November 2009 Archives

A recent Milken Institute report ranks the Los Angeles / Long Beach / Glendale metropolitan statistical area as the 139th "Best-Performing Cities 2009."

That's out of 200 areas listed.

The report further ranks L.A. 9th out of the ten largest metros, and places the region at #138 in job growth.

More

Taschen's new coffee table title, "Los Angeles: Portrait of a City," weights in at eight pounds and features content as strong, soaring, and memorable as the Muscle Beach acrobats on the book's hardcover.

Edited by the inimitable Jim Heimann, "Portrait" is 571 pages worth of photos and captions of the city since 1862 and it's metropolitan surroundings.

More

TTLA's blogger boarded an MTA Gold Line train earlier this week, part of a group taking in an advance tour of the six miles of track and eight new stations that make up the long-awaited "Eastside Extension."

TTLA's predictions: The bridge out of Union Station and over the 101 Freeway will be written about on this website; next year's Self-Help Graphics Dia De Los Muertos event at the East L.A. Civic Center will have 50,000 attendees; and the Extension will exceed ridership estimates, barring fare increases and a continuation of nonsensical inter-line ticketing policies.

More

Patt Morrison's current Asks L.A. Times Q&A features a chat with Sheila Schuller Coleman, the recently ordained pastor who is the co-head of her famous father Robert's Reformed Church in America, headquartered at the Crystal Cathedral.

Four years ago, TTLA's blogger spoke to a different Schuller daughter, Carol Schuller Milner. The subject? Creation, the new Cathedral pageant she was helming.

The resulting O.C. Weekly feature is here.

More

James Weekes was TTLA's longtime Berlin Bureau Chief. Now based stateside, Weekes e-mailed us his reflections on what's happened since the Fall of the Wall:

"Twenty years have now passed. The skin heads still roam much of the far eastern parts (just mention Marzahn to any foreigner), now joined by the more menacing Russlanddeutsche contigent who joined the scene thanks to the quirks of Germany's past (Catherine the Great, no less, played a role here). The heart of the city is now firmly in the hands of west Germans, who have transformed much of the derelict east into a vibrant, if somewhat generic, playground. And, after all those years of isolation, it is now even possible to seek refuge from the crushing uniformity of German gloom. New and innovative architecture is sprouting up around the city, unlike the path taken by Manhattan to create its very own Charlotte-on-the-Hudson. Some mistakes have been made, like the current attempt to relive past imperial glory in rebuilding the Stadtschloss on the site of East Germany's former parliament (itself built on the ruins of the Kaiser's former residence), but overall the city has done an admirable job.

More

Today, November 9, 2009, marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

RAND's website notes the occasion by showcasing a publication from the org's RAND Reprints series: "The Cold War, RAND, and the Generation of Knowledge, 1946-1962."

Written by David Hounshell, the volume tells of the think tank's early, Cold War days, prior to a subsequent branching out to working on social issues. The abstract and a free-of-charge download of Hounshell's work are each here.

More

A TTLA reader points out that, yeah, we noted Baseball's Think Tanks and Basketball's Think Tanks in two recent posts, but asks, "What about soccer?"

That was a rhetorical question, as it turns out, since the same reader notes the publication of Soccernomics, said to be a cross (not the kind you head in, far post low) between Freakonomics and Moneyball.

More

A grand dame of the Los Angeles performance art and avant theater scene is scheduled to be feted Saturday night, November 7, at "Rachel Rosenthal's Birthday Bash 83."

The fundraising happening will take place at Track 16 Gallery, in Bergamot Station. Ticket information is here.

The ever-conceptual Rosenthal famously retired from the stage a dozen or so years back, but continues to mentor emerging talent. Saturday's 'Bash' is to serve as the coming out for her new troupe, the TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theater Ensemble. (It's pronounced just like it's spelled, we figure.)

More

Planning on going to Little Tokyo or Sawtelle or your neighborhood convenience store tonight?

Thinking of ordering Unagi?

Or Hamachi?

Consider, then, the "Ocean Friendly Sushi" guide produced by the Blue Ocean Institute, an advocacy org founded by MacArthur winner Carl Safina and author Mercedes Lee.

More

The exhibition, "Otto Neurath. Gypsy Urbanism," opens this Tuesday, November 3, at the MAK Center in West Hollywood. The show runs through the end of January, 2010.

From the particularly interesting press release:

More