An Englishwoman in LA

I'm just back from a conference in LA (at UCLA) called Spaces and Flows where I gave a paper on schizocartography. I managed to get over there a couple of days before the conference in order to check out LA and do some urban walking. The following blogs will be covering a psychogeography of LA and will be appearing here on particulations over the next couple of weeks:

1 - An Englishwoman in LA (this blog)
2 - The Good Adventure: A Psychogeography of the Westin Bonaventure
3 - At UCLA You See LA (urban walking on UCLA campus)

You Can Check Out Any Time You Like But You Can Never Leave

These photos are views from my hotel in Downtown LA (Little Tokyo). The first one is from my hotel window (early morning), the second one is at street level.




The Hotel Miyako was really well situated for 'cultural' Downtown LA. I could walk to a number of galleries and museums and, more especially, the Westin Bonaventure which I really wanted to see thanks to Frederic Jameson:

Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism


Walk/Don't Walk

I was slightly disappointed not to see the Walk/Don't Walk signs that I associate with the States. Maybe they only exists in some states, or maybe they are a thing of the past:

Walk/Don't Walk

Instead they had a red hand and a white walking man. The red hand counts down after a while to tell you how many seconds you have left to cross. It took me a few crossings to work out what the protocol was - and the roads are big, so you don't want to get stuck halfway. It seems that even when the white walking man appears, that cars can turn into the road providing you are not on the crossing. I must admit, I was confused and slightly anxious when crossing at first, as it was early in the day and not many pedestrians were around to mimic. But eventually I worked it out by seeing what others did, and reading the instructions on the side of the road. By the end of my trip I was getting quite cocky and even running across when the red hand was counting down.

Stop/Go


Urban Décor

Here is a sample of some of the urban décor that I came across.



I think I may start taking pictures of fire hydrants from around the world - we don't have them in the UK, or rather they are under man-hole covers. I got a nice image of a red one in Marrakesh when I was there in September. I took the above one in LA. They appear on the corner of every street.

Here is a heavily graffiti-ed rubbish bin (dumpster?). It's not artistic at all, but I was interested in the layers of graffiti that have appeared over time.



I had to take a photo of the signage for the bail bond agent as we don't have them in the UK. I went into the office to ask if I could take the photo. The manager was fine and appreciated that, being from the UK, they are of interest to foreigners.



This is how wikipedia describes Bail Bondsmen:
"A bail bond agent, or bondsman, is any person or corporation which will act as a surety and pledge money or property as bail for the appearance of a criminal defendant in court. Although banks, insurance companies and other similar institutions are usually the sureties on other types of contracts (for example, to bond a contractor who is under a contractual obligation to pay for the completion of a construction project) such entities are reluctant to put their depositors' or policyholders' funds at the kind of risk involved in posting a bail bond. Bail bond agents, on the other hand, are usually in the business to cater to criminal defendants, often securing their customers' release in just a few hours."




The above two images were taken quite close to each other in the region of Los Angeles St and Temple Street. I can't remember the exact location. I went into the mall. When I first spotted it on the map I was hoping for a really grand American mall like the ones you see in films. Sadly, it was more like an Arndale Centre (see my previous post on Headingley Arndale Centre: The Headingley Arndale Centre: Today and yesterday). Actually, it wasn't even really like an Arndale Centre, that would have been a compliment. It was one of those like the ones we get in the UK on the edge of towns. They are scruffy and concrete and look like they emerged in the 1970s. There's one in Norwich called Anglia Square which the Los Angeles Mall reminded me of: Anglia Square.

I liked the public art that looked like a space ship. It was massive and was really colourful in the sun. I don't have the name so can't look up any information on it. It looks like it might be Central American influenced. There were many homeless people in the area around the sculpture, on the surrounding benches. I saw lots of homeless people in Downtown LA and didn't even get as far as Skid Row. However, they do seem to have more 'stuff' than the UK homeless, which they moved around in shopping trolleys or by other means, sometimes piled over six feet high.



The Museum of Contemporary Art

MOCA is well worth a visit if you are in the area. There are works from Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg and Jackson Pollock in the permanent collection. The following images are from outside the gallery:






El Pueblo Historic Park

One afternoon I went to El Pueblo Historic Park which was about a 15 minute walk from my hotel. These are the images I took in that area. The mural photo came out really well. The park itself was a strange place, really rather like a non-place. It was quite fragmented. I couldn't work out who it was designed for. The Christmas tree looked strange to someone from the freezing north of the UK: seeing it in the sun surrounded by palm trees was very disorientating.







Be Yourself No Matter What They Say

I could have easily spent a week in Downtown LA, walking around the district. While I have not done a typical psychogeographic blog of the area (i.e. ignoring the obvious and taking photos of mostly signs and other urban phenomena), I hope that I have provided a somewhat alternative view to the conventional tourist approach. There were plenty of interesting buildings that I thought about photographing, for instance the Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Also, I didn't want to do a conventional psychogeographical urban walk and ignore objects that interested me. So, I guess, this blog is somewhere in between the two: neither anarchic, nor customary. I suppose it does reflect the title: An Englishwoman in LA. Perhaps this is my Crispesque subaltern response to Los Angeles. Because of this, and also because I may have short-changed those hardcore psychogeographers out there, I will close this blog by including the lyrics from the Stranglers song Dead Los Angeles. That way, no one can accuse me of totally selling out ; )

The Plastic Peaches There
On Concrete Beaches There
You See The Leeches There
You See The Leeches There
They're Soft Marshmallow There
It's Oh So Shallow There
In Dead Los Angeles
In Dead Los Angeles
The Dredged Up Mastodon
Has Got His Glasses On
He's Never Seen The Shit
From The La Brea Pit

The Lunar Base Camp There
With Burning Midnight Lamp
They Call It Frisbeeland
It's Just A Disneyland
Android Americans
Live In The Ruins There
In Dead Los Angeles
In Dead Los Angeles
The Dredged Up Mastodon
Has Got His Glasses On
He's Never Seen The Shit
From The La Brea Pit (repeat x 6)

They Get The Tremors There
Been Give Babylon
Plenty Of Companies
Such Lonely Company
I Hear A Symphony
Of Lonely Tympanis
In Dead Los Angeles
In Dead Los Angeles
The Dredged Up Mastodon
Has Got His Glasses On
He's Never Seen The Shit
From The La Brea Pit

Relates websites:
The Stranglers, The Raven Album
Spaces and Flows
An Englishman in New York by Sting
Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)