The La Brea Tar Pits (or Rancho La Brea Tar Pits) are a cluster of tar pits around which Hancock Park was formed, in urban Los Angeles. Asphaltum or tar (brea in Spanish) has seeped up from the ground in this area for tens of thousands of years. The tar is often covered with dust, leaves, or water. Over many centuries, animals that were trapped in the tar were preserved as bones. The George C. Page Museum is dedicated to researching the tar pits and displaying specimens from the animals that died there. The La Brea Tar Pits are now a registered National Natural Landmark.
My photo doesn’t give this contraption justice – basically a slide show viewer as would be used by Humbert Humbert (James Mason). You could move the magnifier to view different slides.
It Matters Less Than One Might Think was taken on January 31, 2013 at 05:00PM
I liked how my folks and my LA hosts turned bokeh in the background while the plant leaves crossed their proverbial legs in the foreground. I tried a few variants (black and white; stark, high contrast black and white; and over-saturated color) before settling on this toned version. I’ll probably revisit later, and try other versions too.
In his book Postmodern Geographies: the reassertion of space in critical social theory (1989), Edward W. Soja describes the hotel as “a concentrated representation of the restructured spatiality of the late capitalist city: fragmented and fragmenting, homogeneous and homogenizing, divertingly packaged yet curiously incomprehensible, seemingly open in presenting itself to view but constantly pressing to enclose, to compartmentalize, to circumscribe, to incarcerate. Everything imaginable appears to be available in this micro-urb but real places are difficult to find, its spaces confuse an effective cognitive mapping, its pastiche of superficial reflections bewilder co-ordination and encourage submission instead. Entry by land is forbidding to those who carelessly walk but entrance is nevertheless encouraged at many different levels. Once inside, however, it becomes daunting to get out again without bureaucratic assistance. In so many ways, its architecture recapitulates and reflects the sprawling manufactured spaces of Los Angeles” (p. 243-44).
It has been featured in many movies and television series over the years including: Strange Days, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Blue Thunder, Breathless, This is Spinal Tap, Hit the Booty Do, In the Line of Fire, Nick of Time, True Lies, Midnight Madness, Showtime, Hard to Kill, The Lincoln Lawyer, Chuck, Moby Dick, The Fantastic Journey and was destroyed (via special effects) in Escape from LA and Epicenter. The television series It’s a Living was set in a restaurant atop the Bonaventure. The Westin Bonaventure Hotel is also showcased in episodes of CSI and its exterior can be seen in Americathon, Mission: Impossible III, Almighty Thor, Hancock, and at the beginning of the Lionel Richie Dancing on the Ceiling music video. You can see it being constructed in the movie The Wilderness Family.
Gape at the Thoughts Which Others Have Thought was taken on January 31, 2013 at 04:57PM