RESOURCE – The Los Angeles Heritage Portal
As someone whose family arrived here over a century ago, I’m all about showing the world that Los Angeles is indeed a place filled with history and culture. And now I’m thrilled to see that ExperienceLA.com and the Los Angeles Heritage Alliance (LAHA) have just joined forces to created a fantastic resource that will make that task a lot easier!!!
I hereby introduce you to: The Los Angeles Heritage Portal!
“…it’s sometimes easy to take for granted the deep history and heritage of L.A. – history that is still alive today. This is why ExperienceLA.com, along with our partners at the Los Angeles Heritage Alliance (LAHA), are excited to announce the new L.A. Heritage Portal. At this portal, you’ll be able to find in one location all the events taking place year-round throughout L.A. County (as well as other parts of the SoCal region) that celebrate over 250 years of history and culture. You can find everything from re-enactments, to exhibitions, to walking tours, to historic food tastings, architecture and lots more. It is our hope that through this portal, history fanatics, visitors, and all residents of L.A. County can discover (or re-discover) and come to appreciate our past, and the many groups dedicated to preserving it for future generations.” (SOURCE)
AWESOME SAUCE!!!
VIDEO – Kitsch in Los Angeles
Famed songwriter and multimedia artist Allee Willis sure loves our local kitsch!
And if anyone is an expert on kitsch, it’s gonna be Allee… she owns a museum full of it! :)
WEB – Angelyne 101, via Metafilter
The first time you have a flesh and blood Angelyne sighting in the real world, it’s hard not to freeze and feel like you’re getting a glimpse of Bigfoot. Wow. She exists. And wow. She’s aging just like the rest of the world. And yet… inevitably she’s still standing near a pink Corvette. She’s still wearing tight pink clothing and heels. She may be the age of your grandmother, but she still has pink eyeshadow and big hair and seems to wear her sunglasses day and night. Say what you want about Angelyne, she’s one of the most consistent things in the entire landscape of Los Angeles and God bless her for that. Creepy though she may be to look at up close.
Don’t know who I’m talking about? Well, there was a huge post about her on Metafilter yesterday so check it out, it’ll tell you more than you ever needed to know. And if you think you *do* know who I’m talking about then take Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!‘s “How Well Do You Know Angelyne?” quiz and see how you do.
HALLOWEEN – CreepyLA.com
Looking for some local spookiness to celebrate? Creepy LA is your best guide to all things Halloween in Los Angeles. Period!
The site is filled with cool stuff and features haunting events and new content year-round, not just for two weeks in October (including a map of Haunted Los Angeles!), so check it out! FYI, since this is CreepyLA‘s busy season, the server may be slow. Just try again later. It’s the right address.
RESOURCE – Walking in LA
First off, will people ever stop quoting this song? Yeah, it was catchy. But Dear World, please take a second to LOOK AT THE PEOPLE IN THIS VIDEO. They wore clothing made out of tinfoil, for Chrissakes! (And while we’re at it… what was with the blackjack dealer visor?) Seriously, Dale Bozzio in the 80′s doesn’t exactly represent today’s average Angeleno and their pedestrian habits.
People DO walk here. There are great walking maps all over the web to prove it. And if you’re a fan of foot traffic, here’s a handy web tool: Walk Score. The site claims “Almost every city has walkable neighborhoods where it’s possible to live a car-lite lifestyle,” and as walking goes we actually have better weather and more to do than most places.
According to Walk Score, only 16% of Angelenos live in totally car-dependent neighborhoods, which are mainly residentially-locked places like Bel Air and Pacific Palisades. Walk Score‘s list of LA’s most walkable neighborhood is here, but you can plug in any address and the site will grade it based upon what’s within walking distance. Categories listed are: Grocery Stores, Restaurants, Coffee Shops, Bars, Movie Theaters, Schools, Parks, Libraries, Bookstores, Fitnes, Drug Stores, Hardware Stores and Clothing and Music. It actually listed things in my neighborhood I was totally oblivious to. Try it out… and from now on, if you are one of those people who “never walks in LA,” don’t blame it on some old song. Just admit that you’re either lazy or have simply forgotten how to relax enough to stop being in a hurry to get everywhere.
Oh, and one more thing… if you’re wearing clothing made out of tinfoil? For all concerned it’s probably best to continue to remain indoors if you don’t mind. Well, unless you’re wearing this… because of course that makes total sense.
GAME – The LA Phil? There’s an app for that!
In an effort to bring some lighthearted fun to the symphony’s image, The LA Philharmonic has taken a cue from the popularity of Guitar Hero and Rock Band… and created their own simple online game and iphone application! Bravo!
TEST OUT YOUR CONDUCTING SKILLS HERE.
FEED – Linkalicious Friday
(More added as we feel the urge…)
» A review of Octomom! The Musical. – losanjealous
» The food truck war continues. – LAist
» The LAPD needs your help in identifying three robbery suspects caught on video. – LAist
» Can Russ Stanton turn around the LA Times? – Market Watch
» This is the closing weekend for ANIME! High Art – Pop Culture (FREE) at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, FYI.
» Lit Happy Hour: FREE WINE and 25% off regular price titles at Book Soup every weekday from 4-7pm! – Flavorpill
» Right next to the Hollywood Farmers Market this Sunday, UniqueLA + Space 15 Twenty will be holding an awesome little mini-market of handmade and designy stuff! YAY! – UniqueLA
» Also on Sunday, competitive eaters including champion Joey Chestnut will choose not to compete in the 3rd Annual Nisei Week Gyoza Eating Championship in Little Tokyo, instead walking that food a few blocks South to feed the people starving on Skid Row. HA!!! JUST KIDDING!!! A bunch of gluttons are going to eat until they puke, just like last year. – LA Metblogs
FANCY NEW EVENT LISTINGS!
All last week I was racking my poor little head brainstorming how to list upcoming Los Angeles events in a way that would be easy to maintain for me and as useful and user-friendly as possible for you.
Speaking for myself, sometimes time flies by too fast… I see so many great events online that I really want to check out and promptly forget about until the day after they’re over. Or there will be a repeat event and I’ll forget whether it’s the third or the fourth Wednesday. Or I’ll have a night free and toy with the idea of doing a google search to find out what’s happening outside of my apartment but out of laziness will just end up just sitting in front of the tv watching reruns of Monk I’ve already seen instead.
So with my own lameness/laziness in mind, I think I’ve come up with a great solution that makes HiddenLA’s Event Listing easy, convenient and more inspiring to use. You’ll have to let me know what you think. I’m pretty happy with it. Check out a full explanation of the cool new interactive features after the jump.
Just one little request… if you appreciate the resource I’ve created for you, it would rock my world if you would please take a moment to throw a coupla bucks into my Ginger Cocktail Fund so I can go out tonight and toast myself for workin’ my butt off trying to create something you’d like. ‘Cuz I really did! :)
RESOURCE – Crime Maps
Feel like taking a stroll around the block in your finest diamonds but curious about the safety of your neighborhood? While I wouldn’t exactly recommend it as the definitive source, if you plug your address into the LAPD Crime Maps interface, you’ll see an interesting view of some of the stuff that went down in your hood over the last week. Diamond heists generally included.
EveryBlock is another site that’s possibly more thorough, although it seems to work better when you list an intersection instead of an exact address.
RESOURCE – Movie Locations Galore
After the jump are links to some of the best web resources identifying movie locations.
As I’ve mentioned before, my first inspiration to explore L.A. was an old film. Love it or hate it, the entertainment business is what Los Angeles is famous for worldwide. Residents here are surrounded by familiar, comfortable* images whenever we drive down the street, whether we recognize them or not. You may easily be surprised to find that you’ve been driving past iconic buildings on your way to the grocery store without even realizing it. Funny thing is… there are people who will travel across the world just to see these buildings that we pass by without a thought. Most movie locations are free to discover, so instead of sitting home & watching stuff on tv this weekend why not have an adventure and explore the sights in person?
“It’s only a matter of time before local film and TV buffs experience a sense of déjà vu around Los Angeles. That place looks familiar. Did you see it on the way home from work, or when you checked in with your favorite characters? Could be both. Most productions not filmed on studio lots are shot within the 30-mile zone from Beverly and La Cienega boulevards, with some locations more popular than others. (more…)
TIP – Best Driving Shortcuts
If you’re traveling to LAX any time soon, the Trip Films video below might be a lifesaver for you, so check it out.
There are also many more great driving tips to be found at MyTrafficShortcuts.com (11/09 UPDATE: WHOOPS. LOOKS LIKE THE SITE IS DOWN)… not just to help you get around Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, but also if you find yourself stuck in that pesky bumper to bumper gridlock from Sharjah to Dubai. Because wow, that’s a bear, ya know what I mean? (Nah, I’ve never been there either.)
Have your own shortcuts? Leave them in the comments… we want to know too!!!
WEB – In SRO Land
Each spring, L.A.’s popular time-travel blog 1947project reinvents itself. For the first three years, it followed a chronological crime-a-day format by painstakingly scouring newspapers for incredible forgotten tales of crime and infamy from particular years (1947, 1927 and 1907 were all featured). Then the On Bunker Hill blog which followed was “a house-by-house survey of the great old downtown residential neighborhood that was demolished to create the high rise district that shares its name, but none of its charms.” The contributors – including authors, librarians, bloggers, psychologists, film scholars, art historians, artists and tour guides – dug deep into historic archives to uncover fascinating tales of more than a century of life on old Bunker Hill.
Well, the latest incarnation of Kim Cooper‘s baby has officially been born as of today, and it’s got a name: In SRO Land: lost lore of the Historic Core. The blog’s contributors are an eclectic mix of prominent social historians and journalists who will “explore the forgotten history of Downtown LA, up the grand entertainment boulevard of Broadway (where SRO means “Standing Room Only”) and down the mean streets of Main (where SRO stands for “Single Room Occupancy,” shorthand for a rented room with a sink in the corner, shared toilet down the hall). Between these two poles, straddling the financial center of Spring Street, modern Los Angeles was born.” Check it out!
TIP – The Daily Groupon
Their Deals of the Day have saved millions of dollars for the people of Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C. already. Now it looks like Groupon.com will soon be sharing the love and coming to Los Angeles. According to their website, their aim will be to find “the most interesting stuff to do in Los Angeles, and work with businesses to offer our subscribers the best deals available on things like Art, Theatre, Restaurants & Bars, Concerts, Movie Tickets, Retail, Lessons & Classes Events, Hotels, Spas & Salons, and more.”
“From the guy behind ThePoint.com, Groupon’s a daily e-blast offering the masses one exclusive and heavily discounted deal per 24-hour window, like a giant soup of the day, and everyone gets a spoon. To take advantage, you prepay the stated rate, but you’re only charged if a predetermined amount of other users do the same — basically, enough that the deal makes sense for the business, establishment, or knee-sock wholesaler in question.” SOURCE
Groupon.com — Los Angeles
A big thanks to Kim for the tip! :)
TIP – New Link Listings!
Happy Thursday, folks!
Well, if you look up above where it says “Pages” and pull down the menu, you’ll find a feature called “Hidden LA Online Resources.” It’s a compilation of links to assist you in your Los Angeles treasure hunting. This listing will be updated regularly, so please let us know if there are any sites you feel should be included, any links that are broken or out of date, or any way that it can be improved along the way so that we can make it a better resource that you’ll want to turn to. Capiche? :)
