Esotouric™

Jim Linderman, photo collector and compiler extraordinaire, wants to win Blurb's Photography Book Now contest--and we'd like to help him out. You can click below to read the books online for free, then vote for them if you're inclined.

Camera Club Girls

Bettie Page and her...

By Jim Linderman

Book Preview

The Painted Ba...

Behind the Sitter i...

By Jim Linderman DUL...

Urban historian Richard Schave's site-specific discussion series "The Flâneur & The City" is an ongoing attempt to explore some of the more important issues revealed by the constantly changing heart of the metropolis.

The core notion of the series is of culture and history as commodities that are packaged and sold to a target demographic; meanwhile, it's the ignored and seemingly worthless scraps of meaning found on the sidewalks and marketplaces where the true remnants of positive public space can be found. All interpretations and nuisances of the word flâneur are examined -- from the modern-day aesthete dreaming of Baudelaire while carried along in the human tide past the stalls and shops of Broadway, to its more recent and perhaps relevant use, someone who is loitering. At its heart this series is a celebration of the simple act of getting out of your car and walking through a neighborhood and learning to see it with all your eyes.

In this installment, held on July 25, 2010, we visited Olvera Street, the historic seed of Los Angeles and the first place where issues of urban preservation entered the city's consciousness. On this free 45-minute walking tour, we explored the site's history, from the founding of the city (1781) to the present day, with a focus on the "classic" era: Christine Sterling's nearly thirty years of preservation and reinterpretation, which resulted in the entire Plaza becoming a State park, now managed by the city of Los Angeles.

The excerpt presented here is a brief discussion of Christine Sterling's conflicting motivations in preserving Olvera Street, and her alliances with business and publishing interests.

On this informative stroll through a provocative and multi-layered space, we explored such key questions as:

* What core challenges, goals and strategies are shared by Christine Sterling at the Plaza in the early 20th century and the developers of downtown's Old Bank District (4th & Main) in the early 21st century?

* Can arts and culture succeed as a tool for economic development for reinvigorating historic neighborhoods? Was Jane Jacobs right when she proclaimed that "new ideas need old buildings"?

* Is there a point on the continuum where the creeping kitsch of a tourist attraction overwhelms the value of a vital community space? Can a positive public space be ruined by popularity and accessibility?

For more on free events held under the umbrella of LAVA - The Los Angeles Visionaries Association, visit http://www.lavatransforms.org

Come discover the secret history of the San Gabriel Valley on this provocative and occasional Esotouric architecture tour from the series Reyner Banham Loves LA. Next tour: August 7, 2010.

Just before Memorial Day, your intrepid urban adventurers stepped outside of their asphalt-coated comfort zone for a lightning 40-hour road trip to explore some notable, rural Central Californian attractions. This is the third of several blog posts sharing scenes from the road.

While Nitt Witt Ridge is definitely the granddaddy of all folk art environments on the Central Coast, anyone interested in manifestations of amateur creativity and raw feeling should schedule a visit to Cambria's historic, eclectic, mountain cemetery.

Unlike tidy urban graveyards that frown on mourners placing their own messy memorials on loved ones' burial sites -- it makes it so hard to mow, after all -- Cambria Cemetery welcomes all manner of personal expressions of grief, from elaborate sculptures showing the deceased in life...

...to collections of shiny treasures reflecting their former passions.

Exploring the shaded woodland paths populated with expansive expressions of love and loss, one gets the sense that this is a community that's learned how to say goodbye in a way that encourages healing and personal growth. While all of the deceased were strangers to us, as is typically the case when visiting an historic graveyard, we left Cambria Cemetery feeling as though we had spent an hour with hundreds of distinct individuals. While serene and lovely, it's the farthest thing from sad as a cemetery could be.

For more photos from Cambria Cemetery, click this link.