Slide on over to San Pedro's Sunken City neighborhood; cleaning up after the Lake Fire; Brains On, the science podcast for kids and curious adults.
'Clueless' director Amy Heckerling on the teen classic's 20th birthday
"Clueless" was more than the source for "as if" and "whatever." It was more than a movie about L.A. — "Everywhere in L.A takes 20 minutes." It was more than the precursor to "Legally Blonde," with its pretty, somewhat ditzy, but highly intelligent blonde heroine.
It was, in fact, a rare accurate movie about teenagers and their world. On the whole, they're good kids who try to get along with each other, and the adults in their lives try to do the same. For my money, that's why we're still watching it, and quoting it, 20 years later.
"Clueless" was released July 19, 1995. It starred Alicia Silverstone, the late Brittany Murphy and Stacey Dash — along with Jeremy Sisto, Wallace Shawn and the star of this weekend's "Ant-Man," Paul Rudd.
"Clueless" was written and directed by Amy Heckerling, who had previously directed "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and the first two "Look Who's Talking" movies. She based it on Jane Austen's "Emma," which coincidentally marks its 200th anniversary this year. I reached her in New York for an in-depth conversation.
How she got involved in making "Clueless":
I was involved because I thought of it. So, I liked me for it, so I said, "How 'bout you do it?" I wanted to do a project with a character that would be incredibly happy. That always kind of confused me that people were very positive and happy. I don't know how people could be positive. For the most part, I don't know what it is that makes people think that everything will go their way, or that things will work out right.
"Emma," the movie's template, and Jane Austen:
She's obviously got an incredibly huge heart, but there's also like a wicked little funny way of mocking people that's just great. I just gave ["Emma"] to my mother, and she read just a few pages and was hooked. There's absolutely nothing that's dated about it.
The roots of her dialogue in "Clueless:"
Your handicaps in life are what you work out in what you're doing. I'm not a great speaker. I'm very insecure about even doing something like this, and from the time I was a kid, girls and boys would be in groups and they'd be talking to each other, and I just was going, "How the hell do they know what to say to each other? What are they talking about? And how do they know which words to be using?" But I've been scribbling down slang since I could write, taking down little snippets of what people are saying.
(Dash and Silverstone in 2012)
Unlike a lot of teen movies, these kids aren't jerks:
They're not jerks, and a lot of times in youth-oriented movies, grown-ups are all caricatures. That's not the world I want to live in. I like the idea that there's a very intelligent teacher like Wally Shawn, and he does care about them. I created a happy world that I'd like to live in.
Good news for fans: a jukebox musical version of "Clueless" is in the works. Heckerling wrote the book, Kristin Hanggi ("Rock of Ages") is directing and the Dodgers group ("Urinetown," "Tommy") is producing. Also, Laemmle's Music Hall 3 is showing the original "Clueless" Thursday night at 7:30 p.m.
Comic-Con tries to fight live streaming, but Periscope prevails
Off-Ramp host John Rabe talks with KPCC's Mike Roe about Comic-Con's attempts to keep people from live streaming convention content. It used to be much easier to police, but the Periscope app, which lets you live stream from your phone, is a game-changer.
Undertaking LA: A new funeral home for people who want to hold a funeral at home
Death and dying happened in the home for hundreds of years of American history. In the 20th century, the rise of the medical and funeral industries have taken dying and the dead body behind closed doors to be handled by “professionals.” — Undertaking LA
If you're a fan of Caitlin Doughty's Off-Ramp commentaries on death, you might have been wondering why she's been silent for a few months. Doughty, who gained fame blogging at The Order of the Good Death and then with the bestselling memoir, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory," has been working on opening a funeral home. Or rather, her idea of a funeral home, called Undertaking L.A.
For instance, Undertaking L.A. has a one-room office, unlike the sombre, stately funeral homes we're used to. "It's not like that, mostly because our funerals are going to take place in the family's home, so we don't need a big funeral home." The state requires an office (with a door), so they have one in a medical building on Santa Monica Boulevard where it intersects with the 101 Freeway.
The Order of the Good Death, which Doughty founded, is about getting us more comfortable with the idea of death — something our ancestors were accustomed to and dealt with in a healthier way — and as The Order puts it, "accepting that death itself is natural, but the death anxiety and terror of modern culture are not."
(A home funeral, America, 19th century. Credit: The Order of the Good Death)
To that end, so to speak, Undertaking L.A. will help you plan and hold a funeral at your loved one's home. It will connect you with a co-op crematory or a burial ground near Joshua Tree if you want to be buried un-embalmed.
They'll show you how to wash the body, if you want, and show you that there is no law that you must use a standard funeral home. "That's definitely the first thing all of my friends say when I tell them I'm doing this," says Undertaking L.A. mortician Amber Carvaly. "Oh, I didn't even know that you could! Is that legal? That doesn't seem legal."
Carvaly was an apprentice embalmer at Forest Lawn, but she says it wasn't for her because she's a "big picture" person. "I liked being there from the beginning to the end." She remembers a case where she helped a man take care of his wife's funeral, "making sure that his wife was set up in the way that he wanted, that she had her favorite scarf. I had tied it on her head and made a beautiful bow. I liked being there all the way." And she wished she could have been there for the actual funeral.
While the two say the process of setting up Undertaking L.A. was extremely difficult (logistically, not financially), they were surprised by help they received along the way. "Because we are a non-traditional model of funeral home," Doughty says. "I was expecting the cemetery and funeral board and the local and state agencies to be slightly more unwilling to help us. Everybody's been very helpful. They seem to want us to succeed."
For much more of our conversation, listen to the audio at the top of the page.
Camp de Benneville Pines to reopen after Lake Fire
"In our geographic area, there are 20 camps — the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and church organizations and YMCA's — and they're all going through what we're going through. We've been closed four weeks now, so we've missed four weeks of income, so you can do the math." — Janet James, Camp De Benneville Pines
The Lake Fire didn't just burn 31,000 acres of the San Bernardino National Forest. It involved 355 firefighters, seven water-dropping choppers and destroyed one structure. It also forced the closure of twenty camps run by groups like the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, ruining part of the summer for many kids (and probably some adults). Reopening the camps after a fire is a very complicated process.
A couple of weeks ago, we called up Janet James, the director of Camp De Benneville Pines, run by the Unitarian-Universalists and one of the oldest camps in the area. We went back Tuesday to meet Janet in person, along with Steve, a camp vet who works in the kitchen, and Daisy Doodle, the camp dog.
Camp De Benneville Pines is where the fire started. You can see the line of demarcation between burned and unburned land. James told me with relief that all of her campers were accounted for around the time the fire started, so that's one less headache.
(Firefighters at Camp de Benneville Pines during the Lake Fire. Credit: Janet James)
The fire trucks and fire crews are gone now, as is the charred smell (mostly). But Janet, her crew and contractors had a lot of work to do before they could welcome the public back in.
"First of all, there are many government agencies involved, and the top of the pile is the U.S. Forest Service," Janet said Tuesday. "The burn has to be assessed for where the water will run if we get a heavy rain, and what will it bring with it, and where will it land and whose yard will it end up in. And of course, we're very interested in not bringing children up to an area that might end up under mud. So all the camps in our area are waiting to hear if they're going to open the area 100 percent to the camping business, or if they're just going to open certain camps and keep other camps closed."
(Charismatic mega fauna Daisy Doodle, the camp dog. She developed a huge crush on one of the firefighters, and you can hear about it by listening to the audio above. Credit: Janet James)
They also had to have their water tested (it passed) and get rid of any smoke damage. "So we're wiping off mattresses, wiping down walls, shampooing carpets."
And good news came from the USFS Wednesday: Camp de Benneville Pines can open this Sunday. But the camp right next door, James says, has to stay closed for the time being.
James says people have been asking how they can help, and she says the best way is to simply come stay at the camp in August and the fall months when they're not filled up with groups of kids. That includes a social justice camp, a camp for retirees, a choir camp for adults who love to sing, and an art camp — even a Thanksgiving Family Camp. All the details are on the camp website.
Neighbors of San Pedro's Sunken City fight to turn fallen town into city park
More than 80 years ago, a neighborhood in San Pedro started falling toward the sea, and Sunken City was born. Today, the 6-acre slide area is full of broken road and street art. An 8-foot fence went up in the ‘80s, but it hasn’t kept people out. Neighbors say it’s drawing the right and wrong kind of people, including a lot of late-night partiers. Now, they want Sunken City to return to the people of San Pedro as a well-regulated city park.
One of those neighbors is Graham Robertson, who built his ocean-view house at the very edge of Sunken City. “I’ve been in many times,” Robertson said. “I think just about everyone who lives around here has been in.”
(Archive photo: 'Two hundred tons of earth at Point Fermin are shown ready to topple into the sea at San Pedro. It is part of the 6-acre area atop the 90-foot bluff that started to slip toward the sea in 1939 (sic). The heavy weekend rains loosened the big chunk and it is liable to become an avalanche at any moment. The site is commonly known as the "Sunken City." Photo dated: February 17, 1941.' LA Public Library/Herald-Examiner Collection)
Robertson, who taught high school physics and engineering before retiring a few years ago, closely studied Sunken City when he moved to the area. He had to know if he was building a house on shaky ground. He wasn't, but he learned the story of Sunken City goes back a lot longer than you might think.
“There was a volcano in Palos Verdes about 10 million years ago, and it blew ash everywhere,” Robertson said. The ash that landed underneath where Sunken City is now was deep and thick – and subject to change. It seems that, when they built a hotel, beach bungalows, and Red Car tracks here in the early 1900s, land developers didn’t know this.
But they found out in 1929. That’s when the land started to move – slowly, but surely – toward the ocean. There was enough time to move out and demolish most of the buildings and homes, but by the early '30s, the road, rails, and foundations had all dropped 80 to 90 feet closer to sea level.
“The road was so well built that you can still see it. You can still see the curb, the sidewalks, and the street trees are still here. And, where the concrete blocks are, they’re protecting the soft rock underneath – just like the Grand Canyon has the cap rock — so wherever the pieces of road are, they’re higher,” Robertson said.
Today, despite the fence, Sunken City has become one of L.A.'s top spots for street art, with tags seen on remnants of road, palm trees, and the cliff face. Robertson and his fellow neighbors of Sunken City say they don’t mind the street art, as long as it remains in Sunken City. What they do mind is late-night bonfires and parties that disturb this otherwise tranquil neighborhood.
“What our group wants is for Sunken City to become a part of Point Fermin Park, administered by Recreation and Parks,” Robertson said. He and his group of 18 neighbors, called the Sunken City Watch, have confronted the coastal commission, filled city council meetings and circulated petitions to make the park legally open during the day and closed – with enforcement – at night. In May, Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino, who represents San Pedro, asked city attorneys to consider Robertson and his neighbors’ request to open Sunken City.
The way Sunken City is now, the neighbors argue, is anything but closed. “They pretend they can keep teenagers out, and all it does is keep older people out. The kids are there just — in fact now that we’re on social media, there are more kids than there ever have been,” Robertson said.
One older person who could not be kept out and recently entered Sunken City through a hole in the fence was Mike Watt, punk-rock bassist and founding member of the Minutemen. Watt still lives in San Pedro and still visits Sunken City, just as he did growing up in the '60s and '70s. Then, there was no fence and fewer people.
“It was like — this is where the squares ain’t. No square Johns,” Watt said. “Before we got to the concert to see The Blue Oyster Cult at the Long Beach arena. This was our piece of Pedro that we kind of owned.”
Sunken City made enough of an impression for Watt to write about it in “O’er the town of Pedro,” a song performed by fIREHOSE.
It’s inspired many others, too, including hundreds of street artists, selfie-takers and now, community activists, fighting to bring back Sunken City.
Song of the week: 'Will You Dance?' by The Bird and the Bee
This week's Off-Ramp song of the week is “Will You Dance?” by LA-based pop duo The Bird and the Bee.
The Bird and the Bee is vocalist Inara George and Grammy Award-nominated producer Greg Kurstin, who's worked with artists like Sia and Charli XCX. “Will You Dance?” is from The Bird and the Bee’s album “Recreational Love,” out July 17 on Rostrum Records.
You can see The Bird and the Bee live at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on July 12. And you can check out the video for "Will You Dance?" here (it features Simon Helberg and Patton Oswalt):
Sister Corita Kent gets a retrospective at the Pasadena Museum of California Art
Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent is the first full-scale exhibition to survey the entire career of pioneering artist and designer Corita Kent (1918–1986). For over three decades, Corita experimented in printmaking, producing a groundbreaking body of work that combines faith, activism, and teaching with messages of acceptance and hope.
-- Pasadena Museum of California Art
She loved flowers, colors, poetry, Jesus, and love itself. Now and then, she also liked a good belt of Jack Daniels. She helped change the way art is taught in America. And she is likely to be remembered as one of the greatest Los Angeles artists to emerge in the 20th century.
Sister Frances Elizabeth Corita Kent, who jumped over the convent wall in the last part of her life to become known simply as “Corita,” embodied the humanization of the movement known as “Pop Art.” But she was also the nun on the cover of Newsweek, famous associate of the activist Berrigan Brothers and other progressive Catholic "partners in protest," and lifelong protestor against war, racism and all kinds of injustice.
All of her efforts arose from a profound sense of right and wrong, rooted in the deep Christian religiosity that carried her through her astonishing life, which linked her born spirituality with an ascending creativity, a wildly inventive talent with social engagement.
A new show of Corita Kent’s work is now on display at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, called “Someday is Now.’’
(Sister Corita Kent. Courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Immaculate Hearts Community, LA)
Even if her name doesn’t come quickly to mind, you’ll quickly recall, among her prints, paintings and serigraphs, that you've been browsing through her world for much of your life — including putting many of her bright 700-million selling “Love” stamps on your mail.
Kent doesn’t so much do pictures and illustrations. Her artworks are vivid, actinic and perfect statements — of words mostly found but unforgettable, irresistibly memorable, sunk deeply in tiny white letters in flamboyant flourishes of pure raving color. She illuminated her quoted apothegms like a medieval monk illuminating the letters of a manuscript — but in the flaming colors of counter-cultural pop.
But the basic ingredients in her art ranged from the most naturally humble things — like tree branches, plant stems and flowers — to the most bombastically commercial, like her ferocious yet endearing serial deconstruction of the Wonder Bread commercial, with its slogans morphing ironically but gently into the deepest meanings of the holy sacraments.
For decades, as her work went viral and her reputation soared, she and her colleague, Sister Magdalen Mary, taught art at Hollywood’s Immaculate Heart College. Their teaching methods were much more like those of a New York progressive prep school than a traditional Catholic institution for young women.
It was perhaps natural that she and her sisters would have problems with the Church’s hierarchy. But it was deeply unfortunate that for most of her IHC career, she had to deal with James MacIntyre, perhaps the most conservative American ever to wear a cardinal’s hat. He was a prelate much given to racial slurs, who vowed to bring the Church and the John Birch Society together, and he fought a long-running skirmish with Corita and her order that first forbade her to paint her “blasphemous” sacred pictures, and ultimately resulted in the obliteration of Immaculate Heart College itself.
Much of Corita’s controversial early work is on display at the PCMA. In general, it is astonishingly good: Full of Fauvist influences, her impressionist depictions of the Holy Family and the Passion of Christ would not have offended anyone familiar with early 20th century painting, which MacIntyre was obviously not.
MacIntyre's ban on Corita’s work cost the Church the work of a great, representational deeply religious painter. Ironically, it gave us instead an entire generation of unique new art: Corita’s freshly imagined serigraphic word-picture statements, spreading all over the nation and inspiring generations of artists. This is the art of “Someday is Now,” which you ought to experience as soon as you can.
Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent is at the Pasadena Museum of California art through November 1. 490 East Union Street, Pasadena, CA 91101