY FROM 2200 HRS
ON 9/30/05 THRU 0600 HRS ON 10/3/05 – DUE TO CONSTRUCTION – MOTORISTS ARE
SUBJECT TO LENGTHY DELAYS & ARE ADVISED TO USE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE

That sounds to me like all they’re doing is narrowing the southbound 101 to two lanes, which doesn’t sound that bad. Anyway, I’m sure that will give plenty of people something else to complain about. It will also make traffic on the 5 and the 10 a lot worse, so if you’re going somewhere this weekend you should keep it in mind.

Since Sean just posted a photo of his ashy car, here’s mine, which was parked at a carpool buddy’s house out in West Hills (just east of the Chatsworth fire).

you write a song about it and make a video!

I noticed tonight a strange smell in the air. Nope, it wasn’t the candles catching the trees on fire, although that’s what it smelled like. Nope, it’s those fire miles and miles away. The wind changed and is blowing the smoke east. Supposedly you can smell it in Santa Monica. I don’t know about that, but you can smell it here in Mt. Washington. Time to close the windows and put the air filter on and say a prayer for those fires far away.

Er, I mean.. Ashing!

It’s all over everything on the streets, and yes all the crud you see on this car is ash that has fallen in the past few hours. This is in Silver Lake and the whole place smells like a damn campfire. Driving home from Culver City this afternoon we could see billows of smoke over the hills and the horizon had a very visible smoke layer. Here’s some more ashy shots. This is pretty nuts.

I found out, through a friend of a friend, that the Chatsworth Brushfire photos that were posted last night on my own blog were shown during today’s edition of The Situation Room, anchored by Wolf Blitzer, on CNN, at around 1:40 PM PT (so 4:40 PM ET).

I suppose it’s a good thing that I didn’t have any pornstar photos posted on the home page?

More photos that I took earlier today here and here.

Sirens scream through town every so often, alternating with the heavy drones of fire-fighting planes overhead. There’s another fire out in the I.E. which isn’t on that CDF info page as yet — it’s near Angeles Oaks in the San Bernardino Mountains, and has forced the closure of Highway 38. And since 330 is also closed for road work at the moment, Highway 18 is the only way up or down from Big Bear on the San Bernardino side of the mountains.

These pics are from Redlands (click for regular size at Flickr), which is quite a few miles away, but which itself is still dealing with the San Timoteo fire. That’s Redlands High School in the near ground of the photo above — the fire is on the mountainside in the distance.

The biggest peak, to the right and behind the mountain on fire, is Mount San Gorgonio, the highest peak in SoCal at 11,500 feet. This steep area is full of forest and brush that hasn’t burned out since the Big Bear Fire of 1970. Voluntary evacuations are underway. I think it’s being called the Thurman Fire, named for the Thurman Flats, a popular picnic area off Highway 38.

A couple of other photos below the fold.
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CNN has a roundup of the current fire situations around Southern California. There are several fires going thanks to low humidity, high winds, and lots of brush for fuel.

The largest is on the LA/Ventura county line and has burned over 17,000 acres, with only 5% containment. Evacuations were ordered in Agoura Hills, Bell Canyon, Box Canyon, and Woolsey Canyon, and parts of Oak Park.

Another one is in a canyon (San Timoteo) between my hometown, Redlands, and the nearby Moreno Valley, in Riverside County. This one has 25% containment with full containment expected later today. Not to be panicky, since this is no where near as bad at the moment, but the smell in the air is rather unsettling after the huge fires two years ago.

Information on these and others can be gotten at the California Department of Forestry fire incidents website. And as always, the stellar LAFD blog has more. While you’re there, check out the info on the Firefighter Festival of Hollywood coming up this Saturday, coincidentally. I don’t know what if any effect the current emergency will have on the event.

Please post below if you have more information or just would like to talk about the news.

I’m not going to spend too much time on this because you will either be psyched as all get out or not give a rats ass but the news is that LA’s got Bootie! Bootie of course being a monthly Mash-Up / Bootleg party “spinning only the finest bootlegs and bastard pop.” Sounds like there will be CD’s with the tracks available as well which is sure to bring a tear to the RIAA’s eye. First one is tomorrow night at the Echo.[Thanks Xeni!]

Our infamous Santa Ana winds generally make things miserable around here and they can’t blow themselves out fast enough for me (and even moreseo for everyone in Chatsworth and Simi Valley), but for all the sinus passages they parch and tempers they flare they do have what I would consider a positive aspect as nature’s dustbuster. Have you noticed the visibility around the greater L.A. basin these last couple days? The air practically sparkles with an I-can-see-for-miles quality, and while in Burbank on Tuesday the late-afternoon sunlight playing upon the hillsides of the Verdugos brought them into a sharp focus seldom seen.

Anyone who has ever been questioned by “The Press” knows how infuriating it can be when they aren’t so much trying to get your statement, but need something to back up their own and if you don’t do that, well, they just make it sound like you did. The LA Times has been accused of this before, in fact there’s entire blogs on the subject, but reader Lance Ferm just posted on the message boards the complete rundown of how he was contacted by Times writer Jennifer Delson about street vendor licenses in Santa Ana vs those in Garden Grove and some issues they are causing. He’s posted several e-mails that he sent to her as well as the story she eventually wrote. Very interesting… check it out.

This Saturday, Jeff Electric Gallery in Silver Lake is hosting the release party and event for the Camera Club’s first book…continue reading

ï Eggs!

ï The Getty calls the LAT stealers…continue reading

Chatsworth, Porn Capital of the World, is once again on fire.

Can you believe this is the view out of my front freakin’ door?!

More photos that I took earlier tonight here and here.