The Brief

Take a line of string lights, add one clear Solo cup. Then add another, until 50 Solo cups later you are left with a sparkling, shimmering sphere of festive light.

Neighbors in a quiet, suburban neighborhood in Fullerton call them sparkle balls. Hundreds of these sparkling creations hang from trees, attracting thousands of visitors from across Southern California during the month of December.

In its 22nd year, the tradition has expanded to over 160 homes across 10 blocks.

Sparkle balls shimmer at night.

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Courtesy Robert Pillon

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Marie Murillo joined in the fun 10 years ago. She said the tradition is an “exciting time” when the neighbors come out to put on a festive experience for visitors.

“I love watching the kids walk around and being like, ‘Ah, look at the lights,’” she said, stringing lights around her tree. “I can hear it from my living room. And it's the best thing ever. I love it. Best time of the year for us.”

Marie Murillo says the sparkle ball tradition is an “exciting time” when the neighbors come out to put on a festive experience for visitors. Here she is decorating her front yard.

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Yusra Farzan

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LAist

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The installation goes live on December 1.

The tradition grows

Shortly after Robert Pillon moved into his Yale Avenue home in 2004, his neighbor invited him over for smores and to discuss a tradition: four homes on the block hung these sparkle balls from the trees in their front yard. The neighbor wanted to know if Pillon would join in the tradition.

Robert Pillon has been making sparkle balls since 2004.

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Yusra Farzan

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He jumped on board. That year, over Monday night football, the four men would come together to make sparkle balls for 22 homes.

“ Our wives teased us and called it our mancraft in the beginning because it was like five guys getting together in the garage, drinking beers and making balls,” Pillon said.

The balls are perfect spheres, with circles of Solo cups welded together and with fairy lights inserted at the bottom of the cup.

 ”You insert the lights all the way through the sphere and close it up, and then you tie a string to it and we hang them from the trees,” Pillon said.

The cords are not visible at night.

“At night it just looks like they're orbs floating in the middle of the air,” he said.

A neighborhood effort

As the tradition has expanded, so have the logistics. Each block is assigned a leader to manage the making and installation of these sparkle balls.

The neighbors rent boom lifts to install the sparkle balls from trees road by road, with around 100 volunteers working over 10 days to install the balls.

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Courtesy Allison Castellano

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This year, Pillon created a limited liability company to acquire liability insurance and safety harnesses for the installation process. The neighbors rent boom lifts to install the sparkle balls from trees road by road, with around 100 volunteers working over 10 days to install the balls. Each home contributes $55 which covers the rental costs and fuel to power the boom lift.

Pillon said having the lights up all through December isn’t very expensive.

“Probably somewhere between $30 to $50 an extra for that month that they're up,” he said. Other neighbors have switched to LED lights to keep the costs down.

At the end of the month, neighbors store the sparkle balls in their garage. Some keep them in large plastic crates, others hang them in their garage. The lights last for a long time and the balls themselves are quite sturdy.

Come the week of Thanksgiving, they pull them out of the garage ready to be installed.

Sparkle balls led to a tight knit community 

 ”There are some houses that when the new homeowners come, they still have the balls that previous owners left them,” said Sardis Rodriguez. When she moved into the neighborhood in 2019, the previous owners took their sparkle balls. So one of the first things Rodriguez did when she moved in was make three sparkle balls.

Robert Pillon and Sardis Rodriguez

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Yusra Farzan

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When the COVID-19 pandemic hit soon after she moved in, the email lists for the sparkle ball community came in handy. Rodriguez said they used the email list to organize neighborhood happy hours.

“Everyone would go outside their houses, stay socially distanced, but say hi to everyone,” she said. “We really got to know each other during that time a little bit more.”

For the last three years, the record store and music venue Healing Force of the Universe has been operating on a sleepy street corner not far from Pasadena City College. Nearby businesses include a shoe repair store, a nail salon and several auto shops.

“We're kind of in a dead corner,” owner Austin Manuel said. “No offense if anybody lives here, but not a very foot-trafficked area, kind of a hard place to have a store.”

In spite of the location, Manuel said Healing Force has become a home away from home for musicians and music fans. One of them is Bobby Bradford, a jazz trumpet legend who lost his house and personal archive in the Eaton Fire. He performs regularly at the venue. (Healing Force has also partnered with LAist on fire recovery events.)

Its current location is set to close this month, but Manuel and his team are already raising funds to cover a move to another space: G-Son Studios in Atwater Village. The repurposed ballroom was the Beastie Boys' home base when they recorded their classic albums Check Your Head and Ill Communication. Run-DMC and Biz Markie stopped by at one point, and Beck also laid down tracks for his album Odelay there.

Inside Healing Force's space in Pasadena.

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Kevin Tidmarsh/LAist

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The vibe

Healing Force sells records, of course, but these days it’s more of a nighttime performance space. Manuel said he wants people to feel comfortable striking up conversations after a show.

“I grew up in the church in the South, and I was like, ‘How do I design this so that it feels like a Southern church lady could come in here and feel welcome?’" Manuel said. “ I didn't want it to be too cool.  I wanted it to feel kind of suburban in a way.”

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Kevin Tidmarsh/LAist

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Kevin Tidmarsh/LAist

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Though the name might call to mind a cult slogan — and Manuel said they lean into that aesthetic on purpose — it’s actually a reference to the 1970 album Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe by saxophonist Albert Ayler.

At the venue, “people can kind of get … into a meditative zone,” Manuel said. “After the [January 2025] fires, it felt so good to come back together in this room and feel the healing of community.”

Healing Force's stage setup.

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Kevin Tidmarsh/LAist

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The performances

The shows Healing Force puts on share a common thread: They’re meant to promote peace and relaxation, as well as deep, careful listening on the hi-fi sound system. But they’re an eclectic mix of genres. On one night, you might see L.A. spiritual jazz band Phi-Psonics, who turned a residency at the venue into a live album, Expanding to One.

On another night, you might catch a spaced-out electronic set, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter or a group of session musicians who’ve played with the likes of Paul Simon, Elton John and Lucinda Williams.

About the fundraiser

With the new space on Glendale Boulevard, Manuel said, Healing Force would triple its capacity for concerts, get a bar space and be closer to other venues in Northeast L.A.

“If 1,000 people gave $25, we would get there,” Manuel said – though he also said most people have been giving more.

You can read more about the fundraiser and donate at Healing Force’s GoFundMe.

See the Pasadena space before it closes

The venue is still open at 1200 E. Walnut Street and is holding events through this Halloween weekend. You can see their events calendar on their website.

The racist DNA of Jim Crow discrimination may be embedded in your housing documents.

The language in housing documents that restricts sale or use of a property only to a person of the white race is called a “restrictive covenant,” and in California the practice goes back to the 19th century and continued into the mid-20th century. While housing discrimination persists, the practice was found unconstitutional in 1948.

California counties are reporting mixed progress in meeting the demands of a 2021 law to excise the language from property records.

According to Sylvia Manzo, deputy recorder in the Orange County Clerk-Recorder’s office, the county finished the job in March of this year, removing racist language from more than 27,000 property documents with the help of computer software.

This 1924 property document from Bakersfield includes racist language limiting use of the property in question to people of "the white or Caucasian race."

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Screenshot from CSU Bakersfield

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L.A. County is far from done. It says that with the help of an outside company hired in 2024, 50 million pages will be examined yearly, which would take about 10 years to finish the job.

Public agencies could use the public’s help.

Language examples

Here’s a 1924 example from a property in Bakersfield. The text reads, “That the lands herein conveyed shall never, at any time, be sold to or rented to or occupied by any person not of the white or Caucasian race.”

Or this language from a 1936 document relating to a Costa Mesa property: “That said premises shall not be sold, conveyed, rented, or leased to, or occupied by any person of African, Mexican, or Asiatic descent.”

How to get it taken out

The Restrictive Covenant Modification Form is at the heart of the effort to remove the racist language from housing documents. Each county has its own process. Some charge a fee; others don’t. Some require a notary certification for the signature; others don’t.

L.A. County:

Registrar-Recorder officials recommend these steps:

• Highlight or underline the unlawful provision on the recorded document
• Complete the Restrictive Covenant Modification Form
• Submit the form and the recorded document by email: RCM@rrcc.lacounty.gov or in person at the Norwalk headquarters at 12400 Imperial Highway in Norwalk
• Mail instructions are here.

Orange County:

The Orange County spokesperson says there may be some properties not caught by its software and urges the public to report them. Here’s the form

Riverside County:

Here’s the Riverside County form

San Bernardino County:

Here’s the San Bernardino County form

San Diego County:

Here’s the San Diego County form

Santa Barbara County:

Here’s the Santa Barbara County form

Ignoring the racist language in property documents, some say, reinforces the legacy of segregation, while taking steps to remove restrictive covenant language is a way individuals and organizations can repudiate policies that sought to discriminate.