To all my busty sisters out there! Jenette Bras is having a HUGE sale this coming Friday. She’s calling it “Black Bra Friday” and you must go.

From 10am to 6pm everything black in the store is on sale – bras, panties, camis, slips, corsets, you name it. Discounts range from 20 to 40% off. If you have been waiting to buy some gorgeous support for your gorgeous rack, head on over to Jenette’s.  While others will be muscling through crowds to get the latest electronics, you will be shaping up nicely in a beautiful new bra, aided by the expert care of Jenette and her crew.

Gents! Don’t think you aren’t invited. If you have a lovely busty gal in your life, gift certificates are 20% this Friday as well.

Black Bra Friday
Jenette Bras
Friday, November 26
10am – 6pm

“Where the Alphabet Starts at D!”

Allow you me this story. Apparently I don’t search hard or well enough. When my 12-year-old favorite pair of sunglasses broke at the frame just above the nose piece in 2000 I did what I thought was my best to seek out a place to get them fixed. I failed. Every place from Lenscrafters to the jewelry repair guy my mom swore by said “nope,” in part because they were just a pair of off-the-shelf frames I’d purchased during a mostly senseless spree at Needless Markup back in the summer of Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Eight. The so-called experts would look at the glasses, look at me, and tell me either it wasn’t possible or occasionally they’d say how much they’d need to overcharge me to maybe make it possible.

Facing an amount that was more than the shades cost new, at one point I even bought a soldering gun and sat there with the thing in one hand and the spool of metal in the other trying to convince myself I could somehow immediately acquire the skills required for such pinpoint detail work. Wisely I put down the gun and stepped away from that fiasco-in-waiting before I could entirely fubar them. Instead, I put them away where they lived with a sliver of hope in a series of drawers.

Why? Well the broken glasses became somewhat representative. I won’t bore you any more than I already have with the details of their symbolism other than to say they cracked at a time when a lot of other things broke — most of them intangible stuff like relationships and dreams, but all of them pretty much beyond repair. Suffice it that Y2K may not have fucked up my personal computer but it wreaked havoc on my personal  life, and out of that annus horribillus these beloved glasses became one of the few things I could fix — or so I’d hoped. And hoped. And hoped.

And hoped. Fast-forward to this summer when it had been literally four or five years since I’d given the glasses a thought and Los Angeles magazine’s “Best of LA” issue arrived. Flipping through it I found a write-up extolling the miracle work done by a humble gent who goes by the name Paul Gross in his humble hole-in-the-wall on Wilson Avenue in the Jewel City and I thought my long-dormant prayers had been answered — except when I went hunting for the shades they weren’t a-n-y-w-h-e-r-e to be found and I became dejectedly sure it was because at some point a few years back I’d extinguished that flicker of hope kept burning for so long and pitched them in the trash.

Read the rest of this entry →

mouse pad

We B.la’ers contemplated a Halloween series this year–some kind of spooky or scary L.A. collection of posts focusing on our favorite fright factor in the city or some bone chilling experience we’ve had here. Sad fact: many of us (such as myself) were too busy trying to stay afloat in our (very scary) millennial economy to have time to devote to the series, and a notable number of the remaining B.la’ers didn’t really have a scary experience in the city to relate (and no, encounters with fake boobs or bad fashion do not count; we’d already established that).

Me, one of the things I love the most about L.A. is how very dark and yet simultaneously cheerful it is. Honestly, it’s that very sensibility that convinced me to move here in the first place. A little more than nine years ago I was visiting L.A.. I’d interviewed for a job here but I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to live in Los Angeles. My impressions of the city were largely negative, gleaned mostly from a prejudiced east coast crowd who criticized the city for not enough book stores and metro stops and too too many motivational speakers and girls in fuck-me heels. Women in D.C. wear Reeboks on their way to work, okay? So I came out here for a week to make my own determination and came to the conclusion “Yes, and?” otherwise known as “You say ‘fuck-me heels’ like that’s a bad thing.”

Minnaert's Trashy Lingerie from Wikimedia Commons

The turning point came on the day that Andrea, my bff who came out here with me to visit, dubbed “the sex and death tour of L.A.” We went to the Fredericks of Hollywood Lingerie Museum [now closed, so sorry readers], the Museum of Death [recently reopened, you'll be happy to hear], Trashy Lingerie on La Cienega, and Necromance on Melrose. These latter two stores we happened upon by accident, drawn in by the army of bunny eared teddy-clad mannequins in the window of the former and the desiccated animal carcasses, bird skeletons and foot binding shoes in the latter. Hurrah for fetishistic consumerism!

But the pièce de résistance of the tour was Skeletons in the Closet, the gift shop at the Coroner’s Office downtown. I had read about the store in Roadside America, but I didn’t really realize that the shop is actually *at* the Coroner’s Office, which is to say, you walk by a lobby of people waiting to identify remains on your way in to buy beach towels with chalk outlines on them and garment bags shaped like body bags.

Chuck "Caveman" Coker's picture used through a Creative Commons license

The shop itself is a bit ramshackle, occupying as it does, a left over office not so skillfully repurposed as the coroner’s emporium. The day we went, there were a handful of people. A couple of women seemingly on their break from their downtown jobs were doing a little gift shopping after lunch. There was an adorable teen-aged goth girl complete with a purple lined cape, swirly eyeliner and a dad who looked like he could be related to Tom Boswell. He had apparently given her a ride and was also funding the purchases. “Oh dad look,” she’d exclaim, “Souvenir toe tags! Can I get one dad?” “Sure honey,” he’d reply, “Go right ahead.” Coming from the east coast, I’d never actually seen a chipper goth kid before. She was all smiles. I was charmed. Even better, Teen Vampire had a doppelganger. A Hannah Montana type was there with her mother on an informational interview with the coroner’s investigator because that’s what Hannah wants to be when she grows up. “You never forget your first body,” the coroner’s investigator was saying. “I remember I had to identify the stomach contents: green beans and onions.” “Ew!” said Hannah, her mother and the Coroner in unison and all three wrinkled their noses.

It was without a doubt the most surreal and creepy vacation day I have ever had, beginning with the gallery of John Wayne Gacy clown paintings at the Museum of Death and ending with the purchase of souvenir insulated mugs that said “L.A. Coroner’s office. Stay cool!” on the side. I was in love. I moved here within the year.

I like to think of the zeitgeist here as “sunshine gothic.” Clearly, not everyone sees the city this way (or we’d have done that series for you), but from my perspective our happy decadence is one of our best qualities. This is the way the world ends–not with a bang but a party.

Spotted recently at a very crowded Costco parking lot, this SUV driver took up a whole space and more, making it impossible for someone to park in the adjacent spot.

Based on the advertising in lieu of a front license plate, this looks to be a new vehicle.  Does that give the driver the right to take up extra parking spots in this manner?  I must have missed the memo. Or maybe it’s the driver’s first big SUV, and he or she parked this way by accident and didn’t bother to check their parking job because they were too busy texting.  If so, hopefully shoppers wheeling their giant Costco shopping carts next to this vehicle won’t be similarly neglectful.

Just the few pairs that could make it to this morning's photo shoot. There are more....

I’m not sure if I saw “Blade Runner” first or went to LA Eyeworks first, but both left a profound impression on me.

My flesh crawling crowd loathing keeps me from witnessing what I’m certain can only be a Lucy-Show-esque spectacle (OUCH!) once or twice a year when they put Last Year’s Models on sale and let their mailing list have at them like a pack of ravenous wolves. Me, I prefer to shop in a much more civilized manner.

The price of such civilization? About $600 a pair, out the door with a progressive prescription installed and some ridiculous glasses case (one had a merkin, and another I continue to call “Elton John’s Coffin”).

Maybe you’re lucky and don’t need a prescription, so you get pretend glasses or sunglasses for just a few bucks over the frame price (which is still well over $300 most of the time). Worth every penny, says I, since I’m not the kind of person who loses or sits on glasses.

(Well there was that one time, and the LAE gods were smiling that day, because two years later They Had One Last Pair of the ones I lost – the red and pink sunglasses here.)

And although Mark Twain never shopped there, I’m sure he’d agree that any other optician vs. LAE might also be the difference between lightning and lightning bugs.

I’m a huge fan of their whole zipper tooth theme, and love the black sunglasses because they remind me of the top of Nancy’s head – not that anyone remembers Nancy any more, but still. And I do, dammit.

Will the stores still be standing when replicants come for their parents? Not sure. I’m loyal to the Beverly store, and I think Roy Batty shops on Melrose anyway.

All I know is I’m glad they’re here now.

This may be one of the few times in history where people say “good riddance!” to the gutting and rebuilding of a Frank Gehry building, and the architect himself agrees.  As Gehry explains in the fascinating documentary “Sketches of Frank Gehry,” the Santa Monica Place shopping mall was one of Gehry’s first commercial projects, and he hated it.  However, Gehry, who needed the gig, delivered what the client wanted.  When Gehry later complained to a colleague about the mall, his friend suggested that Gehry strike out on his own and design the kind of buildings that were true to his own vision.  And that’s exactly what Gehry did.

View to Third Street Promenade and Santa Monica Mountains

I don’t know what Frank Gehry thinks about the newly redesigned Santa Monica Place, but, after two visits there with out-of-town visitors during the past week, I’m thoroughly impressed.   Whereas the old mall was an unattractive appendage at the foot of the Third Street Promenade, the new mall is a natural extension.  Feminine in feel, it invites with rounded shapes and a dizzying yet tasteful array of sleek surfaces, such as wood, glass, and steel, that somehow fit together perfectly.  It draws visitors down a long straight corridor, then opens up into a beautiful curved open atrium.  Let’s face it — the new Place is sexy.

Gazebo-like dining booths are almost too nice for a mall

When I first starting walking around and photographing the new Santa Monica Place, I was struck by the high-quality materials and the variety of eateries on the top level.  These eateries include the prettiest glass-walled food court I have seen, the Sonoma Wine Garden (we ate there twice last week, sitting outside on sofas overlooking their herb garden — delicious), Pizza Antica, Ozumo Japanese cuisine, and more. Then I was drawn to the view of the Ocean and the Ferris wheel at the Pier that can be seen from the west end.  But within minutes, I became captivated by the amount of seating spaces and how well they were being used.

Inside the food court

The Place is now a a fabulous public space.  Its circular design draws people inside and lets them look at and relate to each other.  Interesting, organically shaped seating fosters both interaction and individual contemplation.  One chap told me that he was receiving a clear free WiFi signal, and, indeed, a number of people on laptops were peppered among the three levels.

View from west (2nd Street) side. Top of Pier Ferris wheel visible between the flowers.

Suddenly, everything else feels old.  When my visitors and I went to the similarly open-air Century City shopping mall a couple of days later, I was struck by how outdated and claustrophobic its winding walkways felt in comparison.  Likewise, the straight shot of the Promenade suddenly seems utterly conventional.

I’m not a shopper, but I can report that Santa Monica Place is anchored by Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom, as well as a huge Nike store.  I was told by reliable authorities (i.e., a couple of women I know who are black belt shoppers) that the selections in these anchor stores are aimed at a younger, hipper crowd than those at some of their other locations.  In addition, posh boutiques such as Michael Kors, Louis Vuitton, and Tiffany and Co. are present.  The stores and their display windows are beautiful.

What do they say in the real estate biz about location? It’s difficult to imagine a better one for Santa Monica Place.  In the new topless version, the sunlight abounds, the sea breeze keeps customers cool, and the area is of course a magnet for both tourists and locals.  Parking also seems to be adequate, both at the Place and at the nearby municipal parking decks on 2nd and 4th streets, at least one of which is just a few steps across Broadway.  There are nearby bus stops, and, if things go as planned, the terminus of the new Expo rail line will be just across Colorado Avenue.  I wonder whether the Place will draw tourist dollars away from the Promenade,  or even from other upscale shopping destinations, such as Beverly Hills.  My guess is that the Place’s eateries will teem with both tourists and local businesspeople, but that, until the economy turns around substantially, most of those upscale stores won’t ring up too many sales.

Criticisms? The only one I can muster is that the middle level, blocked from above, suffers from too little sunlight.  But when you reap so many of Mother Nature’s benefits, you have to take the bad with the good.  Perhaps a few skylights would solve the problem.

Now, I know that, as successful public spaces go, Santa Monica Place is just a shopping mall.  It’s not a park.  It’s not the Piazza Navona.  But check back with with me and Frank Gehry in two or three hundred years, and we’ll see.

Rodeo Drive is one of those immediately recognizable L.A. locations that is used in every other film or television establishing shot once our fair hero arrives in SoCal, and is on every tourist’s agenda. It’s where Julia Roberts got a makeover in Pretty Woman, and was one of the backdrops for the drama of the kids of “Beverly Hills, 90210″ (is it weird I can’t think of another legitimate reference not from the 90′s?). It’s the face of the entire city of Beverly Hills, especially considering you’re probably not cool enough to get into so much of the rest of the town’s more scenic areas, hidden behind private gates.

But of course it’s more than just a street, or a particular strip of high-end stores. It’s a neighborhood filled with palm trees, small art galleries and contemporary architecture; a meeting place for locals on their lunch break. During a weekend afternoon the sidewalks overflow with those who just want to say they’ve been there and barely enter a single store. On a weekday night it nearly empties out entirely, with many stores closing at 5 or 6, creating a modern ghost town, with only a lit-up semi-bustling restaurant every block or two to remind you that yes, people do live around here, too.

Rodeo Drive's pedestrian walkway - from Picasa user Aurélien Boffy

I’ll admit, I’m decidedly low-brow in my consumption of local hot spots, and have never bought anything there besides cupcakes (lots and lots of cupcakes). It’s one of the few  tourist venues I know of that has surprisingly ample free parking, but I always take the 720 bus anyhow. There isn’t much history to be found here (aside from a couple of the old hotels now under new names and a few shops, much of the Rodeo Drive shopping center as we know it came to be in the 70′s). But it’s a highly walkable neighborhood to bring visiting friends to on bright, sunny afternoons – those afternoons where the streets are flooded with people, gawking and shopping, from all walks of life and all parts of the world, making up a little microcosm of multicultural Los Angeles itself.

Check out the rest of the L.A.’s Greatest Landmarks series here.

HarshLight's HiHo photo used through Creative Commons License

It bears mentioning that Hollywood and Highland, the garish retail/ hotel/ entertainment complex on the eponymous HiHo corner, is the only landmark we b.la-ers argued about in developing a list of what to cover for this series–well, Rob and I argued about it anyway. Rob thought it was an upstart piece of the landscape, only opened in 2001, not seasoned enough to call itself a real landmark and living parasitically [I am putting words in Rob's mouth, but this was the gist] off the bodies of Grauman’s Chinese and the Kodak. I myself love HiHo because it’s so vulgar it makes an art form out of grotesque. To me, it’s only too fitting that a mall so pretentious as to model itself after DW Griffith’s vision of Babylon, should emerge like the monster in Alien out of the stomach of old Hollywood. Is nothing sacred? Well, no, in fact, nothing is. Next question?

DW Griffith's Babylon set for Intolerance

First and foremost, there’s the architecture. Oh, the architecture! Really every time I drive down Highland into Hollywood and that neo-retro Egyptian/Babylon arch rises in front of me like a freaking spaceship of stage-set excess it makes me smile. The elephants! The columns! And to design the entire thing after a movie set in Babylon that cost about two million in 1917 dollars–such an expensive disaster it caused Griffith’s studios to go bankrupt–a movie about worship of false idols, no less! That’s inspired, people, truly. Anyone who criticizes LA for shallowness fundamentally does not understand the complexity of our shallowness. HiHo is a palimpsest text with so many layers of shallowness it’s got its own depth. And yes, it did win Curbed LA‘s ugliest LA building award in 2007. Hurrah! Even better, it cost $615 million to make and it was sold three years later for $200 million. When we do white elephant in LA, we do it big.

The three things you need to know about HiHo, in my opinion, are: 1. You can park there for 4 hours for $2 with validation (and $10 all day & night). 2. There is no better place to cultivate your disdain. Hootchie skirts, affliction shirts, and–yes still–Uggs abound. 3. There is a Beard Papa there, which is to say, you can have awesome cream puffs while you scorn everyone. Intolerance? You said it.

Santa Monica Place, reconstructed.

Remember Santa Monica Place?  Up until now, it was an ’80s-era indoor mall used in various films (most notably in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Terminator 2 (where the Governator and John Doggett get into the first of many fisticuffs)) but overlooked by almost everyone else in favor of Third Street Promenade and its merry band of street performers.  It shut down in early 2008 for a massive renovation to, you know, catch up with this decade.  This Friday, the mall sheds the shoulder pads and other relics of the Decade of Excess, takes a page or two from the outdoor Century City Mall and The Grove, and adopts an open-air policy.  To celebrate its grand opening, the first 500 people in line at 3rd and Broadway, waiting eagerly for the (out)doors to open, will receive gift cards ranging from $5 to $100. The cards will be handed out between 7:30am (!) and 9:30am.  Not to be outdone, the Disney Store also will be giving out its own version of happiness: Mickey ears to the first 500 guests.  If you have the time and the inclination, free gift card money and Mickey ears are awfully hard to turn down.  The full list of stores to spend your winnings can be found here.

I’m actually not much of a shopper, so quite possibly the best part for me is The Market, which is intended to rival the artisan marketplace at The Ferry Building in San Francisco.  But, unfortunately, The Market doesn’t open until later this year (or even early next year!  Womp womp).  For now, I am more than happy to settle with the Second Best Part: every Friday between 5 and 7pm from now through September, KCRW DJs will provide a little background beat on the mall’s rooftop dining patio (the Dining Deck).  Several of the six main restaurants anchoring the Deck will provide appropriate happy hour nosh and libations.  I’m hoping that Bay Area import Pizza Antica will have some great pizza-and-beer specials.  On Deck for the first SunSets series is the station’s Music Director and Morning Becomes Eclectic host Jason Bentley.

Have we gone from the Decade of Excess to the Decade of Recession But At Least We’re Outside?  Maybe – but at least we got rid of those shoulder pads.

“Santa Monica Place, a work in progress” photo courtesy LA Wad via the Blogging LA Flickr pool.

I was at a westside Bed Bath and Beyond* today and noticed many moms with their college aged sons or daughters. There was much buying of twin sized bedding, laundry hampers and shower caddies. Over the weekend a friend posted about where to buy school supplies in Culver City and it brought back a touch of affectionate nostalgia. (Of course back in the day, the phrase “Back To School” mostly brought on panicky feelings of “NOOOOOOOO! NOT YET!”)

I grew up in a small town and Back to School shopping meant the one drugstore for school supplies and the one local department store (no longer in business) for clothes. I didn’t get to LA until 1985 so I was trying to imagine LA in the late 60′s, 70′s and early 80′s, back before Super Targets and BB&B, and Office Depot and Old Navy and wondered where you Angelenos bought your school supplies back then. Was Target the original place to go? Were there special clothing stores in your neighborhood you always went back to as you grew taller?  Were there type specific stores (the valley chicks, surfer dudes, etc) that people went to? Places you wouldn’t be caught dead? Before mega mall and chain stores took over, where did your Pee-Chee and loose-leaf binders come from? What was your favorite back to school outfit? Worst?

Share please! I want to get an image of Old Skool Back To Schoool in Los Angeles!

*Also affectionately known as Bloodbath and Beyond, Bed Bath and Beyotch, etc.

“If you live in a city, it’s your home.  You should be proud of that.”

– Sonja Rasula, on connecting the dots from the big world of Los Angeles to your backyard

Not too toot our own horn, but there is something to the idea that grounds our little almost-didn’t-make-it blogging network known as Metblogs: that you, as a netizen, have a resource other than the big guys for information, news,  and commentary about what’s going on in your block.  Because, ultimately what goes down at your corner store is a microcosm of what goes on in your neighborhood, your side of town, your city; if you work on improving your little corner of the world, you help improve all four corners of the world.  This hyperlocality of action parallels what Sonja Rasula is doing, one event (Unique LA) and food festival (next week’s Street Food Fest) at a time.

I met Sonja for the first time at this spring’s Unique LA, an event where some 300 (mostly) local designers and crafty people brought their, yes, unique items to sell in a giant room at the California Market Center downtown.  Keeping up with Sonja is an exercise in – well, exercise.  I caught her somewhere between managing her volunteer staff of 9 and trying to get a bite to eat.  After pausing to resolve a situation with the tote bags (the $10 admission price to the event included a free tote bag designed by a local artist), we headed over to grab a bite at the Flying Pig’s stand — but not before Sonja stopped by the booth of a vendor named Homako.  Homako is a petite Japanese woman based here in LA; her Etsy store contains her mission statement:  “To create stuff to make me so Happy..  I want my friends(=my creations) to make you happy too!!!!!!!”  Aw.  She was so bubbly and excited by all the people – not just Sonja, but others as well – who ooh’ed and ah’ed at her where-did-you-get-it origami necklaces that you just couldn’t help feel peppy too.  Sonja picked up a necklace.  “If I don’t buy this now, I’m never going to get to it,” she said.

Sonja, sporting Homako's origami necklace, talks to Joe Kim of the Flying Pig truck. The Flying Pig's "tacos" are wrapped in a steamed bao bun - delicious.

Unique LA is a now bi-annual event, one in the spring and one in the winter, right before Christmas.  For the $10 admission fee, participants got free booze, the nifty tote bag designed especially for the event, and the opportunity to shop at the vendors handpicked, by Sonja, to set up temporary shop at Unique LA.  For those of you (me) who hate shopping precisely because your taste is buds only with food and not style, Sonja did the legwork for you.  It’s easy to take it from here.

Saba Horuni is super excited about the dinosaur purse she picked up at Unique LA. If anyone knows who made the purse, email me so I can give them proper credit!

“Buy local” is a such an oft-repeated mantra that it almost – almost – is devoid of the reasons behind the thought.  The only remnant of the phrase left is the connotation of expense – that, because of the economies of scale, buying locally-produced products is generally more expensive than, say, going to Target.  Nonetheless, over 12,000 people attended Unique LA; in total, Sonja estimated that $500,000 was injected into the local economy as a byproduct of the two-day event.  (Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, for all his pride about various national events held in LA and contributing to the local economy, remained conspicuously silent – guess he can’t catch every half million dollar event that happens under his nose.).

The sight of Angelenos – me, you, our neighbors, their mothers- paying the admission price and buying at Unique LA, in a recession no less, was a bit of surprise to me.

Not entirely for Sonja.  “The challenge, actually, is getting more people to come” to Unique LA and to “understand why you should buy local,” she said.  She credits her “incredible” street team and certain wry social media strategies for the turnout at Unique LA (but otherwise stayed mum on the specifics of her techniques – the details are Coca-Cola-trade-secret tight), but notes that she still “wants to reach beyond the hipsters and young people.”  Sonja appreciates good design, wants others to appreciate it as well and not settle for less – even if it means paying a little more.

In addition to shopping, Unique LA offered everyone the chance to learn a thing or two about the lost art of sewing.

She hopes that once we recognize that local artists produce unique things that you can not find at your neighborhood Third Street Promenade, a change in mindset from a passive to more active buyer will naturally follow.  She raised the fact that guests often visit LA and end up at Third Street.  “That’s so funny,” she said.  “You can find most of those stores anywhere.”  Instead, “I want to have a mall comprised of local vendors” so that the visiting New Yorker can have something a little more LA than shirt from BCBG.  And vice versa – Sonja has planned a Unique event for NYC (and Atlanta), so if we happen to visit the Big Apple during Unique NYC, we can take home something a little more New York than a “I Heart NYC” mug created specifically to boost tourism.

It’s easy to write off Unique LA as a cute two-day affair for hipsters, and nothing more.  It’s more thought provoking – and a little scary for corporations, and the publications and governments they sponsor – to take it seriously as a step towards modifying our shopping habits (again, all of our shopping habits, not just those of 20somethings with Clark Kent glasses and skinny jeans) that travels beyond the walls of the California Market Center.  Now, instead of only Target and Wal-Mart on our list of places to go for, say, stationary, we’ll consider Rock Scissor Paper as well.  Shopping with that mentality of choice is the first step towards fully taking advantage of the wonders of capitalism.

In this market of choice, price is only a factor.  Sonja is convinced that once people attend Unique LA, they will appreciate the quality and uniqueness of our locally made products and have little qualms about shelling out a little extra for the cost of ownership.  In turn, the dollars, earned and spent at the local level, will help support local infrastructures, like schools and public parks.  Seeing the state of these infrastructures will motivate us to do things like vote in local elections; after all, as Sonja pointed out, we are most directly and immediately affected by the problems and solutions addressed in the local elections.  This is the urban circle of life.  It is this circle that is the reason why buying local is so important as to almost be a political act itself.  If Simba figured out how to fulfill his role in the jungle, so can we.

Good luck finding this tote at your local Wal-Mart.

That we include the local designers on our shortlist of places to buy is the least we can do.  After all, their designs are lifted, sometimes blatantly, from the big guys.  Urban Outfitters, for example, strains very hard to duplicate and commoditize a certain street look, popularized by designers actually living in those streets.  Indeed, at least one blog tracks instances where retailers brazenly rip off other designers’ work.  Supporting your local designer, in a way, helps support your local Urban as well.  Irony, she’s rich.  Almost as rich as Urban.

Sonja is clear about not hating (too much) on the big guys, however.  There should be room for everyone: “Sometimes, you just really need a plain black leotard from the Gap,” she laughs.  At some point, she would like to help retailers enlist local designers and launch local lines within their brands.  With supermarkets of all places now heralding locally-sourced fruits and veggies, it is not at all unfathomable that the Gap or J Crew’s Madewell would roll out a line from (and appropriately credited to) a local designer.

All politics is local (RIP Tip O’Neill). The urban circle of life is something Sonja has been contemplating for quite some time.  Having spent a significant amount of time in Canada, “making sure your neighbors are taken care of” simply was part of the community mindset.  Taking that ethos with her when she moved to LA, she became heavily involved in the Youth Progressive Majority, encouraging young voters to learn the issues and, um, vote.

Sonja mindfully uses her events to “give back” to local non-profits.  Some proceeds from the spring Unique LA event, for example, were donated to Greenwish (which helps raise funds and awareness for green businesses), and a portion of each ticket sold for the upcoming LA Street Food Fest will benefit St. Vincent Meals on Wheels and Woolly School Gardens.

Supporting your local artist is less of a problem, it seems, when your local artist happens to be creating food. The last five years or so has seen this city come to its own in terms of food.  Among other causes, blame/credit gentrification, the rise of celebrity chefs, and a young demographic with an appetite for taste beyond the scene.  Late last year, just as the whole food truck thing was reaching its pinnacle, Sonja organized the city’s first major gathering of food trucks downtown.

By most accounts – including Sonja’s – the February event did not go well.  Scheduled to start at 10am, the fire marshal’s inspection caused undue delay.  Meanwhile, countless people descended upon the lot; pretty soon, the line (and the parking) snaked so far down 6th street that it was reminiscent of the early, two-hour-in-line days of the Kogi truck.  When the festival finally did open, the grounds quickly became overcrowded.  The lines at each food truck were enormous, hours-long even.  Hungry masses went crankily from one line to another.

Tickets to July 24th's Street Food Festival are pre-sale only, so that this ^^^ doesn't happen again.

Sonja strikes me as the type of person who, if she arrived 15 minutes late one day, would show up 15 minutes early the next.  And so, after apologizing in the face of the backlash and anger over the event, she and Shawna Dawson organized a second LA Street Food Fest, slated for next Saturday evening, July 24th, at the Rose Bowl.  There is a little hesitation about the second go-around of the food fest, given the problems of the first (indeed, a few food vendors told me they declined to participate precisely because of how the first was executed).

Crossing my fingers that Antojitos Carmen will have quesadillas. Above, a quesadilla de flor de calabaza - quesadilla stuffed to the gills with squash blossoms - on a recent trip to the storefront in Boyle Heights

Yet, to give them both credit, Sonja and Shawna learned a-plenty from their first go and upgraded accordingly.  Unlike version 1.0, there will be no giant lines spilling over into the huge parking lot that subs as a flea market every month.  Rather, version 2.0 caps the capacity, and makes tickets available only via pre-sale.  In addition, the pay-as-you-go format has been dropped in favor of a one-time admission fee of $45.  This seems a little steep at first, but you do get your money’s worth: liberty to sample all you can sample at each of the 60 participating food vendors and to drink all you can imbibe.  Just remember that no one likes an overly drunken foodie (no one).

The little boy, and little girl in me, watched eagerly as batter is poured for Fry Girl's Metblogs award-winning mini-donuts.

In addition, the event will bring together both new skool (i.e., Filipino food truck Manila Machine and Fry Girl, who won TWO awards at our First Annual Donut Summit last month!) and old skool (Tamales Elana from Watts and former Breed Street vendor Antojitos Carmen (<– if she has them, you absolutely must – must – pick up a few fried quesadillas)).  There also will be a cook-off, so you can watch all sorts of one-chefmanship take place.  And, finally, because eating and a competition about eating are not entertainment enough, The Deadly Syndrome and Warpaint will be jamming as the summer night falls.  All this on the grasses where Reggie Bush pushed Matt Leinart and where a stunned audience witnessed future Pro Bowler Vince Young handily hand the Trojans their asses.

Regardless of the struggles of the first food event, and how well this second improves on the first, the idea of the food truck powwow undoubtedly will endure.  America at the Brand, for example, organized two Street Feasts in March and June of this year, with stores in the outdoor mall running specials and discounts.  Similar events at other retail shopping courtyards followed.  While I’m personally happy to see local food trucks getting the business, it’s a little … disingenuous? insidious? genius? to use them as the worm to hook people in to spend at the retail mall.  Riffing from local ideas, it seems, is not limited to design (oh, right, who can forget Baja Fresh’s ridiculous attempt to put “Baja Kogi” tacos and burritos on its menu?).

Unlike other cities (Sonja points to Austin and Portland), we here in LA are still in the nascent stages of recognizing that we even have a local culture to support.  Also, we sometimes shoot ourselves in the foot: as she organized Unique LA and her food fests, Sonja learned that the climate in Los Angeles is “hyper-competitive.”  I guess the fact that a celebrity very realistically may wander into your store and pick up your ware to wear makes for a hypercompetitive market.  But that competition is giving way to mutual respect.  Sonja was pleasantly surprised when she learned that vendors picked to set up shop at Unique LA actively encouraged their patrons to attend the fair.  “[T]hese vendors were encouraging their customers to possibly shop with their competitors.  And they were ok with that.”  Similarly, participating food vendors are actively encouraging their followers to attend next week’s Food Fest.  And so, everyone wins.  See?  A little community building never hurt anyone.  We should be proud of us.

The LA Street Food Fest is on Saturday, July 24th, 5:30pm to 9:00pm, at the Rose Bowl.  General admission tickets are $45, which includes unlimited eats and drinks, parking, and entertainment by The Deadly Syndrome and Warpaint.  VIP tickets are $60, which gets your car a little closer to the stadium and you in a little earlier into the Fest. Tickets are pre-sale only, so get them while they last.  And, mark your calendars: the holiday edition of Unique LA is scheduled for December 11 and 12 at the California Market Center downtown.  Think of it as a way to avoid those nasty post-Halloween crowds.

Michael Stahl's Helms photo used through Creative Commons license

Get dad a sharkskin suit or a vintage tie for Father’s Day–head to the Helms Bakery building for what sounds like a damned cool event. Billed as “part ‘Pop-Up Shop,’ part vintage expo, part art opening,” this one day event should be good shopping and people watching. If you’ve ever been to the clothing and textile show in Burbank, you know that there promise to be plenty of Rockabilly and Bettys at the Helms Saturday.  I met the event organizer, Dave from Clever Vintage Clothing, at a Hidden LA meet-up and then I saw him at the Burbank show, and I can tell you the man will find you what you’re looking for. If you’ve got a vintage itch, he’ll help you scratch it. For this event, he’s gathered 12 of his favorite dealers.

The details:
Saturday, June 19, 2010
10:00am – 4:00pm
At the LightSpace Studio at the Historic Helm’s Bakery Building
8755 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA

grooverama's Taschen photo used through Creative Commons

I had the paradigmatic blogger moral struggle about this post: do I do my duty as a Metblogger and let you all know about the Taschen sale or do I keep mum and save all the best buys for myself? In the end, my love for you, my fellow Angelenos, won out. I am letting the cat out of the bargain bag.

This weekend there is a giant sale (50-75% off) on display copies and slightly banged up books at all Taschen stores. Taschen, for those of you who are unfamiliar, publishes lovely, delicious books that are almost as much fun to hold in your hands as they are to read. Recent publications include books on David LaChapelle, big butts, Burton Holmes’ turn of the century travel photos, and Philippe Starck. I have no idea what in particular will be on sale, but it’s hard to go wrong in a Taschen store. Details after the jump.

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Yes, I snagged this from Google Streetview.

Please accept my apologies, Dear Readers: I had meant to post about this sale over the weekend, but holiday festivities got in the way. But one of the best used bookstores in LA County — if not the best — is having a storewide sale that lasts through today and tomorrow.

Brand Bookshop, at 231 Brand Boulevard in Glendale, is offering a 30 percent discount on every book in the store. What’s more: They won’t charge you any sales tax. The sale ends at 9 PM tomorrow night.

For me, Brand is one of the most important bookstores in the area – not only because of its ridiculously huge speculative-fiction section, but because it’s both an independent bookseller and a seller of used books. Not only are used books cheaper (I paid about a buck-fifty apiece for Philip Jose Farmer’s entire World of Tiers series, complete with the kinds of awesome covers you just don’t see anymore), but they’re more environmentally friendly.

But I think there’s a greater ethic at work here as well. Down the street from Brand (and its counterpart, the wonderfully named Mystery and Imagination Bookshop) is a Border’s Books and Music. The employees at Border’s are uniformly friendly and responsive (I only shop there when Border’s sends me a coupon, and then only when the coupon is for 40 percent off or more, and even then I only buy one book. I’m not made of stone.), but the overall mindset of Border’s seems to be: Here’s your fuckin’ book. Now buy something else or go away. Books are lazily categorized; I’ve seen mystery and fantasy shoved together, and the science fiction section (which consists largely of Star Wars novels and, mysteriously, dozens and dozens of Dresden Files books) is relegated to a space near the bathrooms and the children’s books, as if to tell SF readers exactly how pathetic their literary inclinations are. At the Brand Bookshop, I feel like I’m respected as a reader.

So: Block a couple of hours from your nightly schedule and head to the Brand. And plan on spending a lot of time browsing.

Back when I lived in Philadelphia, my home was near a Pathmark supermarket that was in turn right across the street from a low-income housing project. I hated shopping there, because the prices were so ridiculously high — almost as though Pathmark knew that, right across Frankford Avenue, was a fairly captive audience of poor people without cars. The principle of the thing bugged me enough without having to pay three bucks for a half gallon of non-organic milk (this was in the early 90s) because I was in a hurry.

The LA City Attorney’s office isn’t accusing Ralph’s of price gouging per se, but the supermarket chain is on the business end of an overcharging accusation, charged by the city attorney with dozens of criminal counts of overcharging on things like salads and fish. I do a lot of shopping at Ralph’s, because I live within walking distance of one, but it’s not without its problems. For instance: My Ralph’s only ever has two checkout lanes open at any given time, which often forces me to use the self-checkout devices, which keep alerting the Ralph’s staff that I might be trying to steal something. But overcharging? Not really in my experience.

What about you? Are you surprised by the allegations? Do you suspect that your supermarket might be putting a bloated corporate thumb on the scale? Are you one of those sanctimonious types who tut-tuts at those of us who shop at the big-box stores? Or do you refuse to eat anything that isn’t partially hydrogenated and flash-frozen? Satisfy my curiosity, readers.