blog

Today daffodils for everybody shopping at Trader Joe’s. A small nice smile that keeps people alive. There are mostly young people working at trader joe’s, aspiring actors and actresses, writers, film makers, models, students and these kind of people. And similar are the clients. Urban, casual, liberal, intellectual probably. Often there are political groups at the entrance, environmental, social-economical activists, trying to win a voice for their case. The other supermarket I am aware of, and you can’t miss it, is Ralphs. It’s more a Wal-Mart strategist: occupy every corner of a place and make everybody else leaving. Seems economical aggressive, much and primarily in their own interest. Claiming quality at good price. But only if you are club member, otherwise it’s pretty expensive. You see these coupon people searching the store for everything they can get cheaper, although they probably don’t need it. And Ralphs is collecting data of all the club members to optimize the coupons. I was always wondering why people have no problem to accept Ralphs collecting private data from them. When the state is doing it there’s protest…It’s more a middle class, conservative people environment, the shopping mall shoppers. I am trying to avoid Ralphs as much as I can. I don’t like the club member policy. I am in favor of the daffodil method. It’s more personal, friendlier and I think more honest. But these are only my feelings and my opinion.

Yesterday wednesday a little drive to a site outside the big city. Although it’s still in the middle of it, but you don’t see it. Close and remote at the same time. On a hillside overlooking the valley, great west view. The vegetation is limited to what can survive drier areas with little rain, pines, oleander, rosemary, citrus trees, cactus of course – it reminded me much of south of spain. You see all the city spreading through the area, but it’s really spread out, it doesn’t feel like a densely populated area. Again it makes you think about Los Angeles as a detached place, hard to adopt. It’s here, everywhere, but nowhere. It has no beginning, no end. Driving back on the freeway suddenly downtown is high rising in this middle of nowhere, the only moment of presence. The city you’ll never leave, because you never reached it.

Where did I left? I have this pirated internet connection, does work most of the time but not always. At least I don’t pay a cent. I guess it will be standard one day, we are just connected.

Relating to the urban planning discussion: I received mail from the palms neighborhood council. On its address for the city it says: palms, ca 90034. not los angeles. Like Venice, or West Hollywood, or Westwood, or pacific palisades etc. it’s generally all los angeles. but there is this underlying structure and understanding of neighborhoods. Some cities like culver city, santa monica or beverly hills can obviously afford to be completely independent from Los Angeles. Their tax revenue is big enough. Others like palms, Venice can’t. You drive on a street and you would notice, that the street sign on one side are different than on the other. That’s when you move on the border between beverly hills and los angeles. Otherwise you won’t notice it. I was looking once for an address in studio city. On mapquest you can use for the city either studio city or north hollywood. For both names mapquest shows the same location with the address. If you use Los Angeles, where we politically are, mapquest won’t find it. The project I am working on is in pacific palisades, los angeles. For mapquest and the zip code it’s santa monica.

I think this characterizes in a precise way the urban structure of los angeles. It consists of all these once independent places, at some point annexed to los angeles (palms in 1914). What stayed are these strong neighborhood councils creating the political structure on the small scale and ultimately defining los angeles. That’s probably how los angeles needs to be approached.

I need to add this. If I write about it, maybe I understand it one day. I was supposed to meet susan at Friday’s event. I told her about it and she was interested. But she mentioned several times that she would appear with m., her boyfriend. The entire story is long, complicated and from my point of view awful. He can’t stand me and vise versa. I can only meet susan if he doesn’t know or, I guess, if susan is forcing it against his will. So Friday I made sure I went with other friends of mine to avoid any meeting with m. on susan’s side. Susan came, but we didn’t met for said reasons. I am so sad about it. I don’t understand how susan can accept a situation like that. I can’t imagine she’s happy, I have no imagination of m.’s feelings, if any. I am totally irritated. All I wish is meeting susan and talking to her (even this is on m.’s order not always possible…) as you do with every other person or friend. But unfortunately it seems impossible. I am asking myself everyday, how can people do this to each other. I don’t understand it, mostly because I am part of it. I think that’s the most disturbing part. I have never experienced a situation like that in my live so far, not even remotely, and I am very convinced it will never happen again.

Of course it is (or was) a cornfield. But not for the sake of a cornfield or some agricultural experiment in the middle of a city. There is LA: Imagine a city that doesn’t really exist in a common sense, and there is downtown, an area deserted until probably not even a decade ago and now in the course of revitalization. Disney Concert Hall is just the tip of the iceberg. Anyway, the cornfield is located at the edge of this area. So if your goal is to raise public interest on emerging discussions, what are you doing? You create something you can use as a event platform with high recognisability raising certain attention. That’s the cornfield. Something that can’t be here because it doesn’t really make any sense but it is. An abandoned property in a rather industrial zone. So now the harvest is done and the property being turned over to the city for further development. For that a panel discussion was organized about the future of LA generally and downtown with the cornfield as part of it specifically. As usual when there is a discussion about urbanity of LA, it’s mostly about the statement that LA is not a city, the question what is it then and why, and what urban planning processes can develop it to a city. Luckily the cornfield is located adjacent to the LA river. And as I learned yesterday there are obviously ideas and projects focusing on the potential to use the LA river as an urban structure. I wasn’t really aware of it so far. I know the LA river as a big concrete structure to handle storm water. Something similar to the freeways. It’s here for infrastructural reasons, it has some character and fascination mainly because of the scale that isolates it in some ways, intersecting, dividing the city on the way through the urban fabric. And therefore it’s portrayed in various movies and clips. So even it’s not obvious on a first look, there is also water involved which makes it attractive as a recreational landscape, connecting rather than dividing. I don’t really believe in this direction, it’s too much of a detour with some ideal view of something that is simply not here. I think that’s why I am struggling with this urban planning discussion made in LA. The collective urban idea of LA is the individual building. On the occasion of another panel discussion an architect expressed it from an architectural point of view as the ‘look-how-great-I-am’ building designs. He criticized that this kind of architecture doesn’t address social and political problems. That’s what LA is. Is there another reason why still freeways are dominating the infrastructure and the car is the main and as it seems only means of transportation? Again, yesterday, there was a lot of reference to real cities, bustling public live, density, an urban morphology expressing it, a centre, focus, a platform of urban live maybe, pedestrian zones, mix of a variety of use and function, public and private. References to New York of course, Manhattan especially, San Francisco, the neighbor, or European cities, Paris, the Champs Elysee, Ramblas of Barcelona. I understand that the average person can easy refer to a city through conventional images like these. But regarding LA I miss the vision, the plan for this city which is obviously something very different. Maybe that’s too abstract thinking, very intellectual and detached from public sense. But I believe that the only strategy for LA is to accept that it is actually another city than all other cities and you need to use the basis of what is actually here. That’s probably why I was interested in the LA river projects to some degrees: It’s something already in place with potential. There was the urban planner of Glendale on the panel. He presented some projects around the area of LA county: All representing these implemented overdesigned ‘downtowns’. probably what people want to see. But it was very depressing, shopping malls in reality as already widely known from everywhere. And there was a professor of geography on the panel talking about the public consciousness and how it is related to the history of specific locations, as the cornfield. I thought that was refreshing and inspiring. That should be some starting point. We should have an intermission to think about where we actually are. Los Angeles is a city different than any other city I know. Why would you only even try to transform it to a city in a conventional sense? It will lead to a patchwork of projects and ideas taking the heart of the city. Instead of what I know: Los Angeles represents an environment of the undefined, unknown, something we can’t really imagine (yet). That’s exactly what attracts people to come here. I think it’s an opportunity to learn to understand and envision a city outside the perimeters set by the city in a conventional sense (what is that anyway?).

Now I think I know where it all started, my excessive espresso consumption. Since we have this espresso machine in the office people sometimes worry and talk about it. I have at least four cups a day. It must be pretty noticeable. So here is the story. Tonight I saw these video game tables in a bar and it suddenly came to my mind. When I was in middle school we used to go once in a while to this café down the street for lunch break or after classes where they had one of these video game tables. We were sitting around this table, chatting, gaming, and, – yes – drinking coffee. Already at that time it was so excessive that it lead to classes we skipped. I remember that. So I guess it never left me, I got used to it and here I am.

Cheers.

For a while on the bike ride in the morning there was always a guy crossing my path driving a yellow lotus. Always the same time, same location. Like a clockwork. Then when I found out that I could leave home later to arrive at the office at about the same time with some more efficiency I lost this timeline and didn’t see the lotus anymore. This morning I was on track again, it seems. The lotus crossed my way. The location shifted since I am still later, but early enough that the car appeared again. By the way: although you don’t see these type of cars on a too regular basis (at least I notice a lotus…), it’s surprising how much of them are around. Ferrari, Maserati, Bentley, Aston Martin, Lamborghinis – frequently on streets. Just yesterday and the day before I saw the actual design of Rolls Royce is pretty ugly. Ever saw a stretched limo version of those?

tonight a documentary, or rather an essay, on music was shown. ‚Music from the inside out‚ was it called. Unlike most films about music where a certain musician, a person is the focus as seen in ‘walk the line’ or ‘ray’ recently, or about a specific event, a live performance or a ‘bueno vista social club’, this one was really about music itself. in collaboration with the Philadelphia Philharmonics it was not about this orchestra nor its members. the film just spread their words, thoughts, moments, feelings and also stories around music, their daily live. Two essentials I kept. First the orchestra vs. the solo artist. In both ways, there is an individual expressing its character and qualities within a team. It doesn’t really matter how great you are. if you are unable to contribute you’re lost. An orchestra’s live strongly depends on the individual expression of it’s members. If you think of an attitude like I play whatever you want me to play and the way you want me to play it, you won’t bring music to live. But if you think of your personality and that you can contribute with something specific about yourself and expressing it; and if you are able to share it with a team, then you’re part of a whole in all its diversity. In the end, that’s quality. The second thing was the feeling that you can’t really explain on a rational basis what a celebrated musician, a famous composition, an acclaimed performance, or simply great music is. It is very emotional, especially the approach. Which means there has to be a sense that you inhabit the ability to trust feelings, intuitive motions and movements in the unconscious way. These musicians they were talking a lot about music as a language to express something. And most likely, you follow a certain strategy, tactic or intention to communicate something. But at the same time you put unconsciously your feelings and thoughts in it, coming out of a moment, reflections and your inner personality. And most of the time that part is able to express more than anything else. I think that comes closest to the question what music is, and it applies to almost every aspect of live.

to add some more confusion to yesterday’s posting, some LA romantic. you can’t look away.

good night, and good luck.

I talked to my sister last Friday and again I realized it’s more conflicting and difficult than I wish. All of the family they always ask me how long I have plans to stay in Los Angeles. And I can’t really give an answer. Except that my visa will ultimately expire in 2007. Now I think I have a job in a really ambitious, good office with potential, probably the best I met to date. Definitely not comparable to the previous one in Culver City. So the conflict from three sides: sophisticated job, very limited time regarding legal working permit and a very intriguing city as the place to live. I feel like if you don’t have the excuse of the industry and maybe the weather, there is only this controversial, deeply disturbing, confusing environment that keeps you here. Who wants that, who is looking for it? I have a hard time to get clear about it. Very often I think I even have a hard time to focus. It’s so distracting. How can I live in this environment? I need to develop new strategies. It’s taking all my energy, I have the impression. I need time, too much time. These are dividing moments: should I challenge it or do I really feel where I come from? I realize the potential of the job I have and don’t think I can just leave that — I am in between, nothing, everything, sometimes, never, always. No, you can’t neglect a situation offering so many possibilities, or do I really fully comprehend it? Do I? Where am I…

I can’t believe this picture yesterday, I realized…a simple visit to a city, how can you take picture in a random neighborhood, and it’s exactly where you’re going to be for work five years later?