Across the universe

I was minding my own business this weekend when suddenly I found myself in someone’s garden

and I forgot where I was.

Was I in India?

Indonesia?

Grandma Prisbey’s Bottle Village?

Nope. I was at the Haunted Shack Gardens in Pasadena, made by the artist Shrine. And as I usually do in incredibly beautiful places, I got overwhelmed by everything and took terrible photos. I don’t have a single full image of Shrine’s house, which is covered in an elaborate geometric design. No. I got stuck on what the designs were fabricated with:

 
Sorry. That’s how things go with me. If you want to get a better idea of what this amazing place looks like, and what a real artist can do with a bunch of old garden hoses and rusty bottlecaps and old nitrous canisters,

go to Shrine’s Instagram page where he’s posted some good photos of his place and a lot of his other amazing art pieces too.

Home of the brave

This weekend I re-found a house that I first visited about 25 years ago but hadn’t been able to find since. At some point over the years I decided that the house had either been razed or had never actually existed outside of a dream, but it turns out it was only one block over from where I had been looking the whole time. Hooray!

At first I was thinking it looked like that house in the 1980 TV movie of Brave New World, the lighthouse where Keir Dullea hangs himself.

But then I started looking at stills of the movie and this house

didn’t seem like it was that house at all, and then all the stuff in the story about the Alphas and consumption and conformity (not to mention the people worshipping a businessman and a big gold “T”) really started bumming me out and I had to stop looking at images from that film. Dang it. What beautiful futuristic dystopia did this house look like it came from? Then it hit me: Sleeper.

And that made me a little happier. Sure, there’s still a totalitarian society ruled by a despot who drugs his subjects into complacency, but at least the food’s better.

Island Of Dr. Morose

From various posts on social media and whatnot, it seems that a great deal of my friends are taking tropical jungle island vacations. Even Benny is off someplace chasing/getting chased by monkeys. Well, there may not be any monkeys around me but it’s pretty humid and I just discovered these guys

a block away from where we go to vote, so I’m okay. Seriously, the telephone pole here

runs wires up to my street. And actually, if I had waited around long enough I probably would have run into some monkeys because I noticed that these monuments are a designated Pokemon Go pokestop. Monkeys or zombies.

I didn’t stick around though, because 1) that skull on a stick,

2) I already saw some zombies playing Pokemon at the old zoo the other night that were kind of scary even when I was with a group of friends, and this time I was alone, and 3) the occupant of the house was lurking about, using a leafblower in sort of a menacing manner when he spotted me eyeing the additional moai head in the driveway. I thought it best to scoot before this turned into a Most Dangerous Game or Spawn Of The Subhuman situation.

Ten little bungalows

There are actually eleven of these little bungalows on Hollywood Way, lined up on one side of the WB Ranch (formerly the Columbia Ranch).

The eleventh is pretty far down the block from the others, which makes me wonder if there were a whole bunch of other ones that have since been torn down. On the other hand, I think you would have to be an awfully evil witch to tear any of these down. Seriously. They have built-in shelves on the outside of the house. I mean, come on.

According to the Burbank Historical Society*, these were not constructed as backlot dressing rooms or offices but to be used as ordinary homes, for normal people. Here are some of them as they look today.

Pretty extraordinary, all of them, but I especially like this last one. The shy guy.

*Thank you Jeremy Ward and David Doherty for sleuthing this information out and sharing with Burbank In The ’60s!

Image of Paul E. Wolfe postcard (top image) via Burbankia

Insert Dorothy Parker joke about horticulture here

Up on a hill above Santa Barbara, amongst the blue dicks and the golden shower tree and the other plants that might make you giggle, there is a crumbling house covered in medallions honoring thinkers and artists and scandalous women. Also a house or two. It’s not entirely clear what all these things have in common, but it feels like there is some sort of connection. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s a bit of mystery.

William Harvey, another William Harvey, King Philip, Kate Dickinson Sweetser, Leonard Robbins, Will Durant, Captain Thomas Abbey, the “Tent of Mars,” Peter Ochremenko, Violet Oakley, Vuchinich, Nan Britton, George Record, William Jennings Bryan, Emma Goldman, a prairie schooner, William Penn, Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecroft.

Any ideas?

 

Lincoln Heights logs

The title of this post is not technically correct, as this log cabin

is in Montecito Heights, just northeast of Lincoln Heights, but the John Lloyd Wright-designed building toy isn’t called Montecito Logs, now is it? Actually, unless my set was incomplete, this house has a lot more going on than the Lincoln Logs I had growing up. Bricks. Stones. Metal security doors.

I know John Lloyd Wright didn’t design this particular house, but his influence is definitely here and I think it would be neat if it were included in architectural tours of Wright homes in the LA area. If nothing else, it would really cheese off John Lloyd’s dad, wouldn’t it?

Thy fearful asymmetry

A couple of friends of mine used to live in this middle eastern-themed apartment building in Silver Lake

and while I thought it was cute with its odd conglomeration of onion dome and towers and terraces, I never considered it worthy of much serious attention. But a Facebook group called SoCal Historical Architecture recently posted a photo of it and pointed out how very unusual its asymmetry was for a mere apartment building

(that’s taken head on; look at the towers!), and now I’m feeling bad that I didn’t give it the respect it deserved earlier. I don’t remember if your interior contained any similarly unique elements (from the looks of your new vinyl windows, I’m guessing not), but no matter. 2016 is the year I start giving you the respect you deserve, middle eastern-themed apartment.

The hopping dead

It’s the most important time of the year over at Bunnybury,

which means all the residents are out in their finery.

All the residents.

They’re even braving the crocodile-infested pond to celebrate the holiday, these bunnies.

But they might want to be on alert, and not because of the zombie in their midst.

That particular zombie in their midst is benign, although some of his followers are a bit rabid at times. No, I’m talking about something I’ve been watching just down the street from them. I first saw this guy around Halloween last year

and then I saw this guy:

As of this week, I noticed a third one… and they seem to be joining forces.

Watch out, bunnies. These guys look like they’re ready to burn a church down, at the very least.

She’s so unusual

When I grow up, I want to be Alison Martino. It’s possible that I am older than her, but I still want to be her when I grow up. If you don’t know who Alison Martino is and you’re interested in pop culture, Los Angeles history, or interesting architecture, you should check out her blog. Be prepared to fall down a rabbit hole or two, but don’t forget to come back here at some point. I don’t think she posted this video over there (though she did call my attention to it), and it’s a perfect example of my “Around the World in Los Angeles” category.

Oh, Lindy, I do love living in this land of bathing girls and whatnot. Wait – who’s Lindy?

Of the tree

I was driving around the neighborhood I lived in while I was a junior in college today when I noticed a new bus stop.

Dang, I didn’t remember there being a covered bus stop on this street. A bunch of abandoned houses taken over by crack addicts and a vacant lot or two, sure. But a fancy covered bus stop with lots of flower arrangements, no. Geez, 22nd Street is really getting fancy.

Christ on a cracker, this has been here since 1998? I guess I haven’t been around this neighborhood for quite a while. You would think the public transportation system would have paid more attention than I have to this particular route, what with all the flowers and the fanciness and whatnot.

This guy seems like he has been waiting for an awfully long time.