Walking the Blog

Today was a spectacular day; I wanted to take my new camera out to see what I could see.

  Looking out over Highland Park

 

Buddha with cactus and chicken

On Sundays, I make a point of walking by the chicken on Sunnyhill Rd. to say hello, then down the dirt path that links up to Museum Dr., but today the path was full of rocks, a result of an avalanche spill down the canyon wall. On some days I walk around this hill without seeing a soul. I find this to be the best time to think. A lot of my blog posts are made up this way, while walking. They come, as if floating down from overhanging trees, and when they do, I feel lucky, figuring them out with each step. Then I go home and write them down the way I composed them in my head. Some days it's a simple matter, but other days, it's a ridiculously long slog to make what was simple work. But today, nothing came, because I'd been thinking of other things, things that had nothing to do with blogging and only made me tense. When this happens it's best to accept the inevitable and look around.


(click on photos to see full frame)

Wavering

When I think of quitting my job, I think of my favorite students— Keyong, Soon, Gloria and Sang. They're so much fun, but they really need to be getting along. They've already graduated from my class but are sticking around, because, truthfully, they fear they can't make it on their own. 
(Keyong, left, Soon, below with Bogdan)

They view the native born English speaker as an alien creature, one that has no interest in them, in fact, looks right through them when they pass by. My students once had hopes of learning English, but after years of living here, have grown disillusioned. Yet, somehow, they landed in my classroom. 


In the last year, I've learned of their sacrifices as immigrants— the jobs they've taken on to survive, the loneliness of not being part of this society. They've slowly opened up as they've peeled back the layers of their disappointment. Gloria, the shy one, is beginning to talk; Keyong, the troublemaker, has become serious about pronouncing her "f's" and "z's," sounds that have resulted in misunderstandings and strange looks. 

~~~~~

Sang

The difficulty of leaving this job is that my students are such a responsive audience. Tonight, when we were studying the future "real" conditional, I told them the story of Aunt Ruth: Aunt Ruth, who was short and round, went on a diet motivated solely by the $10,000 my father offered if she could loose 10 pounds. Every day she went to Erhlers for lunch, ordering a two-scoop ice-cream cone, but instead of losing ten pounds she gained it. My students wanted to know if there really was such a thing as an American ice-cream diet and I told them yes. They laughed appreciatively, and for a moment I wavered in my resolve to quit my job. Regardless, they need to go. As I need to go on. In that way, we're not so different, my students and I. 

Gloria

Three Portraits

Today's my birthday. It's hailing outside one minute and the next it's sunny. This certainly is a sign....but like everything else in my life, I'm not sure what kind. 


The other day I saw the Surrealist women artists exhibit at LACMA. The sheer force of it blew me away— all these women, half I didn't know, living as artists, despite not being able to make a living at it. They went unrecognized and unappreciated by gallery owners, critics, and even their husbands. Ironically, when they grew old, they began to look like old men, but probably enjoyed themselves better, living alone and still making art. 


For my birthday and in honor of these women, I've taken the liberty to draw three portraits, via Dorothy Tanning, Frieda Kahlo, and Leonora Carrington. Enjoy. 

Birthday

 by Dorothy Tanning

Birthday

Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo,

Wedding Portrait,

by Frida Kahlo 

 Tom and Charlotte,
Portrait

The Chrysopeia of Mary the Jewess,

by Leonora Carrington

The Jewess

(Click portraits to see as slide show)

Yarnbombing

You might know it as "yarnbombing," or the more aggressive "yarnstorming." However you know it, it was covering York Blvd in Highland Park last week: trees, poles, utility boxes and parking meters covered in fuzzy, colorful yarn. 

utility box

utility box

parking meter 

shapely tree

Hey, there, big dog...

Considered graffiti, yarnbombing is more palatable; still it's illegal. But unlike graffiti, yarnbombing is rarely prosecutable, because it's so darn cute. I hadn't realized how popular it was —over four continents and here in LA, a collective of guerilla knitters. It was that organized crew of yarnbombers who went to town after last week's Art Soup competition for northeast artists. These yarnbombers didn't win, but it sure was fun to see their colorful work on display along drab York Blvd.

I realized I had seen this somewhere before.... oh yeah, Little Tokyo, six months ago. I wondered why the bicycle racks were covered—one wearing a sweater, the other a hand muff. 

Yarnbombing reminds me of the 60s when daisies were dropped from the sky at Woodstock— you know, a love fest, making the hard, cold objects of the world more beautiful. I wanted to get one last look at the dazzling display on York, but when I drove down there this morning, this is what I saw:

A return to normal. I'm glad I got to see it before it came down.

Coyote Returns

Coyote Returns

You can hear them at night; a pack of 50 or 100, or maybe just 20, down in the canyon yipping and yowling for a good long while after a siren goes off. I've never seen a pack, but I have seen a solitary coyote hanging out by the turn in the road, my headlights illuminating its opaque, glass-colored eyes, when I come home from work. I've wondered if this isn't the same lone coyote that visits next door in the middle of the day, looking for a handout from my neighbor Thea.

Thea started feeding a coyote two years ago, when it was a toddler. I told her, pleaded with her, that it was wrong to feed a wild animal and, much to my surprise, she agreed; she promised to stop but then she didn't. I felt helpless to do anything about it: my neighbor is old and lonely. The coyote was her friend.

I hadn't seen the coyote for three or four months; I'd missed its absence, for no matter what you say, having a wild animal nearby can send shivers down your spine. It's thrilling, yet....it's still wrong. I was sitting down to write, when, out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash, it was the coyote back in Thea's yard!

I heard Thea calling to the coyote, "Come, come. Come, come," in her German accent, as she placed food on the ground. I grabbed my video camera and ran outside. You can see in the video, the coyote looking to the left (Thea), then looking straight ahead (me) and the dilemma he finds himself in. He doesn't know what to do: here's a witness to his forsaking his wild coyote ways, and I imagine, he's a little bit embarrassed. Later, he plops down in the grass in Thea's lower yard, smelling the flowers (a true Ferdinand, the coyote), passing a peaceable afternoon. 

Coyote biding his time until I leave. 

After 45 minutes of taking in the breezes and catching bugs, he goes back to dine at Thea's table.

To view on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdes2M53RqA

21

Happy Birthday, daughter. I'm thinking about you today, and how all the clichés about children growing up so quickly are not really clichés at all. Time really is a fluid mass without markers. We were in Joshua Tree, and Dad and Mekko were climbing high up on the rocks. You and I stayed down below, with you in a baby carrier facing front, my coat wrapped around both of us. You were one. We had the whole place to ourselves. I couldn't believe how big your brown eyes were, so focused and attentive, full of language that you couldn't yet speak. We danced around on the rocks, you bouncing in your carrier, and for me, this is when we bonded. I know, everyone says you have to bond right after birth or else, but it happened here: I hadn't had the time before, because I was so crazed with mothering. But here, in the quivering, shifting light of Joshua Tree, we recognized each other. Mother daughter. I remember it like it was yesterday. 

And now it's today. You're 21. With all your friends, your brother, your lover, your rats, your house, your new courses, your final semester of junior year, your dreams your fears your plans your travels your plans to travel. I know it wasn't easy to get to this place. But you did it. You're 21 with merit... you deserve 21, and 21 deserves you. You do 21 proud. In fact, twenty-one was waiting for someone like you.

Imagined Scenario #1

The sign you see from the 10 Freeway 

(I've forgotten how different writing an article is from writing a blog post—much harder! The freedom to do or say anything you want is limited; whereas in a blog post, you can do whatever you want. To get started on something I'm writing I've tried to fall somewhere in between, not sure it's working, but at least it's gotten me started.) 


Imagined scenario #1: What if the derelict warehouse on Grand Ave between 36th and 37th Street, in South Los Angeles, hadn't been transformed into the Mercado La Paloma—with it's many eateries and social services stationed under one big roof— and say, a Wal-Mart had been put in its place? 

Working backwards, I'll take a wild guess at what that might look like: there'd be no foot traffic on the broad tree-lined street, no lunch time rush hour, no paradores meeting other health care workers over tacos al pastor, no USC students spread out around the communal tables, slurping spicy Tlalpeño soup from Vista Hermosa. 

Beth Weinstein, who manages the Mercado, with Raul Morales, 

owner and chef of Vista Hermosa

  

His traditional Tlalpeño soup from Michoacan

There'd be no cultural or holiday events centered around a radish!

Noche de Rabanos/Radishes Night

There'd be absent the 13 entrepreneurial families who set up successful businesses with the help and resources of the Esperanza Housing Corp, who launched the project in 1999. 

Nancy Halpern Ibriham, executive director of Esperanza Housing Corp.

looking over the menu

In fact, what the neighborhood might look like if a Wal-Mart were here is what Figueroa, a few blocks away, looks like today: a nondescript stretch of colorless concrete, with fast food franchises and faceless warehouses, where people come and go as fast as they can. If a Wal-Mart were here...well, I shudder to even imagine...

It took five years for Esperanza to raise the funds in a capital campaign to purchase the 34,000 sq. ft building in the mid-2000s, pushing forward despite the nay-sayers. Under Nancy Halpern Ibriham's direction they rejected national franchises, and instead brought in vendors who had ties to the community.  

Sometimes, that's all they had. In 2009, when Ricardo Zarate approached Beth Weinstein, director of marketing, about opening a Peruvian food stand, he had never done anything like that before. But hallelujah, Weinstein said yes! Soon after Zarate's Mo-Chica opened, Jonathan Gold wrote a glowing review in the LA Weekly. Zarate has gone on to garner awards—Best new chef for 2011 by Food and Wine— and recently opened Picca, a restaurant outside the 'hood. But what if Weinstein had said no? She took a chance on a nobody because, sometimes, given who's standing in front of you, that's the right thing to do.

I went down to the Mercado last week, and as promised, enjoyed an exceptional meal. I recommend a trip to the Mercado, if for no other reason, to see the community of lunch time eaters. People come from all over LA, because unlike Wal-Mart or fast food joints, here, you can sit back with friends and stay for awhile. 

Yum—Chili Rellenos