Jacy Young

Photo used with permission of M. London. In 1849, a flood of people came to California to cash in on the gold rush. They spent years bent over rivers, sifting for gold. Sometimes they made a fortune. Others, they came away empty handed. In this town, perseverance can really pay. Or sometimes it just gets you even more screwed. The “Dan the Miner” Statue has stood in Carthay Square since 1925 and has certainly...

All cities have the things they’ve plowed under. In Los Angeles, we still have whole neighborhoods that are named after things that aren’t there anymore. The Carthay area is named after a legendary movie palace, the Carthay Circle Theater. Other areas are also named after movie theaters, like Picfair, but Carthay Circle was considered on par with Grauman’s Chinese and second to none. A first run, road-show house, Carthay Circle was built in 1926,...

Ken Kesey told us that “Some things are true, even if they never really happen.” What if a woman was never killed in a house that looks like it might gobble you up if you’re not careful? What if that crime felt true? Then where are you? Well, the answer is, of course, Los Angeles. The Sowden House was built in 1926, for artist and photographer, John Sowden. He wanted a startling space with...

Photo by Marc Wanamaker/Bison Archives Hiking through the Hollywood Hills, one finds a lot of garbage. There's the usual bottles and cans of various types, old bits of carpeting, couches, bones, bicycles, even old cars sometimes. They all have (little h) history. Someone had to truck it up there and leave it, either to get rid of it, or to live in it, whatever. But very little has (capital H) History to it. Though...

It all started with the ostriches. Well, not really, but don't you think it should have? In fact, Griffith Park started with a curse. When the original owner of Griffith Park, Don Antonio Feliz died of small pox in 1863, he left his extensive land holdings to Don Antonio Coronel. Subsequently, his blind, destitute 17 year old niece, Dona Petronilla, cursed the land -- great misfortune would come to whoever owned it. One by one,...

Weeks ago, we warned that Forrest Ackerman, coiner of the phrase sci-fi, adventurer and keeper of the science-fiction flame, was ailing. On Thursday, December 4th, he finally succumbed to congestive heart failure. If all of us only did half of what he's done for what he loved the world would be a significantly better place. He was boundless in his energy and enthusiasm. Some time ago, in a note to Ain't It Cool News' Harry...

Los Angeles drifts and crumbles under the feet of progress. Gone are the streetcars, the original Schawb's, such hangouts at the Coconut Grove and Chasen's. The Brown Derby was once one of the crown jewels in the LA restaurant scene. There were a number of locations, but there are three that stand out. One was located across the street from the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard (this was the shape of an actual hat), the...

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle had the dubious distinction of being the movie business' first scandal. Born in Kansas in 1887, Roscoe Arbuckle (who only used the name "Fatty" professionally, and otherwise detested it) was catapulted to fame in Mack Sennett's Keystone Cops movies. He made famous the "pie in the face" gag so familiar to many of us. For a larger gentleman, he was an astonishingly graceful tumbler, and was said to have a lovely singing...

Pasta with mushroom sauce usually means cream. That's pretty rich and kinda boring, so I decided I would try to make something that was more like the Italian version. 2 tablespoons of porcini mushroom olive oil 3 or 4 leaves of fresh basil, or 2 pinches of dried 1 clove of garlic, minced About a quarter of a white or yellow onion, minced 5 or six crimini mushroom caps, finely chopped 1 cup of white...

Forrest "Forrey" Ackerman, the nearly 92 year old coiner of the term "sci-fi" and honorary lesbian (for his work as "Laurajean Ermayne") is said to be ailing. "He wasn't sounding very strong," Harry Knowles said in an entry on Ain't It Cool News, "It hurt to hear his voice." Ackerman helped to bolster the burgeoning sci-fi community by publishing the inspirational journal, Famous Monsters of Filmland. He is a publisher, author and literary agent (to...