Hollywood Reservoir

Went here on Sunday with PJ and Clare. It's pretty, and the location of one of the dam scenes in Chinatown, but you never really feel like you're communing with nature, since the whole time you're there you're walking along an asphalt path that is separated from the trees and lake by an eight foot tall barbed wire fence.

Hollywood

Filming Location: The House from 'Double Indemnity'

"It was one of those California Spanish houses everyone was nuts about ten or fifteen years ago. This one must have cost somebody about thirty thousand bucks."

That's how Fred MacMurray's character describes this house in Double Indemnity. PJ, Clare, and I went and checked it out this afternoon, with the help of PJ's GPS device. It's in the Hollywood Hills and as long as they can see over the house across the street, the view from inside must be pretty awesome.

The DJ Booth at the Lounge

After a few months of spending every Friday night in the DJ booth at the Lounge, which actually wasn't very social, it was nice to go out last night in downtown L.A. with a handful of old friends (Ben, PJ, Robin, and Sunny D).

Last Remaining Seats at the Orpheum Theater

July 2008

Mr. Curtains

I went and saw three silent comedies tonight at the Orpheum on Broadway in downtown L.A. The best part wasn't the movies, though. It was (a) bumping into both of my L.A. Conservancy friends, (b) listening to an 86 year old collector of theater curtains (pictured) talk about the five vintage curtains he hung on the Orpheum stage tonight, and (c) listening to the organist demonstrate some of the many, many sounds their Wurlitzer can produce (including the sound of the ocean, produced by rolling a bunch of marbles around in a wooden box).

Favorite Places: Nijiya Market

This is a Japanese supermarket on Sawtelle in Los Angeles. It's the first, and still one of the only, places in the States that I've seen those little seaweed-covered rice triangles that I like so much.