Leonard Maltin on the 2012 Movie Guide ... Pasadena's Fork in the Road sticks it to Grinches ... Bronze Mirrors at The Huntington ... John Lennon predicts his shooting in 1964 ... Feeling Groovy under LA's 7th Street bridge ... Landry and Summers Occupy the studio ... Occupy LA Ousted ...
John Rabe on the street at Occupy LA raid
Off-Ramp host John Rabe reporting from Tuesday night's LAPD raid on the Occupy LA encampment on the lawn of City Hall.
Occupy LA Raid from inside the park - Frank Stoltze on a tents situation
Off-Ramp host John Rabe was kept out of the encampment after the LAPD raid started, but KPCC's Frank Stoltze was part of the media pool allowed to witness the arrests firsthand. John and Frank met across the street from City Hall Friday morning to recount what Frank saw.
Landry and Summers Occupy KPCC studio
Ever since Hans Summers voted against Shaun Landry's membership in his theater company, the two have been inseparable. For 25 years, the biracial LA-based couple has picked on society's most laughable indiscretions, its questionable political leaders, and its dubious inconsistencies. Their current show, "Whatever It Is, We're Against It," at Bang Comedy Theatre, moves the pair from improv into sketch comedy. They talked with KPCC's Steve Julian.
Landry & Summers
"Whatever It Is We're Against It"
Saturdays at 8pm until December 17th
Bang Comedy Theatre
457 N. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles, CA, 90036
Tickets:
$15.00; $10.00 for Students/Seniors/Active & Honorary Discharged Military with ID
Mention "Albatross KPCC" and get half off tickets at the door.
Leonard Maltin's 2012 Movie Guide, 1969-????
The face on the cover of "Leonard Maltin's 2012 Movie Guide" is a little older but the 43-year-old book series still retains its comfortable heft, in terms of weight and respectability.
Maltin conceived the guide before DVD rentals, cable and premium channels. Movies were aired on local television stations and shown in local theaters. These theaters showed the same movie repeatedly throughout the day and cut the film to fit the theater's desired time frame, including commercials. "In a 90-minute time slot, there was probably 75 to 80 minutes of movie," Maltin explains. His guide gave the actual running time of every film so moviegoers would know if they had been shortchanged.
The first edition of his book was published in 1969. Maltin describes his target audience as "die-hard movie buffs, who watched [movies] all the time and wanted to know more about them than what the newspaper told them." He also publishes a spin-off called "Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide" which caters to classic movie lovers.
Moving forward in the digital era, Maltin says he's "just hanging in there, through thick and thin." Although a "Leonard Maltin Movie Guide" app has been created, he hopes to continue publishing the book for years to come.
"We are all hopeful that it still has life in it."
Secrets under LA's 7th Street Bridge
Most of the bridges that cross the LA River are your standard single-deck bridge. They might be pretty to look at, but one of the bridges has a secret world beneath it, and there's a plan, at least, to open it up to the public.
Before 1927, crossing the 7th street Bridge was a traffic nightmare. Train tracks blocked traffic on both sides and city planners knew they had to build over them. But instead of tearing down the old bridge, they built a new span on top of the old one, and the space beneath has been sitting idle for 80 years. Arthur Golding, an architect who’s always had a passion for bridges, recently began a project to convert the unused space below the 7th Street Bridge into an open-air marketplace.
“It can be a kind of Mercado – I call it the Mercado del Rio – where there are shops, restaurants, and craft and art venues.”
Golding has put together a lengthy proposal full of drawings and measured floor plans - but he’s never actually been inside the space. He’s only looked at archived material from the L.A. City Bureau of Engineers, and some photos taken by a blogger named Joe Linton, one of the few people to have gone inside the bridge.
“We came out here one afternoon," Linton says. "And by hook or by crook, kind of a figured out a way in. From the outside it looks like this tiny space, but once you get in you realize it’s not small. And the views are incredible.”
Golding’s plan still has many obstacles before it breaks ground, including building at least one entry that doesn’t require risky climbing. But city officials think it’s an inspired idea, and have added it to a growing list of projects for the L.A. River.
Pasadena's Fork in the Road: Now a vibrant epicenter of altruism
Right here in Pasadena, where Pasadena Avenue splits off into two streets there's a fork in the road. Literally. The guerilla art appeared at the intersection of Pasadena and St. John avenues in November of 2009. After being out of commission for over a year, the fork came back for good this past October.
The fork was a gift to mark the 75th birthday of Altadena business owner Bob Stane from his friend, Ken Marshall. The two had joked for years that a giant fork should be erected at the Pasadena intersection. Stane remembers telling Marshall, "To properly get us involved in the art situation we needed something spectacular like a fork in the road."
Taking his words to heart, Marshall built an 18-foot tall wooden fork and rallied Stane's other
friends to help him stick it in a Caltrans median.
Although the utensil was put up without the permission of the city, it's popularity with locals allowed it to stay up for seven months. "The people driving by [and] the media were so enthralled by the fork that Pasadena did not have the desire to pull it down right away," Marshall said. The city of Pasadena finally did take it down in June 2010, citing safety and liability concerns.
But the fork made its comeback when Marshall bought the necessary liability insurance, the Pasadena Star-News reports.
Marshall says the fork is the largest this side of the Mississippi River. Not only is the landmark now a permitted piece of art, it's now a focal point for doing good deeds. This Thanksgiving, the fork played host to "Put the Fork in Hunger" a food drive. This month, a toy drive will be held at the artwork where people can drive up and hand over donations to volunteers. Marshall hopes the toy drive, which will benefit local Pasadena charities, will be the largest in the city's history.
South Pasadena residents survey wind storm damage
The city of South Pasadena was among the hardest hit communities during this week's wind storm. Trees were knocked down, cars crushed, closed schools. Thankfully, no injuries were reported, as of Thursday. Off-Ramp producer Kevin Ferguson went to Mission Street in South Pasadena Thursday morning to talk to residents, many were seeing storm's damage for the very first time.
Marc Haefele looks into the Huntington's ancient mirrors
Over 4,000 years ago, someone in China made the first mirror. We haven’t stopped looking at ourselves since. They’re so familiar, but they retain a mystery to this day, a mystery explored in a new exhibit at the Huntington of ancient Chinese bronze mirrors.
These 80-some metal mirrors are mostly round, and range in size from a modern CD to an old-fashioned record. The oldest are some of the oldest metal artifacts you will ever see, dating to hundreds of years before the Trojan War.
Ironically, on most of the mirrors on display at the Huntington, the reflecting surfaces themselves are corroded away. But what is left on their backs is spectacular -- portraits of people, birds and animals, lions and writhing dragons. Leaping apes and fantastic mythical creatures, tangles of vines and flowers, entire mythologies of millennia past, in metal applique cast, chased or hammered into the base alloy of tin and copper.
The most wonderful thing about these decorations is that they are so tactile. As you hold the mirror in your hand in front of your face, your fingers caress the bronze figures that ornament them. Many represent the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. The inscriptions among them tend to wish the user long life, full of pleasure and good luck.
It’s a pity the mirror sides are mostly unrestored … but not because I’m a narcissist. Scholar Joseph Needham wrote that some of these surfaces had hidden Chinese characters that would flash on the wall in a reflected sunbeam. But the original marvel of the first bronze mirror 4,000 years ago must have simply been the magical discovery that, if you polished a piece of metal long enough, there would be your face looking back at you, like you were looking into a puddle of water.
?
We don’t know exactly how these objects were used. “Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motifs,” from the 1800s, refers to a protrusion on the back of the mirror that the user presumably put a silk cord through, which might have been for the hand or to hang the mirror on a hook. There aren’t many pictures of people using these mirrors in Chinese art, but the exhibit at the Huntington includes a statue of a mirror user. It's a 2,000 year old terra cotta figure of a young, graceful woman with powder puff in one hand, mirror in the other. She’s kneeling in a full skirt that puddles around her.
Who used them? Perhaps, mostly women. Or is that sexist? In any case, one of the true delights of this absorbing show is an intact Chinese makeup kit from about the time of Julius Caesar … complete with what is surely the world’s oldest known powder puff. The conscientious person of that era would look at his or her face in the little bronze circle, and dab powder here and there, before venturing out on a torrid night on the town in the Forbidden City.
So it is appropriate that this singular exhibit of one boudoir essential was made possible by Lloyd Cotsen, who has been collecting ancient bronze mirrors for 60 years. Cotsen is otherwise best known for bringing us the transparent soap known as Neutrogena … and soap and mirrors have been the uncelebrated bulwarks of global civilization.
Did John Lennon predict his own death?
John Lennon was killed December 8, 1980. September 6, 1964, at Olympia Stadium in Detroit, Lennon foreshadowed his death. This report by KPCC's John Rabe features exclusive sound from a news conference held between concerts and recorded by WT Rabe, John's father.
"Can we keep the noise level down just a little?" the Beatles' press officer Derek Taylor asks.
The Beatles had two weeks left on their American tour and had doubtless been asked the same questions a million times -- about their hair (they didn’t grow it out to make a fashion statement), about the screaming girls (they’re flattered), about the deeper meaning of their songs (there isn’t one).
They answer politely, and when it comes to music, plug their favorite groups, and even get in a few pointed political comments, singling out the Motown and Tamla labels, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and the "dirty" segregation of blacks at some concerts.
Someone asks, “Who keeps track of all the money you’re making?”
The Beatles answer, "Clever accountants."
Reporter: "Who keeps track of the accountants?"
The Beatles (in unison): "The police."
The last exchange is chilling.
Derek Taylor (repeating a question from a reporter): "Is it true they’re leaving show business in a year?"
John Lennon: "No."
Uniknown Beatle: "Not as far as we know, anyway."
John Lennon: "Unless we get shot or something."
Race, relationships, and more -- Off-Ramp at The Comedy Store
This was not your typical public radio night. In July 2011, we asked five comics at The Comedy Store to limit the F-bombs, and not get too graphic if they talked about s-e-x, but otherwise not to hold back when we taped a special show there. Here are the results, moderated by Brandon Christy. Special thanks to the comics -- Fahim Anwar, Sarah Tiana, Michael Kosta, Freddy Lockhart, and Ian Edwards -- plus producer Todd Whitman, Alf Lamont, and The Comedy Store.
Off-Ramp music for December 3, 2011
What was that song you heard on this week's show? Luckily for you, we have a playlist below where you can listen and find out!