Eagle Rock and Bourgeois Bohemia Imperiled

ON a crisp winter day, with snow glinting on the san gabriel mountains, air cleansed by a recent rain, and mighty oak trees looming over the quiet streets above colorado blvd, eagle rock can seem like the kind of place '60s bands used to write songs about. but these days, people aren't singing -- or if they are, it's in a bittersweet key.

over the last few years northeast LA has become a kind of socal brooklyn, with craftsmans and palm trees instead of  brownstones and maples. but things are slowing here as they are everywhere else. HERE is my new york times story on this neighborhood and how it may or may not survive the recession. (and here is a brief piece from the LAT written for the 2007 opening of larkin's, a new-wave soul food joint.)

i only regret that the tight pages of a newspaper means i didnt have room to mention by name some of the places that give ER its identity -- whether old (casa bianca pizza) or new (colorado wine company, auntie em's bakery/cafe, vegeterian restaurant fatty's, cool bar the chalet.)

my story suggests that this and other neighborhoods will suffer with the economic downturn -- this is a case where i am entirely happy to be wrong.

tonight, by coincidence, is what i hope is not the last-stand of hipster culture in eagle rock: the elusive kogi korean/taco truck is parking outside colorado wine co. to accompany a massively sold out tasting.

it looks like ABC news may be following the story as part of a larger package about the awful california economy.

what do my distinguished readers expect will happen to this and other on-the-verge eastside LA neighborhoods?

Photo credit: Flickr user 30 and Colorado Wine Company

Scott Walker: Icon of Obscurity

NOW HERE is a guy who made nick drake look gregarious. 

back in the 60s, scott walker was part of british boy band the walker brothers -- the most popular group, in their day, you've never heard of. but it's the moody, heavily orchestrated records he made after leaving the trio that made him a huge influence on everyone from david bowie to brian eno to laurie anderson and jarvis cocker. my story, which includes conversations with some of those, here.

walker's music is a bit static for me -- tho i admire the nerve of a guy who writes a (dead serious) song about a bergman movie. scott had the best 60s style of any rocker this side of john lennon. lots of great shots of him brooding behind shades and a scarf -- this would be my sartorial signature year-round if i could pull it off -- taken over the years by the london-to-LA photographer chris walter.

any scott fans out there?

Photo credit: Chris Walter

Retro Rock Posters and The Small Stakes

OVER the last few year i've been turned on to a new wave of poster design that relies on '40s book jackets, minimalism and mid-century fonts for its effects. much of this stuff is rock posters, even though the visual language comes almost entirely outside rock n roll. i'll take it over the psychedelic nightmare of the fillmore school or the robert-williams blazing-eyeball-on-a-hotrod school -- any day of the week.

one of my favorite designers is jason munn, whose work with the small stakes is simple and bracing. here is my story on munn in sunday's LAT.

other favorites of mine includes heads of state, jeff kleinsmith and LA's own cole gerst, whose work -- slightly less crisp and more folk-arty -- i've also displayed here.

Photo credit: The Small Stakes and option-g

Wallace Stegner and the American West

THOUGH he's best known for his novels, wallace stegner's non-fiction, especially his essays, are among the wonders of the american west... here is a fine NYT piece by northwest correspondent timothy egan on the occasion of the great writer's 100th birthday. (stegner was born 60 years before yours truly, almost to the day.)

the subject of egan's piece is stegner's assertion that the literary west was being overlooked by the new york/east coast literary establishment. i get into some of this in an LAT piece here, which includes an interview with philip fradkin, author of the bio, just out in paperback, to the right. i also speak briefly to renowned poet/farmer wendell berry.

stegner has become a patron saint of resentful westerners, which i find myself some days becoming. but what's sometimes overlooked is that he was, like all good writers, a critic and conscience of his region as well. as stegner pointed out, the west had more than its share of local-boosterism, and this is part of what kept the east from taking its claims seriously. 

my favorite line of stegner's comes from this side of his intellect: that the relationship of the rural west to washington, dc (the other axis of that dreaded eastern establishment) is "leave us alone and send us more money."

on a day when stegner's beloved state of california has struggled against homegrown anti-tax zealots to get a budget signed, and is still more than $40 billion in the hole -- and waiting for assistance from, ah, washington and its tax revenues -- the man seems more prescient than ever!

Photo credit: Amazon

American Newspapers and the Los Angeles Times

OVER the last few months, the only thing i've heard more than Thomas Jefferson's line -- that he would rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers -- is people telling me they plan to cancel their LA Times subscription.

i can't say i'm surprised by this -- the paper has become a poster child of bad ownership recently, and it's lost so many talented staffers, in some cases in a heartless manner, i wont even get started.

but it always saddens me when people do that -- not only because it hurts the whole culture when people do that, but because this (falling subscription rates) is what got us into this mess in the first place, and will get us deeper if people keep doing it.

these issues and more are dealt with very incisively in this New Republic story by my former colleagues Joe Mathews, who like me comes from a journalism family. 

Joe begins the story wondering, Should i cancel my LAT subscription? he asks, and then: what is lost when a paper and its news gathering operation fades away? 

Photo credit: Superstock

New "Lost" Story by John Cheever

I'm pleased to direct my distinguished readers' attention to a story only recently unearthed called "Of Love: A Testimony." the story was part of cheever's first story collection, from 1943,fell out of print for decades,  and it's now up on the site fivechapters.com, which is typically dedicated to work of contemporary authors.

(this post is also the latest in my "WASP writers of the 20th c" series. good scotch and unseasoned food will be served.)

cheever watchers should know that blake bailey, author of "a tragic honesty," the acclaimed richard yates' biography, will soon publish is cheever bio, and the library of america will put out everything the bard of westchester ever wrote, edited by bailey.

i cant think of too many writers who've given me more reading pleasure than cheever. discovered him not in college or grad school, where he is very rarely taught, but while living in a WASP milieu in connecticut -- it would be a commonplace to say that his work transcends that setting. what i most admire about cheever's work is his control, his insistence on making every sentence nearly perfect and elegant, and his ability to bring things to a persuasive emotional pitch. simply unbelievable writer -- the art tatum or teddy wilson of the short story.

curious what my readers thing of this new (old) one.

Photo credit: Flickr user 25

Yiyun Li, "The Vagrants" and China's Cultural Revolution

This sunday i have a piece in the LAT on author Yiyun Li, a native of China now living in Oakland -- and her new novel, "The Vagrants," which is quite beautifully observed as well as brutal in the tale it tells. some of you may know her from her exquisite short stories, which have a bit of william trevor to them.

interested to read a bit of the book? this will take you to an excerpt published on fivechapters.com.

the profile is the latest of what i'm calling my "writers in peril" series. (this was especially true when she was in peril with US immigration.)

the week i spoke to her, it seemed like every cultural figure i was dealing with was chinese.

Photo credit: Flicr user 24