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1. 'Back in 1988, Los Angeles had a competition to build a $33-million monument sculpture over the Hollywood Freeway between Olvera Street and the Civic Center. It was supposed to rival New York's Statue of Liberty and St. Louis' Gateway Arch. The selection committee chose the "Steel Cloud" entry by New York architects Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture (now of Asymptote).'The glass-and-steel structure was to rise up to twelve stories above the Hollywood Freeway in downtown Los Angeles and was to be linked by bridges to the city's ethnic neighborhoods. Passersby would peer at 140-ft.-high aquariums and view scenes from Hollywood films projected on large silver screens.
'The Los Angeles Times described it as an "avant-garde series of geometrical metal shapes housing theaters, museum, cafes, walkways, a genealogy library and other cultural amenities … all growing out of the median strip of the Hollywood Freeway." The working model looked "as if it were built with an erector set." Some likened the design to a freeway crash scene — or Los Angeles after the Big One. Gloria Molina, then a councilwoman, commented, "It's stressful just to look at the drawings."' -- LANow.com
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2. 'In 1999, Brett-Livingstone Strong -- who has been called a modern day Michelangelo...by himself -- designed a 350 ft angel sculpture to sit on a 750 ft. tower-of-babel-esque platform that would "house galleries, shops, several small nondenominational chapels, a 5,000-seat concert hall and a revolving theme restaurant." That's 1100 ft total, taller than the Library Tower, which would have made it the new tallest structure west of the Mississippi.'The potential site for the project was 3rd & Bixel in Central City West, at what is now the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, among other buildings. Apparently, LAUSD used eminent domain to acquire a large portion of the preferred site in 2001, which officially ended the project. However, the project was already faltering in early 2000 when the development group "lost a major financial supporter and [had] yet to purchase any property nearly 18 months after the bold project was unveiled."' --Danny Ahkiam, LA Curbed
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3. 'These are six concept drawings of Los Angeles movie theatres from the Golden Age. The architectural sketches date from the late 1930s to the early 1940s. All of the designs, none of which were never built, were conceived by architect S. Charles Lee and planned to be built entirely out of plastic, a revolutionary and ultimately impractical idea that sealed the imaginary theaters' doom.' -- A Piece of Monologue
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4. 'In 1927, the Venice Chamber of Commerce presented the city of Los Angeles with a $10,000,000 grand plan for Venice's future that would make it more famous as a resort than Coney Island in New York. Plans called for the city to obtain all of the 3-1/2 miles of beach between Santa Monica and Playa del Rey (they already owned 2 miles). Then they would replace the present amusement piers with three huge jetties into the ocean. They would then built plazas on the land end of each jetty which would cost $1,000,000 each (plazas cost $300,000).'Plans also included the construction of an elevated wooden boardwalk along the entire length of the beach. This structure, similar to Coney Island's, would cost $3,000,000. An huge artificial inland harbor as large as Lake Merrit in Oakland would be built at a cost of between $3,000,000 and $6,000,000. It would be used for bathing, yacht moorings, swimming and canoeing. They proposed to finance the project with a bond issue. They recommended that a special commission be set up to review their plans. Naturally they were pipe dreamers because the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department had no intention of building anything along the coast. If they had their way, all the amusement piers would be removed.' -- LAHistory
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5. 'Frank Lloyd Wright's 1947 proposal for The Huntington Hartford Sports Club and Play Resort, which would have been built in the Hollywood Hills just east of the area now known as Elysium Park.' -- skyscrapers.com
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6. 'What was the Museum of the Weird? It was one of Walt Disney’s more personal projects, a gallery of the creepy and kooky. Against type, Disney had a fascination with death and the bizarre, and occasionally had to be talked into dialing down the gore (originally, Bambi was to discover his mother in a pool of blood). For his museum, Disney envisioned a collection of funny and funny-strange special effects and artifacts. He commissioned animation artist Rolly Crump and “imagineer” Yale Gracey to design the museum exhibits.'Crump was an “in-betweener” in more ways than one. He was an assistant animator, a beatnik, a doper, and a modernist sculptor influenced by Alexander Calder. In the 1950s, while working for Disney, Crump produced satirical posters promoting jazz bands and recreational drugs. After seeing an in-house show of his mobiles and marijuana posters, Disney decided Crump was the man for the museum project. But after Disney’s 1965 death, management decided the museum was too weird for Disneyland. A few of Crump and Gracey’s designs were incorporated in the Haunted Mansion.' -- disneyfied.com
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7. 'In the competition for a $200-million commission to redesign and unify Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s campus the board of trustees architect selection committee unanimously approved the proposal by Rem Koolhaas. Koolhaas’ radical design concept, nicknamed “Cool House”, was to demolish most of the existing buildings and replace them with a single structure of three levels topped by a tent-like translucent roof.'In assessing the possibilities to transform the museum, Koolhaas followed, in his words, the “moral imperative” to create a new, consolidated LACMA rather than attempting to impose order on the existing campus with its eclectic constellation of buildings. The proposal, approved in 2002, was later scrapped due in part to public outrage in favour of a dull and more cost effective proposal by Renzo Piano.' -- openbuildings.com
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8. 'In 1990, Donald J. Trump, the brash and controversial builder from Manhattan, announced plans in Los Angeles that would have lead to the demolition of the historic Ambassador Hotel as part of a mammoth commercial and residential redevelopment expected to cost more than $1 billion that would have included the nation's tallest building -- 125 stories -- on the hotel site, nearly 24 acres in the mid-Wilshire area.'A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District immediately announced that the district remained firm in its resolve to use the site for a school and would condemn the property through eminent domain if necessary. The Los Angeles Conservancy, a preservation group, also opposed Trump's plans because of its interest in preserving the Ambassador. Ultimately, the outcry and spiraling costs caused to project to be cancelled. The Ambassador Hotel was ultimately razed in the early 2000s.' -- Los Angeles Times
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9. 'During the 90's I bounced around from company to company doing Theme Park Design. It was a busy time then as it was called "The Theme Park Wars" as every studio was expanding and Universal and Disney were one-upping each other all over the globe, so it was good time to be a show designer.'These sketches represent a concept for a themed E-Ticket high dollar attraction that would go into the Adventureland area in the Disneyland park next to Indiana Jones. We went with a tree people motif and I designed various temples of rock and wood and icons to represent this huge attraction which basically covered a roller coaster. The project was scrapped as Mr Eisner did not want "An Iron Ride in His Park".' -- Thom Schillinger
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10. Miscelaneous
Grand Street redevelopment
The Music Center
'The Immortal', a (never built) West Los Angeles building proposed in 2007 by designer Michelle Lord based on Borges' story of the same name, which would have been filled with “dead-end corridors, high unattainable windows, portentous doors which led to a cell or pit, incredible inverted stairways whose steps and balustrades hung downwards.”' -- Architectural Digest
Helicopter public transport center @ Union Station
Skyscraper proposed for the city of Northridge
Los Angeles civic redevelopment plans
'Mecca', an entertainment & residential resort, Mojave desert
Sports and recreation center, East Los Angeles
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p.s. Hey. Oh, my creaky laptop, which I'm trying to keep alive until the new generation Macbook is released if possible, is weirding out on me this morning, and the amount of media in the Nico post seems to be too much for it to handle, and, long story short, I can't seem to click on any links in the weekend's comments without my browser crashing, so not only do I not know what lies on the other end of those blue words, I also won't be able to do my usual forefronting of commenters' links in the p.s. today. I'll hopefully get this problem sorted out later today, and, for now, apologies. ** Brendan, Good ... morning, I hope? Okay, it sounds like you have the art making problem probably sussed for now. Hopefully, the lingering insomnia was just the stress' dying stab. Yeah, direct us to photos of the pop show or at least your contribution if at all possible. So, I hope you're sitting in a flood of daylight as you read this. ** Allesfliesst, A pinch of pig, ha ha, yeah, that's pretty much it. No, I didn't know word one about that Marston play until you mentioned it. Obviously, it sounds, you know, like something I need to know intimately. It'll be Google's monogram as soon as my computer's seizure passes. Dude, thank you for that, seriously. ** David Ehrenstein, It was a hit! All thanks to your Lordly ways. ** Sypha, Is there a release date or -season for the Rebel Satori 'Grimoire'? Your bro's novel sounds kind of amazing. Is he going to look into publishing it, or will it be another one legendarily unknown to the greater public? I haven't seen 'Black Swan' because it doesn't open here until March. I suppose that, what with some of you guys loving it, I will see it, even though everyone I trust who dislikes it, dislikes it for pretty much exactly the reasons that I dislike all of Aronofsky's films, so I remain very wary. ** Christopher/ Mark, Hi, Mark! How and what are you doing du jour? I'd love to know. ** JW Veldhoen, Thanks, J. How the heck are you, man? I'm wondering, don't you know. ** Alan, Knowing me, I probably wouldn't have approached JLG unless my hosts introduced me, I think. I get too fumbly and at a loss for words around people I respect that much, and I'm sure I would have felt too afraid of embarrassing myself and chosen instead to study and worship him silently within his vicinity. ** Ken Baumann, Cabo San Lucas! Never been there. I hear very good things. Don't get kidnapped. It's weird for Americans in Mexico these days, or so the media says. Thanks a bunch, Ken. ** Mark, Man, we're like a cell phone-toting comedy duo at this point. I'll try the new number today and hope it cuts through my phone's persnicketiness. We'll get this sorted one way or another. Sorry for the problems on my end. ** Killer Luka, Wait, so you're saying you liked 'Black Swan', is that it? Until it opens here in March, I express my happiness for your wonderful experience, albeit with one eyebrow cocked. I can't click and see your perfect nose, like I explained, and nor can I see your 'BS' poster. Woe is me. Everyone, Killer Luka both pointed out her idea of the perfect nose and devised a poster for the film 'Black Swan' in the comments this weekend, and although I'm technically incapable of linking you up, I do encourage you to scroll and search through the previous comments arena for the linkage and then click. ** Postitbreakup, Hey, J. Your ongoing depression is unhappy news, of course, but your lucidity about the problems is, I don't know, encouraging? Encouraging to read, at least. And your gifts as a writer were very clear throughout. Which brings me back to your writing and problems writing, which contrast with the fact that you were able to write beautifully about your dilemma. I think your thinking about writing as nothing but 'masturbation' is wrong. By writing, you are having 'sex' with the world, if anything. The writing is what takes it out of the realm of self-indulgence and into the realm of purposefulness. You're forgetting the reader side of the equation, that reading something really good is receiving a gift. Writing is one clear cut way to take all of this out of the realm of narcissism. As I've said before, I think you need to rethink the way you think about the act of writing and start accepting that it's a way out and a way for you to be loved, appreciated, admired, etc., and one that you quite obviously have the gifts to negotiate. Writing is a way to get around your issues with your physical appearance and how you link it limits you vis a vis other people. I have no idea how to make you believe that enough to just apply your gifts to writing the way you innately write so well even when you're just posting a comment on a blog. But I continue to believe that getting back into writing for writing's sake would be a big help to you, if you can find a way to stop thinking of reasons why you shouldn't be a writer. Lots of love, man. ** Armando, Hey. Well, Yury actually took the photo in order to get a shot of Jane Birkin, and he just luckily snapped it when JLG was in the frame. No, from what I know, he gets out and about a fair amount. He just avoids awards ceremonies and things like that. Anyway, yeah, it was cool being in his vicinity even unknowingly. ** Marshall Stacks, Greetings, and thanks for being here. I corrected the typo, thanks very much to you. Nice screen name. Come back anytime, please. ** Jax, Hey, pal. I did 'steal' it. You'll see it in its new, other digs aka here soon. The family engagement and event does sound really nice. The 'angel' thing is really sweet. I'm a little misty reading that. Of course, I'm like you re: the lack of family interest in what I do. The other day I talked to my sister, who's the sibling I'm the closest to by far, and she paused her long report on her current life long enough to actually ask me, 'Oh, so how are you?', which is extremely rare. And I told her I just finished a novel I'd been working on for over two years and am very happy with. And she said, 'Oh, ... (long silence) ... so, I guess we're both surviving then. Anyway, this afternoon I'm going to ... ' Literally. Here's to thick skin, eh? Paris gets foggy, but it's a rare occurence, and it's never even close to pea soup fog, unfortunately. Even LA has better fog than Paris. Strange. You take care too, ** Scunnard, See how it works. It just requires excessive time, I think. ** Pilgarlic, Quite a Nico rhapsody there, man. Very nice. Well, on the autobiography thing, just the idea of writing my life story bores me to death, but I thought being interviewed and researched by some writer who knows the ropes of that sort of form would be okay, and I thought that I would let the ghost writer write the autobiography and then I'd take his mss. and just fiddle with the prose to make sure it sounded kind of like me. There was something wrong and perverted about doing it that way that kind of excited me. Yeah, I was thinking of getting some established writer who'd ghosted celebrities' autobios to do it. ** Trees, Hey, T. Yeah, at first I was surprised that Nico was such a fave, but then I thought about it more and thought, Yeah, I guess that makes sense. That was a weird week. The collared pup sounds, you know, enticing. But the sickness, not so much. Solitude is pretty key. Regulated solitude, if possible. If my life here in Paris wasn't a relatively solitary one, I probably wouldn't be doing this blog, I don't think. Yeah, giving news on how your projects go would be most appreciated. Feel better, man. ** Steevee, Well, yeah, stay calm until you talk to your doctor. Self-diagnosers are usually too emotionally involved to be trusted. ** Statictick, Really, crossword puzzles for real? I have this weird idea that no one under 50 or so does crossword puzzles, which makes no sense at all, I realize. I hear the Merritt doc is kind of disappointing. I'll be curious to hear your take. ** _Black_Acrylic, Praise greatly deserved, my friend. Enjoy. I'll have to wait to see the photos until my computer stops acting up on me. Hm, I guess I'll try this. Everyone, while you're scrolling through the previous comments section looking for links to use, keep your eyes out for one in _Black_Acrylic's comment, which is about, oh, 3/4 of the way down, and which will lead you to photos of a party featuring the creme of the Dundee, Scotland art scene. Tempting, yes? Thanks, Ben. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Glad to see you back! I'll ask the guy who's fielding the gig offers for 'Them' about that Duke guy. I guess it'll depend partly on whether he was at one of the gigs or not. Thanks a lot for that! What's the deal on waiting for gigs for your play? Is someone -- or are you -- querying venues or what? Excellent about your nearing the end of the revamped novel. There was a spring in your voice as you reported that. Nice to hear/read. I love the Schroeter films I've seen, maybe three of them. It's interesting that you mention him because I was at Centre Pompidou yesterday, and I saw that they're having a massive Werner Schroeter film retrospective there right now, and I grabbed the program so I can try to catch as many of them as possible. So, more thoughts on him soon, I suspect. And I really should do a WS Day, actually. ** Nb, I find your dislike of Warhol most refreshing, so I won't shoot you, man. I'm doing fairly good, I would say, for the most part. We're between super chilly spells here in Paris at the moment. I forget, are you trying for another NYC pad prior to having to cross the river? I feel for you. Changing homes makes me buggy. I did get some chapstick finally, or I guess so since I had some in my pocket the next time I needed it, but I can't remember where or how I got it. Oh, right, the hotel gave it to me. Wasn't that nice of them? A tiny little chapstick the size of a piece of Trident Chewing Gum. If I had a dollhouse, I could put it in the bathroom cabinet in my dollhouse. How are you otherwise? ** Chris Cochrane, All good news! Well, except for how cold it is outside there. Expect an email or two from me today. Yes! ** Misanthrope, I couldn't see KL's perfect nose nominee. Not yet. Doctors probably scrub out their faces and hands, blow their noses, induce tears, and vomit between customers. Don't know for sure what if any connection there was between the Maupin and the JTL scam. Wouldn't shock me. Do I find FB depressing? No, I guess I don't, but I just scamper in and out. Boring a lot of the time, yes. I mean this blog is partly a virtual meeting ground, and I think that's awesome, and FB is too in its own and much, much, much grander way, so I guess I think the opportunities FB offers to interact with people from all over the fucking place is kind of great, ultimately. ** Andrew, Yes, Yury is not happy about that Raf Simons rumor at all. However, there was counter-rumor going around last night that RS would be merely reorganizing the company that made him less worried. I'll check out that Willhelms collection. I'm behind. Yury was scouring the collections last night, but the only opinion he expressed aloud was how what's-his-butt's new collection for Dior hit an an all time low. ** Creative Massacre, Hey. Oh, right, the stencils, of course. I was just spacing out yesterday, Yeah, I understand. Kat got married? Wow, that's cool. Kat, if you're out there, giant congrats on the marriage, my dear pal! I miss you! Oh, cool about the Europe tour. I really hope that pans out, obviously, and that Paris will be on the schedule. Dude, sweet! Happy Monday! ** Bill, School starts today? Oh, wait, it's Monday, duh. How soon they aka I forget. Hang in there. When will the installation go up? You'll document it for non Franciscans, right? Club like night club, rock club? Excuse me if I'm spacing out and you've already answered those queries. ** Math, Oh, God, my mom used to get just like that when she was in her alcoholic phase. Your anecdote gave me chills. But they were interesting to feel, no worries. Oh, no, the dreaded computer issue has arisen. I'm 'praying' for you on that front. Have you heard about this new Xbox game called something like 'LA Noir' from the GTA crew? Coming out in May, I think. The trailers and stuff look unfuckingbelievable. As you can imagine, that hiding place of yours hits my imagination right where it lives. I don't even need to see a photo, although it would have been nice. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Morning (?) to you. I love my iPhone, but it has occasional issues with international calls/texts, although I think it's really an issue with the network since others here have the same problem with their Nokias and Androids. Quitting smoking, urgh, and Menthols, urgh plus. Lovely dialogue *imaginary hat tip*. Every Death Metal guy I've known has been incredibly -- bordering on pathologically -- shy and weird around and about girls. So, my guess is your friend has her work cut out for her if she wants to share a sack or more with him. Did you watch 'Blue Valentine'? I'm really curious about it. Well, yours wasn't a nothing weekend in the slightest. It had sex, the threat of violence, art, contemplation ... everything. Quite riveting, in fact. You underestimated yourself. Mine: Well, first of all, remember the stalking crazy email guy? Well, the mystery is solved. I'll try to explain this as briefly as possible since it didn't turn out to be so interesting. You remember that my agent had intervened. I don't know what the intervention entailed, but crazy email guy wrote to me this weekend and finally just said that I had 'stolen' seven photographs he'd taken. Turns out they were images of the work of the taxidermist Walter Potter that I'd used in a post about WP about a year ago. Anyway, the email guy again went off on me for stealing them and said if he ever met me he would ... I think hit or kill me or something. Anyway, so I did a 'WP' Google search, just as I had done when I originally put together the WP post, and, sure enough, the email guy's photographs are on about 30 to 50 blogs and websites on which they are never credited to him. So, I wrote back and explained this, and how I'd found them, and that I would have credited him if I'd had any idea who'd taken them, and now I imagine he's going completely insane at the knowledge that his images have been 'stolen' by all kinds of people all over the world, and I guess I think he deserves that insanity. And I deleted the offending post, just to be nice. So, I think that might be the end of that weird story. What else? Yury and I walked to Centre Pompidou to see the big De Stijl/ Mondrian show, which was really packed and took forever to enter, but it was amazing. Lots of great Mondrians, and also fantastic Rietveld and Theo van Doesberg furniture and sculptures and buildings and stuff. So, that was good. Then Yury went swimming, and I walked back here. It was good to get out. I need to start getting out a lot more. Oscar and Kiddiepunk returned and stopped by to say hello when Kiddiepunk retrieved his nice flatscreen TV that we'd be borrowing while they were gone. Now we're spoiled, and we're going to buy a nice TV, maybe even today. Gisele got back to Paris, and my agent arrived for a week's visit and agent work, so I should have a more social life starting now. My French publisher wrote me an email to say he's started reading 'TMS' and thinks it's amazing and etc., so that made me happy. Uh, I can't remember much else. Anyway, things should start getting a little more interesting on the 'day report' front now. What did Monday give you? ** Alexp336, Hey. Yeah, I'm used to the region locked problem with my Wii. I learned that lesson the hard way. I'll try to just ogle the 3DS from a distance until France gets it. Either that or I'll just stock up on games when I'm in the States. Thanks for the warning. It could be that it just seems like the UK is banning-happy. I was just thinking when I said that of recent examples, like the London Nan Goldin exhibition that was shut down for obscenity last year, and the censorship of Richard Prince's photo of Brooke Shields at the Tate Modern, and the censoring of the Manic Street Preachers and Massive Attack album covers, and this news thing I just read about some art being censored at a Queer Art show in London last month. I guess I just meant that, by comparison, that kind thing never happens here in France that I know of for whatever reason. Monday's are bizarre, I agree. Are you busy this week with writing assignments? Will you have some time to work on your own writing, I hope, I hope? You try to have a great day too, man. ** Okay. The post: I don't know ... I just love that kind of stuff: things that were imagined/ planned but never built, amazing things that have been demolished, etc. See what you think. See you tomorrow.
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