Alissa Walker, one of my favorite journalists, covers urban design here in Los Angeles. She wrote a great piece on our nieghborhood’s iconic podiatrist sign. Walker agrees with me that we need much more than kitschy signs to mark our neighborhoods. She concludes,
We need more reminders of what history predates our presence. We need more streets that are designed to connect us instead of being fast-forwarded through in cars. We need more parks. We need more bus shelters. We need more actual village oaks.
Signs will come down, businesses will move, but it’s the places we create to welcome everyone that truly strengthen our neighborhoods. Let’s build more of them.
Amen.
Medieval manuscripts at the Getty
While we live in the allegedly hippest neighborhood in America, home of the Silver Lake Shaman (Please read Jenni Avins hilarious article on the Silver Lake Shaman phenomenon), Kelly and I are more Medievalists than fans of the straw hat, $10 juices and hanging houseplant accoutrements of the SLS. So head thee to the 405 freeway adjacent Getty for two exhibits of (mostly) illuminated manuscripts. We were there, in part, to look for source material for a new Root Simple publishing concept. Stay tuned.
Bats and Brews
This Wednesday we attended Friends of the LA River’s second Bats and Brews event. The evening began with a beer and taco at the Frogtown brewery followed by a stroll down to the LA River with a wildlife biologist armed with a bat detector. The river was beautiful at sunset and I got to see a bat skimming the surface of the water. I think that there will be another Bats and Brews event in August though they haven’t listed it on the website yet. Check back on the FOLAR website and come down to the river in August! Thank you Chelsea and James for the tip!
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Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World. Encompassing imaginary creatures such as the unicorn, siren, and griffin; exotic beasts including the tiger, elephant, and ape; as well as animals native to Europe like the beaver, dog, and hedgehog, the bestiary is a vibrant testimony to the medieval understanding of animals and their role in the world.
A ‘new Root Simple publishing concept’? I am excited to learn more.
Good luck!
I will be anxiously waiting to find out about the new Root Simple publishing concept. How about going back a few more centuries to create a Bayeux Tapestry-type saga of the evolution of Root Simple (minus the invasion)?
I greatly enjoyed the Silver Lake Shaman article. For some reason, I was reminded of the NY Times article about the essential uniform of the moms of Park Slope: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/style/clogs-no-6-moms.html
Do such regional phenomena exist in other areas?
Funny you should mention this. There is much joking around the Root Simple compound about the Bayeux tapestry. Should definitely work on an autobiographical version though it would likely be boring and involve many depictions of trips to the hardware store. Many thanks for the link to the Park Slope uniform article. We like to keep on top of cultural trends!
A bat finder? Did it work by echolocation?
I should have explained. Yes–the device was basically a highly sensitive microphone with an audio spectrum display. Different species of bats make different sounds so the biologist we were with was able to tell us what kind of bat the device was detecting even though we couldn’t see them. There is a actually a version of this device for your smart phone: https://www.echometertouch.com/