BREAKING National News
Hundreds Hurt in FISA-Catalyzed Stampede
July 1, 2008—Hundreds were hurt as Democrats rushed to prove their national security credentials and be the first to declare their support of FISA in Washington DC, today. The bill institutionalizes spying on constituents without the cumbersome process of obtaining warrants.
Reporters were knocked over, old ladies hurt, babies thrown from strollers and multiple United States Senators and House Representatives rushed to the hospital to be treated for moral deficiency.
This Weekend
Thai Architect Visits LA; AIA Home Tour Visits Venice
2008 AIA Home Tour hits Venice
Venice hosts this year's Los Angeles American Institute of Architect's (AIA) home tour on Sunday, June 29. With doors open at the Michele Saee designed Linnie House, as well as several other rarely-opened residences. We're itching to see the inside of Mark Baez' "Cube" located in the hood.
We've driven by the floating structure for years. And the AIA's press release promises an interesting interior: semi-translucent fiberglass panels sheath the home but also function as shoji screens inside. The panels can be lifted out of their tracks to create bedrooms, alcoves or open space. (photo above)
Also on the tour, homes designed by Steven Shortridge (Callas Shortridge), David Reddy (R&D), and others.
Sunday, June 29_11am to 4pm_Self-guided tours
Price per person: $75.00 (non-members) | $65.00 (AIA members)
Tix/info 213.639.0777 or
www.aialosangeles.org
the tix will call house is in Venice, AIA will provide the info.
Symposium Brings International Architects and Sustainable Design Experts to LA
In town this weekend are Thai architect Patama Roonrakwit, who spent a decade planning, designing and building shelter in poor regions, and Eduardo Tejeira Davis, an expert on architectural influences in Panama. (Ruben Blades described one of Tejeira Davis' books as "an urban spiritual inventory.")
They're here for an international symposium at A+D Architecture and Design Museum devoted to disaster relief and urban renewal--Sustainable Dialogues III. Whether you're into design, sustainable strategies or want to learn more from individuals on the front line of global warming, we urge you to attend, for an hour or the day.
The effort brings together individuals working in Asia, Latin America and the United States to continue dialogue between architects, planners and environmentalists discussing the reconstruction effort currently underway in Southeast Asia following the tsunami, Panama following the return of the Panama Canal to Panama, and New Orleans and the Gulf Coast following Katrina.
Yep, it's heady stuff for a summer Saturday but we think that the unique range of dynamic designers participating will raise some heat of their own.
A wine reception will follow the program at 5pm.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Free to the Public
Location: A + D Museum
5900 Wilshire Blvd
LA CA 90036
10:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.
RSVP: 323.932.9393 or
info@aplusd.org
For more info:
http://aplusd.org/v3/
stuff to do and other news around Venice
Never Mind the Missing Blow Torch--Head to Berman's Art Auction
Be There When They Drop The Hammer
May 30--Art dealer Robert Berman hosts an auction this Sunday, June 1. A must-drop in if you’re after a Robert Rauschenberg, some free entertainment care of competitors attempting to outbid each other, or a Barack Obama fan. Nope, that wasn’t one of our oft-pointed-out typos. An off-set lithograph of the Obama portrait by graphic designer Shephard Fairy, currently adorning so many Westside windows in poster form, will fall under the hammer. For more serious collectors, Banksy, Ruscha, Lichtenstein and Warhol pieces offered by Berman are generating art world buzz.
Personally, you may find us shopping for the works of Venice homeboys: Billy Al Bengston, Raymond Pettibon, Ed Moses and Ed Ruscha. No word on whether Moses will be back from a trip to Switzerland in time to attend, but last time we dropped in on a Berman auction, Ed casually scooped up an Edward Kienholz, the coolest man to ever lift a bidding paddle.
The mayhem begins at 1 pm and will probably run till 5 pm at Bergamot Station, located at 2525 Michigan Avenue in Santa Monica. The Green Truck will be on hand to sell organic gourmet food. (They say that one cannot live on art alone, but we’re not so sure.)
Preview all works
www.smauctions.com Dial the Berman Gallery for additional information: (310) 315-1937.
Can't Find Your Blow Torch?
Know a crack head who's missing a blow torch? We've been told that thieves broke into a Venice restaurant, after closing on Saturday night, May 17, and torched their way into a safe. Maybe one
can't live on art alone.
Help Your Homegirls Go Natural
Urban Escape is looking to fill a chair with a hair stylist familiar with natural coloring products for hair. The salon features a relaxed atmosphere, in an classic Venice cottage.
At the front salon, where a complete menu of skin care and waxing services is offered, Elisa James has long served clients with non intrusive products. If you're interested in either, e-mail
urbanescape@aol.com
VenicePaper Recommends
Secret Home & Garden Tips and Other Events This Weekend
April 28, 2008---Forget
Dwell magazine, for years the Venice Garden and Home Tour has been doling out the best in self-help tips to better homes. It’s a self-guided tour through Venice lifestyles, an open book to what neighbors, friends, architects and non-pros have pulled off—not just with large budgets, but even bigger imaginations.
We’ve been taking it for years, and still don’t get bored—the route changes consistently. This year, the tour is staged east of Lincoln where the large lots are seriously home & garden friendly. Here’s a mini-preview of the Saturday, May 3, event:
Lebanese artist Huguette Caland’s home and garden.
Though the space is replete with a beautiful long lap pool, the garden transports you to the Middle East where Caland was born and her father served as the first president of Lebanon. Caland selected the many plants and fruit trees that populate it.
Ron Radziner of Marmol Radziner steps up for the architect’s contingent.
His firm has received extensive press coverage for it’s luxurious pre-fab designs, but on Saturday, firm principal Ron Radziner opens the doors of his recently completed personal residence. Check out the sunken kitchen which links two spacious wings stretching out in opposing directions.
The lawn is gone (at Keegan Roehr’s).
Keegan Roehr demonstrates how California’s can to the right thing—both environmentally and aesthetically offering a garden populated with California native and drought-tolerant plants.
The urban farm.
Master gardener Marlena Ross pulls it off with hundreds of fruit trees, vegetables and herbs. While home design has become a big draw of the tour in recent years, Ross brings back the beauty and mystery of cultivation.
Tix: $60 in advance $70 day of. To purchase or for more information visit:
www.venicegardentour.org
When: Saturday, May 3, 2008, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM (rain or shine!)
Start Location: Las Doradas Children's Center
804 Broadway, Venice, CA 90291
(corner of Broadway & Pleasant View, 1 block west of Lincoln Blvd)
Is Politics More Your Thing? Get down in the Dirt.
The LA County Board of Supervisors seems so distant from our lives, but recently they ponied up more than $50 million of your money for a park adjacent to their offices in downtown Los Angeles as such fundamental necessities as health care face are slashed county-wide. What’s a voter to do?
Attend a forum featuring Bernard Parks and Mark Ridley-Thomas, who are vying for the same County Supervisor slot.
Moderators are KPCC/NPR reporter Kitty Felde; KCAL/KCBS-TV political analyst David Bryan; Assoc. Dean of UCLA School of Public Affairs, William Parent; and President of LA Urban League, Blair Taylor.
Unfortunately the forum, which is sponsored by West LA Democratic Club, UCLA School of Public Affairs, and the Urban League also occurs this Saturday, May 3, 2008 between 1:00pm to 3:00pm, creating a conflict with the garden tour. But if you want to do both, be ambitious: start the garden tour at 10:00 am, blow into the forum for an hour or so then head back out to continue your garden walk.
Given the forum’s location at Beethoven Elementary School at 3711 Beethoven Street, the two events are an easy walk or bike from each other. Admission is Free—Donations welcomed! For more info: Call Bill Parent at 310-206-4136 or visit
www.westlademclub.org /
Christopher Farr, Emily Kroll and Others Discuss Their Work Incorporating Sustainable Elements at Design Within Reach
Emily Kroll speaks at Design Within Reach this Thursday night, May 1, about her new line of furniture which adheres to strict sustainability guidelines.
We’ll cop to the fact that she’s our homegirl and a longtime friend-of-paper, but the reason why we’re touting her here is her consideration of sustainability at each step of the manufacturing process.
The event is also an amazing chance to hear preeminent textile and rug designer Christopher Farr. Born in England, Farr studied as a painter before investigating the fine art of textile and rug weaving in Peru and Turkey.
Thursday, May 1, 2008. 6:00PM – 8:00PM
Design within Reach
332 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica
310.899.6000
Blogging Venice
Police Patrols Stepped Up on Boardwalk
The following is excerpted from a press release issued by Councilman Bill Rosendahl's office. Rosendahl's district includes Venice.
ROSENDAHL, LAPD STEP UP POLICE PRESENCE AT VENICE BEACH
Patrols Will Work Nights, Partner with Community
VENICE - Taking proactive steps to enhance public safety, the Los Angeles Police Department will begin beefing up patrols in the Venice Beach area, Councilmember Bill Rosendahl and Captain Joseph Hiltner announced today.
The immediate redeployment of officers in the beach and neighboring areas will allow for nighttime patrols, special task forces to target emerging problems and crime patterns, and a more visible police presence....
Venice Blog
Boardwalk Gets Darker, Murder Reported
Tuesday, March 11, 2008--We're being told by a Venice local that a young homeless man and his dog were murdered Sunday night or early Monday morning on the Boardwalk. Their bodies were "discovered semi buried in the sand behind the pagoda at the end of Breeze Avenue."
Residents of the walk streets adjacent to the area and the Boardwalk itself have noticed that the behavior of young, mostly drug addicted homeless people has grown more violent, brazen and confrontational in recent months.
Ironically, on the Saturday night prior to the murder, another local told us of their repeated requests to get more police officers patrolling the area and to have dangerous personalities removed. At the time they spoke to us, LAPD did not appear to have the resources or will to ramp up patrols in the area.
According to that resident, as crime rates have dropped in an overall sense in the area policing resources have gone to other districts.
At least one merchant has pushed for increased presence, while the Venice local who told us of the murder had contacted Venice's city council office as well as the captain of the LAPD's Pacific Division, charged with patrolling the area seeking stronger law enforcement support.
It's not news to locals how the personality of the Boardwalk changes from day to night often leaving a sense of desolation and danger. But the murder, coupled with an ongoing and seemingly dangerous physical presence, appears to have demonstrated just how dangerous the area is.
Be careful.
Venice Blog
Fur Flies over Development; Usher versus Perry and More.. as the LA Development-World Turns
Tuesday, March 11, 2008(**Revised at 1:10PM)--It's no secret that it's open-season on the Los Angeles City Planning Department. If it's not the media skewering them, it's the City Council.
But, after a couple of weeks of escalating skirmishes, the turf war over the future of Los Angeles growth exploded on Sunday, March 9, when Jane Usher, the well-connected chair of the Los Angeles Planning Commission, issued an e-mail to the public taking the Los Angeles City council to task for approving a measure that would stop review of environmental, traffic and other impacts for qualifying developments.
Usher basically said, the council could be sued over it.
Naturally, the council was mildly irritated.
City Councilperson Jan Perry verbally reprimanding Usher in today's
LA Times. The Times' David Zahniser, who is an excellent planning & development reporter, failed to note that amongst Perry's contributors for reelection is: Bill Witte, who heads the Related Cos' Grand Avenue project, a private developer leveraging millions of dollars in tax payer subsidies.
Anyone who watches Perry's politicalling for five minutes knows, she should just replace city signage outside her field office with a REMAX sign.
Never mind that Usher's head is being called for on a certain LA blog that's devoted to developer self-love. It'll be interesting to see Usher, who doesn't like to be crossed, take Perry on.
Usher's e-mail came into play a few days after City Councilman Ed Reyes said each councilmember should be in charge of the disposition of the industrial land within their own district. Meaning, that after a couple of years of giving lip service to the notion of actual planning, envision Los Angeles as a whole, it's back to rule by the Gang of 15. (And they've done such an exemplary job so far, haven't they?) Translated: more suburbia, more traffic, more developer placed city councilpeople. Development-by popularity vote, it's so
high school. Reyes, who was once a member of the planning department, should know better.
What's super tragic about Reyes pronouncement is the death mill it tolls for any hope that, on a local level, Los Angeles will contribute to the de-escalation of global warming.
Ask any councilmember, and they're bound to speak effusively about the need to end global warming. But their actions demonstrate--just don't let that get in the way of their re-election campaign and the necessary development industry funding.
Reyes spoke in a debate over whether to re-zone industrial land-use downtown (*an entirely different matter than that covered by Usher's e-mail but a debate that none-the-less put a knife into the concept of overall planning for the city.)
Under Los Angeles City Planning Director Gail Goldberg, the department has advocated that industrial land should be kept as such. And, if, you want to slow down global warming, that strategy makes sense. Keep pockets of industrial land local, reduce traffic, increase the diversity of local jobs etc rather than have such workers commute to un-heard of regions to perform such functions. But the profit margin for developers holding such properties is high and Goldberg did bungle how her department would present their plan for preserving industrial land. Led by such Councilpeople as Jose Huizar, Reyes, Perry, the Council et. all aren't about to give up control over their own little fiefdoms.
Usher, on the other hand, has no intention of chairing a meaningless Los Angeles City Planning Commission. Ergo her e-mail.
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Venice Blog
More Gang Raids
Tuesday, March 11, 2008--There was police action in the form of another raid at a personal home last night in Venice's Oakwood district.
Venice Blog
Gang Raids Hit Venice
March 8, 2008--Many of you have been hearing about law enforcement's sweep of Venice's Oakwood-area searching for alleged gang members, weapons and drugs. (Or heard shots that February 19 morning and called us asking what was going on.)
The military-style operation resulted in a story in the L.A. Times in which City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo extoled the raids success. But the Times didn't investigate Delgadillo's claims, while 19 arrests were made, the accuracy of the raids at personal residences was far from substantial.
Jill Stewart over at the L.A. Weekly dedicated reporter resources to the operation and found:
"...law-enforcement personnel came away empty-handed in their search for gang members or illegal weapons in seven households the L.A. Weekly initially interviewed - a finding corroborated by an LAPD spokesman." An additional 3 households asserted at a community meeting that nothing was found in their home.
Instead of gang members "A 50-year-old woman was made to lie in dog feces with a gun to her head, a caretaker was forced to abandon a man stricken with cerebral palsy who wears diapers...."
Click through for the story in its entirety.
Take care,
your staff at VenicePaper
News
Venice Dials In for Obama
January 27, 2008—Local volunteers and campaign delivered heavily for the Barack Obama campaign yesterday. Providing a full 10,000, phone calls as part of the campaign’s goal of phoning 100,000 Californian voters in a single day.
According the campaign communication’s coordinator for CD 30, Kirsten Pierce, 240 volunteers took part in the effort. Statewide, 160,000 calls were placed.
News
Obama Opens Venice Campaign Office
Senator Barack Obama has opened a campaign field office on Abbot Kinney. It's located upstairs at 1410 Abbot Kinney and comes with an added benefit--it almost makes up for having Pinkberry in the building. (If you don't know where the 1410 structure is--it's across from local faves Abbot's Pizza and Abbot's Habit.)
Word has it that the new owner of the building comped the space--that's Venice.
On Friday, January 25, Venetians were taking advantage of his largess--dropping in off the street and purchasing some killer t-shirts (yes, really) and bumper stickers.
Society Page
Prominent Architects Caught East of Lincoln!!!!
January 25-- VenicePaper has this critical breaking news just in.
Evidently it was boys night out for Venice architects last night, as Mark Mack, Glen Irani and Whitney Sander hit the sauna in Korea Town. (And you think we never travel west of Lincoln.)
What, they're too good to waste cash at a certain soul-less spa in SM. And just who was the fourth gentlemen to join them???
If you have information about this depraved out-of-Venice outing, dial VenicePaper WE TIP!
Stuff to Do
Art Storm
January 25, 2008--Get drenched in art this weekend at Barker Hanger. Yes, just in time for this weekend's brutal storm... The Los Angeles Art Show which is staged at Barker Hanger, next to the Santa Monica airport.
News
UCLA Student Waterboarded at Guantanamo Bay Protest
January 11, 2008--The LA Times didn't mark it, neither did we get any pre-announce from the Huffington Post, , but today, January 11, 2008 marked the sixth anniversary of Guantanamo Bay. The off-shore prison where unknown prisoners are held without charges and in often horrific conditions, spawning suicide which one military official decried as simply political opportunism by the victims.
Longtime Venice resident, reporter Michael Linder covered a protest of the infamous date at UCLA for KNX radio--his regular gig. During Linder's tenure at the station, he's seen some brutal moments--the death by lethal injection of Tookie Williams comes to mind. So you'd think the demonstration of waterboarding on a student who had volunteered to submit himself to the process wouldn't have shaken him up.
But speaking to him afterwards, it was as if by talking about the horrifying transaction he could expel it from is system. Though you won't hear it on Linder's broadcast--which we've linked below--UCLA's fake prisoner ended the ordeal locked in a fetal position, while the crowd was too stunned, too shaken to walk up to offer him aid and the 'interrogator' simply walked away. Linder painted a visual picture for us, so ugly, so bereft of humanity, we'll lose sleep over it. (And this was just a demonstration, where the parties involved were not sleep deprived to the point of madness, and well taken care of physically.)
Here's Linder's set-up and link:
"From Washington to Sydney, worldwide protests on the sixth anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. In London, protesters were locked in steel cages in front of the U.S. Embassy. And at UCLA, a terrifying demonstration of waterboarding. KNX 1070�s Michael Linder has the story."
link to broadcast
