tuesday, july 19, 2005
Bad OS X and good Los Angeles
Mac OS X 10.4.2 messed up my iMac, and now I have to reinstall Tiger. This isn’t supposed to happen! After installing the update, I restarted the computer — but it hung at the spinning-cyclone stage. I shut it off. Now it just hangs at the spinning-cyclone stage of booting up. When I hold down cmd-S, it says:
load of /sbin/launchd, errno 88, trying /sbin/mach_init
load of /sbin/launchd failed, errno 88
The closest thing I can find in Google is one person’s similar problem with OS X 10.3.3. The nasty thing is that my Tiger discs (OK, they’re Mister Kyle’s) are fifty miles away in his apartment, but he’s in San Jose until September. Aaah!
At least I’ll read more now. I recently finished How Buildings Learn, by Stewart Brand, and I loved it. This morning, I went on a walking tour of Spring Street (downtown LA’s old Wall Street, sort of) and all the pages about adaptive-reuse and preservation just jumped out of historic Beaux-Arts facades on lofts, residential low-income hotels, and office space.
The best part might have been inside the Alexandria Hotel. We saw two giant old ballrooms: dusty linoleum floors, stained-glass skylights, very empty. The second floor was dark and weird, with the original ceiling of the 40-foot lobby, which was divided after the hotel lost its rich guests to the Biltmore and other hotels. The now-low ceiling is densely ornate and pretty strange to see from 5 feet instead of 35.
I want to go on some more of these Los Angeles Conservancy tours. It’s very cool to see nice old buildings up close.
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saturday, july 03, 2004
Made of silver or of golden
There was a storefront music festival-thing on and around Sunset Boulevard last night, so Mister Kyle, Lizzy, Sarah, and I went there and wandered around for an hour or so. It was lame: waaay too many hipsters stood around looking cool while some crappy, noisy music was played, and then more hipsters stood around looking cool. We went home.
Then, we + Dad and Carol (his girlfriend) went to see Spiderman 2 at the Vista (on Sunset, too). It was good.
I rather dislike the occasions when zillion-dollar packaged commercial media is so much better than free, locally-organized, creative things.
Update 7/8/04: that festival-thing was officially called the fuck yeah fest. Now you know.
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saturday, june 12, 2004
Original Blah Blah
It was around 12:30 am, Mister Kyle and I were hungry, and I had some money, so we decided to go to the Original Pantry Cafe. In the way of many LA things, bits of knowledge about the Pantry had seeped into my brain: it’s owned by former mayor Richard Riordan (along with the parking lot across the street), it’s old, it’s popular, and it’s open late.
It’s also small, crowded, and noisy. The menu is on the walls, arranged in various red placards and chalkboards. A little while after we sat down, we got sweet, runny coleslaw, and later, we got hot slices of toasted-fried sourdough. I didn’t see much vegetarian stuff on the posted menus. An old, half-deaf (or maybe it was the noisiness) waiter eventually appeared. I asked for pancakes and Mister Kyle wanted a cheese omelette.
My pancakes were all fluffy and nice. I put some butter on them and they just soaked it up. Mister Kyle didn’t like his omelette much because it was made with american cheese, but I thought his mashed potatoes were good. They had this little burnt crust on the top…mmm.
The atmosphere was interesting and good. The place is almost shaped like a pantry, in my imagination: long and narrow and a little greasy and full of stuff. Bunches of semi-young people sat at tables and talked animatedly. The kitchen people cooked in partial view — I watched them replace part of a stove. Waiters rushed back and forth, dropping off coleslaw and bread and barely looking at you.
I liked the casualness, but the place wasn’t as spectacularly wonderful as general opinion seems to think.
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sunday, may 30, 2004
Stories and tinsel blogs
Earlier tonight, Mister Kyle and I went to “The Inside Story: Hollywood And The Media Deconstructed” at the American Film Institute next to my old school. I couldn’t borrow Lizzy’s laptop in time to blog it live (like at Mediamorphosis), but I’ll reconstruct the event from my scribbled notes. The official web page said the event was totally full, but some seats were empty after all.
Cecile Dubois blogged it live on Cathy’s (her mom) blog (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Advice Goddess blogged it live, too. And Sean Bonner (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
The first session was “The Real Tinsel: Hollywood Insiders Take On Hollywood”. A panel of four entertainment-business dudes talked about global politics, journalism, and the television business: Rob Long (TV writer/producer), Allan Mayer (PR guy), Mike Sullivan (Paulist Productions person), and Andrew Breitbart (Drudge’s “right-hand man”). Cathy Seipp (“journalist and blogmeister”) moderated.
Cathy asked questions and the panelists answered one by one (roughly). Later, the audience asked questions. First, Andrew put forth the idea that American television, with all its negative images and views, causes the rest of the world to hate us. Celebrities are the United States’ “unelected emissaries”. Mike agreed that television’s “zone of public civility” has changed a lot from the days of I Love Lucy.
Allan said journalists shouldn’t be seen as moral heroes; journalists today are clueless; the departments of the LA Times don’t even speak to each other. The entire panel agreed that Variety is horribly inaccurate and that journalists hardly ever report anything accurately. By this time, I noticed a few things: these guys (including Cathy) are all rather conservative, they all hate the LA Times, and they all seem quite cynical. If I’ve learned anything from my nascent school newspaper, it’s that journalism is really really hard and really important. These panelists are television people! I can’t stand most television, even “good” television, but I enjoy reading the newspaper.
After deciding what’s wrong with journalism, the panelists moved on to what’s wrong with television. According to Rob, the network executives interfere too much. Mike said that reality shows are popular because the barrier to entry is so much lower than with the two other kinds of shows (drama and comedy). Then, Cathy opened the stage to audience questions. Allan and Rob discussed runaway (outsourced) productions and concluded that they happen because costs are so high.
Andrew feels that Hollywood needs to be criticized more by bloggers, like how bloggers criticize mainstream journalism. I think journalism facilitates blogging: there’s an article to link to! Bloggers always need to link. Allan thinks criticism of Hollywood is relatively unimportant and continued about how disgustingly passive journalists are these days. Andrew said that the message coming out of Hollywood doesn’t show a balanced view of American life. Rob pointed out that the world’s consumption of American news consists of CNN and the New York Times — and how if that was the only thing you read about America, you’d get a horribly distorted view of it. Andrew believes that conservatives are ostracized in the entertainment business. At one point, things got quite heated between one audience member-questioner and a panelist.
After all that, it was reception time. Vegetarian food and cookies: yum! These media/blogging events always have the best food. Everyone schmoozed and ate the free food and drank the free drinks.
The second session was “The Real Story: L.A. Bloggers Take On Politics and the Media”.
That’s my sketch of moderator Cathy Seipp and bloggers Matt Welch, Charles Johnson, Kevin Drum, Roger L. Simon, Moxie, and Mickey Kaus. Somehow, their blogs’ URLs were left out of the official [and skimpy] paper program.
[i’m tired. will finish in the morning, maybe. there seem to be more than enough people long-form blogging this.]
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tuesday, may 18, 2004
dividing line ran through
looking through a big old window on the 20th floor of a minor skyscraper in downtown los angeles is naturally rather interesting. you can see the shiny brown-gold sun set over the hills. the sunset! it’s usually hidden by a zillion buildings (unless i’m standing on a specific scrubby hill in pasadena). i guess you can see the sunset at the beach too, but mister kyle and i tend to be there when it’s already dark.
yeah. there’s the endless cars crawling along the freeway as if they were boxy grains of triclosan in some transparent hand lotion poured down the asphalt. below my skyscraper, a brick building has trees and canvas umbrellas on the roof — somebody said it’s the jonathan club. the smaller roof next to it has a tiny basketball court. i attempt to spy, but i can’t see anyone there.
at this altitude, the other skyscrapers are even more impressive. i like those giant clunky obelisks, covered in all their tricksy reflective glass. i imagine they’d make super-great mirrorproject shots, except that the reflective surfaces are thousands of feet away.
volunteer at kusc and you too can stuff envelopes for two hours and then, on your way out, stare through a lovely window.
i took photographs but they need to be developed.
update 5/31/04: a photo.
it is strange to take photos with my old film camera. first of all, i have to buy film. weird! you mean photos cost money? that’s like saying i have to pay $7 for a small pile of new text files. wait, that’s a notebook. anyway, the camera makes a noise when you snap a picture. i wish i could switch that off; i like to take pictures inconspicuously. then, there’s no little lcd preview screen, so i have no idea what i’m doing. not to mention that i have to pay more money before i can see the results, and then i have to scan them.
mister kyle and i visited the central library this weekend. afterwards, we walked around downtown, but i forgot to bring my camera.
