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3b79c569b0cea998c3e105927f5e2230 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-mn-2914-story.html | Dispute Over AIDS Discovery Persists : Medicine: At issue is credit for identifying the virus. Scientists present new evidence in a letter to show that a key researcher did not steal the material. | Dispute Over AIDS Discovery Persists : Medicine: At issue is credit for identifying the virus. Scientists present new evidence in a letter to show that a key researcher did not steal the material.
Prominent AIDS researcher Dr. Robert C. Gallo has produced further evidence that he did not steal the first identified AIDS virus from Dr. Luc Montagnier of the Paris-based Pasteur Institute.
Gallo and Montagnier are generally considered to be the co-discoverers of the AIDS virus. But there have been repeated disputes over the last seven years about how the credit should be shared.
The new evidence, a genetic analysis of laboratory samples of the first identified AIDS virus, is contained in a letter written by Gallo and nine other scientists and published today in Nature, a British scientific journal.
But the information is likely to have little effect on an ongoing National Institutes of Health investigation of other aspects of Gallo’s AIDS research in the early 1980s. Nor does it answer the question of where the AIDS virus used by Gallo’s laboratory to develop the AIDS blood test came from.
“These data do not have a direct bearing on the issues which we are investigating,” said Suzanne Hadley, the deputy director of the NIH’s Office of Scientific Integrity.
Joseph Onek, Gallo’s attorney, agreed, but said the findings were important “to put to rest all those rumors with respect to Dr. Gallo and his laboratory, which was certainly the backdrop for the investigation.”
In October, the NIH announced that Gallo, of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., apparently did not misappropriate--either deliberately or accidentally--AIDS virus samples that he obtained from Montagnier.
But it began a “formal investigation” of several issues, including possible scientific misconduct related to a report published by Gallo and his colleagues in the journal Science in May, 1984. Apparently there are discrepancies between the report, one of four published in the journal pinpointing the virus as the cause of AIDS, and records kept in Gallo’s laboratory.
By examining frozen samples of patients’ blood, the NIH is also trying to ascertain the precise source of the virus that Gallo used in his experiments and in developing the AIDS blood test.
The NIH probe is expected to be completed and the results made public before the end of the year.
In 1983, at a time when Gallo’s and Montagnier’s laboratories were collaborating, Gallo first obtained AIDS virus specimens from Montagnier. At the time, Gallo also had a substantial number of his own AIDS virus specimens.
Several years later, Montagnier and Gallo both published genetic sequences for their AIDS virus isolates in scientific journals.
The sequences had strong similarities. This raised questions within the scientific community about whether Gallo’s sequence was based on his own viral samples or on Montagnier’s.
But according to the letter in Nature, the genetic sequence of the original AIDS virus samples from Montagnier is different from the sequence of the AIDS virus published by Gallo’s laboratory. In fact, it is also different from the genetic sequence of the AIDS virus that was later published by Montagnier’s laboratory.
Therefore, it now appears that neither the French nor the American sequences of the AIDS virus originated with the virus samples that the French sent to Gallo in 1983. “The source of the (French and American virus sequences) may be difficult to determine and thus remain unknown,” the letter said.
Reactions to the letter were varied.
“I don’t think this solves the case,” Montagnier told the Washington Post. “It adds more confusion.”
Howard Temin, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin, told Nature: “We can’t accuse anyone of anything. Do we care further? No. This is a non-issue as far as the AIDS epidemic is concerned. Now it is a non-issue as to the character of Dr. Gallo. Let’s get off with it.”
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1282d1b1f32077f285a0535382f574d4 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-mn-2915-story.html | Measure Would OK ‘Battered Woman Syndrome’ as Evidence | Measure Would OK ‘Battered Woman Syndrome’ as Evidence
A Southern California assemblyman has introduced controversial legislation that would allow evidence of “battered woman syndrome” to be used as a defense in criminal trials of women accused of killing their spouses or live-in lovers.
“AB 785 is a simple bill that will help a lot of people,” said Assemblyman Jerry Eaves (D-Rialto), sponsor of the measure. “It doesn’t excuse criminal behavior, it merely allows a jury to consider all of the relevant evidence.”
Eaves had a similar bill last year that failed to reach the governor’s desk. He said the governors of Ohio and Maryland recently commuted the sentences of women convicted of killing their longtime abusive mates.
ASSEMBLY
Committee Action
* Oil: The Natural Resources Committee approved a bill (AB 10) by Assemblyman Dan Hauser (D-Arcata) to prohibit oil and gas extraction leases in state-owned tidelands off Humboldt and Mendicino counties. A 9-4 vote sent the bill to the Ways and Means Committee.
Bill Introductions
* Recycling: AB 750 by Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles) would add empty liquor, wine and drinking water containers to the state’s recycling program to help curb highway litter. The program provides minimum redemption payments of 2 1/2 cents for each beer or soft drink container recycled.
* Credit: AB 804 by Assemblyman Charles Quackenbush (R-Saratoga) would require credit reporting services to provide consumers with a written notice of their rights to inspect their files and protest whenever new negative credit information is entered against them.
* Cigarette Lighters: AB 757 by Assemblywoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles) would require the state fire marshal to develop regulations to make cigarette lighters significantly more difficult to operate by children under 5.
SENATE
Bill Introductions
* Unicameral Legislature: SB 458 by Sen. Lucy Killea (D-San Diego) would establish a California Constitutional Revision Committee to study and report on, among other things, the feasibility of creating a unicameral or one-house Legislature. Nebraska is the only state with a unicameral Legislature.
* School Taxes: SCA 13 by Sen. Leroy Greene (D-Carmichael) would authorize school districts to impose a special tax with majority vote approval to finance construction or reconstruction of school facilities.
* Disabled: SB 491 by Sen. Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose) would require movie theaters and other amusement facilities to post public notices at the box office and in advertisements if any portion of their facilities are inaccessible to people with physical disabilities.
Miscellany
* Oops! Sen. Don Rogers (R-Bakersfield) apparently believed he was on firm ground the other day during floor debate on a gun control bill when, to make a rhetorical point, he challenged any member of the Senate to name “three cities in Iraq, other than Baghdad.” Sen. Wadie Deddeh (D-Bonita), a native of Iraq, jumped to his feet, grabbed his mike and rattled off the names of nearly a dozen Iraqi cities. Laughter erupted. Undaunted, Rogers pressed on.
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17ddbdfdbb41099649509990b20d5155 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-mn-2929-story.html | Bush’s Words Spur Cautious Joy : Reaction: Troops could soon head home, but ‘I never did trust (Hussein),’ a Pendleton Marine major’s wife said. | Bush’s Words Spur Cautious Joy : Reaction: Troops could soon head home, but ‘I never did trust (Hussein),’ a Pendleton Marine major’s wife said.
At a veterans hall in Anaheim, a dozen ex-Marines, some clutching beers and wearing American flag lapel pins, erupted in a sea of cheers. In Tustin, a Marine wife told her young sons that daddy may soon be coming home.
And at UC Irvine, a stranger in the rain ran by a lone student manning an anti-war “tent city” on campus and shouted the single line: “The firing has stopped!”
As President Bush told the nation Wednesday that peace may be at hand, Orange County met it with a mix of relief, amazement and wariness--relieved that the seven-month Gulf crisis appeared to have ended, amazed that it had claimed so few lives, but wary that it might prove too good to hold true.
But mostly, there was glee--gushing and unrestrained.
“The President said not to feel euphoric--but it’s not hard to right now,” said Sgt. Steve Casponguay, 23, celebrating the announcement with other Marines at the non-commissioned officers staff club at Camp Pendleton. “We all feel a special connection with our brothers and sisters over there. This was a very intense moment for all of us.”
For the loved ones of some 35,000 Orange County-area Marines and military personnel stationed in the Gulf, the wait begins--to see whether Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will comply with U.S. conditions and bring a permanent cease-fire, and to hope that the troops will begin returning soon. That could be months or more away, officials say.
“There are so many men and so much equipment, it will take twice as long as it did to get there, maybe three times, to get everyone and everything back home,” a senior Pentagon official predicted. “That could mean 14 or 16 months for some, depending on what their jobs are.”
Maj. Gen. Theodore W. Paulson, who heads the Los Alamitos-based 63rd Army Reserve Command and saw 2,000 men and women from his command sent to the Gulf, said: “I’m sure the soldiers, sailors and Marines over there will be coming home just as soon as the situation allows. . . . But I’d assume you won’t have everybody come back instantaneously. I assume you’d have a phased return.”
After watching Bush’s speech, the general said he was “extremely pleased with the President’s remarks and with the performance of the coalition. . . . Our community should be extremely proud of what their friends and family members have done in this operation.”
Bush’s announcement that “Kuwait is liberated” and that coalition military operations have been suspended left Debbie Guddeck and Elizabeth Hudson glued to the television in Guddeck’s Marine base home.
Their excitement, like that of many military families, was tempered by pragmatic caution.
“I don’t want to get too excited right now,” said Guddeck, the wife of a Marine major coordinating air support with the 1st Marine Division out of Camp Pendleton, “and then it all starts up again. . . . I never did trust (Hussein).”
But at times, the exuberance of the moment, the hope that they all want to cling to, found its way to the surface. Asked by his mother what he thought of the prospect of his dad coming home soon, 5-year-old Keith Guddeck exclaimed, “I think that would make me really happy.”
Military families around Orange County and civilians alike shared Guddeck’s restrained joy.
“It’s great, it’s positive news,” said 44-year-old Jim Grant of Coto de Caza, who watched the President’s speech with about half a dozen other people in the Broadway TV section at South Coast Plaza. “But it’s not over until Saddam is out of power and that should be a U.S. goal.”
But there were some who were disappointed that Bush did not signal a willingness to go further.
“You don’t let them go when the man has already shown that he’s unreliable as far as his word goes,” said Steve Olson, 39, of Anaheim, a Vietnam veteran who watched the news in a boisterous veterans hall with other ex-Marines from Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3173 in Anaheim.
“What are (U.S. leaders) going to do? Let him go back with all of his arms and regroup and come back again in two years?” Olson asked. “At this point, we have them in a rout. That’s when you disarm them.”
But others, beleaguered by seven months of crisis, savored the prospect of peace.
William Shane, president of the Jewish Federation of Orange County, said after hearing the speech on his car radio that “I, like all Americans, am delighted that we have an end to the hostilities and that we have the start of a lasting peace.
“And hopefully also, this will lead to a broader goal, which is a lasting peace among all the nations of the region, which would be the dream of us all,” Shane added. “I hope that this represents an opportunity for Israel and its neighbors to work towards the type of peace that Israel thus far has only achieved with Egypt.”
George Dibs, spokesman for the Arab-American Republican Club of Orange County, said he was “thrilled that the fighting is going to come to an end, which means the end of deaths and injuries and destruction.”
Dibs added that he has been heartened to see that the Bush Administration has set in motion more long-range diplomatic goals that could help to meet the still more difficult challenge--"for winning the peace” in the tumultuous region.
At the anti-war tent city on the UCI campus, senior Scott Starr of San Juan Capistrano, manning the site in the rain, had mixed feelings on what appeared to be the successful conclusion to the war.
“On the one hand, it’s sad and frustrating ending this the way we did because it’s only going to make President Bush look better. I think the whole thing was wrong to begin with. But on the other hand, this is great because so many lives will be saved.”
The only known combat casualties from the Orange County area were a group of nine or so Camp Pendleton Marines believed to have been killed by “friendly fire” in a ground confrontation with the Iraqis.
Among those who died in that altercation was Cpl. Stephen E. Bentzlin, 23, a Marine from Minnesota who was working in a reconnaissance unit when he was killed after an apparent ploy by the Iraqis to feign a retreat.
As his mother, Barbara Anderson, listened to the President’s speech in Minnesota, she took some satisfaction in seeing that the United States wasn’t rushing to accept Saddam’s word.
“I’m glad that we learned from (the battle in which her son died), and I’m glad our nation listened,” she said. “And I’m just glad that there aren’t any more (casualties). I hope there aren’t any more. . . .
“I wouldn’t want any other person to experience the loss that we have--it’s one of the tragedies of war, and it’s a difficult tragedy to live with. The less amount of pain for everyone, the better. I just hope it’s over.”
Times staff writers Henry Chu, George Frank, Carla Rivera and Tammerlin Drummond and correspondent Frank Messina contributed to this report.
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b36589b946cd74d143cf5fc892332bc2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-mn-2930-story.html | Despite News, Families’ Worries Won’t Cease Till Soldiers Return | Despite News, Families’ Worries Won’t Cease Till Soldiers Return
There was no confetti or popping of champagne corks at the weekly Wednesday gathering of soldiers’ wives.
Hazel Wynn said she just can’t stop thinking about her husband, who shipped out just three days ago, and her nephew, who has been among the missing in action since the first days of the ground war.
For Martie Ilagan, the postwar waiting game still may postpone the June wedding she planned with her fiance, a Marine sergeant.
And Madelene Harville is afraid that her husband may suffer ill effects from military-prescribed drugs taken to protect against Iraq’s store of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Although encouraged by President Bush’s televised declaration of victory and conditional cease-fire, a small support group of Marine family members sat almost solemnly in the living room of a member’s small apartment, saying the real celebrations would be reserved for the return of their loved ones.
“I thought it was a good speech,” Ilagan said, her eyes flashing back to the television screen. “But I’ll believe it when he comes through the door.”
Since her fiance’s departure last August, Ilagan said, she has not been able to sleep in her own bed, but camps out on the living room couch, clutching an old T-shirt she hasn’t washed since the sergeant wore it last summer.
“I cried today when I turned on the television and saw the people celebrating over there, and when they showed the Marines walking through the streets,” she said. “I am proud of all of our people over there.”
Wynn, who was only recently notified of her nephew’s status, said she was afraid Bush’s declaration might allow Saddam Hussein a diplomatic exit from the violence he began.
“He is just like a robber who went into a liquor store, robbed the place and killed the owner,” Wynn said. “Now he wants to say, ‘Hey, forget I took your stuff and ravaged your people; just let me go.’
“If I had somebody killed over there, I would want revenge. And that revenge would mean to bring him (Hussein) down. I don’t trust him at all.”
Since learning that her nephew, an Army private from Jacksonville, Fla., is missing, Wynn said she has been frustrated in her communications with the military. She also has not been able to learn the destination of her husband, a Marine gunnery sergeant who left aboard ship from Long Beach.
“They can’t give you any information at all,” she said.
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c08d4bff0c02bd0d907561c6fcf2a8fb | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-nc-2585-story.html | After Loss : Support Groups Help Recently Widowed to Get Over Grief | After Loss : Support Groups Help Recently Widowed to Get Over Grief
From wife to widow, from husband to widower, it happens in a flash: a final breath, and the life of the surviving loved one is suddenly altered. Physically single, yet psychically married, women and men must trim and tailor their lives and their spirits to confront a new way of life. It is not an easy task.
One’s pre-widowhood life gives direction to one’s adjustment after loss, says Evelyn Rady, director of clinical services for Jewish Family Service, an agency serving Jews and non-Jews of San Diego and North County. Many who have enjoyed a good relationship with their spouse will find the strength and ability to adjust to singleness.
Physician Lidia Everett finds that her patients who enjoyed successful marriages are able to confront grief, then move ahead to a fulfilling life-after-marriage. Others, whose marriages were clouded because of the long, debilitating illness of a spouse, or because of irreconcilable incompatibility, may experience a sense of relief that enables them, too, to move on with their lives.
But there are many widows and widowers who cannot imagine being alone. Frightened and confused by the death of their loved one, they cling to the support of family and friends. They can be helped, their fears alleviated and the cords of their dependency cut.
Rady advocates participation in a grief support group. There, under the guidance of a professional counselor, the grieving have an opportunity to share fears and feelings with others who are experiencing the same difficulties. Those who find their grief too overwhelming or who are reluctant to share it within a group setting can find counseling on an individual basis.
The New Horizons program of Palomar Family Counseling Services has an ongoing self-help group that confronts shared problems that range from handling one’s finances to how to meet people and how to find work. It convenes monthly at the First Congregational Church in Escondido. Paul Michalewicz, the social worker who leads the group, said he has a mailing list of 1,400 people, most of whom find their way to the meetings through word of mouth recommendations. (Calls: 745-3811).
Jewish Family Service is in the process of forming a new group, “Learning to Live After Loss.” Its brochure reads: “Through sharing . . . members will learn coping skills that will enable them to move through their grief, survive the loss and return to living life fully.” This group, led by social worker Ellen Kaufman, will meet in Vista. (Calls: 944-7855).
The value of the group experience was brought sharply into focus by San Marcos resident Irene Thomas, who has been a widow for one and a half years. Her emotions are fragile, her aloneness is still new. After a happy marriage of 48 years, she finds herself coping with family problems, finances, and personal decisions that had, in the past, been her husband’s responsibilities. She is, nevertheless, moving ahead, doing it all. Comfort has come, mainly, from the support group that she attends regularly.
Following her husband’s death, the hospice staff members invited her to join their grief support group. There, she has made new friends and found a place where she can be herself and share her pain.
She offered these thoughts: “Be yourself. Remember, you have only yourself to please; there are no ‘shoulds’, so do only the things you want to do. Never hesitate to say ‘no’ if you mean ‘no’! If crowds are upsetting, shop when the stores are empty. If the holidays are overwhelming, pass them by. Grief is tiring, it uses up a great deal of energy. I allow myself two activities a day, with lots of time left for me alone.” She travels and finds that “getting away” is good for her.
Katy Smith, also of San Marcos, has been a widow for three years. When her husband of 54 years died, she “ran away” (her words) to China and cruised in the East for awhile. She, too, finds that traveling is both healing and fun, and takes a trip a month. Emphatically, she states that she is determined “never to quit; life must go on.” At 78, this energetic woman has begun to take golf lessons.
She advises new widows and widowers not to make hasty decisions about changes in their lifestyle. It took her two and a half years before she sold her house and moved into a condominium. Once she did that, she found that she had made a wise move. “In my new environment, there no longer is the haunting echo ‘Hi Honey, I’m home’!” The new place is strictly hers and she likes that. Others, however, prefer to be surrounded by the things that keep memories alive.
I asked both women how old friends accepted their new status. They agreed that people do not understand how easily they can offend the newly widowed: one dinner invitation, but never invited again; dirty looks if a husband offers to fix your leaking faucet or repair your garden hose. Painful experiences! “Some people act as if we had a contagion!” Of course, there are loyal couples who are unceasing in their friendship.
It was suggested that sometimes widows are responsible for the coolness that develops. A failure to reciprocate an invitation sends a message of disinterest; waiting for the phone to ring, without initiating calls, creates an unbalanced relationship.
Social worker Rady reiterates that there is no single formula for successfully adjusting to the loss of a spouse.
But, there are approaches that have proven successful. “Take a risk, do something different, follow your instincts,” she says. “It is okay to feel overwhelmed, for it is an overwhelming time when one loses a beloved. If the feelings of loss are unmanageable, support groups and counseling are available. There is no shame in seeking help. It is a sign of strength to work to feel better.”
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Info Line of San Diego: (740-0997 North County Inland) (943-0997 North County Coastal)
Palomar Family Counseling Service of Family Service of San Diego: (745-3811 for closest office)
Jewish Family Service: (944-7855 in Encinitas)
Elizabeth Hospice: (741-2092 open to the community)
Widowed Persons Group: (746-0788 provides trained peer counseling in North County)
When you are lonely and sick at heart, Go to the friends we know. And bury your sorrow in doing good deeds. Miss me, but let me go. Author unknown
Excerpt from a poem given to Irene Thomas by her husband before his death.
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b6d8ead96b5c428314458dbd372ff3e0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-nc-2586-story.html | Poway : The Hobbit on Stage | Poway : The Hobbit on Stage
The Montreal-based Theatre Sans Fil will bring its production of “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien to the Poway Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Theatre Sans Fil debuted “The Hobbit” in 1979, launching an international career that led to sold-out performances at the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles.
The company uses 48 puppets from 4- to 12-feet tall to tell the story of the Tolkien character, Bilbo Baggins. The puppetry is combined with an original musical score and dramatic lighting.
What: The Hobbit
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Poway Center for the Performing Arts, 15498 Espola Road (intersection of Espola Road and Titan Way).
Cost: Tickets are $20, $15 and $12. Half price tickets available for students and seniors on the day of the performance.
Calls: 748-0505
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b16e336aa937ec92a06f70cd8e603127 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-nc-2587-story.html | Grooming for Success : More Than Cut and Dry Options in Salons, Shops, Parlors | Grooming for Success : More Than Cut and Dry Options in Salons, Shops, Parlors
Buzz jobs, flat tops, hair extensions, color weaving, and sun glitz are all part of the booming hair industry that generates billions of dollars annually throughout the nation.
In North County alone, there are more than 600 beauty salons and barber shops.
“The beauty industry isn’t just going into a salon and getting your hair whacked off and blown dry,” said Tony Ray, beauty director at the La Costa Health Spa and Resort in Carlsbad. “You don’t need a haircut, you need a look,” said the 27-year veteran in the business who created what has become known as the “La Costa look.”
The look that Ray touts is individualized. If a person looks their best with a short, precision cut, then long, curly hair would be all wrong. And the look doesn’t stop at the head, but rather extends to make-up, nails, clothing and accessories.
Today, coordinating hair style with lifestyle is important. The working woman wants a hairdo that goes from bedroom to boardroom in 15 minutes. The male executive wants a clean look that is acceptable in a conservative corporate environment, yet still has pizazz.
Less individual, but equally popular, is the trend to look like someone else--especially a movie or recording star. The younger set wants the M.C. Hammer or Julia Roberts look. And the real young set, said Cece Moore, owner of Kids Kuts salon in Encinitas with a laugh, wants to look like Bart Simpson.
Although the war in the Middle East touches everyone, military influence in North County is particularly strong. The Marine look is not only patriotic these days, but it is the style and attracts people who may never don a uniform.
There is no magic to finding the perfect hairdo or stylist, says Marilyn McDonald, owner of Poway Academy of Beauty. “If you see someone with hair that is in good condition and has a style you like, ask for the name of their stylist.”
Although salon advertising is growing, especially in the franchise market, word-of-mouth still remains the top marketing tool.
Today, the typical shop serves a cross-section of customers--male, female, and children from all ethnic and economic backgrounds.
“During the 1960s when the Beatles were popular, guys started going to beauty salons because of their long hair,” says Dave Miranda, co-owner of Golden Razor Barber Shop in Escondido. Although barbershops lived through the transition, the era introduced unisex salons.
It is a complex industry that is constantly undergoing change. Over the past decade, the booth rental concept caught on, and some stylists pay a monthly fee to work at a particular shop. Booth rental prices vary, but generally range from $100 to $200 a month. Other shops work on a salary and commission basis. At J.C. Penney’s salon, for example, top-producers can supplement paychecks with bonuses or Hawaiian vacations.
Prices to the consumer are as varied as the salons and services they offer.
For instance, a haircut at one salon may be $9.95 and at another $36. But the cheaper cut may not include a wash and blow dry. Prices for children jump around according to the child’s age--a cut for an 11-year-old might be $14, and one for a 3-year-old $10.
When you get into the big-ticket procedures--such as perms and hair bleaching or tinting--the price is determined by the brand of the products used as well as the skill of the stylist. If you are cost-conscious and don’t want to be surprised when the primping is finished, it’s advisable to ask first.
Salons have different personalities. “When I have my hair done, I feel like it’s my time,” says Mary Jo Becker of Oceanside. “I probably wouldn’t follow my hairdresser if I didn’t like the atmosphere or people at the salon.”
According to experts in the hair industry, salons nowadays fall into six general categories: full service; children’s specialty; department store; budget franchise; barbershop and neighborhood establishment. The following six North County salons were selected to illustrate each category.
FULL-SERVICE SALON
La Costa Health Spa & Resort is well-known for its posh facilities that attract people from all over the world. What many locals do not know, however, is that the beauty salon is open to outsiders--non-guests of the spa.
Wanting to attract people in the community, Ray, the beauty director, says the salon offers its neighbors a 25% discount on most services.
“You can come in the morning between 8 and 1 and have a manicure for $16.20,” says Ray. “There is a 15% gratuity added, so you don’t have to tip if you don’t wish to.”
Full service at La Costa focuses not only on what the salon offers, but more importantly on how it’s delivered.
“Service, that’s what the ‘90s is going to be,” said Ray. “You pay for the service and the knowledge that what you get is the very best.”
Designed by Ray, the shop showcases the best at La Costa. A color scheme of soft peach and pale gray provides a relaxing atmosphere. A well-designed air-conditioning system vents odors in the so-called chemical room where color is mixed and applied.
Additional rooms are spread throughout the salon for manicuring, make-up education, make-up application and retail sales. A private room is available upon request for male customers. Facials are accommodated in another large section of the shop.
Stylists all wear white shirts and black skirts or slacks. Cleanliness is paramount, according to Ray. “I just spent $30,000 on sterilizing equipment,” he says.
New customers are encouraged to consider a beauty consultation for $25.
“I have clients that can’t afford to come in every week,” he says, “so they come here for their hair color and go someplace else for their cut, or vice versa.
“If it’s something you want, you can afford it.”
La Costa is at Costa del Mar Road in Carlsbad. The salon is open daily 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Calls: 438-9111.
CHILDREN’S SPECIALTY SALON
You need an appointment if you want to take your child to Kids Kuts. While other shops are sitting idle during these rough times, Kids Kuts is booming. Receptionist Linda Carter laughs and calls herself a wonder woman for working there.
Set in an Encinitas shopping center along with Play Co Toys and Stride Rite, Kids Kuts is in the midst of kid’s country. In six short years, Moore and daughter Becky have built a business that is open six days a week and employs 12 operators. The shop serves 75 to 125 children daily.
“It’s fun,” says Moore--a bubbly, young grandmother who loves the hugs. “You can’t get that from adults.”
A third of Kids Kuts’ business is devoted to adults. “We work well on fine hair,” says Moore. “And we do people who don’t even have children, but like our work and enjoy watching the children.”
The 1,000-square-foot shop is a rectangular play and work room that is virtually childproof and includes a large playhouse. Customers sit on park benches in a small waiting room. This area also contains combs, stuffed animals and hair decorations that can be purchased.
“We are told that our selection of custom-made bows is the best in the country,” says Moore.
Giant burgundy-colored painted bows and framed pictures of teddy bears decorate the walls. A large model train runs on a track suspended from the ceiling. In the very back of the shop, a washer and dryer operate nonstop. A huge box of lollipops sits on the floor and is partially hidden from curious eyes.
“Everyone gets a lollipop when they’re finished,” says Moore. “If they can’t have candy, they get a sticker.” Moore spends $400 a month on lollipops.
Finding skilled stylists who can work in this environment is not easy, according to Moore, even though her employees keep 60% of what they make. “We work on moving targets,” she said, “so our stylists have to be very good.”
When it comes to style, Kids Kuts rivals any salon in North County. It does the latest styles. “We specialize in French braids,” she said. “We teach the parents how to do it also.”
Stylists remain with all clients until they are finished--even if that means a two-hour perm. “You have to build up trust with children,” she said, “and that requires our full attention.”
Kids Kuts is at 282 El Camino Real in Encinitas. Hours are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed on Sunday. Appointments are necessary. Calls: 436-6273.
DEPARTMENT STORE SALON
Although many department stores are discontinuing hair salons, J.C. Penney is moving ahead full speed. Of the 1,600 stores nationwide, 863 have salons, and many gross more than $1 million annually.
J.C. Penney’s salon at North County Fair grossed more than $800,000 last year, salon manager Connie Christmas said. Even Christmas’ receptionist grossed $46,000 scheduling walk-ins and selling hair care products.
J.C. Penney’s salon operates within a corporate-like environment. Management provides direction for 24 hairstylists. Skills are sharpened through training manuals and weekly teaching sessions. Stylists are taught basic marketing techniques that help increase sales.
And those who stick with the company receive valuable perks. “We offer full benefits to our stylists and terrific incentive programs,” said Christmas.
The bulk of J.C. Penney’s customers are walk-ins, and many take advantage of advertised specials. “We always have something going on,” said Christmas. “Military personnel get their haircuts free of charge--we support our servicemen.”
The 16-chair, train-style salon accommodates a full range of clients. Some people are surprised to find that 45% of the customers are male. J.C. Penney’s “weekly ladies” can still get under a hair dryer, and children get special attention. “We do lots of kids,” said Christmas. “When stylists are working on children, they have a little more working room.”
J.C. Penney carries the full line of Sebastian, Nexxus, and Paul Mitchell hair products. “We have other salons sending people to us because we have whatever they make in these product lines.”
J.C. Penney also has two manicurists and facilities to do waxing and ear piercing.
J.C. Penney is in North County Fair shopping mall in Escondido. Hours are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Calls: 480-4500.
BUDGET FRANCHISE
Chains are often labeled “the factories of hair care” where customers are treated like numbers, and stylists are fresh out of school. Yet Fantastic Sam’s is a growing franchise, according to Allan Singer, who owns one in Encinitas and another in Solana Beach.
“Customers get good service, the right price, and they don’t need an appointment,” says Singer, emphasizing that time is important to people today.
Singer is not a stylist himself. He bought two franchises after discovering that his usual $20 haircut was no better than the one he got at a Fantastic Sam’s, for half the price.
Although Singer’s stylists do perms and color, most clients come in for the quick $9.95 haircut, he says. “We’re recession-proof,” says Singer. “In difficult times . . . people who normally pay $20 may end up trying us.”
Shops differ in size, but all have the same orange and gray color scheme and use Helene Curtis hair products with Fantastic Sam’s label.
Employees work on a customer-percentage basis and, according to individual franchise owners, some provide health insurance, paid vacations and other benefits. People from the regional franchise office in San Diego frequently visit each salon, paying close attention to the quality of stylists, working conditions and cleanliness of the shop.
Marion Jacobson, a senior citizen from Old Encinitas, says she likes Fantastic Sam’s because she can get her hair done when she’s “in the mood.” But one thing bothers Jacobson; who is Fantastic Sam? “He probably doesn’t exist,” she laughs.
According to Singer, Fantastic Sam does exist, and he’s Sam Ross from Memphis, Tenn. “Ross actually began cutting children’s hair, and he did such a good job that the parents would say, ‘You’re fantastic, Sam.’ ”
Check the telephone book or call the regional office at 944-7556 for information on Fantastic Sam’s in your location.
BARBERSHOPS
The barbershops in Oceanside are being hit hard by the Middle East war--their regular customers are stationed thousands of miles away.
The Golden Razor Barber Shop in Escondido is not dependent upon military customers and it’s business as usual for owners Dave Miranda and Manuel Estrada.
Barbershops are different from the typical beauty salon. Operating out of a small shop with two cubicles, Golden Razor offers its customers a more secluded atmosphere.
“Our customers want privacy,” says Miranda. “Some of them have toupees, so we like to make them feel comfortable.”
Comfort means a well-worn barber chair, sink, mirror and small television set. There are no perm rods, roller trays, or expensive hair products for sale. Instead, Miranda’s skill comes from 30 years of using electric clippers and shears. “We just cut and style hair,” he says. The bulk of Miranda’s business is generational.
“See this little boy,” says Miranda, pointing to a photograph of a toddler sitting on a booster seat in Miranda’s barber chair. “His father sat on that same booster over 20 years ago.”
Miranda says barbers and bartenders have something in common: “We’re a gigantic ear for our customers.”
When parents express concern about their children’s hairstyle, he tells them to be patient and that the stage will pass. “I remember giving a Mohawk to one of my customers,” Miranda says. “Today he comes into the shop . . . dressed in a shirt and tie.”
Customers talk a lot about the war. “They’re 100% behind what we’re doing,” he says.
Discussions about sports are still big topics, though. High school football is a hit in Miranda’s shop, and his customers still recall when San Marcos High School made it to the California Interscholastic Federation playoffs in 1988. That was the year the head coach lost a bet with the team.
“He told the kids he’d get a flat top if they went to CIF,” says Miranda. “I still remember when the coach took off his hat in front of the home team after I’d given him a haircut.”
Miranda averages 20 customers a day and charges $7 for haircuts and $12 for styling. Because he sees more than 400 regulars a month, Miranda works by appointment only.
Golden Razor is at 250 West Woodward. Hours are Tuesday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed Sunday and Monday. Calls: 746-9200.
THE NEIGHBORHOOD SHOP
Continental Coiffures in Escondido is a “bread and butter” salon, according to owner Rose Sewall. Clients come in weekly for a wash and set. Time moves slowly in Sewall’s salon. Rollers, hair dryers, and back-combing are still in style.
“My customers don’t want a brush in their hair until they come back to see me,” says Sewall.
For 15 years Sewall has worked out of a one-room shop on the corner of a busy intersection; a nearby Laundromat encourages a steady flow of foot traffic. Clients are comfortable in the salon’s 1950-ish setting in which aqua synthetic leather chairs and trays of brightly colored rollers have withstood the test of time.
There are no name-brand products in open view. That is not to say Sewall uses lesser products on her ladies, most of whom drive expensive cars and expect the best. “I use what I’m comfortable with,” she says, “and my customers don’t want me to try anything new.”
The average age of Sewall’s clients is mid-70s, but the backbone of her business has come from an 85-year-old woman from Rancho Bernardo. The woman found Sewall at another shop more than 20 years ago. She had just relocated from New York and was looking for a stylist when she came upon Sewall. “She’s been with me ever since and is indirectly responsible for almost all my clients.”
“All it takes is one good customer,” says Sewall. Although Sewall only works Wednesday through Saturday, she finds it difficult to get away from the salon. “My customers don’t understand that I can’t always be here.”
And whenever Sewall thinks about doing something else, her husband discourages her from making the change.
“He knows my customers are like family,” she says. And as long as Sewall’s favorite customer from Rancho Bernardo keeps coming, it’s a good bet her “bread & butter” shop will stay just the way it is.
Continental Coiffures is at 610 W. 9th in Escondido. Sewall works by appointment only. Her hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Calls: 746-4100.
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a2d7dff1541d1abb63d4a3586dcb117d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-nc-2588-story.html | Snowboarding Is Snowballing Here | Snowboarding Is Snowballing Here
Nobody’s quite certain who first strapped bindings onto a single snow ski, charged down a snow-covered mountain and invented the snowboard.
But, according to Lee Crane, managing editor of the Oceanside-based magazine “Transworld Snowboarding,” it goes back to at least ’66 or ’67.
“About that time, a man named Sherman Poppin bolted two skis together and made a stand-up sled for his kids. It wasn’t until 1979, however, that a company called “Snurfer” became the first to commercially manufacture snowboards,” Crane said.
From a mere handful of regular participants in the early 1980s, snowboarders have multiplied geometrically. The sport has grown steadily each year. In 1990, it was estimated that more than 1.6 million people snowboarded at least once.
Many local surfers, skateboarders and skiers, usually in their teens or early 20s, have taken up snowboarding.
Two of the biggest renters of snowboards in North County--Hobie Oceanside, a water sports and ski shop on Hill Street in Oceanside, and Hansen’s, a water sports and ski shop on Highway 101 in Encinitas--run out of their 25 or so rental snowboards nearly every weekend of the winter.
Snowboarders move fast, carve deep tracks and sometimes fly (a trick called getting air). But being able to carve a hard turn or get air costs time, money and many bruises.
Lee Crane is in agreement with most proficient snowboarders when he suggests that beginners take lessons. According to Crane, “With lessons it takes between four to eight hours to learn the basics. Without lessons it takes a lot longer, and the potential for injury is increased.”
In North County, lessons are given without ever leaving the coast. Adventure Ski School, located in Hansen’s parking lot offers one-hour lessons for $40.
The basics of snowboarding are practiced on a steep incline covered by an upwardly rotating carpet. According to Mark Tanabe, the school’s snowboarding instructor, the machine does not create the speed of moving down a mountain, but it does help the beginner learn the basics without moving too fast. “Then, when he goes to the snow he understands how things work. It isn’t as scary, and he’ll learn a lot faster,” Tanabe said.
Once a beginner gets to the snow, however, most suggest at lest one other lesson, costing about $35 per hour.
Even with the lesson, snowboarding is tough to learn. According to Steve Cleveland, an accomplished and long-time surfer from Oceanside who recently took his first lesson at Snow Summit. “Snowboarding is a lot more difficult than it looks, and when you fall it can really hurt.” Most beginners report feeling equal parts pain and frustration. Once they get beyond the learning stage, however, they mostly speak of freedom, speed and obsession.
Mt. Baldy, Snow Valley, Snow Summit and Mountain High all rent snowboards and give lessons. They are just over two hours from home for most North County residents.
In North County, snowboards can be rented at a variety of surf and ski shops including Hansen’s and Hobie Oceanside. Boots and a board rent for about $20 for one day, $30 for two days and $40 for three days. Also necessary to enjoy snowboarding, on all but the warmest days, is a parka ($200 to $350) and gloves ($80 to $100). Snowboard pants ($200) are padded in key areas and are recommended in order to stay warm, dry and decrease the potential for injury. Lift tickets run about $32 a day.
Novice snowboarders should consider renting various types of boards and boots before buying. This not only educates the snowboarder, but can save a lot of money. Snowboards cost $350 to $550. Boots range from $160 to $310.
Aside from being expensive and potentially painful, snowboarding requires a lot of time, much of it in the car on the way to the slopes. So why, in these recessionary times, is it one of the world’s fastest growing sports?
Mark Tanabe, the coast-bound instructor who gets to the snow at least three days a week, offers his perspective: “After a while, it’s what you want to do most with your free time. The freedom of the board, the speed, the feeling that there are no limits but the ones you put on yourself become very, very attractive.”
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313f7d1073a7bc6e856129933e6a7994 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-nc-2590-story.html | Tight Quarters Don’t Cramp Leonardo Ristorante’s Style | Tight Quarters Don’t Cramp Leonardo Ristorante’s Style
On busy nights, the tiny vestibule that fronts the restrooms at Rancho Bernardo’s Leonardo Ristorante and Pizzeria becomes an impromptu waiting room and wine bar.
That patrons agree to wait in this cramped, unlikely spot is a testament to the restaurant’s menu and cooking, which by and large seem worth the time spent. That a glass of wine is on the house, meanwhile, speaks well for the management’s desire to alleviate the discomfort of the waiting clientele.
And that the situation exists at all makes most obvious the limitations of modern, strip center, storefront restaurants, which 15 years ago were the wave of the future and now seem an inescapable part of the landscape. Spaces of this sort do not allow for additions, and expansion into a neighboring space is out of the question unless another establishment moves out.
In the specific case of Leonardo, this means that the restaurant is limited to a single, narrow dining room, given an illusion of greater breadth by mirrors and containing the absolute number of tables that can be jammed in under the red, white and green awnings and the few but tasteful artworks.
The service is cheerful, perhaps because servers feel confident about the plates they constantly hustle out of the kitchen. The menu, while not vegetarian, leans somewhat in that direction, and the vegetables that enter variously into the antipasto, the pizzas and some of the entrees seem wonderfully fresh and well-handled.
The menu takes a much more ambitious tone than is usual at informal, family-style restaurants of this type. In addition to meatless antipasto plates (wrapped in plastic, these assortments of grilled, marinated eggplant, peppers and other veggies constantly whirl past on a revolving display case in the dining room), the appetizer list includes mussels steamed in marinara sauce; bocconcini , or “little mouthfuls,” of fried mozzarella; prosciutto and melon; tiny fried squid and a dressy dish of tortellini in a sauce of reduced cream thickened with Parmesan.
The pasta list revives the old classic of spaghetti and meatballs, which for some years seemed in danger of disappearing from new restaurant menus; this is included with such other old stand-bys as spaghetti with garlic and olive oil (too often overlooked), linguine with pesto, ravioli in meat sauce and manicotti stuffed with ham and several cheeses.
Less familiar are pennette (small, quill-shaped macaroni) in a lavish treatment of smoked salmon, caviar and cream sauce; the fettuccine Leonardo, which dresses the noodles with sauteed shrimp, scallops and mussels and a tarragon cream, and the linguine al pescatore , which tumbles the pasta with shrimp, squid, mussels and tomato sauce. The spaghetti compagnola adds cream, mushrooms and extra garlic to a standard meat sauce, and the tasty result seems like a robust, rustic adaptation of the classic sauce bolognese .
The pizzas are sufficiently popular that the restaurant also sells them from a window on the pavement; in the dining room, the light-crusted pies are set atop holders that contain lighted candles, which--at least in theory--keeps them warm.
The house special (described by the menu as world famous, no less) is rather admirable, and tops the molten mozzarella with roasted peppers, artichoke hearts, zucchini, eggplant and, of all things, broccoli. This is surprisingly good, but for the veggie-disdaining there is an all-meat pie that supplements the usual sausage and pepperoni with Canadian bacon and chopped beef.
Entrees include a classic beef filet pizzaiola finished with tomatoes, garlic and oregano; swordfish in tomato sauce made pungent by capers, oregano and olives; salmon bedded on spinach, the whole doused with lemon butter; the usual veal parmigiana, piccata and Marsala, and grilled chicken breast with mushrooms and garlic. A plate of crisply finished, home made Italian sausage with peppers, onions and tomatoes is hearty, warmingly old fashioned and quite delicious.
Leonardo Ristorante
and Pizzeria
16705 Bernardo Center Dr., Rancho Bernardo
Calls: 487-3011
Hours: Lunch weekdays, dinner nightly
Cost: Pizza and entrees from $4.95 to $13.95. Dinner for two with a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $20 to $40
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53345b03bd476d1b8885abfc31ac9df0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ol-2917-story.html | MATINEE IDLERS : Moms, Therapists and Other Daytime Denizens of the Dark Pursue One of Life’s Guilty Pleasures | MATINEE IDLERS : Moms, Therapists and Other Daytime Denizens of the Dark Pursue One of Life’s Guilty Pleasures
When duty calls, this Anaheim Hills man answers, morning, noon or night. Especially noon.
Just recently in fact, fortified with a 5-pound, $2.50 tub of popcorn, he went in for a little overtime, ducking in to a matinee of “Dances With Wolves” at Cinemapolis, a 10-screen theater in Anaheim.
“I’m a clinical psychologist and I treat entertainers,” said the casually dressed moviegoer, who asked not to be named. “I go to matinees about three times a week.
“It gives me a better perspective on understanding their work and why it’s important to them,” he explained. “I treat film editors and other technical personnel too. Not just actors.”
Actually, this psychologist made no pretense about the mixed motives for his habitual behavior.
Beside his work with the film industry, “it’s pure entertainment,” he said with a sheepish grin.
Typically, senior citizens, moms with young kids and salespeople dominate matinee audiences on weekdays and when school’s in session. Waiters and others who work at night, or anyone looking for cheaper seats, go a lot, too.
But an assortment of unexpected regulars, such as the therapist with flexible hours and celebrity clients, also frequent daytime movies.
Celebrities themselves number among routine denizens of the dark, as do the less famous who spend their lunch hours surrounded by Sensurround, commuters avoiding gridlock and even homeless people.
The number of Orange County theaters that run matinees is increasing, and not just at mall movies, where owners who showed some of the area’s first afternoon screenings hoped to grab shoppers on impulse, but at theaters that stand alone.
Part of the reason is simply population growth, officials say. Last year’s opening of Cinemapolis, for instance, reflects a decision “to put a theater in the Anaheim Hills area because of the (growing) population there,” said Gary Richardson, general manager of the SoCal Cinema chain, which runs the outlet.
In just the last 20 months, Edwards Theatres has added daily, year-round matinees (versus those shown only on more bankable weekends or school holidays) to the schedules at several venues, company Chairman James Edwards Sr. said.
“There seem to be more people looking for a matinee,” he said. The Southern California chain, with 120 screens in Orange County, is the county’s largest.
Edwards couldn’t explain what has prompted the popularity upswing. He did say, however, that movies where matinees have recently been added are in “heavily populated areas, particularly where there are senior citizens.”
Several county theater officials, who agree that matinees account for about one-third of the day’s receipts during non-holiday periods, say seniors prefer the early shows because they feel safer going out during the day and don’t have to face evening throngs.
Of course generalizations are always risky. Bernice Lieberman, 73, went to the 2:30 p.m. showing of “Three Men and a Little Lady” at AMC MainPlace Six in the MainPlace/Santa Ana mall recently.
“The early shows give you a chance to get out and go to dinner afterward,” said Lieberman, who had come with friends. But even Saturday date nights don’t daunt her. “I don’t mind the crowds,” said the energetic movie lover.
But Trish Jefferis, assistant manager of Super Saver Cinema 7 in Seal Beach, says she sees the same faces from the nearby Leisure World retirement community time and again. The theater, which charges $1.50 for every movie, has its first screening around noon.
Jim McKenna, director of theater operations for FSA Super Saver Cinemas No. 1 Ltd., the theater chain’s parent company, affirmed that “well over half our audience in a matinee is going to be aged 50 or over or housewives with children.”
Strapping her two preschoolers into the back seat of her Nissan, Pat Huffaker said she takes her son and daughter to G-rated matinees about once or twice a month.
“They enjoy the movies,” Huffaker said just after seeing “The Nutcracker Prince” at Cinemapolis. She added with a look of harried fatigue: “It gives them something to do so they’re not driving me crazy.”
(In general, top quality, not comedy versus romance versus shoot-em-up, determines matinee success, officials say, and kid-toting mothers seem to be the only ones who have an afternoon preference: family-type movies, as might be expected.)
Salespeople break up their days with matinees, too. Cinemapolis manager Sherry Gartley says they hang out at pay phones in the theater’s cavernous lobby.
“Between shows, they’ll be at the phone with their date books lining up their next appointments,” Gartley said.
One theater employee who didn’t want to be identified said he knows of another unusual matinee population. He frequently lets in homeless people who “live out of dumpsters” nearby for a free movie, popcorn and something to drink.
“You’ve got to bend the rules sometimes,” he said. “They just need a place to sit down for a while and take it easy.”
Then there are the movie and sports stars who find a wholly different kind of solace in midday movies.
The entire Notre Dame football team, Dan Majerle of the Phoenix Suns basketball team, actor Kent McCord (recently seen in “Predator” and as one of the cops in “Adam 12") and Dustin Devin (“21 Jump Street”) are among the celebrities recently espied beneath the towering, gold-leaf columns in the ornate, spacious lobby of Edwards Island Cinemas in Fashion Island, where concessionaires serve up Evian bottled water and cappuccino at $2 a pop.
Why the glut of glitterati?
“You’re in an affluent area and the matinees are less crowded so they have less problem with being recognized,” projectionist David Burkhardt surmised. “And, the staff leaves them alone.”
Location is another draw for a group of Cinemapolis regulars who often substitute a flick for gridlock: The Riverside Freeway is visible from the theater’s lobby.
“You can tell who the commuters are,” said manager Gartley. “They’re the ones in pin stripes.”
As for reaction to the Gulf War, the notion that armed conflict begets box office bonanza seems more myth--at least at this point--than fact. An informal survey of moviegoers revealed no heightened desire for daylight escapism.
“Are you kidding?” responded Ava Tetro when asked whether the war had led her to seek out a 4:30 p.m. screening.
“We have a satellite dish with 100 stations,” said Tetro, vice president of a Corona computer company. “We can get anything we want at home.”
Officials at AMC Theaters, Cinamopolis and Edwards Theatres reported an increase in matinee attendance since war broke out, but only Edwards’ chairman would link the rise to the fighting.
Business has increased by as much as 50% since a dip that did occur during the week the war began, Edwards said. He guessed that people have craved diversion from non-stop news shows.
“They just want to do something other than listen to (reports about) the war all the time.” He also attributed the increase to a recent rash of popular films, such as “Dances With Wolves,” however, echoing spokesmen for other local cinemas.
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75829f7c1121999c2f94a7e8dea59c2d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ol-2918-story.html | BANK BOOTY : Security Pacific’s Collection of Prints by Modern Masters Is Worth Seeing | BANK BOOTY : Security Pacific’s Collection of Prints by Modern Masters Is Worth Seeing
Exhibits of “the collection of so-and-so” usually do a fine job of showing off some well-heeled collector’s booty but often don’t bother to explain why the stuff is worth looking at in the first place. “The Security Pacific Collection, Twenty Years 1970-1990: Prints,” at the Security Pacific Gallery, is no different in that respect.
But in Orange County--which has no permanently-on-display collection of work by important contemporary artists--we can’t afford to turn up our noses at any exhibit offering good work by big names, even if it offers no scholarship and no curatorial point of view.
The lure of the show is the opportunity to see work by Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, Richard Serra, Susan Rothenberg, Jim Dine, David Hockney, John Baldessari and others whose names are synonymous with the development of contemporary art in the United States.
Virtually all of the artists in the show came to prominence as painters or sculptors rather than printmakers. Beginning in the 1960s, however, a new group of print workshops and fine art publishers sprang up to help artists translate their vision into one or more of the various print media--engraving, drypoint, etching, aquatint, woodcut, lithography and serigraphy (screen printing).
As a result, the rather ingrown world of dyed-in-the-wool printmakers has seen an infusion of experimental sizes, methods and materials. And collectors--including the corporate variety--have reaped the benefits of a more affordable way of owning work by big-ticket artists.
The prints on view represent a sampler of the 3,000 that were collected by Security Pacific to decorate the corridors and offices of its regional offices. (The bank also owns some 9,000 works of art in other media.)
Elegant or bizarre, detailed or generalized, cool or Angst- filled, representational or abstract--there is something here for virtually every taste. A free handout briefly explains the various processes, though no information is supplied on the artists or their work. But the main virtue of the show is its Cook’s tour of Best-Known Styles of Contemporary Artists.
Artists represented here who became names to reckon with during the 1950s include Sam Francis, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Motherwell and Jasper Johns, inheritors of Abstract Expressionism who reacted to its dominating presence in different ways.
Known for his low-key, deliberately ambiguous juxtaposition of words and imagery, and his emphasis on the act of seeing, Johns remained true to form in “Viola,” a lithograph from 1972. The title, stenciled below the tilted image of an open, empty cupboard, is an ironic inversion of the French word voila (“there it is”).
The 1960s--a decade percolating with the diverse approaches of Pop and Minimal art, Photo-Realism, Color Field painting, Earthworks and Happenings--brought such artists as Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman, Michael Heizer, Sol Lewitt and Ed Ruscha to art-world prominence.
Dine’s 1975 lithograph and screen print “Plant Becomes a Fan Nos. 1-5" is a fanciful series of images that accomplish the transformation of one object into another in a way reminiscent of the game in which players turn one word into another by changing one letter at a time.
Ruscha’s 1978 color screen print “I’ve Never Seen Two People Look Healthier,” shows a vast expanse of sky above a silhouetted landscape. The two individuals referred to in the title are microscopic creatures standing in a luminous orange layer of smog.
During the wildly disparate 1970s--marked by the rise of Neo-Expressionism, Pattern and New Image painting, the flowering of video and Conceptual art and a renewed interest in sculpture with a handcrafted or non-Western look--David Hockney, Nancy Graves, Susan Rothenberg, Dorothea Rockburne, Roger Herman, Malcolm Morley, Gary Stephan and Robert Longo all began to flicker in larger or smaller ways on the art star map.
Hockney’s 1973 lithograph/silk-screen “Wind” is an upbeat, L.A.-style view of weather conditions (snow, sun, rain, mist) as wispy images on sheets of paper that blow lightly in a “wind” conjured up with a few wavy blue lines.
Longo’s 1985 lithograph “Edmund,” is part of a series of life-size images of well-dressed young men and women in extreme postures that look--as someone once said--as though the subjects are either dancing or dying.
Lari Pittman, Donald Sultan and the late Keith Haring are among the artists in the show who swaggered onto the art scene during the 1980s.
Pittman, a Los Angeles artist, is known for his dazzling and ironic juxtapositions of different graphic styles. In his 1979 lithograph and silk-screen “This Landscape, beloved and despised, continues regardless,” 18th-Century-style silhouettes of men and women are shown in coffin-shaped spaces amid scattered images of mountains and ships.
Garnished with pastel ‘60s-style flowers and starbursts, zooming arrows and an image of an artist, the work might be about artists’ persistence in keeping mythic images of landscape alive.
What: “The Security Pacific Collection, Twenty Years 1970-1990: Prints.’
When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, through March 23.
Where: Security Pacific Gallery, 555 Anton Blvd., Costa Mesa.
Whereabouts: San Diego Freeway to Bristol Street exit. Anton is off Bristol between the freeway and Sunflower Avenue.
Wherewithal: Admission is free.
Where to call: (714) 433-6000.
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c443ff0f6f378de5bb003d0228006094 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ol-2920-story.html | BUG-EYE-LING : Dennis Wolfberg’s Distinctive Delivery Gets as Many Laughs as His Life | BUG-EYE-LING : Dennis Wolfberg’s Distinctive Delivery Gets as Many Laughs as His Life
When comedian Dennis Wolfberg was teaching sixth grade at an elementary school in the South Bronx in the 1970s, truancy was a big problem.
You know the South Bronx, “a community that socioeconomically ranks under CALCUTTA to give you an international base of comparison. . . . The school newspaper had an OBITUARY COLUMN! . . . I would assign compositions, ‘What I want to be IF I grow up.’ ”
Speaking in his patented delivery, in which he squints then bulges out his eyes as he literally SQ-U-E-E-Z-ES out key words for emphasis, Wolfberg recalls that “these kids were truant beyond all human imagination, and they came in with the most BRAZEN excuses.
“I had a kid who missed two days and he told me he had had a stroke! . . . I congratulated him on a REMARKABLE recovery, to be back two days following a stroke. What a REMARKABLE commitment to education. I had one kid who missed three weeks. He told me he had been on JURY duty. . . . CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?”
Wolfberg, who starred in his own half-hour comedy special on HBO last year and has been nominated for an American Comedy Award as “Best Male Stand-up,” is appearing at the Brea Improv through Sunday.
The bug-eyed comedian has been described by critics as “perhaps the most verbally adroit comic working today . . . flat out hilarious” and as “one of those rare comics who can take the simplest moments of life and turn them into the greatest laughs you’ll ever have.”
Now that he’s middle-aged, Wolfberg says that his doctor has told him to increase the fiber content in his diet. So he eats this new cereal called Fiber One:
“I don’t know if any of you are familiar with this rather powerful piece of breakfast fare, the GRIM REAPER of morning chow, this NUclear laxative in a BOX! This stuff is unbelievably fiber rich. It has six times more fiber than Grape Nuts and three times more fiber than raw TWINE! . . . It’s one thing to be regular, it’s another to be unSTOPPable!”
Mining his own life for laughs, Wolfberg talks about everything from his teaching days to married life and fatherhood.
Wolfberg, who did not become a comic until he was 30, didn’t get married (to former stand-up comic Jeannie McBride) until he was 39. And he was 40 when he became a father. (“I sometimes say I was bar mitzvahed at 17. So I was always a late bloomer,” he says.)
The couple’s son, Daniel, was delivered via natural childbirth, using, as Wolfberg says, “this procedure that was invented by a man named Lamaze . . . the MARQUIS de Lamaze, disciple of Dr. Josef MENGELE. . . a man who concluded that woman could counteract the INCREDIBLE pain of childbirth through rhythmic breathing as a reasonable substitute for ANESTHESIA!
“I think we all agree that breathing is a reasonable substitute. . . . It’s like asking a man to tolerate a vasectomy by HYPERVENTILATING!”
Who: Dennis Wolfberg.
When: Thursday, Feb. 28, at 8:30 p.m.; Friday, March 1, at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, March 2, at 8 and 10:30 p.m., and Sunday, March 3, at 8:30 p.m.
Where: The Improv, 945 Birch St., Brea.
Whereabouts: Take the Lambert Road exit off the Orange Freeway and go west. Turn left onto State College Boulevard and right onto Birch Street. The Improv is in the Brea Marketplace, across from the Brea Mall.
Wherewithal: $7 to $10.
Where to call: (714) 529-7878.
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e040d12a8b78ce04773e8974fe00e08b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ol-2921-story.html | Irish Coffee and a Warm Ambience | Irish Coffee and a Warm Ambience
During the cold months, there may be no better place to go for warm atmosphere and a hot cup of Irish coffee than the International Pub and Platter.
The International, situated in the Plaza de Cafes at 4881 Birch St., Newport Beach, is an Irish bar wedged among several other international restaurants. The pub is usually going strong long after the other places have closed, so if it looks deserted from the front door of the plaza, peek inside anyway.
If you happen by on a weeknight, don’t be surprised if yours is the only American accent in the place--Irish expatriates are legion there.
On Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, crowds enjoy live Celtic guitar and fiddle music in the tavernlike atmosphere. Beer prices range from $1.75 for domestic brands to $2.50 for imported beers, among them Irish-label Guinness as well as English and Scottish beers.
The bar also stocks O’Doul’s, a nonalcoholic beer, but manager Siobhan Donnelly points out: “We don’t sell much of that. It’s the exact opposite of what an Irish drink is.”
The house speciality is the Bailey’s coffee, more than worth the $3.50 charge. It is served in a glass decorated with green shamrocks and writing describing the proper proportions of the ingredients. And don’t miss a chance to taste the Blackthorn, a crisp clear cider in a tall glass, once you’re warmed up.
International Pub and Platter, 4881 Birch St., Newport Beach. Open Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to midnight; Friday through Sunday till 2 a.m. (714) 955-3868.
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6a070b48ea9a4228c634112eeffe68a9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ol-2922-story.html | DIVINE MOVEMENT : Hindu Dancers in Irvine Will Strive to Convey Sanctity Without Sermon | DIVINE MOVEMENT : Hindu Dancers in Irvine Will Strive to Convey Sanctity Without Sermon
In Hindu cosmology, it is sound that leads to creation.
“Lord Siva, when represented in dancing form, holds a drum in his hand, and when beating this drum, the sound that comes out creates the universe,” says Indian dancer Ramaa Bharadvaj who, with her twin sister Uma Suresh, has created the “Facets of Siva” dance concert on Sunday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.
So it is not surprising that dance, according to Hindu aesthetics, says Suresh, “should be divine, holy.
“A dance becomes one of the four holy scriptures,” she says. “We are trying to maintain that sanctity, portraying the spirituality as much as the entertainment, but in such a way that you do not sit there feeling you are listening to a sermon.
“For our concert we have taken the themes of creation, sustenance and transformation, which are the three principles on which the religious philosophy of India is based. We don’t say death because something has to end before it can transform into something else.”
The sisters, born in 1958, have lived in Orange County for three years. They went to India to research the themes of the program, they said, and joining them in performance will be daughters Swetha Bharadvaj, 12, and Priya Suresh, 11.
The first half of the program will range through the masculine, feminine and androgynous manifestations of Siva. The second will take the religious themes and through two dance dramas, says Suresh, “bring them down to the human level” by showing how ordinary people can achieve great spiritual achievement “not only through religious rites but also through love and faith.”
“Contrary to popular belief that Indians worship many different gods, Indians use different symbols or manifestations of one superior entity,” Bharadvaj says. “The manifestations that we worship all have different characteristics because human beings have different characteristics. So they can attach themselves to the manifestations they feel close to.
“Siva is just one manifestation. Symbols in Hindu religions are just like language. If you have an idea, you need language; you can use writing. If you have an idea about divinity, you need symbols. Hindus look at nature itself, for instance, as a symbol of the divine being.
“But the philosophies behind the religions are universal. Before each scene of our program, we will have a narrator and paintings and slides to bring out the metaphysical aspects we are hoping to achieve.”
Adds Suresh: “You cannot reach the (one) God unless you can focus on something. The one God, we call Brahman, is permanent, changeless. We need these (other) forms because there has to be something for a mind to concentrate upon, which leads it on to concentration on divinity.”
“The fact that the God we are going to portray is Siva should not matter,” says Bharadvaj. “It should not be a barrier. We are bringing out the similarity of religions to Siva because that is the one we are familiar with. We have that God to focus upon, mainly because we are (Indian) dancers. At the end of the program, everyone should feel closer to divinity.”
What: “Facets of Siva” Indian dance program.
When: Sunday, March 3, at 5 p.m.
Where: Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine.
Whereabouts: UC Irvine campus across from the Market Place mall.
Wherewithal: $10 to 20.
Where to call: (714) 643-1941 or (714) 692-1695.
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1f76284409c6c23118abbbc384052120 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ol-2923-story.html | FILM : ‘Johnny Guitar’ Pulls Some Kinky Strings | FILM : ‘Johnny Guitar’ Pulls Some Kinky Strings
There’s one thing that can be said about “Johnny Guitar"--Joan Crawford, in the early stages of her 1950s bushy-eyebrow phase, never looked more handsome.
Done up in mannish clothes, a six-shooter strapped to her thigh and enjoying some macho posturing, Crawford could almost be playing the role of a guy in weird cowboy drag. Her co-star, a snarling Mercedes McCambridge, nearly outdraws her in all this gender-bending--she’s like a rabid Mickey Rooney in a black dress. When was the last time a Western ended with a gunfight between two women?
Audiences in 1954, when Nicholas Ray’s movie premiered, were unprepared for such a new slant. So were the critics, who responded by booing the film for many reasons, including Ray’s handling of cinema queen Crawford. Their complaint that he overturned her femininity seems curiously sexist today, but the lament nonetheless raises legitimate questions.
Just what was Ray up to in this kinkiest of American Westerns, which screens at UC Irvine on Saturday night? Was he offering a revolutionary statement about women’s roles, or was he just goofing off, casually creating the first avant-garde comedy-frontier film?
Nobody’s been able to adequately sort it out, but something happened along the way--"Johnny Guitar’s” ambiguity and silly archness eventually led it into the pantheon of cult classics, a movie revered for its head-scratching campiness.
It is a howler. Right from the start, “Johnny Guitar,” whether intentionally or not, takes on a stylized humor that flouts convention. As Crawford’s Vienna, the imperious saloon boss, barks out orders, one of her men turns to the camera: “I never met a woman more like a man,” he says of Vienna. “She thinks like one, acts like one, sometimes she makes me feel like I’m not (one). . . . I never thought I’d end up working for a woman--and liking it!”
Then the title character makes his move. Played by a gangly, impossibly slow-talking Sterling Hayden, he’s a deadly minstrel, a legendary gunfighter trying to go straight by playing peaceful tunes on his guitar. He used to be involved with Vienna and hopes to start it up again. She hopes he’ll be able to stand by her when things get rough.
Vienna’s got the whole town, especially crazed rancher Emma (McCambridge), upset over her get-rich-quick scheme to sell the saloon to the railroad (it’s never made clear why that’s such a bad idea, but it does create a conflict, the cornerstone of any Western, even an outrageous one). Emma loves the Dancin’ Kid (Scott Brady), a local hotshot who’s been hanging out with Vienna.
When Emma’s gang of surly town folk and Vienna’s brood of loyal bar hands reach fighting pitch, Johnny Guitar defuses everything by plunking out a nice song. What does the Dancin’ Kid do? He grabs Emma and starts dancing. Real good, too.
Hilarious, but everything is delivered so straight, with such frayed-nerves acting, that “Johnny Guitar” seems to spoof not only the heroic super-realism of Westerns but the moody manners of film noir. The dialogue is clipped and punchy, the characters wear their morality on their sleeves, and the pace is driven.
As its cult status has grown, a few revisionist critics have gone so far as to label “Johnny Guitar” one of the 10 best Westerns ever. That’s pushing it, even with a cast that includes such stalwarts as Ward Bond, John Carradine, Royal Dano and Ernest Borgnine.
But the movie’s entertaining quirkiness is undeniable. Look for the odd detailing, such as the path to Dancin’ Kid’s lair, which literally takes you through a waterfall, and the surrey ride that, with the background shrubbery hurtling by, looks like a drag race out of Ray’s “Rebel Without a Cause.”
What: Nicholas Ray’s “Johnny Guitar.”
When: Saturday, March 2, at 7 p.m.
Where: UC Irvine’s 178 Humanities Hall.
Whereabouts: Take the San Diego (405) Freeway to Jamboree Road and head south. Go east on Campus Drive to Bridge Road. Take Bridge into the campus.
Wherewithal: Donations accepted.
Where to Call: (714) 856-8596 and 856-0394.
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1279e514384f2fd26be10c0a5e254f9b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ol-2924-story.html | An Intriguing Look at Japan Before WWII | An Intriguing Look at Japan Before WWII
“The Makioka Sisters” is a splendid, thoughtful movie of a Japan only three years away from Pearl Harbor and the devastation of war with the United States.
World War II ended the type of society portrayed so clearly here, although the war did not erase the attitudes and some of the behavior depicted. The barons, counts and others in the nobility were stripped of their titles after the war, and the sharp line between the moneyed few and the scraping-to-get-by many became blurred. In today’s Japan, however, families of prospective brides and grooms still hire private detectives to investigate their son’s or daughter’s betrothed, and Japanese still make the pilgrimage to Kyoto to see the cherry blossoms of spring.
The movie is set in 1938 in and around Osaka, where the four Makioka sisters live. The elder two are married; the problem comes in fixing up the two younger ones.
Yukiko must be the next to marry, but she keeps rejecting suitors. And Taeko, the youngest, is a rebel who would stand out even in today’s Japan. In the prewar years, however, she would have been startling: She wants to open a doll manufacturing factory in town; she smokes; and several years before, she had briefly run away with a young man.
Director Kon Ichikawa uses color flamboyantly, from the pale pink cherry blossoms of spring to the red and yellow maple leaves of fall to the stark whiteness of the still snow of winter. The emphasis on color substitutes for action--this is a movie without a samurai in sight; the only swords remain in the scabbards of the soldiers who are in the background.
The movie is based on the novel by Jun’ichiro Tanazaki, a writer rare among his colleagues because he features strong women. The main theme is the family’s pride, especially that of Tsuruko, the eldest daughter, and the change in the family’s fortunes. Tsuruko remembers when her parents were alive and her father ran one of Japan’s biggest shipping companies. Now her husband and her sister’s husband work for others.
Ichikawa does not gloss over the quarrels familiar to all families, but he does show the love uniting the brood, underscored by one comment that “sisters must be kind to each other.”
“The Makioka Sisters” (1983), directed by Kon Ichikawa. In Japanese with English subtitles. 140 minutes. Not rated.
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9bb6b3ac9117cd2159a25ced9e3f46c9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ol-2925-story.html | THE FANS’ CHOICES | THE FANS’ CHOICES
Movie (National ranking) Weekend Gross Screens/Avg. (Studio) (National) (National) 1. The Silence of the Lambs (1) $167,832 15/$11,188 (Orion) ($11 million) (1,515/$7,886) 2. Sleeping With the Enemy (2) $103,616 12/$8,634 (Fox) ($9.2 million) (1,488/$6,194 ) 3. Scenes From a Mall (6) $84,603 13/$6,507 (Buena Vista) ($3.8 million) (1,039/$3,681) 4. L.A. Story (8 ) $73,332 16/$4,583 (Tri Star) ($2.7 million) (1,122 /$2,462) 5. He Said, She Said (7) $72,905 11/$6,627 (Paramount) ($2.8 million) (908 /$3,147)
Movie (National ranking) Weeks (Studio) Released 1. The Silence of the Lambs (1) 2 (Orion) 2. Sleeping With the Enemy (2) 3 (Fox) 3. Scenes From a Mall (6) 1 (Buena Vista) 4. L.A. Story (8 ) 3 (Tri Star) 5. He Said, She Said (7) (Paramount)
Source: Exhibitor Relations Co.
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c9380cd805fbcc460ef9f48555b5302b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ol-2926-story.html | In Tsuru’s Ersatz Perch, Look No Further Than Sushi Bar | In Tsuru’s Ersatz Perch, Look No Further Than Sushi Bar
The crane (tsuru) is a symbol of longevity in Japan. The Japanese revere these awkward birds to the point of superstition. It’s a symbol they do not take lightly.
That’s why I sensed something amiss upon entering Tsuru, a restaurant perched directly above the Coast Highway in the Newport Classic Inn.
Forget that Tsuru tries hard to look as if it belongs in Japan. It’s brimming with ersatz Japanese artifacts, like empty sake barrels and commercial-looking replicas of 18th-Century woodblock prints. The booths are divided by giant birch panels, and there is a show cart filled with fancy lacquerware. You walk right by a sushi bar to get to your table.
But as I passed the player piano (a Yamaha, to be sure, performing a rendition of Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood”), my first thought was that the music seemed a bit jarring for so peaceful a room. Then I noticed the chairs--shiny black ones with gaudy, fan-shaped backs that seemed totally out of character for a place with so solemn a namesake.
Then I had a wild realization. I had stumbled into a Chinese sushi bar.
Seconds later I was seated at the sushi bar (topped with blue marble--another anomaly), chatting with chef Bill Ho, a native of Kaoshung, Taiwan. Ho is a fascinating fellow who speaks four languages (“eight when I’m drunk,” he says): Japanese, two dialects of Chinese and fluent English.
It turns out that the hotel is owned by a Chinese man from Taiwan named Mr. Kou, and that the restaurant also has a Chinese kitchen. It’s not as if you could tell any of that from a name like Tsuru.
Ho then explained how Taiwan was occupied by Japan for the better part of the early 20th Century (it wasn’t until 1945 that Japan quit the island) and the Taiwanese developed an enduring passion for Japanese cuisine. (It seems to be the only aspect of Japanese culture Taiwan has embraced.)
I was all psyched up to eat Japanese food, though, and somehow, Ho’s historical explanation did not stop my stomach from growling. Luckily, his food took care of that.
Because Ho, without the benefit of formal training, is a highly competent sushi man. Observe him dishing up ginger and wasabi, shouting hai (Japanese for “yes”) and deftly handling his double-edged knife, and you’ll assume he’s Japanese anyway. Taste his creations and you will swear he is.
You’ll want to start with something fresh and simple: sweet, creamy uni (sea urchin) with its briny, slightly medicinal aftertaste; anago (sea eel), a firm-fleshed, slightly smoky chunk of it on a little mound of rice; or perhaps some good, fresh buri, or yellowtail, served as sashimi in five slices. At any rate, ask Ho for whatever he favors that day.
Then you can progress to some of the more elaborate forms that sushi takes here. His salmon skin roll is one--cooked salmon in a wrapped cone of crisp Japanese seaweed ( nori ) , with daikon sprouts and scallions. You might also want to try crab-and-avocado-filled California roll, a savory spicy tuna roll he calls TNT or a super-elaborate creation called rainbow roll, with several species of fish and a multitude of flavors.
My only complaint about the hand rolls has to do with the seaweed the restaurant uses. Nori can be deliciously crunchy, but Tsuru’s nori tastes a bit stale.
You will want to move into the dining room for hot dishes, although Ho permits you to eat them at his bar. There is a full menu of both Japanese and Chinese specialties in this dining room, prepared with good ingredients and little imagination. You won’t find much you haven’t seen before.
Appetizers like gyoza, the Japanese pot stickers, are always fun to eat. Tsuru’s gyoza plate is six well-seasoned, meat-filled dumplings, each with one side pan-crisped to a crackling crunch. Furthermore, the dumplings are served in a delicate wicker basket, a Japanese touch you seldom get when you order dumplings in a Chinese restaurant.
A Chinese dish like stir-fried minced chicken with water chestnut in little lettuce leaves would make another good beginning, as would the one they call beef roll, a mini-roulade of beefsteak rolled around scallions and fresh asparagus. But if you’re after lightness, nothing can compete with sushi.
So remember that if you order a full dinner. The dinners here are substantial, accompanied by a bland miso soup, a dish of shredded cabbage salad with Thousand Island dressing and plenty of that good short-grained Japanese rice.
The Japanese entrees don’t match the Chinese. There is an overly sweet salmon teriyaki and some ponderous, slightly greasy tempura, but then tempura is almost never good outside Japan. Tsuru’s has a tasty batter, but too much of it, and the vegetables, cooked at too high a temperature for too short a time, come out rock-hard.
Expect the usual selection of Chinese favorites, all done with reasonable skill. You can get shrimp, chicken and beef (or all three together) cooked kung pao fashion in a tangy, burnished sauce with plenty of heat and crisped-up peanuts; or lobster tail in brown sauce atop a deep-fried crisp noodle nest; even good whole fish--say, rock cod--steamed with ginger and scallion (or Shanghai style in a spicy garlic sauce).
But if you want to find me, look no further than the sushi bar. That’s where I’ll be, eating Ho’s sushi off my half-moon-shaped lacquerware tray and listening to that piano play swing. Hey, I’m not superstitious about taking the tsuru ‘s name in vain.
Tsuru is moderately priced. Sushi is $3 to $8.50. Appetizers are $5.50 to $8.50. Complete dinners are $10.95 to $22.
* TSURU
* Newport Classic Inn, 2300 W. Coast Highway, Newport Beach.
* (714) 722-9248.
* Open for lunch daily 11:30 a.m. through 2:30 p.m., for dinner daily 5 through 10:30 p.m.
* American Express, MasterCard and Visa.
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2b4690ea63caffc743f527ea8c5b2e5e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-ol-2927-story.html | Champs Pitches Ballpark Fare to the Sporting Crowd | Champs Pitches Ballpark Fare to the Sporting Crowd
If you’re one of those strange people who go to baseball and football games partly because you love the suds-and-pup cuisine, then Champs, a small sports deli in Seal Beach, is for you.
The atmosphere is California Parking Lot. Champs is on fast-food row in the parking lot of the Rossmoor Shopping Center and occupies what was once a fish-and-chips takeout joint next to a Carl’s Jr.
Started about four years ago by Mark and Moe Griffin, Champs has a small patio out front, rimmed by white globe lights made to resemble giant baseballs.
Inside, there are the mandatory team pennants, autographed photos of Reggie Jackson et al., a Louisville Slugger or two and de riguer neon beer signs. There are also three television sets (beware--the staff likes to watch boxing or wrestling matches on all three sets at once).
The fare ranges from the MVP (Most Valuable Puppy), a steamed hot dog with all the trimmings, to spicier, charred dogs that go by names such as Dug Out Dog, Fernando Chili Cheese Dog, and my favorite, the Fast Ball Fire Dog.
All are fresh, scrumptious and cooked to order, which sometimes takes 10 to 20 minutes when the kitchen is busy.
The same can be said of the sandwiches, which include barbecued chicken breast, patty melts and polish sausage on rye, not to mention a wide array of charbroiled burgers and sides ranging from delicious French fries and onion rings to green salads and chili.
Large dill pickles and pickled eggs are available from huge jars on the front counter. Desserts include New York style cheesecake and fudge brownies.
Missing, however, are ballpark nachos and milkshakes, even the frozen variety.
Still, the Griffin brothers have brought ballpark food to new, tasty heights of quality, and have duplicated much of what is found at your nearby stadium, including the after-dark chill (bring your sweater).
Champs, 12161 Seal Beach Blvd., Seal Beach. Open Sunday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday till 11 p.m. (213) 596-2555.
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54d90166c437c2a43a92a1715ed04c19 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2561-story.html | Monarchs Roll Into CIF Final | Monarchs Roll Into CIF Final
Questions about how Morningside High would perform without All-American center Lisa Leslie have tailed first-year Coach Ron Randle since he took over the girls’ basketball program last fall.
With Leslie, who now plays at USC, the Monarchs won three consecutive CIF titles and two consecutive state crowns. Under Randle, they have the chance to keep those streaks alive.
Jumping out to a huge first-quarter lead, top-seeded Morningside repelled visiting Lynwood’s comeback bid and held on for a 56-54 CIF 1-A Division semifinal victory Wednesday night at Inglewood.
The Monarchs (28-2) now play Chino, which scored a 55-42 victory over Chaffey, in the championship game Friday at 8:15 p.m. at UC Irvine. Lynwood, the division’s fourth-seeded team, fell to 24-4.
“I’m pretty excited because I thought these girls deserved another opportunity,” said Randle, who took over for Frank Scott after last season. “Everybody asked how we’d do without Lisa. Well, we’ve been showing how we’d do. We’re going back to the party.”
A party that was nearly spoiled by the Knights.
After erasing an 11-point, first-quarter deficit, Lynwood rebounded to take a 50-47 advantage into the final quarter. Both teams had trouble scoring in the fourth quarter, but the Monarchs found just enough offense to notch the win.
“There were a lot of tense moments and it seemed like nobody wanted to win the game,” Randle said. “Fortunately we have a lot of experienced players who came through for us in the clutch.”
Forward Tina Thompson paced the Monarchs with 16 points and guard Princess Murray had 12. Guard Akiba Flanagan added 10.
Lynwood limited Janet Davis to four points, but the 6-4 center hauled down five rebounds and blocked five shots. She also tied the score with a short jump shot late in the fourth quarter.
“They did a decent job of denying her position and frustration set in a little bit,” Randle said. “But she came through with some big plays down the stretch, including the one that put us right back in it.”
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96b16f1f1ed7a0eaa17559de4a56f929 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2568-story.html | GIRLS BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS | GIRLS BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS
Mt. Carmel 93, Granite Hills 72--The second-seeded Sundevils won their sixth consecutive game and advanced to the championship contest against top-ranked Poway.
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a9c91a32e673c00ce0b73d33481d2839 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2571-story.html | GIRLS BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS : Holm’s Three-Pointer Keys El Cajon Valley | GIRLS BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS : Holm’s Three-Pointer Keys El Cajon Valley
Limited to just seven points in the first half, Heather Holm rallied to score 23 in the second half, including 13 in the fourth quarter.
No shot, however, was quite as big as the three-pointer that sparked a 7-0 run and gave El Cajon Valley a 60-53 victory over Castle Park.
The surge sent the Braves to the first San Diego Section championship game in the school’s history.
With the girls’ Division II semifinal victory Wednesday in front of approximately 1,500 at Grossmont College, top-seeded El Cajon (26-1) will play Carlsbad at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the San Diego Sports Arena.
Castle Park, also seeking its first trip to the title game, lost for the first time in 13 games and finished 23-5.
With the score tied and 1:40 remaining, Holm effortlessly dribbled into the right wing and buried the 21-foot shot. Thirty-six seconds later, she made a free throw--then two more. Carmen Johnson ended the run and the scoring with a free throw with 23 seconds left.
“If my old man was sitting on the bench, I don’t know if I’d have the guts to shoot that shot,” said Robert Holm, El Cajon’s coach and Heather’s father. “But her role is shooting. She didn’t hesitate at all.”
Said sister Heidi Holm, who had seven points to go with three blocks and three steals in the fourth quarter, “We all have roles, and Heather fulfilled hers well tonight.”
Castle Park’s inside threat of Christina Murguia and Erica Ockert kept the game close. Murguia, the county’s leading scorer this season, had 18 points--eight under her average--13 rebounds and three blocks. Ockert added a team-high 19 points and pulled down 10 rebounds.
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4b2c351656f56864411fab5b48ef1404 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2742-story.html | Ventura Girls Awaken After Delayed Tip-Off, 56-43 | Ventura Girls Awaken After Delayed Tip-Off, 56-43
The Gahr High girls’ basketball team needed to travel approximately 100 miles from Cerritos to Wednesday night’s Southern Section II-AA Division playoff game against Ventura at Buena High.
The Gladiators did not arrive until 7:30 p.m.--the scheduled starting time. The tip-off was delayed more than a half-hour, but it was Ventura that needed to overcome a slow start before emerging with a 56-43 victory.
The Cougars, who lost to Muir in a Southern Section final last season, will make their second consecutive appearance in a title game, this time on Saturday night against Brea-Olinda at Cal Poly Pomona.
Ventura, which has seven returnees from last year’s team, won its ninth game in a row to improve to 23-3. The victory also tied a school record for most wins.
Gahr, the San Gabriel Valley League co-champion finished 27-4.
Gahr led, 9-7, after the first period and 13-9 midway through the second quarter. Ventura, a Channel League co-champion, tied the score, 17-17, on a pair of free throws by Wendy Ward with 2 minutes 34 seconds left before halftime that began an 8-0 run to put the game away.
Ventura held Gahr scoreless for nearly six minutes at the end of the first half and beginning of the third period.
“We were tight in the beginning,” Ventura Coach Glenn Grey said. “We were ready to play at 7:30. We fell behind in the first period, but we didn’t worry. There was still a long ways to go.
“By the middle of the second quarter we started to go.”
The Cougars led, 23-17, halftime, but limited Gahr to only four points in the first seven minutes of the third quarter and led, 40-24, entering the fourth period.
“We started off slow,” said Ventura junior forward Denise Rea, who finished with a game-high 18 points and grabbed six rebounds. “We kept the pressure on and kept a positive mind. We wanted to get back (to the finals).”
Ventura increased its lead to 43-24 with 7:20 left, but Gahr scored seven consecutive points late in the fourth quarter to close to 52-43 with less than a minute to play.
Ventura’s Cori Herman finished with 13 points and seven rebounds and Ward added 12 points, making 10 of 13 free throws. Kris Waldorf led Gahr with 14 points on four three-point baskets.
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496578e288cf7440a50464f4bf104c01 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2747-story.html | Rider Scores 9 Points; Antelope Valley Falls | Rider Scores 9 Points; Antelope Valley Falls
Antelope Valley College picked the wrong opponent and the wrong time to record season lows in virtually every offensive category.
Falling flat in every way imaginable, the Marauders were upset by Cypress, 75-60, in a men’s junior college regional playoff basketball game Wednesday at Antelope Valley.
The Marauders (25-6) recorded season lows in shooting percentage (35.3%), field goals, points and largest losing margin.
J. R. Rider, who was averaging 34 points a game, made two of 17 shots from the field and finished with a season-low nine points.
Antelope Valley trailed, 32-30, at halftime but made just 26.6% of its shots over the next 10 minutes. Eric Pauley, a 6-foot-10 center who had 24 points and 11 rebounds, converted a three-point play with 2 minutes 10 seconds left to give Cypress (24-10) a 63-51 lead.
Tony Madison (23 points) made three three-point baskets in a 50-second span to cut the deficit to 67-60 with 1:10 left. Cypress made its final 13 free throws to seal the victory.
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7940871faadf5b7f2004fe1f4dce7d39 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2811-story.html | Man on a Mission : Can Bradley Take Two Years Off, Then Lead BYU to NCAA Title? | Man on a Mission : Can Bradley Take Two Years Off, Then Lead BYU to NCAA Title?
The tall man loped back and forth in front of a basketball hoop, dropping a ball through the net as if he were playing a hoax on the dimensions of the game.
Shawn Bradley was participating in a pre-practice layup drill in Brigham Young University’s Marriott Center, but to a small gathering of observers, it looked more as though he was placing a grapefruit on a shelf in his refrigerator.
Again and again, without jumping, he laid the ball down into the basket.
Just as the rim appeared to become an extension of Bradley’s elbow, BYU Coach Roger Reid called for his players to split into teams for a scrimmage. Reserve center Gary Trost, who is 6 feet 10, knew what was coming. And it came in a barrage. Inside of 10 minutes, Bradley blocked five shots.
When forward Jared Miller made a 15-foot shot that followed the trajectory of a punt over Bradley’s intercontinental reach, the entire team applauded.
“No one can imagine what it’s like playing against someone that big,” Trost said. “It’s so, so . . . different. No one can imagine that kind of height.”
At least not without stretching one’s imagination.
For the record, Shawn Bradley is 7 feet 6 inches. The 18-year-old freshman is the tallest college basketball player in the United States. And, if you believe some experts, not the least of whom is Nevada Las Vegas Coach Jerry Tarkanian, Bradley might one day be “the best big man who ever played.”
Others, such as NBC analyst Al McGuire, predict that stardom and untold riches await Bradley in the NBA. Both the money and the realized potential, however, are a few thousand slam dunks and slammed doors into the future.
Once this season ends, Bradley plans on postponing his basketball career for two years to become a Mormon missionary.
For now, Bradley settles for leading the nation in blocked shots (5.6 a game, 150 total), averages of 16 points and eight rebounds, and leading a largely undistinguished team to a surprising 17-11 record.
Like almost all the opposing coaches whose teams have faced Bradley this season, Reid is profuse in his praise, because, the coach says, he is more than merely tall.
“He has a shooting touch, agility, the ability to move and run, he can pass when he gets double- or triple-teamed, and he blocks shots,” the coach said. “His rebounding could be a little better, but when he gets physically stronger, that will come.”
Indeed, Bradley’s weakness is his weakness. His 210 pounds have been stretched over 90 inches. Shorter, heavier players endlessly attempt to shove him away from the low post, at times reducing his effectiveness on offense. Still, Bradley finds open routes around, or more frequently over, defenders with spin moves and turnaround jump shots.
“I knew he’d be a factor right away defensively at the college level,” Reid said. “But offensively, he’s come around quicker than I expected. Overall, he’s done more this year than I ever expected.”
If that’s true, Reid is riding high, because expectations rocketed in Provo when Bradley committed to BYU as a high school senior. The coaching staff exulted with the rest of the community after it was learned Bradley picked BYU over UCLA, North Carolina, Arizona, Syracuse, Utah and Duke.
“I was in the office when he called to say he was coming,” Reid said. “I’ll tell you, this place was rattling. We were jumping up and down. As a coach, and I think I can speak for the assistant coaches, it was the happiest day of our lives.”
Bradley grew up and up as something of a boy wonder in the small town of Castle Dale, Utah, (population 1,910). A principal once pleaded with his parents, Reiner and Teresa Bradley, not to move away from the area so their son could rack up basketball championships for the local high school.
“And that happened when I was in kindergarten,” Bradley said.
By the time he made the sixth grade, Bradley was 6-1. Over the next two years, he grew another seven inches. At 16, he reached 7 feet. Throughout the growth, Bradley remained a gifted athlete.
“He was always coordinated despite being tall,” said Reiner Bradley, who is 6-8. “When he was 4 years old, we gave him a bike and he was riding it around after about an hour. When he was 6 or 7, Teresa (who is 6 feet) put him in a gymnastics class. That probably helped, too.”
He played football--quarterback and receiver--in junior high, baseball and golf in high school. He batted .400 as a junior first baseman and his best nine-hole score in golf was a decent if not spectacular 42. But, then, what could be unspectacular about a 7-6 guy hacking away with a hyper-extended driver? “I hit a three-iron about as far as my friends hit their drivers,” Bradley said. He was blessed with enough balance and coordination for his favorite sports hobby to be water skiing.
All of which sounded good enough for Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim, who sent Bradley a birthday card when he turned 15. Messages from Dean Smith, Lute Olson, Jim Harrick, and about 100 other college coaches soon followed. Meanwhile, Bradley led Emery County High to state championships during his junior and senior years, averaging 26 points, 15 rebounds and nine blocked shots.
When Bradley eventually signed with BYU, located two hours north of his home, Cougar followers began thinking about the heretofore unthinkable--a national championship. BYU has had successful teams in the recent past. Danny Ainge led the Cougars to the round of eight in the 1981 NCAA tournament and the 1987 team was ranked as high as No. 2 during the regular season. But a serious run at a national title has never been a consideration, much less an expectation.
Bradley’s arrival has changed that.
“The expectations for the future are that we’ll win a national championship,” said Val Hale, BYU’s assistant athletic director. “I know our coaches don’t like to hear that, but a lot of (opposing) coaches have come through here and said, ‘BYU will win a national title if Bradley stays for four years.’ ”
They have also said other things, such as there is no way Bradley will stay in Provo that long.
East Tennessee State Coach Alan LeForce, whose team beat the Cougars in Bradley’s first college game, told The Times last month: “Shawn Bradley is playing his last year of college basketball. He’s going to come back from his mission and make millions and millions of dollars. He’ll be 30 pounds heavier, stronger, and he can make so much money. He has the skills of a 6-2 guy. He runs, dribbles, blocks shots, shoots. The only thing he needs is some weight. If he stays, Brigham Young will win the national championship.”
“I don’t know where (LeForce) got that,” Bradley said. “He just pulled it out of the air.”
The plan all along for Bradley has been to complete his freshman season, go on the church mission and then return to BYU before joining the NBA. That remains his plan, although he is uncertain regarding the specifics. In a recent interview, he hinted he might pass altogether on the voluntary missionary work.
“Right now I’m a little confused about it, but I am planning on going,” he said. “I’ve always dreamed of going on a mission. You get a chance to go out and help other people. I want to leave in June, if I do leave.”
As for his return, that would come in June, 1993. “I’ll definitely play my sophomore year,” Bradley added. “After that, I don’t know. If it’s the right situation, I might go to the NBA. If not, I’ll stay in school.”
Regarding BYU’s new-found aspirations, Bradley says not to worry. If he sees a remote possibility of an NCAA title in BYU’s future, he will stay in school.
“If that wasn’t my goal, I wouldn’t be playing right now,” he said. “I think it’s a realistic goal. There’s a good possibility BYU could be among the top teams in the nation by then.”
What with some players choosing to go on missions and others returning, BYU’s basketball program swings in six-year cycles. “We love it, we deal with it,” said Reid, whose son Randy, a highly recruited point guard, soon returns to the program after completing a mission in New Jersey.
The effect of a two-year layoff for Bradley is a mixed bag. He is certain to mature physically and it’s probable he will gain weight; conversely, Mormon missionary work is comprehensive enough not to allow much time for lifting weights or shooting baskets.
“My mission helped me,” said Trost, a sophomore who preached in the Philadelphia area. “I went out at 205 pounds and came back at 230. My shooting skills stayed, and I matured as a person. When you go to the hard parts of Philadelphia knocking on doors, you lose fear of anything.
“The experience will help Shawn in the long run.”
Seemingly, it is the long run in which Bradley is interested. Not that he needs to disperse his fears or gain yet unattained inner strength. For a teen-ager who has always stuck out in a crowd--and been viewed by some as a freak--Bradley has remarkable self-esteem.
“He’s got great confidence in who he is,” Reid said. “Every place he goes, people gawk at him, but his size hasn’t caused him any psychological problems. He feels very good about himself.”
“I know I’m not the normal 18-year-old kid,” Bradley said. “But, hey, I like being tall.”
In fact, during a recent visit to a Philadelphia 76er practice, he would have gladly taken another half-inch or so. Before BYU played at LaSalle in December, Bradley sidled off on a short trip to meet Manute Bol, the 76ers’ reserve center who is listed at 7-7.
When Bradley walked in, the 76ers, to a man, stopped what they were doing and stared. Bradley walked up to Bol, shook his hand, and the measuring began.
Rickey Green, a 6-1 guard, had Bradley and Bol back to back, trying to figure who had the edge. Bradley had once met Utah Jazz center Mark Eaton, who is 7-4, but this was unlike anything he’d experienced.
“All the guys on the team were lined up as we stood next to each other, saying, ‘I don’t know Manute, it’s awfully close,’ ” Bradley recalled. “Turned out he was about one-quarter inch taller than me.”
Bol kept repeating to anyone who would listen, “I’m still the king, I’m still the king.”
As for Bradley, he said simply: “It was neat. I’d never met anyone so tall. For the first time in my life, at least since I’ve been 7-6, I looked up to someone.”
For the first time, the tall man wasn’t the tallest.
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17c53372f3232f3318a552c3a3ee0659 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2828-story.html | Trainer Suspended at Aqueduct | Trainer Suspended at Aqueduct
Trainer Michael J. Laudano has been suspended and denied access to the Aqueduct grounds for 45 days after Heptaminol, a cardiac stimulant, was found in one of his horses. The suspension runs through April 11.
Luv To Mombo Jumbo, a horse Laudano saddled for the second race on Jan. 7, tested positive. A postrace sample of the horse’s urine disclosed the presence of the prohibited substance.
Luv To Mombo Jumbo, who finished second, was disqualified and unplaced as a result of the discovery.
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fe7fa32b1a05b44faf5714de90688b3d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2961-story.html | Parks Selected for All-Star Game | Parks Selected for All-Star Game
Marina’s Cherokee Parks was one of 20 high school players selected Wednesday to play in the annual McDonald’s All-American High School basketball game April 6 in the Springfield Civic Center.
The 6-foot-11 center will play for the West team in the 14th annual game.
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deef1dbe40227026966357f5d40ab41f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2962-story.html | SOUTHERN SECTION GIRLS’ BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS : DIVISION III-A : La Canada Can’t Stop Costa Mesa’s DiCamilli | SOUTHERN SECTION GIRLS’ BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS : DIVISION III-A : La Canada Can’t Stop Costa Mesa’s DiCamilli
Many teams have tried to stop Costa Mesa’s Olivia DiCamilli in the past two years, mostly without success. Wednesday night, it was La Canada’s turn to be baffled by the sophomore guard.
DiCamilli scored a game-high 26 points and had 16 rebounds as third-seeded Costa Mesa (20-8) hammered second-seeded La Canada, 59-42, in a Southern Section Division III-A semifinal game at Pasadena Poly High School.
The victory moves the Mustangs into the championship game against St. Bernard on Saturday at Cal Poly Pomona.
It will be the second consecutive trip to the Division III-A final for Costa Mesa, which beat Rancho Alamitos, 51-49, in last year’s final.
But if the Mustangs play as they did in disposing of the Rio Hondo League champions Wednesday, they could be headed home Saturday with this year’s title.
After a poor-shooting first quarter, during which they made three of 11 field-goal attempts and fell behind, 11-9, the Mustangs--and DiCamilli in particular--charged back in the second period and never trailed again.
DiCamilli led the comeback with nine points in the quarter, including six in a row during a 12-0 Mustang run early in the period. La Canada failed to score in more than four minutes during the Costa Mesa blitz.
“That’s Olivia,” Costa Mesa Coach Jim Weeks said. “We don’t really look for her. We know that eventually she’s going to score because nobody can really guard her.”
The teams played even in the third period as forward Melissa Lord (21 points), who averages 17.5 points and 11.4 rebounds, scored seven of La Canada’s 13 points. But unfortunately for the Lady Spartans, DiCamilli wasn’t about to let up and hit for 10 of Costa Mesa’s 14 points.
Whatever hopes La Canada had of getting back into the game disappeared quickly in the fourth quarter. Costa Mesa went on another 12-0 run to take a 55-34 lead with 4 minutes 29 seconds remaining.
Senior guard Rachel Thomas, who finished with 16 points, provided the punch for Costa Mesa in the quarter with six points. Thomas also had an excellent defensive game, forcing many of La Canada’s 24 turnovers.
“Rachel Thomas didn’t play very well last Saturday (against Yucca Valley), but she made up for it tonight,” Weeks said.
La Canada, which entered the game with a school-record 15-game winning streak, was in foul trouble throughout much of the game and gave Costa Mesa 25 free-throw attempts. The Mustangs converted 15 of them.
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0d9ee476e0d8c5552a35c98e586b32ba | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2963-story.html | SOUTHERN SECTION GIRLS’ BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS : DIVISION III-AA : Lompoc Tops Estancia With Big Quarter | SOUTHERN SECTION GIRLS’ BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS : DIVISION III-AA : Lompoc Tops Estancia With Big Quarter
A third-quarter rally propelled Lompoc past Estancia, 65-55, in a Southern Section Division III-AA girls’ basketball semifinal at Cabrillo High School Wednesday.
Estancia, which finished the season at 25-2, jumped out to a 14-6 lead after one quarter but Lompoc started to warm up in the second quarter and pulled to within one point, 22-21, at halftime.
But Lompoc’s comeback had just started. Lompoc outscored Estancia, 29-14, in the third quarter to take a 50-36 lead and control of the game.
Lompoc did not change strategy at halftime. It just did a better job of what it does best--giving Nikki Manzo the ball.
“In the third quarter, they just came out and kept giving the ball to the big kid (Manzo),” Estancia Coach Lisa McNamee said. “She just kept putting it up and in.”
Manzo scored a game-high 32 points, with 14 of those coming in the third quarter. That matched the third-quarter output of the entire Estancia team.
Melody Earle scored 29 points and Patrice Lumpkin 12 for Estancia.
Estancia tried to come back and picked up the pace to outscore Lompoc, 19-15, in the fourth quarter. But by then it was too late.
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7ff4899cfddf6724ef76bd0728cbd4ed | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2970-story.html | CCI Women Fall to Fresno Pacific | CCI Women Fall to Fresno Pacific
Fresno Pacific ended Christ College Irvine’s most successful women’s basketball season by defeating the Eagles, 76-58, in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics District 3 playoffs Wednesday night at Biola University.
Fresno Pacific (16-12) led at halftime, 31-30, but took control in the second half and was never threatened. Dana Coates scored 16 points, Karen Murray 15 and Erica John 12 for Fresno Pacific, which will play Point Loma Nazarene at 7 tonight at Biola for the district title.
Nancy Geisler scored 15 points for Christ College Irvine (21-7), which was 4-23 last season and was making its first appearance in the district playoffs.
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f0acde1613495baba04f677c541a200b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-sp-2973-story.html | Bolsa Grande’s Holst Gets Golden West Post | Bolsa Grande’s Holst Gets Golden West Post
Bill Holst, football coach at Bolsa Grande High School for the last three seasons, resigned recently, Bolsa Grande Athletic Director Al Hall said Wednesday.
Holst, who had an 11-19 record at Bolsa Grande, has accepted an assistant football coach’s position at Golden West College. He will continue teaching at Bolsa Grande.
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9ee91a3603411e44be5f03abd398a3b9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2843-story.html | Apartheid Foe to Speak in Ojai | Apartheid Foe to Speak in Ojai
In 1977, South African journalist Donald Woods was banned from practicing his profession. The South African government wanted to quell his published opposition to apartheid and his claims that police brutality killed black activist Steve Biko, not a supposed “hunger strike.”
Woods, whose friendship with Biko became the subject of the 1987 film “Cry Freedom,” recently visited South Africa after a 12-year exile.
International Outlook, a series of programs on world affairs, will play host to Woods on Sunday at the Ojai Valley Inn & Country Club. Woods will discuss his impressions of a nation in the throes of dismantling a longstanding system of official racial discrimination.
“This is a wonderful chance for people to gain insight into what’s going on inside South Africa at this time,” said Merrill Gross, founder of International Outlook.
The evening’s program: 6:30 p.m., reception and no-host bar; 7:15 p.m., dinner; 8:30 p.m., Woods’ presentation, “Cry Freedom: South Africa Revisited.”
The cost is $25 per person. For reservations, call 646-8884.
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a4b00046814ae2fa26ebeee8a84c3fa2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2844-story.html | ‘Wolves’ Co-Stars at Screening | ‘Wolves’ Co-Stars at Screening
There are movies that should not be missed--and are even worth going back to see again.
Many critics and viewers think that Kevin Costner’s “Dances With Wolves,” which has garnered 12 Academy Award nominations, is one of those movies. Those who wish to meet and mingle with some of the film’s American Indian co-stars--including Graham Greene--might want to attend a “Celebrity Night” benefit preview of the film March 11.
Presented in part by the Native American Indian Intertribal Assn. of Ventura County, the special showing will be at 7 p.m. at the Westlake Village Theaters.
Proceeds will benefit the intertribal association and the Native American Indian Registry of the Performing Arts.
The celebrity reception begins at 5:30 p.m.; American Indian foods will be available for purchase. Tickets may be reserved with a donation to underprivileged American Indian children. Tickets are $25, $30 at the door. Reservations are advised. The theater is at 4711 Lakeview Canyon Road, Westlake Village.
For reservations and information, call Southwest Treasures, 494-1558 or 646-7433.
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eae4e86d037002cd083988e994f95b7f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2847-story.html | RESTAURANT REVIEW EMILIO’S : Palate Pleasing : The Italian food is prepared with imagination and has a flavor all its own. Patrons dine in comfort, and children can be at ease. | RESTAURANT REVIEW EMILIO’S : Palate Pleasing : The Italian food is prepared with imagination and has a flavor all its own. Patrons dine in comfort, and children can be at ease.
Rumor has it that before opening his own restaurant, Michael de Paola ate at one of Montecito’s hottest Italian places every night for weeks. I thought this sounded like a good idea on paper (or on plate), but possibly hard to pull off. I began to believe the story, though, when I noticed how my friends’ faces lit up every time they mentioned Emilio’s.
Maybe Emilio’s did copy the Montecito restaurant by presenting a simple menu: a few appetizers, several salads, a little pasta, some chicken and fish, and a daily risotto. But the food is hardly an imitation--it has a flavor all its own, characterized by restraint in the use of garlic and salt and a definite affinity for sweet herbs. It’s wonderful food, highly imaginative and very pleasing.
Facing the Santa Barbara harbor, the charming Tuscan-yellow building is dwarfed by oversized stucco motels on either side. Inside, it is handsome, managing a curiously successful combination of marble-topped tables and molded plastic chairs--class with comfort. The low ceiling affects the sound level, creating a corridor of intimacy around each table. Although it’s an elegant restaurant, children are at ease here too.
Dinner began with rustic Italian bread, set on the table with small bowls of olive oil instead of butter; if you like, you can ask for oil mildly flavored with garlic and rosemary. A prosciutto and melon appetizer came with two kinds of melon, each shaved as thin as the superb prosciutto. Sausage and polenta made an equally delicious appetizer, a perfect combination of spicy and sweet, chewy and soft.
The Caesar salad was mild-mannered, the lettuce tossed with crisp croutons and heavily coated with excellent Parmesan cheese. Spinach and radicchio salad, with whispers of basil and fennel, contained marinated mushrooms and eggplant, all tossed in a warm dressing that mellowed the greens.
At $5.95, the salads add significantly to the price of dinner, but the entrees are fairly reasonable. Pastas are under $10. A lamb risotto, at $10.95, came with perfect little medallions of rare lamb, fried ravioli and caponata -topped toast.
I’ve also had a risotto dish with savory chunks of duck sausage, small slices of baby asparagus, sweet peppers, pine nuts and tiny little chunks of bleu cheese. It might sound overwrought, but it was utterly flavorful.
In fact, I’ve liked everything I’ve tasted at Emilio’s. The pizza had a light, light chewy crust and an intensely flavored topping of herbed sausage, sweet peppers, olives, roasted fennel and marvelous cheese; it was superb. Vegetarian lasagna, with its sweet ricotta filling, alternated layers of pasta with eggplant and grilled vegetables.
The spinach tortellini were as good as the ones I bought in an open-air market in Rome. They came in a light cream sauce, topped with thin strips of chewy ham and pistachio nuts.
Desserts at Emilio’s proved as rewarding as the rest of the food. Cappuccino ice cream consisted of fresh-cranked vanilla ice cream and chopped espresso beans. The tiramisu looked like marbleized paper and came in a sauce that was the essence of raspberry, chocolate and coffee.
And while the lemon cheesecake may have gone overboard with its butterscotch caramel sauce, no one complained.
If I did have a complaint about this restaurant, it was that the staff is too efficient at clearing the plates.
They were so quick we found that we practically had to sit on the plates to finish every last morsel. This took something away from the pleasure of savoring the meal. And if ever a meal deserved to be savored, this was it.
* WHERE AND WHEN
Emilio’s, 324 W. Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara, 966-4426. Dinner 5:30 to 10 p.m. daily. Wine and beer. Street parking. MasterCard and Visa. Dinner for two, food only, $40 to $55.
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ac31960c044db64ce4df163e9052f69d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2848-story.html | FLICKS FILM & VIDEO FILE : A Boost for Talkies : In-house devices to aid hearing-impaired theatergoers are not common. But an Ojai man is working to help change that. | FLICKS FILM & VIDEO FILE : A Boost for Talkies : In-house devices to aid hearing-impaired theatergoers are not common. But an Ojai man is working to help change that.
It’s not easy to walk into a movie theater and find a seat that will offer both optimum sight and sound. For most of us this is a small but irritating fact of life. For some, it is more than a minor inconvenience.
Consider, for instance, the problem facing theatergoers among the about 26 million people in this country who have some level of hearing loss.
“Comprehension is where the problem is. A big factor with TV or movies is the quality of the sound coming through,” said Ojai’s Gerald Dominick, head of the Ventura group known as Self-Help for Hard of Hearing People, which is part of an international organization. “You miss certain words, you miss certain letters.”
Dominick considers himself something of a crusader for the about 51,000 hearing-impaired residents of Ventura County. He attended a meeting in Los Angeles recently to discuss the American Disabilities Act and its role in requiring public facilities to install Assistive Listening Devices (ALD) to aid those who are hard of hearing.
Movie theaters are among the facilities on the list.
Jim Kozak, spokesman for the National Assn. of Theatre Owners, said many theaters around the country already have installed these devices, although he would not offer an estimate as to how many.
If Ventura County is any indication, the number isn’t particularly high. Dominick said the nearest ALD-equipped theater for county residents is the Mann Theatres multiplex in Agoura Hills. Close, but maybe not close enough.
“I live in Ojai and Agoura is a little far,” Dominick said. “There’s a public out there that might go to a theater if there were devices. I know a lot of people are staying away from movies because it’s not fun anymore. They don’t enjoy it.”
A spokesperson for Mann Theatres said ALD systems have been installed in all of the chain’s new theaters in recent years.
The situation is similar within the Pacific Theaters chain. “We have them in our newer theaters and also in some of the theaters we’ve updated,” spokesman Milt Moritz said.
Surprisingly, Moritz said the Pacific theaters that do have an ALD system have not seen much of an increase in business. “Maybe hearing is better than we think,” he said.
Dominick doesn’t believe that’s the case. Rather, he said, the problem is that people who are hard of hearing are not aware of what is available to help them--and he’s happy to be the one to inform them.
He said there are four types of ALDs on the market, his favorite being the infrared type. It consists of a transmitter and receiver linked by light waves rather than airwaves. Thus, it would keep a movie’s sound from drifting outside the theater. Dominick also said the system is not subject to outside interference because it operates by light waves. The Agoura Hills Mann theater uses an infrared system.
Dominick said it’s not necessarily the increased volume of the sound, but the clarity of the sound that is improved by such devices.
“Say the speaker is at least 10 feet away from you. The sound has to travel that 10 feet, and it loses power. The further the distance, the less the ability to understand those sounds,” he said. “If you put an assistive device on and it’s hooked to the sound system, and you put a device on your ear, instead of traveling 10 feet the sound is traveling maybe one foot.”
Dominick said an infrared receiver can cost less than $100.
If you’d like more information about ALDs, the self-help group in Ventura County, or about hearing loss in general, call Dominick at 646-0222.
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220b7ba530eb5ba5fa1341fb4ac91828 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2849-story.html | MUSIC THE GLENN MILLER ORCHESTRA : ‘90s Swing : More than 46 years after his disappearance, the bandleader’s music is reviving memories for old-timers and wowing young people. | MUSIC THE GLENN MILLER ORCHESTRA : ‘90s Swing : More than 46 years after his disappearance, the bandleader’s music is reviving memories for old-timers and wowing young people.
“Are we going to talk about where we’ve been or where we’re going?” inquired Larry O’Brien via telephone from somewhere in Louisiana. “If so, I’ll have to pull out a schedule.”
O’Brien is the leader of the Glenn Miller Orchestra. And it’s no wonder he has to consult a schedule to confirm where he is, has been, or is going. The orchestra spends about 300 nights a year on the road. It just recorded a compact disc for a Japanese label. The Miller orchestra’s 1983 “In a Digital Mood” has sold nearly 500,000 copies on the New York-based GRP label and will be reissued in a special gold CD edition this spring.
All this activity--including a performance tonight at the Dorill B. Wright Cultural Center in Port Hueneme--is occurring despite the fact that Miller himself has not been seen since his single-engine airplane disappeared Dec. 15, 1944, somewhere between England and France. A year later, the Army declared Miller dead.
From the late ‘30s until his death, Miller was the most popular bandleader of the swing era, with such hits as “In the Mood,” and his signature, “Moonlight Serenade.” In 1956, the Miller estate authorized former Miller drummer Ray McKinley to lead what’s known in the industry as a “ghost band,” a unit that revives the name and re-creates the style and repertoire of a leader who is no longer active.
O’Brien admits that his own attitude toward the Miller sound was somewhat negative, even when he toured with the group under McKinley.
“I thought they were beating a dead horse at the time; I couldn’t see why the music was still around. But it wasn’t that the music was inferior, I eventually discovered, it was that my own focus was too narrow. The validity of this music doesn’t need me to speak for it, it speaks for itself.”
For old-timers, he explains, the attraction is obvious. “The people who recall the music recall simpler times: their first date, when they got married, when their kids were born.”
But, he adds, younger generations are also impressed by what is, in many cases, their first brush with an 18-piece big band. “In the first place,” he said, “they’re amazed that we don’t have a guitar, and almost no electronics. We play with a lot of energy and verve. And we’re still basically a dance band, and the kids enjoy that.”
O’Brien said he keeps the members of the orchestra interested by constantly rotating the group’s 1,700-song repertoire, allowing a certain amount of improvisation by soloists, and by occasionally adding Miller-styled arrangements of more recent tunes to the repertoire.
“The difference between musicians now and those in the old days is that the newer guys are better-schooled, but perhaps less intuitive. I compare it to flying airplanes. A lot of the old pilots flew by the seat of their pants. The pilots today are more learned.” Still, he continues, “this is their grandparents’ music, so I’m here to show them how it should be played.”
* WHERE AND WHEN
The Glenn Miller Orchestra performs tonight at 8 in the Dorill B. Wright Cultural Center, 575 Surfside Drive, Port Hueneme. All tickets are $18. For reservations or further information, call the box office at (805) 986-6598.
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b28227cea795cc42b48884c17afc58a1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2850-story.html | SOUNDS AROUND TOWN : Mostly Mozart : He may have been buried a pauper 200 years ago, but the Austrian composer left a treasure of music that is still vital today. | SOUNDS AROUND TOWN : Mostly Mozart : He may have been buried a pauper 200 years ago, but the Austrian composer left a treasure of music that is still vital today.
In the world of classical music, the body of oft-played music known as standard repertoire amounts to a kind of warhorse parade. No warhorses are more welcome, though, than the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
This year, the occasion of the bicentennial of Mozart’s death gives timeliness to the widespread programming of his music. On Saturday and Sunday, the Ventura County Symphony Orchestra joins the party with “A Mozart Celebration.” The program could also be called a celebration of the key of E flat, the key of the Overture to “The Magic Flute,” the Sinfonia Concertante, K. 297b, and the Symphony No. 39, K. 543.
For a contemporary point of contrast, music director Frank Salazar has also put on the program Darius Milhaud’s seminal jazz-inflected piece “La Creation du Monde.” Written in 1922, Milhaud’s ballet predated Gershwin’s more popular “Rhapsody in Blue,” by two years.
“Mostly Mozart” concerts need no historical rationale. More than any other composer, Mozart represents an ideal balance of popularity and seriousness. His music exists in a state of grace, conveying both emotional expression and formal poise. While festive and urbane, the music also boasts rigorous design and spiritual expression.
Aside from the appeal of the music itself, it hasn’t hurt Mozart’s popularity that his life story was the stuff of legend. Hollywood, inevitably, took interest. Now, much of the public’s impression of the composer comes in the form of actor Tom Hulce as an impish Mozart in the movie “Amadeus.”
The film was, of course, controversial. Music lovers balked at the irreverent characterization of the composer as a snickering vulgarian. Whatever harm director Milos Forman (working from Peter Schaffer’s play) may have done to Mozart’s memory, he did put his music before a large audience.
Mozart’s reputation is as a prodigy who wound up a creative whirlwind, under-appreciated in his time. In his 35-year life, Mozart created a body of work that surpassed most composers who lived to twice his age.
The son of prominent Austrian musician Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang was born in Salzburg, Austria, in 1756. He was giving harpsichord demonstrations at 4, wrote his first sonata at 6, his first symphony at 8 and his first comic operas at 12 (including “Bastien and Bastienne,” a popular version of which was recently released on the Sony classical label).
Young Mozart toured Europe and wowed audiences with his talents. But if his musical life began auspiciously, fate led him astray. More often than not, he lived in financial straits, in stark contrast to his creative resources.
As he matured, he worked under the patronage of the archbishop in Salzburg. He traveled Europe again, but this time found little acceptance. After returning to Salzburg, he had a falling out with the archbishop. Finally, in 1781, he found some success with the opera “Idomeneo” in Munich.
He married Constance Weber in 1782 and moved to Vienna. He won more admiration with his opera “Don Giovanni” in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and was granted a post as Viennese court composer and chamber musician. Still, his meager salary made life difficult.
The year 1791 was grim, but also productive. He wrote some of his finest music, including the opera “The Magic Flute.” He died impoverished and was buried in an unmarked grave. By the turn of the century, Mozart’s music was well on its way to immortality.
The works on the Ventura Symphony’s roster lean toward his stormy late period, with the exception of the Sinfonia Concertante from 1778 (a short life means short periods).
A sinfonia concertante is a baroque form that blends the symphony with the concerto-- playing off the virtuosity of soloists. Originally, Mozart wrote a piece to feature four woodwind players from the Mannheim Orchestra. The score, of which no copies were made, mysteriously disappeared before the original was performed. Mozart suspected the dirty work of a jealous composer.
What we hear today is a reconstruction of the lost piece. There has been some speculation that the work is only attributed to Mozart, but its signature characteristics are hard to deny.
In 1788, Mozart wrote three great symphonies in six weeks (the Ventura Symphony will play No. 39 this weekend and the last two, the G minor and the “Jupiter,” at the following two concerts, respectively).
Listening to the vitality and composure of No. 39, you’d never guess that the artist was in the depths of despair over money woes and future prospects--a testament to his ability to find refuge in music from depressing realities. No anxiety or bitterness enters into the emotional fabric of the piece.
As identifiable as Mozart’s music is, versatility was one of his constant virtues. His music deftly bridged the baroque and classical idioms, without adhering strictly to either. With its subdued emotional energies, Mozart’s music also showed early glimmers of the romanticism that was to sweep the next century’s music. And yet he was the master of playing contrary emotions off each other, creating tapestries that change emotional color from moment to moment.
The vibrancy of Mozart makes for standard repertoire with none of the aftertaste. Concentrated doses don’t hurt a bit. Today--in 1991, in Ventura--Mozart’s music continues to soothe and awe.
* WHERE AND WHEN
Ventura County Symphony Orchestra, at Oxnard Civic Auditorium, 800 Hobson Way, at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. The program includes Mozart’s Overture to “The Magic Flute,” Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat, K. 297b, and Symphony No. 39 in E-flat, K. 543, and Darius Milhaud’s “La Creation du Monde.”
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7ce2b2db76325342b91865447f620a30 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2851-story.html | Big Fish : It’s time to get around to seeing 2 ex-Jefferson Airplane members who have been playing for about 20 years as Hot Tuna. | Big Fish : It’s time to get around to seeing 2 ex-Jefferson Airplane members who have been playing for about 20 years as Hot Tuna.
What about all those things you’ve never done? There are plenty of them, right? Yup, me too. I’ve never seen the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. Never seen Madonna. Never seen “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” or “The Sound of Music” or or any of those “Godfather” movies. Never seen “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Golden Girls” or “Cheers.” Never been to Hawaii, New York, Palm Springs or even Lake Piru. Never been skiing or off-roading. Hate motorcycles. Never eaten quiche, caviar or a breakfast burrito. Never seen the Rams, the Lakers or the Bruins play live. Never had a date with Christina Applegate. And you know what? With one exception, I don’t care.
This week, I’m dropping one item off my “never” list. Because this is a music column, it’s a band that’s named after a torrid fish. It’s rootsy, rocking Hot Tuna. They’ve been around for 20 years, at least.
The two big fish in Hot Tuna are Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, both original members of Jefferson Airplane, that psychedelic Bay Area hippie band that went on to get rich, and not much else, as the Jefferson Starship. But that’s another story.
Kaukonen and Casady formed their first band in 1958 as Washington high school students. But a few years later, they ended up as members of the Jefferson Airplane. Kaukonen was the guitar player; Casady played bass.
“Hot Tuna started basically at the dawn of time,” Kaukonen said in a recent phone interview. “We were both in the Airplane and when we were on the road, we ended up sharing rooms and we’d just sit around and play this bluesy stuff and, gradually, we worked up an act. Sometimes, we’d even open for ourselves--Hot Tuna for the Airplane.”
The first Hot Tuna album was released in 1970 and regular releases followed through the ‘70s. Both left the Airplane in ’73. In 1978, they sort of broke up, then reformed in 1983. Now, Hot Tuna has recently released its first new music in over a decade, “Pair A Dice Found.” It shreds.
“The album seems to be doing real well,” Kaukonen said. “We’re not rich yet, but when an album isn’t doing so well, the record company complains--and, right now, they’re not complaining.
“Lately, I’ve been living in Upstate New York. I never was much of a Bay Area dude except the Raiders will always have a place in my heart. I’m not really in touch with any of the Airplane people anymore. I just bought a farm in Ohio, so I’ll be living there pretty soon. I think I’ll become a Cleveland Indians fan--they have cool hats.”
“Pair A Dice Found” has plenty of raging blues rockers but also a reverential cover of one of the all-time protest songs immortalized by Barry McGuire, P.F. Sloan’s “Eve of Destruction.” They do, however, change the last line “and don’t forget to say grace” into something funny, yet unsuitable for a family newspaper.
“We’re just a blues-rock band,” Kaukonen said. “We play a lot, but probably not for another Airplane reunion. In fact, a lot of people don’t believe that we ever played with them. Maybe we didn’t.”
So if you’ve never heard Hot Tuna, your chance to correct that unfortunate situation will come Saturday at the venerable Ventura Theatre. And, Christina--call me day or night, collect even.
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68f3c0dbe30206710ca6b62e4a8bb494 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2852-story.html | LECTURES DR. JONATHAN MILLER : Practical Joker : The multitalented author and director looks at humor from an analytical perspective. | LECTURES DR. JONATHAN MILLER : Practical Joker : The multitalented author and director looks at humor from an analytical perspective.
How exactly are jokes like rented cars that we take out for a spin and return slightly nicked? And, what is it that we are supposed to “see” when we witness a theatrical spectacle?
Dr. Jonathan Miller--mercurial British physician, director, actor, writer, satirist, TV host, researcher, raconteur and basic rumpled Renaissance guy--will address these questions and others in two lectures Monday at Cal Lutheran University. The lectures are sponsored by the Philosophy Department through the Harold Stoner Clark Endowment Lecture Series.
Noticeably tall, with the profile and close-cropped curls of a Roman patrician, Miller is as interesting to watch as he is to hear. When seated, he tends to coil his body and hug his shoulders as though imitating the mating ritual of some exotic species of bird. During animated conversation, his ectomorphic limbs seem to keep time with his feverish mind, and his hands dance around his face with each new idea.
Given his propensity for sharing his unique, freewheeling thoughts on comedy, humor and the arts, Miller’s morning lecture, “Humor and Comedy,” promises to be an informal chat covering everything from Bob Hope to Greek tragedy. One minute he quotes Freud or Darwin, and in the next he analyzes joke-telling and its associated social conventions.
“It’s very hard to dissect humor,” Miller said during a recent interview, “but there are certain ingredients of it which have a powerful cognitive function. A pun is simply taking an implicit knowledge that a word’s got two meanings. You suddenly put the weight on the unexpected meaning. Through this type of linguistic humor,” he said, “we refresh our knowledge of the world.”
A more serious and academic Miller will emerge during the afternoon lecture titled, “The Afterlife of Plays,” based upon his most recent book, “Subsequent Performances.” Miller will talk about a director’s rights and responsibilities in presenting a classic work when time has “begun to impose awkward problems of re-creation and interpretation.”
As Miller explained, when a classic work has “outlasted its natural life, you always have to reconsider it. If you simply go with precedence, then all you’re doing is reproducing a previous production. And there’s no point in doing that.”
From the start, Miller’s flamboyant career has been characterized by his leaps from the sublime to the ridiculous and from science to art. Born in London in 1934, Miller attended St. John’s College in Cambridge, where he performed with the famous Footlights Society. He received his doctorate in medicine in 1959 from University College, London.
He claims to have been “just an amateur comedian” at University College, insisting that his career change was an “accident.”
The accident in question was “Beyond the Fringe,” a satirical revue he co-authored and in which he appeared in London and New York from 1961-1964. Besides changing his life, it launched the careers of three other men from Oxbridge--Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Alan Bennett.
“I did ‘Beyond the Fringe,’ and it was rather more successful than I thought it was going to be,” he said with characteristic understatement.
His extensive stage and television credits list many operas and plays, including the highly acclaimed “Merchant of Venice” with Sir Laurence Olivier, and other Shakespeare productions for the National Theater. He has produced 12 plays in the British Broadcasting Co.'s Shakespeare series and directed six of them.
Miller was nominated for a Tony for direction in 1986 for his controversial Broadway production of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” which starred Jack Lemmon. On Monday, Miller made his New York Metropolitan Opera directing debut with its current production of Leos Janacek’s “Katya Kabanova.”
* WHERE AND WHEN
Miller will present “Humor and Comedy” at 10 a.m. and “The Afterlife of Plays” at 8 p.m. on Monday in the Samuelson Chapel on the campus of Cal Lutheran University, 60 W. Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks. There is no admission charge and reservations are not required. For further information call (805) 495-4470 or (805) 493-3122.
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a55b6b39d845185d464dcc654a22b2e4 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2853-story.html | STRUCTURES ‘NEW JERUSALEM’ : Traces of History : Memories of the crossroads community serve as a reminder of Ventura County’s heritage. | STRUCTURES ‘NEW JERUSALEM’ : Traces of History : Memories of the crossroads community serve as a reminder of Ventura County’s heritage.
In a region as change-prone as Southern California, landmarks aren’t always visible to the naked eye. Some of the more significant structures now exist as ghostly presences, their memories waiting to be exhumed by the historically curious.
In Ventura County, one such place is “New Jerusalem,” a.k.a. El Rio. Based in an undeveloped area once known as the San Pedro Precincts, the humble crossroads community was settled in 1875 by Simon Cohn, a Jewish immigrant from Germany who arrived with $300 in his pocket.
Two years after the birth of Ventura itself, Cohn opened up a general store. Two Cohn brothers and another Jewish proprietor eventually started separate businesses on opposing corners. The intersection known as the “four corners” turned into a commercial gathering place for resident ranchers and farmers. Eventually the town was to encompass roughly a square mile, most of it ranches and small farms.
In the late 1800s, the town’s prospects were looking very bright, as this early report bears witness: “The surrounding country is exceedingly inviting and very productive. The town is well located and will doubtless grow into importance once reached by railway.”
The railway, like manifest destiny, came swiftly. Early in the 1900s, the Oxnard brothers came, opening their huge American Beet Sugar Works and founding Oxnard. Simon Cohn resisted the Oxnards’ offer to build the Beet Works on his land. He also refused to sell and transport his buildings, the way many did, to serve as housing for the sudden boom town. Cohn lived in the hometown of his devising until his death in 1936.
Finally, in the ‘50s, U.S. 101 came, paving over the center of the town that Cohn built. To find the former heart of New Jerusalem, proceed to the looming, gleaming Union Bank building in Oxnard. Trampled underfoot there, where the Financial Plaza meets U.S. 101 at Vineyard Avenue, is a pivotal chapter in local history.
Anna Seward, a schoolteacher who came west to Ventura in 1883, wrote letters home to Ohio about her travels. Those letters now offer valuable, although highly subjective, historical insight. She gave this odd account of New Jerusalem: “Its earliest settlers were two Hebrew children who opened a saloon for the irrigation of the passing public. Hence the name. We saw no wings and heard no harps; but the street was paved with gold, the bright yellow of the barley straw spread to keep down the dust.”
The truth be told, the “irrigation of the public” was not a civic priority. In fact, not long after Simon Cohn brought his new wife Minnie home to New Jerusalem from San Francisco, the saloon closed its doors. Later, Cohn--a model citizen as well as a wealthy landowner--built a Catholic Church in El Rio, as well as a sports arena that played host to boxing and wrestling bouts.
The matter of New Jerusalem’s name is subject to some speculation. According to the noted late Ventura journalist E. M. Sheridan, the area was initially settled in 1868 as “Jerusalem” by a small group of Campbellites--a religious sect. As visions of building a colony withered, they soon moved on. Sheridan reported that judge J. D. Hines called the place “New Jerusalem” in reference to the Jewish ownership, but the name was never recognized officially. The town became known officially as El Rio, or the river, for the semi-dry Santa Clara River.
Now the stuff of historical lore, New Jerusalem is testament to the bygone frontier ethic and the time when a lone man could stake a claim and settle a town.
The modern El Rio still boasts remnants of a simpler, rural Ventura life. From the humble tracts that make up El Rio, post-modernist encroachments of the new Oxnard Town Center are visible. But within this enclosed network of blocks, many houses sit amid small avocado orchards--a small reminder of the agricultural heritage of early Ventura.
Successive layers of pavement and progress can’t erase certain memories.
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996275d5f05f20c3ce47babd7b08b474 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2855-story.html | THEATER NOTES : Festival Forsooth : From Ventura to Simi Valley, the focus of many thespian groups this year will be on Shakespeare. | THEATER NOTES : Festival Forsooth : From Ventura to Simi Valley, the focus of many thespian groups this year will be on Shakespeare.
Everything’s shakin’: All Ventura County will host an unofficial Shakespeare festival this year, beginning Saturday night with the first of two upcoming presentations of “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream.”
The Plaza Players production is said to be rather traditional, although the Ventura group’s longtime artistic director, Michael Maynez, is not noted for his “traditional” presentations of anything.
The Thousand Oaks-based Conejo Players will produce its version of the classic in June, this time set “in the silver fields of the Sierra Nevada.” Call (805) 498-3784 for information on auditions, which will be held March 31-April 2.
Other Shakespearean productions scheduled this year include “The Taming of the Shrew,” presented at various sites in Ventura County by Shakespeare in the Park, beginning in July; “Macbeth” by the Ojai Shakespeare Festival (the newly renamed performance arm of Ojai’s Royal Shakespeare Revels), and the Santa Paula Theater Center’s “A Comedy of Errors” in September.
Nuts on trial in Simi Valley: The S.A.V.E. Theater organization of Simi Valley will be producing Tom Topor’s “Nuts"--Barbra Streisand starred in the film--in the city’s former courthouse building on Cochran Street, beginning March 15. The courtroom drama will be acted out, appropriately enough, in the real courtroom, reports artistic director Sid Haig. Outside the courtroom, before the presentation, representatives of several of Simi Valley’s performing arts groups will show their wares in actual performance and passing out literature, etc., throughout the run.
Theater groups’ prayers may soon be answered: In other Simi Valley news, the City Council has voted to negotiate to buy from a private owner the old Methodist Church building on Los Angeles Avenue, in disuse and disrepair for several years.
Says Jay Corey, assistant city manager: “If the acquisition process is successful, the next step is to have the city’s architects prepare what’s called a predesign study, at which time they’ll look at the space needs for various arts groups in the community. They’ll also look at historical preservation opportunities that will lead a narrative report with drawings to illustrate conceptual layouts and to address structural, electrical and mechanical requirements.” He says those studies, design and construction could take several years.
After renovation, the facility would be used in part for performing arts groups such as the Santa Susana Repertory Company. Until then, the Santa Susanans will share the old courthouse with S.A.V.E. and other groups.
Aspiring thespians please note: Auditions will be held this Sunday for the Moorpark Melodrama’s April-June production of “The Clumsy Custard Horror Show.” Title notwithstanding, the play takes place in the days when knighthood was in flower, and has nothing to do with the “Rocky Horror Show.” Singing and dancing skills are almost as important as a gift for knockabout farce. Call (805) 529-1212 for further information, between noon and 5 p.m.
Santa Paula Theater Center is holding two series of acting classes for young people. “Advanced Acting” for those 11 and up begins Monday and runs for 10 weeks, Monday and Thursday afternoons between 4 to 5:30 p.m. There’s a fee, $60, and prerequisites include drama class or stage experience. Also required is an interview with either Terry Brenner-Farrell or Sally Mueller, the instructors. Beginners between 5 and 6 years can enroll for the “Fairytale Theater,” held on six consecutive Saturday mornings beginning April 6. There’s a $25 fee. Call (805) 525-4645 for further information on either series.
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2351835fbec6da11b70160e054ba49f6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2858-story.html | FOR THE KIDS : Tots Take the Reins : At a Moorpark ranch, children often grow attached to the ponies as they learn to ride and care for them. | FOR THE KIDS : Tots Take the Reins : At a Moorpark ranch, children often grow attached to the ponies as they learn to ride and care for them.
Three-year-old Danielle Jabbour is so tiny that her mother must lift her onto the saddle, but once atop Billy Bob, there’s no doubt who’s in charge as she guides the pony around the ring.
For five months, Danielle, who lives in Thousand Oaks, has taken riding lessons at Pony Pals in Moorpark, possibly the only spot in Ventura County where kids as young as 3 can learn how to handle the reins.
That’s not all they learn. In weekly 90-minute lessons they help saddle the ponies, brush them down, and even pick their hooves clean. Not surprisingly, they get kind of attached to the gentle ponies.
“They have a real love affair going,” said Laurie Jabbour, Danielle’s mother as she watched her daughter. “She kisses him.”
Pony Pals isn’t just a riding school. Located on a 2.5-acre patch at Tierra Rejada Ranch, it has a collection of farm animals to rival Old MacDonald’s.
Pigs, goats, sheep, cows, mules, donkeys, geese, rabbits and chickens abound. A white miniature stallion, “Barbee Tough Guy,” only 36 inches tall, also resides there.
On a recent Saturday, a rabbit had just given birth to a litter of bunnies. A man from the Los Angeles area dropped off some hens he said his children had tired of caring for.
No problem. The more the merrier, according to Karthia Eppstein, mother of three young children and co-owner of Pony Pals. She grew up in the Moorpark area riding horses. As a teen-ager, she barrel raced.
She teamed up with Gloria Conly, another horse aficionado, a year ago to open Pony Pals. Conly has been a riding instructor for 35 years and raises Morgan horses.
With college and the birth of her children, Eppstein had drifted away from horses. But five years ago she went to a child’s birthday party where the parents had hired the owner of some ponies to give the children rides.
“I thought, I could do that,” Eppstein said. And she did. She bought three ponies and traveled the birthday party circuit. Then she met Conly, and the ideas started hatching.
“Nobody teaches riding for little tiny kids,” she said. “Why not put it all together and have a farm.”
Last December they relocated from another nearby ranch to Tierra Rejada, where they are still building permanent pens for the farm animals. Kids who visit Pony Pals don’t have to take lessons. For $2 they can ride a pony through a wooden structure similar to a maze, or they can ride one attached to a kind of carousel.
But if it’s lessons they want, they’ll find a gentle approach geared for young children.
“Now hold the reins like an ice cream cone,” Tonja Pederson, 18, told a class for 3-year-olds. “Let him know you’re the boss. What do you say when you want him to go? That’s right, you say giddyap, give him a kick, and cluck your tongue or make a kissing sound. No, don’t kiss him.”
The kids sit on miniature saddles and wear riding helmets that are hard-shelled to protect their heads. Parent help out in the small ring and give encouragement.
“She’s a horse fanatic,” said Ceci Grode, smiling at her daughter Kelsey, who wears tiny white cowboy boots. “She doesn’t have dolls. She has 10,000 horses.” Kelsey, who lives in Camarillo, can spend an hour after her lesson feeding the ponies carrots.
It’s the same with Katie Erickson, 3, of Oxnard. “This kid is horse crazy at 3,” said her mother, Jeanene Erickson.
The kids learn to handle the reins and control the pony themselves. They learn to trot early. They also do stretching exercises on the ponies and play “Simon Says.” Pederson leads them on a mini-trail ride outside the ring and around the site.
A series of four weekly beginning lessons for children 3 and older costs $100. Older kids and adults can take lessons for $15 an hour. Groups are limited to about five riders. Both English and Western riding styles are taught.
“We’re not pushy, we let the kids go at their own pace,” said Eppstein. “We try to have everyone have fun.”
She still does birthday parties, but now she does them on-site at Pony Pals. The parties start at $150 for 11 children.
* WHERE AND WHEN
Pony Pals is located at Tierra Rejada Ranch, 3370 N. Moorpark Road, Moorpark. Take the Tierra Rejada exit off the Moorpark Freeway. The entire Pony Pals complex is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Riding lessons are available during the week. For information, call 495-0918 or 522-6977.
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f2b7d7de5436e935ca0df4c6051d98f7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2861-story.html | NEIGHBORS : Good Eggs : A two-day eggshell artistry show next month will showcase the talents of eggers from throughout the state. | NEIGHBORS : Good Eggs : A two-day eggshell artistry show next month will showcase the talents of eggers from throughout the state.
Humpty Dumpty would have been proud.
Artists from all over the state will convene March 2 and 3 at the Hyatt Westlake Plaza Hotel for the annual California Egg Artistry Show. It will be the first time the show has come to the county. In past years the turnout has totaled nearly 2,000 people.
“There are thousands of eggers around the world,” said egg artist Ann Copeland, a member of the tri-county egg artists’ association that meets monthly in either Oxnard or Santa Barbara.
“We use rhinestones, fabrics, gold and silver lame and ultra-suede to decorate them.” she said. “People who haven’t seen a naturally decorated eggshell have no idea what can be done to it.”
So what exactly can be done to it? “One man found out that white bathtub caulking makes beautiful snow when you put glitter on top,” said Copeland. “One man in Detroit made a little Volkswagen bug out of an egg and it ran in a circle. It had a little engine in it.”
Then there was the guy from Pennsylvania who hand-painted a likeness of the Last Supper on a rhea egg, inserted it inside an ostrich egg and sold it for $5,000.
And how about the Pasadena woman, a member of the local group, who built a miniature Christmas tree inside a goose egg and decorated it with blinking lights.
As promised, we have selected the winners of our Valentine’s Day Romantic Mate Contest. We now know who the most romantic and least romantic mates in the county are. But let’s let the suspense mount just a little.
From the entries we received we learned that Ventura is overwhelmingly more romantic than unromantic. We also found that romance, as with beauty, is determined by the beholder.
Take the entry sent in by Peggy Spidel of Moorpark. She said her mate was the most romantic because he “showers me with attention and wondrous gifts.” But then there was Kim Webster, also of Moorpark, who praised her mate for writing letters and holding her hand. “To be romantic is not to be showered with money or gifts,” she wrote. This seems to prove that one can be romantic without going broke.
Well, enough of the general. Let’s get to the specifics.
The winner of our Golden Arrow award--a $100 gift certificate at a restaurant of his choice--goes to 57-year-old Don Scott of Camarillo, who was nominated by his 51-year-old fiancee Rita Godfrey, also of Camarillo. Godrey pushed the judges’ “Aah!” meter over the top with her description of Block’s romantic gestures:
“One morning as we left early for a day at the beach,” she wrote, “he scattered pink rose petals over my driveway. When we arrived at the beach it was clear he had been there earlier that morning. Looking down the bank to where we were going to spend the day, I could see a giant heart traced in the sand with my name in the center and more pink roses in bottles.”
We asked Godfrey, a teacher at Bernice Curren School in Oxnard, the circumstance under which she met her romantic mate. “We met right after my husband and I separated about three years ago. We didn’t date right away because he had a guiding principle. He used to say he’d never date a woman until she was divorced for three years.”
The couple met in the video rental shop where Block worked as a VCR repairman. “I didn’t have a job. I was putting in applications for teaching positions,” she said. “Every day or two I would go up to the store to use the copy machine to copy my resume and we would chat.” They met in May, 1988, and had their first date in December of that year. No wedding date has been set.
And now, the dubious honor of winning the Rusty Arrow Award--two tickets to the Grant Park Pistol Range--goes to 66-year-old J.J. Gonzalez of Fillmore.
When Gonzalez’s wife of 15 years, Helen, found out that her entry had won, her response was: “Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh my God. I haven’t told him. Oh my God. I haven’t told him. I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself. Oh my God. What am. . . . Oh. This is funny. I have to tell him now. You know, I never thought I even had a chance.”
In her entry the 51-year-old Gonzalaz wrote that her husband “has to be the most unromantic mate ever. On a cold night he turns the electric blanket on instead of me.”
So is he really that unromantic? “It has to be really quiet. Everything has to be just right. . . . It takes a long time for him to get romantic,” she said. “Other than candlelight and wine he doesn’t go out of his way like flowers or candy or special dinners--no. If I need or like a perfume, he’ll say, ‘Yeah, yeah, go ahead and buy it.’ ”
Gonzalez met her husband when the two were in an adult education program. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight. “When I met him I thought he was the most conceited person in the world. He acted like he was God’s gift to women. I couldn’t stand him.”
They were married within the year.
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8d26cf6e0964ed89a21dbed8c1a903fd | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2862-story.html | BACKSTAGE CAHOOTS : Quick Wits : Santa Barbara improvisational troupe makes fast work of silly situations provided by the audience. | BACKSTAGE CAHOOTS : Quick Wits : Santa Barbara improvisational troupe makes fast work of silly situations provided by the audience.
Remember your irresistibly seductive opening line for that wild party? Or that perfect withering retort? Only problem was, you thought of them an hour later or the next day, when the moment to shine had long since passed? Consider all those squandered opportunities for brilliance when watching the monthly antics of Santa Barbara’s Cahoots Improvisational Comedy Troupe, and you can really appreciate what these people go through to earn a laugh.
The Cahoots performers improvise scenes from situations, characters and relationships suggested by the audience, a process that requires all the timing and precision of acting without the safety net of a script or rehearsal time. When it’s not working, there’s no place to hide.
But when it does work, improv comedy opens a window into a way of relating to the world through our wits rather than our rituals. And sometimes the material ignited in this spontaneous combustion can be funnier than any pre-programmed punch line.
The members of Cahoots are no strangers to either the perils or the payoffs of performance on the edge. The group has been operating in Santa Barbara under a variety of names, with rotating personnel, since 1978.
If anyone has the process down to the semblance of a science, it’s Lois Yaroshefsky, the group’s feisty artistic director and one of its original members. “The elements of successful improv,” she says, “are the quality of the initial suggestion, the extent to which the actors can respond with material drawn from their own lives and, of course, their onstage chemistry.”
A typical Cahoots outing will feature a mix of improv techniques. “I try to vary the pace and the content,” Yaroshefsky says. “Some are very free-form, where anything can happen, while others are more structured--like a panel of kooky characters discussing some hot topic, or a video dating service taping a revealing confession. Plus, we always have great musical guests to break up the routine.”
Because the group relies heavily on guest performers and that all-important audience participation, it’s hard to predict which way a show will go, but a loyal audience built up over the years will usually find something worthwhile.
In a “Who am I?” skit during a recent sold-out performance, Cahoots member Sharon Bettis was sent outside while the audience chose an occupation for her (a midwife), which she then had to guess by interacting with Yaroshefsky and an audience volunteer. It was like watching the process we all go through in an unfamiliar situation--sorting through clues and feeling around to determine what’s appropriate. Along the way, Bettis drew hysterical laughter as she talked about her franchise operation, at one point rolling up her sleeves with a matter of fact “Well, shall we get started?” When she finally guessed it, there were cheers.
Other scenes depend on empathic rapport--one pair of actors performing a scene in lip-sync with voices supplied by another pair from the sidelines.
This month’s announced cast will include Yaroshefsky, Bettis, K-LITE radio personality Nancy Nufer, and longtime improv veteran Brad Bronk, along with the usual wild-card guests. But the audience is just as important a participant, so bring your most creative situations, characters and conflicts to the party.
* WHERE AND WHEN
Cahoots Improvisational Comedy Troupe performs Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at the Paseo Nuevo Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara. Tickets are $7.50. Call (805) 963-0408.
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6bb50e02a17a2db54937670f62ea48a1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2863-story.html | MUSIC TAO JONZ : The Way to Play : They’ve got the cool band name and the cool band member names. | MUSIC TAO JONZ : The Way to Play : They’ve got the cool band name and the cool band member names.
Tao Jonz. Pretty funny, huh? But what does it mean? Was Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu actually a closet capitalist whose “way” actually led to some sort of Asian Wall Street? Nah, Tao Jonz is just another rock band with a funny name--perhaps not the Mother of All Rock ‘n’ Roll Funny Names, but not bad, anyway.
The guys in the band have some mightily metaphysical musical monikers themselves. Stosh--that’s it, Stosh--is the drummer. Johnny Atmosphere is the keyboard player. Jimmy Working, “The Working Man,” sings and plays lead guitar, and Dougie Flash or Leonardo Convincing--it’s the same guy--plays bass and sings lead.
“I’m always changing my name only because I’ve never been to India yet,” Flash said. If the band’s gig goes well tonight at Felix’s Cantina, he could be Bombay bound--and I don’t mean the yuppie bar in Ventura.
“Jimmy Working? He’s ‘The Working Man,’ what can I say?” Flash said. “And Stosh? Yeah, that’s him. We went through 11 drummers before we found him. Drummers were dropping like flies. And Johnny Atmosphere? When we hired him, he didn’t know any of our songs and we told him we had a gig the next day. So he just faked it--he was very, um, atmospheric. The band name is sort of an East meets West thing.”
So they’ve got the cool band name, the cool band member names, plus they even have a giant-sized banner on the stage behind them when they play so that no one will confuse them with anyone serious. But no T-shirts. They do have a tape and about 50 songs, plus they can drink a lot of beer. So many of the potholes along the road to rock ‘n’ roll stardom have been filled.
Tao Jonz has been around for a couple of years, having come from somewhere else. Flash is from Chicago, and The Working Man is from Colorado.
“I met Doug in Ft. Collins. We were in a band together called Rhythm & Views. We did all originals, no covers,” The Working Man said. “Anyway, Doug and I started living together and writing a lot of kooky songs. But when we’d play, people would just stare at us like they were dogs. People were intellectualizing our music. It was then we realized we had to move to California to become rock stars.”
Usually, the first thing a tourist does after arriving in the Golden State is to emulate E.T. and call home to tell everyone to come out here. But not Flash. He scarcely had a dime left when someone ripped off all his belongings from his van.
“Nah, I wouldn’t call home anyway,” he said. “I don’t care about them. I care about myself.”
With no money, Flash moved to Isla Vista to join The Working Man, and Tao Jonz was born. “At first we were a two-man band,” The Working Man said. “But we were desperate for a drummer, so we placed a few ads. We were initially surprised that anyone wanted to play with us because we were playing to a lot of empty rooms. We went through a lot of drummers. Drummer No. 2 quit an hour before a gig, so we faked that one.
“Anyway, somehow we started to make money. We played at Chuy’s Long Bar in Santa Barbara a lot and got a following from there. We’ve been gigging ever since. And since we play at least three or four times a month, we’re one of the few bands in Santa Barbara that people know about.”
Tao Jonz music is sort of funky, sort of rock ‘n’ roll, sort of reggae, all mixed up into something new and improved. The music is pretty choppy--most songs sound as if they could end at every note.
“People have trouble categorizing us,” Flash said. “We’re just pop musicians and songwriters. And, on the other hand, Santa Barbara is full of awesome babes that like to dance--especially when they’re drunk.”
* WHERE AND WHEN
Tao Jonz, today, 9 p.m., Felix’s Cantina, 525 State St., Santa Barbara, 962-1432. About two bucks.
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dc9733a1592206f735a42e1704fd2323 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2864-story.html | GOINGS ON SANTA BARBARA : Strawberry Fields : The Dougherty family is preserving California’s fruited plains in a joint artwork exhibit. | GOINGS ON SANTA BARBARA : Strawberry Fields : The Dougherty family is preserving California’s fruited plains in a joint artwork exhibit.
Barbara Dougherty wouldn’t mind painting strawberry fields forever. Or any fields for that matter. Dougherty describes herself as an agricultural painter.
Dougherty (watercolor paintings); her husband, Michael (wood sculptures) and their 16-year-old daughter, Elvi Jo (charcoal figure drawings), will show their artwork Sunday at the Fess Parker Red Lion Resort in Santa Barbara. The title of the show, and its overriding theme, is “Harvest California.”
“I paint the agriculture fields, specifically strawberry fields and orchards,” Barbara Dougherty said. “It’s out of a passion and love for these places. And there’s also the environmental issue that the fields are vanishing.”
Growing up in California, Dougherty said, gave her a sense of the importance of agriculture to the state and she wants to help preserve it in some way. She spends much of her time visiting fields up and down the state, most recently concentrating on the San Juan Bautista area.
In Ventura County, she said, she is particularly fond of the banana plantation and baby’s breath fields of La Conchita, and strawberry fields and lemon orchards in Oxnard.
“I love painting outside and, frankly, I discover an emotional catharsis when I’m standing in a strawberry field,” she said. “This is where I am. This is California.”
Dougherty said it takes a lot of time and effort to organize a show. In fact, she was so exhausted following last year’s exhibit she thought that she’d never want to see a field again. But that feeling was short-lived.
“I went on (California) 126 and there was a parsley field being picked. My heart just sank out of my body,” she said. “I hadn’t lost the passion.”
The art show will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Red Lion Resort is at 633 E. Cabrillo Blvd.
Bronze sculptures by Pueblo Indian artist Michael Naranjo make up the bulk of a new exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art titled “Touchable Art.” As the name implies, all the art is meant to be touched and, therefore, is available to blind and sighted visitors alike. Naranjo went blind in 1968 at the age of 24.
Several events are planned in conjunction with the showing, including a lecture and slide presentation by Naranjo at 7:30 tonight in the museum’s auditorium. For information, call 963-4364.
So what’s your sign? You may get asked this question often, but do you really give much thought to the origin of the zodiac? On Friday, the director of the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles, E. C. Krupp, Ph.D., will share some ancient myths about the sky. The talk will begin at 8 p.m. at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Cost is $3 for adults, $1.50 for children. Call 682-3224.
It’s a little bit down the road, but tickets went on sale at UC Santa Barbara last week for the April 7 visit of the Dalai Lama of Tibet. With 1991 designated as the Year of Tibet, the Dalai Lama has been on a lecture tour. His topic on this occasion will be “Freedom and Responsibility in the Global Community.” Because a large crowd is expected, the Dalai Lama will speak at the Events Center on campus, where the Gouchos play their home basketball games. Tickets are $6 general admission. To order, call 893-3535.
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21bef1eb02b5c501d2802d24dc53c1e9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2865-story.html | EARTHWATCH : A Blade of Green : You don’t have to sacrifice a lush lawn to the drought. A few easy steps will save your grass, and your water. | EARTHWATCH : A Blade of Green : You don’t have to sacrifice a lush lawn to the drought. A few easy steps will save your grass, and your water.
Ojai water conservation expert Connor Everts has been studying the map and watching the calendar. In explaining to me the southward drift of the water problems that have plagued the state in recent decades, he held his palm over the northern half of the state and said, “What happened there in the last 10 years will happen here in the next 10 months.” And he moved his hand over Southern California.
What will happen? We are going to have to learn to live with 50% less water. For Ventura County homeowners used to lush green landscaping this is going to mean a change of habit. Regular readers of this column may suspect that I’m going to suggest that you ring your house in Joshua trees. Calm down. I’m talking about a natural lawn, the very one you have already, with a few changes in decorative planting and altogether using less water and almost no chemicals. And this means forever, with no return to water-wasting days.
Half our urban water goes for outdoor purposes. I, for one, am willing to think very seriously about changing my outdoor habits in order to preserve some of my indoor habits. Let’s cut to the chase here. Half an hour’s lawn watering equals 10 showers.
I have consulted some experts and it turns out that you and I have been overwatering the lawn by 100% and more, wasting water we now want to save. We should be watering once a week, not once a day.
Owen Bell, a landscape contractor who specializes in drought-resistant planting in Ventura and Santa Barbara put my mind at rest about the “look” of landscape to come. He teaches a class at the Botanic Garden in Santa Barbara called “The Drought Tolerant English Garden.” I think that says it all, in case you were worried that Bell was planning to turn Ventura County into Death Valley-by-the-sea.
During our conversation, Bell described the changing styles of landscaping already under way. The recent freeze killed a lot of Florida-style plants in this county. These, he said, should be replaced with breeds that look quite similar but have been developed locally by a good old Darwinian survival-of-the-species process. “With the water crisis, things will change everywhere in California,” Bell says. “Go up to Santa Barbara and look at your future. It’s not terrible, it’s different. They’ve had water cuts for a long time.”
It seems that by watering for five minutes daily, spreading on artificial fertilizers, cutting lawns short, throwing away grass and tree clippings and bringing in exotics from Sumatra, we’ve just been buying a peck of worries.
Ben Faber, Ph.D., an expert from the Ventura County branch of Agricultural Extention--part of UC’s Cooperative Extension program--says that with this kind of watering, 70% evaporates. Better to water once a week, he said, for half an hour (twice weekly in summer) for a deep soak, which will make the roots go down deeper where the natural nutrients are. Short sprinkles combined with artificial fertilizing on the surface make the roots grow shallow. They hang around near the surface like addicts waiting for their fix. (Faber actually said that during a drought it is preferable to water not at all, rather than the short sprinkle method. The roots will go down looking for whatever water there is.)
Then there is the issue of non-chemical or “organic” lawn and garden practices and their meaning during a drought. The County Resource Conservation District’s Lee Waddel said: “It’s another water-saving tool. Organically treated soil holds more water and it allows infiltration down to the roots.” We should spread mulch over bare soil, turn it under prior to planting, and if we replant a lawn, put two inches of it everywhere. Also, during a drought, leave your clippings on the lawn. They’ll act as a mulch and hinder the evaporation. And, by the way, mulch is a herbicide. When you put it over bare ground the weeds don’t grow.
These organic practices provide a “timed release” of the nutrients plants need. The natural biological process of plant matter decay produces nitrogen slowly and steadily. If you just pour nitrogen out of a bag it’s here today, gone tomorrow--into our water supply. The plants only get a junkie-like “rush.”
Many California city officials recently surveyed by the California State Water Conservation Board about proposed water legislation say it is possible to cut the “inorganics,” as Faber calls them, by 100%.
Later this month, Ventura County will begin to release a daily report to the media on the “Evapotranspiration Rate.” Akin to humidity and smog rates, this environmental indicator will tell you how many minutes to water your lawn that day to keep it from dying. If you’ve been taking steps to make your roots go deeper, covering bare soil with mulch and spreading natural rather than artificial fertilizers, you’ll be able to cut watering time significantly, probably to one “Evapotranspiration Rate” watering a week.
* FYI
* Ventura County Water Conservation Program Info, 654-2440.
* Ventura County Resource Conservation District, 386-4990.
* U.C. Cooperative Agricultural Extension, 654-2924.
* Drought-resistant plants: Green Thumb Nurseries, Ventura, 652-8517 (also ask your local nurseryman for ideas and ready-made mulch).
* Owen Bell Landscape Contracting, 962-3253 (also see landscape contractors and landscape architects in the Yellow Pages).
* Classes at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, 682-4726.
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69aadfb0aa7ab84ed4f56110c0c42b7a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vl-2866-story.html | INDEPENDENT FARMING : A Tough Row to Hoe : Vegetable growers face unfavorable weather, high overhead and dwindling profit margins. | INDEPENDENT FARMING : A Tough Row to Hoe : Vegetable growers face unfavorable weather, high overhead and dwindling profit margins.
Driving by long rows of freshly watered crops or stopping to get some produce, it’s easy to get caught up in romantic notions about farming and miss the struggle that many Ventura County farmers find themselves in. In truth, they are trying to make a living in a highly competitive, high-overhead business.
In the wake of the ongoing drought and this winter’s big freeze--which cost Ventura County farmers an estimated $128 million--many farmers say they feel they are fighting an uphill battle with the fickle forces of nature.
“There are enough tough facts in farming to scare the pants off of most people,” says Rex Laird, the executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. Yet people keep trying.
It’s a constant question for some, wondering whether they should stay and work the land or try to get out, sell to developers or find some other suitable use for the land.
“There isn’t a crop that pays its way compared with what development would do,” says Rick Brecunier, 45, owner and manager of the Tierra Rejada Ranch in Moorpark.
Laird said most of the $806-million-a-year agricultural industry in Ventura County is holding its own, even with the frost and drought. Vegetable growers, however, have not been so fortunate. “The frozen vegetable business is virtually gone from this county due to competition in Mexico,” he says.
But Laird says farming is like gambling: “In the gaming rooms of Las Vegas, every time there’s a spot at the table, someone’s willing to step up and take the risk.”
Brecunier took the step when he married into farming. Straight out of a two-year stint in the Peace Corps in Bolivia, he was invited by his father-in-law, Monroe Everett, now 84, into the family farming business. Brecunier and his wife, Linnea, figured it was worth a try.
Now, 20 years later, he finds farming a day-to-day struggle. The 170-acre farm--Everett bought 350 acres in 1935 for $40,000--has been losing money for two years, and Brecunier says he doesn’t deal well with the frustrations of the business.
“If you have a great crop one year, it’s only good if no one else did. If it was a good year for everyone, the crop may not be worth much,” he says.
The Tierra Rejada Ranch has 40 acres of pick-your-own vegetables, a system designed by Brecunier to lower his labor costs and give the public a hands-on view of the farm. The ranch sells oranges, avocados, grapefruit, blackberries, apples, apricots, peaches and walnuts in season, runs a seasonal pumpkin patch that draws hundreds of preschoolers and schoolchildren on field trips every fall, and offers herbs and some plants.
“Things come up every day that are unexpected,” he says, “like the water pipelines break, or the pests attack a crop.”
The retail vegetable stand helps Brecunier limit his losses because he can set his own prices and not be dependent on the economic climate of the central market.
But Brecunier says he feels farmers are being attacked from all sides. He gets pressure to limit pesticide use, but he needs high-volume crops to make a profit. He says there’s pressure to restrict water use, yet he’s had to grow crops that require considerable water. Water costs from the Calleguas Municipal Water District have gone from $45 an acre-foot in 1970 to $286 an acre-foot this year.
“The price of diesel has more than doubled; electricity, labor have all gone up, but the cost of food is stable,” he says. “The future of agriculture in this county doesn’t look good.”
Because of zoning restrictions, Brecunier’s land can only be subdivided in 40-acre parcels, a rule he calls restrictive. “We’re in a situation where we’re saving prime agricultural land, for what? To look at?” he says. “Or so somebody can go broke on it?”
At Underwood Ranches in Somis, the climate is more positive. Craig Underwood, 48, and wife Sara Jane, 48, took over the farm in the early ‘70s from Craig’s father, Richard, 74, whose father started the farm in 1916. In 1988, Underwood totally changed his vegetable-growing operation, switching from broccoli, lettuce and celery to specialty vegetables such as baby carrots, baby beets, turnips and gourmet lettuce, grown on 800 acres--only 150 of which he owns. By specializing in unique vegetables, Underwood has been successful.
He first started the Underwood Produce Stand in 1980 with the idea that the way to make it in farming was to produce something customers couldn’t get elsewhere. Gradually he began developing a wholesale market for the specialty vegetables, selling to restaurants in Los Angeles, New York, Florida and overseas. “We concentrated on areas where we had an advantage,” Underwood says.
To keep his operation in the black, Underwood tracks his expenses and profits closely on a computer system. “It doesn’t take much of a swing to run you into a negative position,” he says. “There’s not much of a profit margin.”
Underwood, like Brecunier, suffered only minor crop losses from the freeze. Because of the widespread losses in California, the demand for Underwood’s baby lettuce has tripled, allowing him to raise prices--and profits.
As for the effects of the drought, Underwood said, it’s really too early to tell. “There are so many uncertainties it’s hard to make predictions. There’s no way of looking down to see the ground-water supplies,” he said.
Underwood spends about $250,000 a year on water and $800,000 a year on labor, with huge demands for capital expenditures such as irrigation systems, water pumps, tractors and other machinery.
Laird doesn’t think farming is going to get any easier. In the next 10 years, he thinks farmers will have to be increasingly active politically, flexible enough to deal with changing regulations and willing to talk with the community about issues that affect them. He said farmers will be challenged to get the public to understand that farms are not just adorable community resources, but rather important workplaces.
“It’s no longer where you’re out by yourself and you can do what you want. And the community doesn’t realize that the farm is not a quasi-park. It’s not Yosemite.”
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01e31dc2ee6561e2b8cd855c674b80f3 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2629-story.html | Longevity Tips From a Compulsive Peanut Butter Eater | Longevity Tips From a Compulsive Peanut Butter Eater
A reader named Sava William Jacobson, of Sherman Oaks, writes to ask if I will divulge my secrets for remaining healthy.
I would be happy to share my secrets, but I’m not sure my readers in general have the discipline to follow my advice.
“I recall that some years ago you had a bypass operation,” Jacobson says, “and that thereafter you went on a strict diet and exercise regimen.”
That isn’t quite what happened. I did have a bypass, but I did not immediately begin regular exercise and my diet was rather self-indulgent. I have always liked hot dogs, bacon, eggs and peanut butter, and I saw no reason for living many more years if I were deprived of them.
I convinced my cardiologist that I was getting enough exercise by walking up and down malls while shopping. He was skeptical, but they don’t like to tell you what to do.
Then one day a friend and I walked up a long flight of stairs together. When we reached the top I was puffing laboriously. My friend was worried. He had had a bypass a few years before me, and he said, “You’d better shape up, man.”
I enrolled in the Huntington Hospital cardiac rehabilitation program. Three mornings a week I worked out with other patients under the direction of three frisky young women who frolicked with us and played improbable medleys on the stereo while we exercised.
At the end of three months I was discharged and was declared the “most improved” member of the group.
I then enrolled in Ray Steffanus’ class at the Pasadena Athletic Club. Three mornings a week I exercised under Ray’s direction, riding a bicycle, lifting light dumbbells, using a leg lift and working various light arm machines.
I have been doing that ever since.
However, I will use almost any excuse to avoid getting up early and going to the class. On an average, I miss at least once a week.
However, one incentive for going is that after the workouts I indulge myself in a breakfast at the Konditori, Rose City or some other Pasadena cafe. Having earned this modest pleasure by exercising, I usually have pancakes, bacon and eggs. (Sometimes champagne and orange juice.)
Since my wife works, I have to fix my own lunch, or eat down the hill at the Packard Grill, where I usually have an Italian sausage salad or a hamburger. At home I heat a small can of chili or pasta in the microwave and eat it with a diet Pepsi.
For dinner I’m at the mercy of the draw--the draw being whatever microwave dinner my wife happens to pull out of the cupboard. Usually these are chicken and pasta dishes, but sometimes we get cheese enchiladas or lasagna.
I almost never eat dessert, but every night before going to bed I eat a dish of frozen yogurt. My favorite is chocolate chip.
Meanwhile, the friend who cautioned me at the top of the stairs has had a second bypass. Evidently they’re only good for eight or 10 years.
If that’s true, my time will soon be up. I don’t know whether I want to go through the ordeal of another bypass. On the other hand I do enjoy bacon and eggs and frozen yogurt and various other amenities, including watching sex and violence on television with my wife, so I’ll probably be willing to go through with the operation to gain a few more years.
When you find yourself in my predicament, you find out things about yourself. For example, there are certain things I won’t do, even to add a few years to my life. My wife bought me an exercise bicycle, but I never used it. I said it was too boring. She bought me a television set to put in the bedroom so I could watch television while cycling. I tried it once or twice.
Eventually I gave the bicycle to my older son. He put it in his bedroom but never used it. His wife finally made him get rid of it. My younger son’s wife took it and put it in her bedroom, but never used it. I have no idea where it is today.
My regimen seems to be working. I usually ache in the morning and get tired in the afternoon, but who doesn’t? My weight has been stable for years. I can still wear all my old clothes.
Undoubtedly, the most important health measure I have ever taken was to quit smoking. That is why I am alive today and able to eat bacon and eggs and hot dogs and hamburgers and chocolate chip yogurt.
If I have to have another bypass, I probably will. I have unfinished business. Among other projects I have just started to read the King James version of the Bible, top to bottom.
Surely God won’t let me die until I finish that, no matter how many hot dogs I eat.
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44ef2de9a5c553139eae6d7551323089 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2630-story.html | Hock the House: Sotheby’s, the auction house,... | Hock the House: Sotheby’s, the auction house,...
Hock the House: Sotheby’s, the auction house, slapped a lawsuit on lawyer Marvin Mitchelson Monday, saying he still owes $975,000 for jewelry once owned by the late Duchess of Windsor. And if he does not have the cash, his house will do. Mitchelson claims he has no assets, says Sotheby’s, while “living in a multimillion-dollar estate in the Hollywood Hills.” The lawyer had no comment.
Tuesday Knockout: “Tue$day Night Out,” New York’s much-ballyhooed plan to boost business on Tuesday with lower restaurant and theater prices, stayed home. “Tuesday what?” said the night manager of Beefsteak Charlie’s, which had signed up for the plan. “I don’t know of any such thing.” The boss at Rumpelmayer’s ice cream shop first heard of the plan from a customer who became chilled when she learned that prices had not been discounted.
A Toast: British Conservative Party members living in the Washington, D.C., area got a bit of a boost from home Tuesday from Jeffrey Archer. The famed thriller author put up for auction a bottle of House of Commons Scotch, specially distilled for Parliament. The bottle was signed by two of Archer’s pals, Prime Minister John Major and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and sold for $500.
Slow Down: Singaporean men are too busy making money to make babies, a member of parliament said. Arthur Beng told the House he was worried that unless something was done, “I believe the last traces of libido . . . will simply evaporate.” He said pressures of work and reserve military duties left the men too stressed to enjoy sex. Why the worry? The nation’s birth rate is slipping.
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aef87f71992735d127981ed69306b1e1 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2634-story.html | BOOK REVIEW : Cassatt and Duncan: Tale of Two Legendary Artists : AFTER EGYPT Isadora Duncan and Mary Cassatt A Dual Biography<i> by Millicent Dillon</i> William Abrahams / Dutton $24.95, 403 pages | BOOK REVIEW : Cassatt and Duncan: Tale of Two Legendary Artists : AFTER EGYPT Isadora Duncan and Mary Cassatt A Dual Biography<i> by Millicent Dillon</i> William Abrahams / Dutton $24.95, 403 pages
Toward the end of the 19th Century, two American women, a Philadelphian and a Californian, left the United States and settled in Paris to pursue careers as artists. Despite sharing the events and circumstances of the Parisian fin de siecle , Mary Cassatt and Isadora Duncan, the painter and the dancer, the patrician conservative and the hedonistic rebel, would never meet face to face.
Cassatt, dedicated to her painting and to her family, had an expatriate experience completely different from the one the younger Duncan had, absorbed as she was with the theater and dance, her tempestuous love affairs and political experiments. At a time when society and art were undergoing rapid and profound transformations, a 30-year age difference would necessarily create an enormous experiential gap between these two lives.
One might, then, question why Millicent Dillon chose to write a dual biography about two figures separated by a generation of experience and change, particularly since they never met. In her introduction to “After Egypt,” Dillon states: “This book will attempt a telling of another kind. Awkwardly, one step forward and two steps back, it will go in pursuit of a different kind of knowing, to search for explanation that proves the limitation of explanation, to break sequence.”
This deconstructionist approach to biography is only partially successful because it is essentially awkward. Yet despite their differences, Cassatt and Duncan offer intriguing and contrasting perspectives on the creative process of the American woman artist abroad.
The key Dillon uses to draw these two artists together lies in the events alluded to in the title. “After Egypt” refers to trips undertaken by the two women in 1910 and 1911. That these trips should be a year apart is an intriguing coincidence, even if the assertion that the Egyptian voyages should be seminal to understanding these two lives and careers seems a bit contrived.
Cassatt’s only trip to Egypt takes place in 1911 at age 66. Duncan goes a year earlier at age 33 and again in 1912.
Their traveling companions reveal the sharp contrasts between these two lives: Cassatt travels in the company of her brother and his wife and children. On her first trip, Duncan, pregnant by her lover, Paris Singer, travels aboard his yacht, the Isis (named after her), along with him, her daughter Dierdre (by Gordon Craig), her brother Augustine and his daughter Temple. She returned with Singer and assorted company two years later (this second trip, incidentally, does not appear in Duncan’s autobiography, “My Life”).
Egypt represents an elusive mixture of awe, mystery and melancholia for these two women. For Cassatt in particular, its art is “overpowering; fancy going back to babies and women to paint.”
But this comment, which Cassatt included in a letter to her longtime friend Louisine Havemayor, came at a time in her life when commitments and responsibilities to family had become so rigidly set that she no longer could escape them. From this point on, she was troubled by both her brother’s and her own declining health. Egypt represented neither change nor freedom for Cassatt.
For Duncan, whose life seemed a continual manifestation of the search for the transcendental and mystical experiences that nourished her art, Egypt was a new source, but only one of many. It was one more adventure in the brief, headlong rush of a life that ended in 1927 with her haunting, untimely death.
Dillon successfully raises questions about the relationship between these artists’ work and the problems of their individual lives. What lies embedded, finally, in this tale of two lives are these artists’ views and feelings about matriarchy and the portrayal of women confined by and fighting against social constraints.
Next: Judith Freeman reviews “Doc-in-a-Box” by Robert A. Burton (Soho Press).
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9bc442d3371de9e664f6cb92ec83a23b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2635-story.html | The Utne Reader’s Verbal Salad of Salons | The Utne Reader’s Verbal Salad of Salons
Reading an excellent issue of an excellent magazine is like attending an invigorating dinner party. Some ideas discussed may be bitter, some delicious, but ultimately the encounter nourishes participants in a way that transcends mere nutrition.
Now the Utne Reader, a remarkably reliable forum, has decided to step beyond the printed page and organize its readers into neighborhood “salons” that might approximate the heady rap sessions held at the Algonquin Round Table or in Gertrude Stein’s Paris apartment.
In the March/April issue, Utne invites readers to send in their names and addresses so that they might be brought together in groups of 25. The issue also features a package of articles on how and why it may be a good time for “salons,” “councils,” “study circles” or whatever else these gatherings might be called.
At its best, Utne could well provide a common departure point for interesting discussion and debate nationwide. For instance, in this issue the collection of pieces on abortion gives voice to a bunch of divergent and intelligent viewpoints. You’d have to go through a whole stack of publications to get such an array, which is how Utne gets its material.
And, as Christopher Lasch says in another article, argument--not agreement--is what binds this country.
“If we insist on argument as the essence of education, we will defend democracy not as the most efficient but as the most educational form of government--one that extends the circle of debates as widely as possible and thus forces all citizens to articulate their views, to put their views at risk, and to cultivate the virtues of eloquence, clarity of thought and expression, and sound judgment,” he says.
At its increasingly rare worst, Utne lapses into New Agey froth and blather, and some of the discussions of the salon suggest that there is also potential for the live forums to turn touchy-feely fast. It’s bad enough to come across an enlightened soul’s print pontifications. To be stuck with a roomful of self-styled ascended masters could cause serious indigestion.
Would anyone care to volunteer, for instance, for the San Francisco “intuitional community” that convenes to discuss its founder’s dream of “conscious democracy as a global spiritual path?”
“The discussion is at a pretty high level,” the organizer assures, adding later: “Electronic media are bloodless and passive. But when you’re with people you can’t turn them off.”
Readers who get the willies around such bloody active chatter do have an alternative. As described in another Utne article, the WELL is a computer linked “electronic village” sponsored by the Whole Earth Review. The WELL gives 3,800 “writers, artists, scientists, and other obsessively curious people,” an environment in which to cluster, via modem, and discuss anything from “The Works of James Joyce” to “Your Biggest Sexual Fantasy.”
As Mike Gunderloy, editor of the publication Fact Sheet Five, says in the article, “I hang out here because all the cool people are here, the ones who make me think. . . . All knowledge is contained in WELLdom. I know I can ask darned near anything here and get an answer from a real person . . . and get multiple points of view and useful arguments, too.”
The debate about the relative advantages of flesh-and-blood versus modem-and-keyboard might make good salon fare. In either forum, though, it is worth remembering the remark quoted in Utne by James McNeill Whistler: “If other people are going to talk, conversation becomes impossible.”
REQUIRED READING
A horrifying number of children in the United States live in poverty, but what’s been happening to children in Latin America makes this country look like one big Disneyland.
And things are getting worse by the day.
“In Latin America, millions of children now live, eat, and sleep in the streets . . . the continent crawls with olvidados-- forgotten ones,” writes Nobel Peace Prize-winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel in an article from Le Monde Diplomatique, which is republished in the March World Press Review. Policies of the World Band and International Monetary Fund are exacerbating the poverty, Esquivel argues.
Delinquency “is a form of survival, a way for the weakest and poorest to wage a war of resistance.” The war already has spread throughout the Third World, he continues, and cannot forever be contained by geopolitical boundaries. “Two-thirds of the world’s people go hungry. They will certainly not stay forever on the sidelines, meekly staring at the rich as they tuck into the feast.”
How much can possibly be said about a sport that simply requires putting one foot in front of the other? Anyone who has to ask clearly doesn’t inhabit the world of runners. This year Runner’s World celebrates its silver anniversary. But as publisher George Hirsch says, “We see this as more than just a magazine anniversary, this is the 25th anniversary of running as a major participant sport.”
Running enthusiasm first sprinted off in the mid-1960s, gaining momentum with Frank Shorter’s high-profile win in the 1972 Olympics, says Hirsch, who arrives in Los Angeles today to do television commentary for the Los Angeles Marathon.
The sport’s popularity peaked around the time of the 1984 Olympics, he said, and has been building again gradually since 1987, as evidenced by the circulation of Runner’s World, which is now pushing 450,000. In May the magazine will produce an anniversary issue, and the December issue will name the best track and field athletes of the quarter century.
TRADE TALK
In February 1741, Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Bradford launched the first two American magazines. Neither Franklin’s General Magazine and Historical Chronicle nor Bradford’s American Magazine survived long.
But this country’s magazine publishing industry did, and this spring, the industry is going to celebrate its 250th anniversary. It’s not likely to have as many keg parties and wet T-shirt contests as other spring break bashes, but LA Magazine Week at the Hyatt at Los Angeles International Airport should prove stimulating.
Sponsored by the Western Publications Assn., along with Magazine Publishers of America and Folio magazine, Magazine Week celebrates the 250th Anniversary of American Magazine Publishing, runs April 2 through 5, and features insider tips on all aspects of the trade, including magazine writing, design, management, marketing, circulation, production and desktop publishing.
The week culminates with the 34th annual Maggie Banquet, where the Western Publications Assn. will present this year’s awards for excellence in a publishing. For seminar registration, call (203) 358-9900, Ext. 4; for information on the Maggie Banquet, call (818) 995-7338.
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40583aa57f83aa2b2972b63ecd49d67d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2681-story.html | High Life A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Kids Next Door Honor Gulf Forces | High Life A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Kids Next Door Honor Gulf Forces
The Kids Next Door, a group of 16 teen-agers from the Orange County High School of the Arts, has recorded a cassette for the men and women serving in the Persian Gulf.
The two-song cassette includes “One Day,” with music by John Glaudini and lyrics by David Green, director of the OCHSA musical theater department and The Kids Next Door, and a contemporary pop arrangement of “America,” with new lyrics by Green.
“I conceived the idea because sentiment and support for our troops was so high on our campus and because I believe that these very talented students should always be mindful of giving something back,” Green said.
Members of The Kids Next Door: Kerri Aldrich and Jennifer Strovas, both of Cerritos; Brian Barakat, Phillips Ranch; Jon Breeden and Damien Lorton, both of Santa Ana; Terron Brooks, Cypress; Carol Cabrera, Garden Grove; Danny Charles, Fullerton; Jared Christensen, Bountiful, Utah; Nikol Dodson, Bellflower; Cherie Gietzen, Orange; Peter Koehler and Staci Sabbagh, both of Huntington Beach; Taylor Margis-Noguera, Long Beach; Kamilah Martin, Stanton, and Amy Vandergast, Seal Beach.
All proceeds from the sale of the cassette will go to the American Red Cross. To order a cassette, mail a check to The Kids One Day Tape, c/o Orange County High School of the Arts, 3591 Cerritos Ave., Los Alamitos, 90720, or stop by the school’s office.
“No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.”
--George Jean Nathan, American editor and drama critic (1882-1958)
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bc53bddf698c421919ca4721b2e6e0d6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2682-story.html | High Life A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Clothes, Cars, Companions Define Status on Campus | High Life A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Clothes, Cars, Companions Define Status on Campus
Every generation has its own status symbols--from fashions and friends to toys and transportation--and these, we’ve found, don’t vary widely from one high school campus to another.
Hot Topics asks: “What is the ‘ultimate’ status symbol among students at your high school?”
“Whether you have a boyfriend or not and who he is.”
Kin Matsler, 15,
sophomore, Los Alamitos
“Hanging with the right crowd, which is being on the football or the basketball team.”
Antonio Reyes, 17,
senior, Sonora
“Blond hair.”
Laura Hanson, 14,
freshman, Kennedy
“Cars. Guys who love their cars find it necessary to screech away in front of the entire school so everyone will look. Everyone notices a car.”
Katie Mazzacano, 17,
senior, Esperanza
“It’s different in everyone’s eyes. For some it’s a car or going out to lunch, for others it’s just being happy.”
Ginny Case, 17,
senior, Valencia
“Having a girlfriend with the least amount of brains and the largest bra size.”
Kurt O’Donnell, 17,
senior, Ocean View
“A physics pencil. If you are extremely witty or quick to understand a concept in physics, you receive a prestigious award of a pencil.”
Jane Oglesby, 16,
senior, Connelly
“Anything money can buy, like cars and clothes.”
Alison Xanghakis, 14,
and Jessica Haugh, 14,
freshmen, Woodbridge
“In our group we all wear gold pocket watches.”
Dan Lossner, 17,
senior, Kennedy
“Being on the ASB Cabinet, getting a letterman’s jacket and having a car.”
Jim Perez, 17,
junior, Orange
“Clothes. You’re not really recognized for wearing nice clothes, but you stand out if you wear bad ones.”
David Alleman, 18,
senior, Esperanza
“Who wears the best glasses.”
Sergio Gonzalez, 17,
senior, Sonora
“Rolling up skirts to make them as short as possible.”
Jennifer Atler, 14,
freshman, Connelly
“Having an eternal smile, admirable intelligence, dazzling beauty, easy wit, athletic grace, a car, unlimited generosity, spontaneous style, natural patience, and on top of all the trivial things, an inner love for anything and everyone.”
Paul McGinnis, 17,
junior, Ocean View
“The kind of car you drive. The best kind to have is a Mercedes-Benz or BMW.”
Kathy Terwiske, 15,
sophomore, Woodbridge
“A senior with a car and not caring about grades.”
Joan-Jung Chang, 18,
senior, Valencia
“Homecoming queen, because everybody knows who she is and she’s well liked . . . and top athletes.”
Heather Nicolson, 15,
sophomore, Orange
“Who you know and hang around with.”
Laura Bandy, 15,
sophomore, Los Alamitos
“Flight jackets. That’s what all my friends wear.”
Brandie Sparks, 15,
freshman, Kennedy
“Having a boyfriend or girlfriend, because everyone seems to judge you by who you are with.”
Amee Noble, 16,
sophomore, Esperanza
“Materialistic things like cars and clothes.”
Michelle Steinhardt, 18,
senior, Woodbridge
“Personality.”
Richard Saunchez, 18,
senior, Sonora
“Having the right brand of shoes with the right number of shoelaces and belonging to the right gym.”
Jenny Allen, 17,
senior, Ocean View
“The way you look and act to impress people.”
Katie Durham, 15,
sophomore, Woodbridge
“People who always get involved in school because they’re popular and well-known.”
Sara Viveros, 18,
senior, Orange
“Shoes. You can tell what group people are in by what kind they wear.”
Rich Hills, 17,
senior, Esperanza
“Having it all together--brains, beauty, popularity, personality, possessions, athleticism, leadership . . . and happiness.”
Nita Halim, 15,
sophomore, Ocean View
“Having a car and senior lunch privileges.”
Huey Dang, 16,
junior, Valencia
“The way people dress. If you dress really nicely, everyone thinks you really know a lot about fashion.”
Christine Wee, 16,
sophomore, Connelly
“Definitely the way you project yourself and who you hang around with.”
Amy Gonta, 15,
sophomore, Los Alamitos
“Cars. People think that the better car they have, the better person they are.”
Saar Swartzon, 17,
senior, Esperanza
“I do not believe in status symbols, because it’s who you are and not what you have.”
Mike Bloch, 17,
senior, Woodbridge
Next Week’s Hot Topic:
In your opinion, why do teen-agers become gang members?
Responses gathered by Janet Bester (Connelly), Eric Billigmeier (Esperanza), Jean Paik (Kennedy), Trisha Ginsburg (Los Alamitos), Felice Wu (Ocean View), Betsy Burbridge (Orange), Lani Kent (Sonora), Michael Chen (Valencia) and Katy Leeper (Woodbridge).
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595d093b92cea7d4062885caef91adb7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2686-story.html | Benefit Raises $70,000 for Shelter Partnership | Benefit Raises $70,000 for Shelter Partnership
Even though there were moments when it felt suspiciously like a peace rally, Tuesday night’s fund-raiser for the Shelter Partnership was no ‘60s flashback.
Joan Baez, who provided the evening’s entertainment, couldn’t resist a chance to to speak out against war. “I’m always grateful to have a platform,” she said. But otherwise, the evening’s focus was Los Angeles’ growing homeless population.
The nonprofit Shelter Partnership, founded six years ago, assists more than 200 shelters and social service agencies by coordinating efforts to provide housing and resources to homeless men, women and children in Los Angeles County.
“We know Shelter Partnership’s number by heart, all the secretaries,” said Wendy Greuel, representing Mayor Bradley’s office, as she presented Ann Reiss Lane, Partnership president, with a resolution acknowledging her work.
“When the homeless problem hit, there were a lot of people who wanted to do something about it and didn’t know how,” said Jill Halverson, director of the Downtown Women’s Center, a beneficiary of Shelter Partnership.
“This agency taught them step one, step two, step three, step four how to open a shelter. It’s unique and fabulous,” said Gary Blasi, president of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “We don’t have a Grammy, but they would get one if we did.”
The presence of dinner chair Barbara Orbison, widow of rock star Roy Orbison, was more than superficial. She said her interest in homelessness related to her late husband’s belief that musicians, unless they made it big, were always living on the edge.
“Homelessness was something my father personally was very concerned about,” noted Roy Kelton Orbison Jr., 20, who attended with his brother Alex, 15. “This is a way my mom keeps an involvement with my father’s name.” Barbara Orbison produced last year’s Roy Orbison Tribute Concert to Benefit the Homeless at the Universal Amphitheatre.
The event at the Biltmore Hotel was the Partnership’s first bona fide fund-raiser, netting about $70,000. Dinner costs were underwritten by the hotel.
Among those attending were Andy Raubeson of SRO Housing Corp.; Molly Lowery, head of Los Angles Men’s Place; Virgin Records executives Jordan Harris and Jeff Ayeroff (Roy Orbison’s recording label); Steven Tisch, who is producing a film on Orbison’s life, and Jeff Lynne of the Traveling Wilburys band.
Receiving special honors for their efforts on behalf of the homeless were Comic Relief’s Bob Zmuda, HBO’s Chris Albrecht, the Gillette Company’s Cameron Beers and Charles A. Lynch of Kimberly-Clark Corp.
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c9931e2e9abfabf6e3643ac8688b8847 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2687-story.html | IN BRIEF : Social Service Group Names Co-Presidents | IN BRIEF : Social Service Group Names Co-Presidents
Dan Enright and Susan Stafford were recently named co-presidents of Chai Circle, the primary fund-raising group for West Coast Chabad, which operates a statewide social service and education network.
Enright is president and chief executive officer of Barry & Enright Productions.
Stafford is vice president of public relations for Barry & Enright and been a counselor for the Chabad homeless program.
Funds raised in 1991 will be earmarked primarily for renovation of a homeless center, for the senior and immigrant programs and for expansion of services for female drug addicts, the officers said.
For more information about the group, which is seeking new members, call (213) 208-7511.
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e92635b8d3a4277571b57769dc8734b4 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2785-story.html | A Flood of Interest in Reading Meters : Drought: The impending water cutbacks are spurring many customers into checking their home use, the DWP says. But with all those confusing little dials, it’s a task easier thought about than done. | A Flood of Interest in Reading Meters : Drought: The impending water cutbacks are spurring many customers into checking their home use, the DWP says. But with all those confusing little dials, it’s a task easier thought about than done.
Has the drought made you think about checking your own water meter to monitor household use?
Think again.
“It’s a little bit complicated,” warns Judy C. Clark, field training coordinator for the Department of Water & Power. She was one of seven DWP staffers who gathered last week at the department’s West Los Angeles office to help explain how to read a water meter. Others included three field trainers (experienced water-meter readers), two executives and a public relations representative.
Interest in reading water meters is raging among DWP’s 650,000 customers. With the city’s tough water cutbacks going into effect Friday, calls are flooding the DWP Hotline, (800) 722-1122 or (213) 481-5800.
“There is a mood of desperation,” says one hot line spokesman. “Customers who never even looked at their water bills now want to know everything--how they can monitor water use, how they can cut back, how they can read the meter.”
Explain meter-reading on the telephone?
Not likely.
Visitors at last week’s briefing discovered quickly that water meters are not user-friendly. Assembled on the table were assorted sample meters with faces that looked like defiant clocks. They had six little dials, each numbered from 0 to 9, each with a single pointer hand. The dials measure cubic feet and range in values from one to 100,000.
So this is what a residential water meter looks like?
Not always. This is not a world of absolutes.
Some models have more dials; meters range from six to 10 dials, explains field trainer David Calderon: “Even residential water meters are not all alike. . . . It depends on the size of the service and the meter manufacturer. The brands and styles change over the years.”
Not to mention, of course, “Speedo.” That’s the nickname for a new meter that looks like an odometer. It simplifies reading by displaying current water usage in a digital readout. Meter readers, Clark says, love it.
But most residential meters are still the six-dial model.
And the first chore for the home reader is to find it. Unlike the electricity meter, which perches on the side of the house, most water meters are buried somewhere, located where the residential line is hooked into the DWP system. They are housed in a plastic or concrete box. Their lids are flush with the ground.
Is the meter always buried in the same place? A collective DWP laugh.
Normally, says field trainer Tamiko Y. Henry, the residential meter is located in the parkway strip between a curb and sidewalk. “But, say we can’t locate it on that; we look for other likely places.”
This might be a patch in the street, a letter T etched in the concrete or any grassy area. If the house is sitting on a hill, the meter might be located far below, on another street. Sometimes it is in an alley. Sometimes a car is parked over it. If you can’t find the meter, ask DWP for directions ((800) DIAL DWP).
And it helps if you are strong, agile and have good vision, say field trainers, adding a check-list of cautions:
* Be careful. The dark, damp home of the water meter is much favored by black widow spiders, gophers and snakes. Perhaps you will want to open the lid with a stick, says Clark. “We often use a meter hook.”
* After that lid, you have to open the hinged dust-cap, which must be replaced after the reading.
* The outside lid, which may be heavy iron or metal, also must be replaced and may be difficult to relock into place.
Now the actual home meter reading can begin.
“You have to concentrate,” cautioned Calderon, spelling out the sequence:
Ignore the three dials whose hands measure 1, 10 and 100 cubic feet. These are test hands. The others, which begin with the 1,000 cubic-foot-value dial, are billing hands. The test hands may be in black with the billing hands in red, but that is not always the case because of an aging factor. Sometimes the paint has peeled off or the red has faded.
Looking at the billing hands, you read, and record, from right to left. Think of it as doing everything backward.
From each dial, write down the number the billing hand is directly on or has last passed. At this point you will probably notice, as you are reading circles from right to left, that the numbers within the circles (0 to 9) are arranged in alternating clockwise and counterclockwise sequence. Just accept this fact.
If you write the numbers from right to left, the result is your meter reading. But it has to be translated. Residential water use is measured in hundred cubic feet (HCF) units. (Why isn’t water use measured in gallons? “Because we’ve historically had meters that measure in cubic feet,” replied a spokesman for DWP’s Water Operating Section.)
Each HCF unit is the equivalent of 748 gallons of water. So if you read the meter correctly and the number is 276, that translates as 206,448 gallons of water.
But that too is meaningless alone. To get a comparison, wait two months and read the meter again. Perhaps it reads 312. That means over your two-month billing period, your household used 36 HCFs (by subtracting 276 from 312) or 26,928 gallons during a 60-day period. That’s 449 gallons a day.
By now, the realization that you can get the same figure just by looking at the lower right-hand corner of your bimonthly water bill may be very comforting. And the do-it-yourselfer begins to appreciate the four-week training required of a DWP meter reader.
“They do have a difficult job,” says Charles E. Bernard, DWP commercial division manager. “You really can’t just look at the meter and know what is happening. It requires some guidance. These people read an average of 452 meters a day, and their accuracy rate is 0.5 errors per 1,000 meters read, or one error per 2,000 meters. That’s phenomenal.”
Nevertheless, DWP meter readers are often accused of making mistakes, he says, which might be traced to leaky home plumbing. Often it means that customers don’t have any idea how much water they use.
For these reasons, DWP encourages residential meter-reading, despite its pitfalls. “In a drought situation, it can be a valuable tool,” says F. Rennie Powell, DWP assistant commercial director. “It gives you the ability to monitor household water use by the week.”
But despite DWP’s official encouragement, the field trainers acknowledged that the chore is not for the faint-hearted.
“Lots of customers ask me to show them how,” said trainer Arleen Bowles as the briefing broke up. “But after I start to explain, they interrupt and say, ‘Well, never mind. Maybe you can just show me how to cut the water off in case of an earthquake, instead. . . .’ ”
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eb91b6b8099aafb8fae167787805bb8d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2786-story.html | A Group Portrait : Photographer’s Quest to Document Black Life Takes Him to Mexico | A Group Portrait : Photographer’s Quest to Document Black Life Takes Him to Mexico
It’s definitely a schizoid existence:
In the morning, photographer Tony Gleaton leaves Los Angeles, sleek with power eateries, designer clothes and Mercedes-Benzes.
Several hours later, he is in the dusty, remote little villages of the Costa Chica in southeastern Mexico, where the locals provide his meals; designer clothes are not high on anybody’s priority list and horsepower is just that.
“Sometimes it’s a wonder I don’t go crazy, jumping between . . . two places as different as they are. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I have to remember where I am,” says Gleaton, 43, who seems like Dorothy in reverse, running away from the Emerald City.
But places with lifestyles like the Costa Chica’s fuel Gleaton’s search for what he calls “the other"--a people and a way of life that are, at best, on the margins of the mainstream.
This fascination has led him to the American West to photograph black cowboys and through Central and South America to capture the lives of Indian cowboys. And for the last five years it has taken him to a swath of Mexican villages three hours south of Acapulco to make portraits of black Mexicans.
“Most Angelenos--black or white--don’t think about black Mexicans, although there are many, many people in Mexico who can count an African strain in their heritage,” Gleaton says. “There has been an African presence in Mexico since Medieval times; it’s just not talked about much.”
Gleaton’s regular sojourns to Costa Chica have earned him a place in the villages. The formidable man--6 feet, 4 inches and nearly 300 pounds--usually attracts a pint-sized welcoming committee of barefoot children who dog his steps until he leaves. Villagers generously dip into their meager supplies to prepare meals for him, and a local priest puts up Gleaton, who carries “cameras and some film and not much else.”
People willingly sit for pictures, but Gleaton has given up trying to explain exactly why he wants to take them.
“If I tell them that I want to take their photographs because I’m black and I want to document them as black people, they laugh. They look at my skin and hair and eyes, and they treat me as if I’m mildly crazed,” says Gleaton, who is fair-skinned, with light brown hair and blue eyes.
“ ‘You’re not black, ' they’ll tell me. I’ve stopped trying to argue about it, because in Mexico, black is a relative term. And it’s pejorative. So if I’m identifying myself as black, and I’m paler than they are . . . well, it can be a very sensitive point. So out of deference, I leave it alone now.”
But his desire to explore every nuance of African influence on the Americas is unshakable.
“In many ways, Mexico today is where the United States was in the ‘30s or ‘40s, as far as recognition and treatment of black people go,” he says. “If you ask these Mexicans, point-blank, if they’re black, the answer will be a vehement denial. That particular self-hatred is part of the legacy of colonialism, the alignment with Iberian or even Indian blood rather than African genes.”
Part of that reluctance, Gleaton guesses, is because “there’s not the same kind of Afrocentric consciousness we have developed here in the U.S.; they haven’t had a black power movement. They’re living now the way black sharecroppers in the South lived a few decades ago, so there is a link between us and them, even though we’re from different countries.”
The rapidly growing African-American interest in the African diaspora prompted John Outterbridge, director of the Watts Towers Art Center, to exhibit Gleaton’s photos. “Black Mexico: The African Legacy” runs through March 9.
Watts’ racial makeup is rapidly changing from predominately black to mostly Latino. “ ‘Black Mexico’ ” was a way, Outterbridge says, to highlight common bonds between the two communities.
“Sometimes, we (black people) tend to focus on our immediate community to the exclusion of others. We wanted to show that there are black people everywhere .
“This exhibit has attracted some people who wouldn’t normally wander in here and has generated some useful discussion.”
Outterbridge notes that blacks, Mexicans and mestizos (persons of mixed blood) helped to establish the Pueblo de la Reina de los Angeles. Pictures of Pio Pico, the last governor of Alta California, show a man with distinctly African features.
“So we have both contributed to the richness of this city, this community, for centuries, before there even was an official America. And because it connects the two countries and their cultures, Tony Gleaton’s work is an important page in the journal of this city’s historical evolution.”
The show is a series of haunting images; many seem strongly influenced by the late Manuel Alvarez Bravo, one of Mexico’s greatest photographers. And most are infused with a dream-like quality, a preternatural stillness that comes, Gleaton says, from the land itself. His spontaneous description is wistful and elegiac:
“Down there, if you want to go to market, you have to get up very early in the morning--3 or 4 o’clock--to catch the bus. At that hour, there’s this sweet wetness, and there’s thunder in the sky, and you’re riding in a truck with these people who are kind of half-awake but holding on, precariously. . . . There’s nothing you can compare it to here.”
Gleaton also reflects Mexicans’ practical philosophy that death is an inescapable part of life: Many of the 40 photographs in the exhibit center on themes of death and loss.
“In the United States,” Gleaton observes, “we reject death. In Mexico, you’re confronted with death, or the concept of it, all the time.”
Rather than being briefly mourned and forgotten, he says, the dead in Mexico “are welcomed as an ongoing part of the family.” Many of his photographs allude to the dead, who are remembered and honored in posthumous ceremonies.
As his pictures become better known, Gleaton worries about protecting the quiet and sense of community the villages now enjoy.
“These little towns are hard to get to, hard to stay in and hard to live in,” says Gleaton, who visits a few times a year and stays for at least a month.
Chronicling the bare-bones lifestyle of Mexican villagers is quite a stretch from Gleaton’s early professional life as a fashion photographer. In New York, during the heyday of the hedonistic late-1970s, his work centered on the chic and the au courant.
“I used to live and die between the pages of British Vogue,” he recalls, rolling his eyes in embarrassment. And although his current subjects differ vastly from the models and socialites he once photographed, the dignity and formality of his impoverished villagers is as great as that of any grande dame.
“I always wanted to do beauty pictures of black folks. Whites have always had their Reniors and their Matisses, and I got tired of going to see someone else make their culture look beautiful. What I do is make my own culture look beautiful,” Gleaton says, “and in doing that, I become more beautiful myself. To me, these are beautiful pictures of beautiful people who are black.”
Gleaton’s next quest for “the other” will probably lead him to the rural South in the next few months. And he would like to begin to record urban life.
He is, however, keenly aware that people in these places may not be as accommodating as his subjects have been to date.
“One day I’m going to die doing this,” he predicts calmly. “Really, I’ve been too lucky for too long.”
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1bf13a8d89ca8d32b4d4e71f781541e6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2787-story.html | Pizza Pig-Out | Pizza Pig-Out
Andy McIntyre has been in serious training for Sunday’s big event for two weeks.
“I joined a gym,” says the 27-year-old Pasadena caterer. He’s been puffing away on the stair-climbing machine and lifting weights. And despite his on-the-job temptations, he’s paying strict attention to diet, trying to avoid fats altogether.
Early on Sunday, he will slip into comfortable clothes and head to the Pasadena Convention Center.
While 20,000 runners sweat out the 26.2-mile course of the Los Angeles Marathon, McIntyre will be tackling a race with a different flavor at the annual Pizza Expo. He will try to better his own “personal best” record, which was set last year at 16 pieces of pizza in just four hours.
“Pepperoni, I followed with Bud; the other slices I washed down with Perrier,” says McIntyre, explaining the secret of his success. He’s hoping his pre-Expo workouts will help undo Sunday’s caloric damage.
About 2,000 other pizza lovers are expected at this year’s Expo, says Peter Dills, a Pasadena event producer who founded it. Last year’s event drew about 1,400. Dills expects pizza consumption to top last year’s total of about 12,000 slices.
About 25 restaurants--most from the Pasadena area--will set up booths, displaying their best pizza offerings, which will be cooked on the premises in giant pizza ovens.
“There will be spicy Malaysian pizza, a granny apple pizza, a Southwestern style with turkey chorizo, and Crocodile Cafe’s bacon, lettuce and tomato pizza,” Dills says. “Where else but in California can you actually sample over 50 different kinds of pizza all in one day? . . . So don’t ask for a hamburger. You won’t get it here! This is a pizza lover’s dream.”
Throughout the day, the Andy Cowan Quintet will play music to eat by. “They do Frank Sinatra-type tunes, spaghetti-in-your-face kind of music,” Dills says.
It’s a day, pizza veterans say, to come in your jeans, the very loosest ones you own, or other comfortable duds for pigging out. A day to forget that the average slice of pizza--sans greasy toppings--has 300 calories. A day to ignore the fact that to work off that single piece of pizza, a 150-pound person would have to jog for 15 minutes, walk one hour or sit still for nearly four hours.
Pizza pros can also dilute their guilt over gastronomic excess with altruism. Proceeds from the Expo go to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Pasadena, which provides after-school and summer camping activities for about 7,000 children and adolescents, most ages 6 to 17. Restaurant owners will donate their pizza makings and pay a $50 entry fee.
Altruistic or not, plain cheese pizza types and those with dainty appetites are probably better left home. Consider the two pizza creations that Chipper Pastron, co-owner of the Market City Caffe will bring: a breakfast pizza and spinach pizza.
“The breakfast pizza has Italian cream cheese, sliced apples, toasted almonds and cinnamon sugar,” he says. The fresh spinach pizza, which also has fresh mushrooms, sounds deceivingly low-calorie. Until you hear that Pastron liberally sprinkles pine nuts and ricotta, Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses around the vegetables.
Besides his two famous pizzas, Pastron will tote along the fiberglass Holstein cow that usually stands in the window of his Fair Oaks Avenue restaurant.
The nameless cow, he says, seems to be back in the good graces of the Pasadena police, who ticketed the Holstein two years ago for obstructing the sidewalk. Pastron had nudged the cow outside to attract the eye of potential diners. (“Taped that ticket right on the cow’s nose,” Pastron recalls in disbelief.)
Dills, a former Boys and Girls Clubs member, initially proposed the idea for the Expo to Bob Monk, executive director of the clubs. Although reluctant at first, Monk took the gamble--and hasn’t been sorry. Last year, the Expo turned over $11,000 in proceeds to the clubs.
Monk will roll up his sleeves Sunday and keep watch over a pizza oven. Earlier this week, his appetite for pizza was already beyond the simmer stage--and for good reason: He had joined a strict weight-loss program that requires dieters to eat pre-packaged food.
“I hope to lose 60 pounds,” Monk says with a sigh. “But I am giving myself the day off on Sunday.”
FACTS ABOUT PIZZA
* Pizza got its start in prehistoric times when bread was cooked on hot stones.
* The modern cheese-and-tomato pizza was probably born in 1889 when an Italian tavern owner developed a pie with ingredients the colors (red, white and green) of the Italian flag--tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil.
* Pizza came to the United States when Italian immigrants brought it to New York and Chicago.
* Americans eat 90 acres of pizza a day.
* Kids age 3 to 11 prefer pizza over other foods for lunch and dinner, according to a recent Gallup Poll.
* Pepperoni is the most popular topping, followed by--in no particular order--mushrooms, extra cheese, green pepper and onion. The trendiest toppings are oysters, chicken, crayfish, dandelions, sprouts, Cajun shrimp and artichoke hearts.
* Creative pizza makers have tried a variety of other toppings, including mashed potatoes, jelly, bacon and eggs, and peanut butter.
* Traveling pizza eaters should expect to find exotic toppings abroad. In Japan, for instance, look for squid topping; in Australia, shrimp and pineapple; in Pakistan, curry, and red herring in the Soviet Union.
* About one in 10 restaurants is a pizzeria.
* October is National Pizza Month.
Source: National Assn. of Pizza Operators and its publication, Pizza Today. Pizza fiends can exercise their jaws from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the fourth annual Pizza Expo at the Pasadena Convention Center, 300 E. Green St. Tickets are $10 advance and $12.50 for procrastinators at the door. Cost includes all the pizza you can eat. Drinks are extra. For more information , call (818) 449-1953.
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051cea137e94281bdcfae573613ec41c | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2985-story.html | Trying to Get the Drop on Water Wasters | Trying to Get the Drop on Water Wasters
Reporting from the front lines can be tough. You never know just what to expect. Incoming, outgoing, odd, even, who can tell?
Whatever happens, you just hope it doesn’t hurt.
“If they start to take a swing, you go first,” Ernie Venegas tells me.
Oh, that Ernie. Always making jokes. Ernie knows this is my first time out. He probably thinks I’m a wimp.
Maybe it’s the high heels, with the coordinating purse.
We board the official vehicle. Ernie opens the door for me, a gentleman even in times such as these.
“Some people, they still don’t believe this is real,” Ernie says. “Like the guys where I live in Irwindale, the guys I grew up with, they say this is probably a plot to boost up the water bill. You know, like the oil companies.”
Ernie Venegas, of course, tells them this is not so. He is the senior water service man in La Habra, on the front lines of the drought.
But it’s all out there, Ernie says: the skeptical, the ignorant, the stupid.
Not to mention The Very Very Hostile.
“The meter readers, they’re the ones who really come back with the stories,” Ernie says. “Guy says he’s paying for it, so he can use it any way he wants. This is a bad attitude.”
Ernie and I are going to see for ourselves. The official vehicle is now bounding out of the parking lot.
The water types in La Habra, they’ve been checking up on the citizenry quite a bit lately, ever since the city went to so-called Stage 2, which would be your mandatory compliance water alert.
So far, they’ve just been issuing your so-called “verbals,” which would be telling the perpetrator to knock it off. If that doesn’t work, you go to citations, then to installing a flow-restricting device, then to cutting off the water altogether.
If none of that works, the water guys start writing your name and water account number on the walls of bus terminal restrooms throughout the drought-stricken western region.
Hahaha. Just a little water humor there.
Ernie and I are now making a right turn into La Habra’s North Hills development, on the lookout for scofflaws of all makes and models.
Clue to La Habra residents: It is 1:10 p.m. on Feb. 26.
Right! An even day!
This means that those of you with even-numbered addresses may turn on your sprinklers, wash your car and refill your pool (or artificial lake).
Not, however, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Except for the car, that is. Or the pool, or the spa, or the pond, or the artificial lake. Those you’ve got to get out of the way before 6 a.m.
So this is easy, right? 1:10 p.m. is dry time, odd and even. Days, that is. And addresses.
So far, looks good and dry in North Hills. Lots of American flags flapping in the gentle breeze. I note, however, that one house still has its Christmas lights up.
Clue to La Habra resident: See above clue. Easter is just around the corner.
Then Ernie spots it.
“They’re irrigating,” he says, pulling the official vehicle to a stop at the curb.
I silently marvel at this man’s professionalism. We are about to engage the enemy, and he’s as cool as they come.
As I disembark from the official vehicle I notice that the passenger door is painted with the likeness of a very friendly water drop man holding a glass of--and I’m just guessing here--water!
“Water at Your Service,” reads the motto under the water drop man. “Conserve!”
It is hard to believe that The Very Very Hostile could stay that way for long when they see the face of the friendly water drop man. But then again, you never know. It takes all kinds here in La Habra.
Ernie and I walk to the front door, but before we reach it: Surprise! The sprinklers shut off. This diversionary tactic does not fool us, however. We proceed.
A pleasant-looking blond woman answers the door. I hang back. I see that Ernie is handling the situation.
Did I mention that Ernie is a bodybuilder? Well, he is. And the tattoo. Let me mention right here that Ernie has a lovely rose tattoo with his nickname, Che, on his left, very muscled arm.
Ernie has an authoritative presence, especially for a senior water service man.
The pleasant-looking blond woman is smiling, slightly. Then she says she doesn’t know anything about La Habra’s mandatory water conservation plan. Then she adds that her husband said he had heard of some rule, except that he didn’t know what it was. Then she wants to know about this odd and even business. Then she says she’s sorry and she’ll do better next time.
Ernie and I leave. As we walk down the driveway, Ernie tells me that he thinks the pleasant-looking woman was lying. Ernie!
But what are you going to do?
“It’s kind of too hard to jump on them now,” Ernie says. “Especially since the city hasn’t sent out the official notices. Plus, if we say one thing really definitive now, then the city changes it, it makes us look like we don’t know what we’re doing, and we don’t need that kind of image.”
No sir.
Ernie and I keep driving, spotting another sprinkler violator right away. The lady of the house is apologetic.
“Oh, my husband forgot,” she says. “Yes, I know. You are right. I told my husband the other day, ‘You have to change those timers!’ ”
Ernie offers to look at her timer, but it is not the Lawn Genie that he is familiar with. The lady of the house suggests that maybe City Hall could change the regulations to accommodate her particular type of lawn timer.
Ernie and I keep going. He spies a resident emptying a swimming pool. Perfectly legal. Just can’t fill it up until Friday.
We change neighborhoods.
“No action,” Ernie says. “Water is pretty boring, huh?”
But, then, wait. I spot it. Yes! Anothe r house with Christmas lights! This is about No. 7.
Then we find a guy who hosed off some oil in his driveway. “It was just a quickie deal,” he says.
Then we see Richard, the landscaping guy, who says he was turning on the sprinklers at the request of the owner. “I thought this was Brea,” Richard says.
Another gardener, hosing off the sidewalk on another street, asks for an exception, just this once.
“I don’t use water,” he says. “I use el blower .”
Ernie and I are now heading back to base. We’ve seen a lot.
“All these people made a liar out of me,” Ernie says. “Not one mean person!”
“Ah, Ernie,” I say. “That’s all right.”
Then something catches Ernie’s well-trained eye.
“Look!” he says. I turn abruptly, expecting, say, a church-sponsored carwash that we could really throw the book at.
“There’s another one, right there, No. 710,” Ernie says. “Christmas lights! In La Habra, it’s Christmas all year round.”
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c36befa170add1df6eca95c70426e001 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2987-story.html | Psychic Bond Featured in Suspense Novel | Psychic Bond Featured in Suspense Novel
“Something’s Calling Me Home,” Mission Viejo author Maxine O’Callaghan’s third suspense/horror novel, has just been published by Pocket Books.
O’Callaghan set the book in the area of western Tennessee, southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas where she grew up.
The story, as O’Callaghan explains it, deals with two very young children who form a psychic bonding, then are separated and grow up knowing nothing of each other.
Years later something very traumatic happens to one of them, the link gets re-established, and one of the children psychically “calls” to the other for help.
O’Callaghan won’t reveal much about the plot but, as she said in her first-person article in Mystery Scene magazine in January, “it includes storm cellars, snakes, one of those tacky tourist-trap alligator farms sans alligator, and the deep, dark, terrible Mississippi itself.”
Also just out in paperback is O’Callaghan’s “Hit and Run,” which originally was published in 1989 by St. Martin’s Press in hardcover.
This is the third in O’Callaghan’s series featuring Orange County private investigator Delilah West. The fourth, “Set-Up,” is due out in November.
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822b658a4a52d1183f3c62d95370fe93 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2988-story.html | High Life A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : The Show Must Go On : Irvine High Students Band Together to Keep El Camino’s Musical Alive | High Life A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : The Show Must Go On : Irvine High Students Band Together to Keep El Camino’s Musical Alive
Most high school students have their sights set firmly on the future, with college and a career ahead of them. But a handful of students from Irvine High School are taking time to remember the past.
El Camino Real Elementary School in Irvine, which has put on an annual spring musical for many years, was faced with the prospect of no musical this year because of cuts in the school’s budget.
Principal Gene Bedley sent flyers home to parents last fall, asking them to think about ways to keep the tradition alive.
When Fran Antenore, mother of El Camino Real fifth-grader Jeff and third-grader Robert, received the news in October, she began formulating a plan to save the musical.
“I knew I could organize it, but I didn’t have the drama expertise to do it myself,” said Antenore, who turned to the students at Irvine High, where she teaches math.
Antenore introduced the project to members of her teacher advisement group, sophomores who meet with her daily for 20 minutes, and to other students she thought might be interested.
The high school students held brainstorming sessions for three days to come up with a theme for the musical, which they titled “The Show Must Go On.”
“Since I like to write, we decided that I’d write something and we’d all make corrections,” said sophomore Kara Platoni, one of the musical’s co-directors.
“I wrote a play in junior high,” she said, “but this is actually the first play I had to seriously write and really seriously have it performed.”
The plot of “The Show Must Go On” is similar to El Camino Real’s crisis. The story is about a down-and-out theater that’s about to fold because it hasn’t been able to put on a successful production.
Each teen-ager had his or her own reason for helping out.
“I’ve been involved in performing arts since about fifth grade and this is really my first directing experience,” said sophomore Jackie Rubin, another co-director. “And I really love working with kids.”
In December, the Irvine students held three after-school workshops for El Camino Real’s fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students.
The teen-agers led small groups of children through song, dance and acting lessons before their auditions, which lasted another three days.
“Our main goal was that everyone who auditioned would get a part,” said Platoni, adding that 64 “very rambunctious, feisty kids” showed up for the tryouts.
Rehearsals were held twice a week all January and February for about an hour after school, and a number of the children got together on their own during recesses and after school. During the past two weeks, the schedule has increased to three times a week.
“At the end of each rehearsal, we just gather around all the kids in what we call the Circle of Energy,” Antenore said. “We choose one person to squeeze the hand of the person he or she is next to, and when it gets all the way around, we just all cheer. It’s a positive note to end all the rehearsals.”
Creed Poulson, a sixth-grader, plays one of the stage managers in the musical. “I like the last scene where all the main characters are sitting around and they’re depressed because they are going to lose the theater,” he said. “I like it because I get to sing a song that expresses how much I enjoy acting and singing.”
The high school student volunteers are sophomores Bobby Borning and Kerry Kick, who are helping with the choreography; Rubin, sophomore Ken Rolston and senior Malinee Churanakoses, who head the singing; Platoni and sophomore Heidi Radebaugh, who supervise the acting; sophomore Geoff Flint, who designed the programs and cast T-shirts, and sophomores Carri Brucker, Jennifer Lehman, Jenny Hamilton, Amy Mendonca and Meghvi Maheta, who are handling a variety of tasks.
“High school students get a bad rap,” Bedley said. “You give them an opportunity to reach out and help other kids and you get excellent results. I think it’s a mutual payoff for everybody.”
El Camino Real parents helped with set and prop designs, costumes, music and supervision; the school’s PTA donated $500.
“The Show Must Go On” will be presented March 5 through 7 at 7 p.m. at El Camino Real Elementary School, 4782 Karen Ann Lane, Irvine. Admission is $2 for adults, $1 for students.
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4014dcac6157ea4c6e607ea78896618b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-2989-story.html | Philharmonic Society Goes to the Heights | Philharmonic Society Goes to the Heights
No one can say the Orange County Philharmonic Society doesn’t get down.
Members just have to climb up to do it.
Society donors and board members gathered on the roof at Ruby’s in Balboa on Tuesday to gobble burgers and sip Coke floats. It was time for Erich Vollmer to announce the new season, and he wanted to do it California-classic casual.
Guests such as society president Bob Searles and Philharmonic board member Bobbitt Williams were greeted by a suave looking “Tchaikovsky” (good sport Dick Montgomery, vice commodore of Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club). “The music of Tchaikovsky will be featured during our special, preseason festival,” explained Vollmer, executive director of the Philharmonic.
The “California Classics” season, which begins Oct. 2, will feature 39 concerts and recitals, making it the society’s largest ever. (See today’s Calendar section for a complete listing.)
Williams downed her beach burger sans onions and sipped her Coke to the last drop. “I love floats,” she said. “I used to drink them all the time when I was a kid.”
The Huntington Harbour resident will chair the Philharmonic’s annual fashion show Nov. 15. “Tomorrow is my first committee meeting,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”
Also on the Philharmonic’s agenda is an appearance by concert pianists Katia and Marielle Labeque. The sisters will appear at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on March 8. Exciting news for Philharmonic donors: Vollmer is planning a post-concert dinner for donors and the musicians at the Center Club. “We sent them an invitation via their management,” Vollmer said. No reply yet.
Also, word’s out on who will be honored at the Philharmonic’s elegant Golden Baton Gala, set for June 1 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach: The James Irvine Foundation will receive the coveted nod. Magician Harry Blackstone will entertain.
Speaking of Awards: Irvine Co. Vice Chairman Thomas Nielsen received the Man of the Year Award from the Cypress College Foundation during a dinner at the Disneyland Hotel on Saturday night. Also honored by the college for their dedication to the Orange County community were Arthur Gray of Anaheim, Kenneth Jones of Buena Park, Jaunetta Strohmyer of Cypress, Jerry Margolin of Garden Grove, Duane Schuster of La Palma, John and Anita Spinell of Los Alamitos and David Shawver of Stanton.
When’s a winner a loser? When party planners have to say “don’t pass go” and that means “stay home.” “Monopoly,” the gourmet gala set for March 2 at Crystal Court in South Coast Plaza, was going to be a party concept so new that people would ache to come.
Food stations would be located at Monopoly-themed venues, and Pennington would cater to the hilt. It wasn’t enough. Demand for the gala’s $100 per-person tickets was so light, planners had to cancel.
“About 350 people signed up, but (that) wasn’t enough,” said Skip Villerot, one of the gala’s erstwhile developers. “We didn’t want to play to a half-full room.”
Villerot blamed the lack of enthusiasm on the sluggish economy and the Persian Gulf War. “It’s hard to get in a party mood when there are such huge world concerns,” he said.
The bash, which was to be staged by the Cabaret chapter of the Guilds of Orange County, has a reputation for being a singles’ paradise. In the past, up to 1,200 party-goers have attended.
There’s hope. “We plan to toss a big event when our troops come home in the spring,” Villerot said. “Then the world will be a happy place. . . .”
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eefb756e075773c3819f68a33edd1508 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-3041-story.html | Life After Peach Stucco : Design: A pair of small retailing centers in Kearny Mesa offer hope that the pseudo-Mediterranean era may be ending. | Life After Peach Stucco : Design: A pair of small retailing centers in Kearny Mesa offer hope that the pseudo-Mediterranean era may be ending.
Sometime during the San Diego construction boom of the 1980s, when interest rates were low and demand for space was high, good architecture lost out to hastily designed, rapidly built projects.
Often, these buildings were insensitive to their contexts and had little to offer their users in the way of interesting forms and spaces or solid craftsmanship.
This trend was especially apparent among small retailing projects that met the growing demand for services in both residential and commercial neighborhoods. From Chula Vista to Oceanside, San Diego to El Cajon, cheap-looking, peach-colored pseudo-Mediterranean strip centers became the norm.
Happily, there are signs that at least some developers are ready to try something new.
Two retailing centers in the Kearny Mesa area--one 2 years old, the other opening in March--are the results of developers’ spending money to hire competent architects, then letting the architects go to work.
These exemplary centers come from opposite ends of the design spectrum.
The Daley Square Shopping Center on Aero Drive just west of Interstate 15, designed by San Diego architect C.W. Kim, uses grayish cedar siding, laminated wood beams, raw concrete and a low profile to blend with its scrubby San Diego site in an admirable fashion that harks back to the “organic” ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright.
If the Daley project is organic architecture for the 1990s, the McGrath Court Retail Center on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard just east of Interstate 805 is on the cutting edge. Architects from SGPA Architecture and Planning in San Diego used bold, colliding forms and voids in the style that has come to be known as Deconstructivist to create a center with a delightful, sculptural energy.
For developer Laurie McGrath, the retail project, part of a development which will eventually be joined by one million square feet of adjacent office and light industrial space and a 300-room hotel, is a chance to make a statement in the name of her family, which has owned the property for 40 years. Her father, an excavating contractor, originally bought the land for the topsoil.
McGrath opened her development company in 1988 to develop the property. When she looked around Kearny Mesa, she decided some different architecture was in order.
“We wanted something that was fresh. This is the gateway to Kearny Mesa,” McGrath said. “Most of the projects around us are older, from the 1960s and 1970s. We departed from them for a fresh new look.”
Because the architecture of neighboring office buildings, strip centers, fast food outlets and auto dealerships is so mediocre, architects from SGPA had no solid precedent to adhere to. They were free to push their design into a new zone.
The retail center, scheduled to open next month, will be the colorful centerpiece of McGrath’s project--highly visible and more progressive in design than the other buildings.
Consisting of three one- and two-story buildings containing 42,000 square feet of space, the center is made of stucco boxes overlaid by space frames, grids and giant fins that look like overblown vestiges of 1930s Deco.
The sculptural forms of McGrath Court, although not always structural in their purposes, do not seem superfluous. The stucco buildings, rendered in industrial rust, white, gray, mauve and steel blue, hang together as attractive, balanced compositions. The architects have joined building elements at angles other than 90 degrees just often enough to make things interesting.
Deconstructivist architecture as a categorical style began in 1988 with a show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The show was organized by veteran architect Philip Johnson, the same one who had launched the Modernist era in American architecture with a show at the museum in 1932.
The Deconstructivist movement grew out of abstract theories of literary criticism. Both critics and fans of the movement, embodied in the work of architects such as New Yorker Peter Eisenman, Coop Himmelblau and Zaha Hadid, got so caught up in the jargon that practical implications were frequently obscured.
Now the positive implications of the movement are apparent in SGPA’s small project, a sign that San Diego architecture in the 1990s may find ways to move beyond sterile derivations of Modernist architecture and cluttered, superficial versions of historicist Postmodernism.
Presenting an optimistic note of a different kind is Kim’s 2-year-old gem.
The design of this 33,000-square-foot retail center is unassuming and sensitive to the site, and the buildings are finely crafted. Some developers argue that good design and quality construction are functions of budgets. Although they generally don’t say as much, what they really mean is that they are obligated to cut corners to turn profits.
This is poppycock, according to Kim. The Daley project, built by a partnership headed by San Diego developer Neal Hooberman, cost $34 a square foot, similar to the $35- to $40-a-foot price of a stucco, pseudo-Med strip center. The McGrath project also came in at roughly the same price.
Kim’s design serves as a gateway to the business park behind it, also designed by Kim. The retail center’s aura of quality and strong design help lure office space tenants, Kim explained.
Laminated wood beams, copper-toned metal roofs and cedar siding give the project a solid richness. Three wood space-frame pyramids rise above the flat roofs to give the center a light, graceful identity.
Kim took great care in the use of materials. The project resembles a giant piece of custom wood furniture in the quality of its craftsmanship. Beams are neatly joined to other beams, fastened with large, visible bolts. Laminated beams are married to the tops of concrete columns with hefty wood fittings designed by Kim. Exposed in this way, the structural system serves as a strong design element, without need of frilly ornamentation.
Although these projects prove there are at least two retail developers concerned with good architecture, the vast majority still seem to place profits ahead of design.
“How many builders recognize good design?” Kim said. “Most people don’t appreciate it. This was my first shopping center, and I tried to make a better little strip. I think most people just want to put up projects and sell them. I would say they like to make money; the goals are always the same. But some clients want to have a better design. They are not satisfied with just a stucco strip center.”
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0a7c0b305ae25847803b7057cec3a162 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-3044-story.html | Budget Bookstores Flourish in County : Reading: Normal Heights, downtown San Diego and El Cajon experience boom in shops with used, out of print, rare and specialty books. | Budget Bookstores Flourish in County : Reading: Normal Heights, downtown San Diego and El Cajon experience boom in shops with used, out of print, rare and specialty books.
Looking for a good rainy day read? In search of a rare classic or specialty book? Or do you simply enjoy browsing through stacks of out-of-print and hard to find books?
Whatever your literary mission, your best bets for “one-stop shopping” within San Diego County will be one of three spots: Normal Heights, downtown San Diego or El Cajon.
This unlikely threesome represents the hot spots in a countywide bookstore boom. They are the largest clusters of used, out of print, rare and new specialty books for sale within the county.
Normal Heights, a central San Diego neighborhood, has eight bookstores along Adams Avenue between 32nd and 35th streets, with 220,000 to 230,000 books for sale. Add to that the occasional trove of literary treasures you might discover in any of 2 dozen antique shops in Normal Heights.
Downtown San Diego has seven such bookstores, including four within a block of 7th Avenue and Broadway. At 726 Broadway is Wahrenbrock’s, said to be the largest new and used bookstore this side of Los Angeles with an estimated 300,000-book inventory.
Wahrenbrock’s, which opened in 1935, is truly a book hunter’s paradise, with three long, narrow floors jammed with books. Stacks of books are literally pressed into bookshelves. Stacks also line the stairway and many shelves contain double rows of books.
Large subject signs, however, ease the way through the maze of shelves, which feature an impressive variety of soft and hard-bound books. The third floor, often locked, contains rare books that date back to 1460, according to proprietor Chuck Valverde.
A half-block north of Wahrenbrock’s at the corner of 8th Avenue and Broadway, Bill Burgett, long-time owner of the Lemon Grove Bookstore, opened William Burgett Bookseller on Jan. 7. The two-level store has about 25,000 titles, with almost half the inventory in paperback. Some shelves were still being stocked last week.
Next door to Burgett is Smith & Co. Booksellers, a small, even more recently opened specialty bookstore. At 632 Broadway is the larger J & J Bookseller.
A block-and-half from J & J is Aardvark Books, 925 6th Ave. It is “more or less an egghead bookstore,” said owner Forrest Curo. “You won’t find any self-help or sports books here.”
If you are into the ancient Oriental game of Go, Aardvark features a large selection of Go books in its inventory of 45,000 books. In fact, a Go club meets there monthly.
In El Cajon, there are two large bookstores across from one another in the 100 block of East Main Street with a combined inventory of about 100,000 books: Valley Book Store and 50,000 Books. In October, Tom Chambers, owner-operator of 50,000 Books, tripled his floor space to 6,000 square feet. He is now utilizing only two-thirds of the space.
Rapid growth in the county’s used and specialty bookstore industry began in mid-1988. Today there are about 85 such bookstores countywide. At the same time, many of the existing shops have been expanding.
During the past three years, the chain stores that sell new books exclusively also opened new outlets throughout the county.
Those in the local used and specialty trade attribute much of their own growth to the retail prices of new books.
The average prices for new hardcover fiction and nonfiction are $21 and $25 respectively, up $6 to $7 from seven years ago, and most new paperbacks now retail for $5 to $7. Most used books--hard and soft--can be purchased for half the cost of their original price.
Local proprietors pointed to another economic factor to explain the local boom: the San Diego-area bookstores are considered a bargain to tourists and traveling book dealers when contrasted with Los Angeles.
“There are a lot of very fine used and antiquarian bookstores in Los Angeles, but they are also extremely expensive,” said Kim Smith, owner-operator of Smith & Co. which opened Monday and specializes in science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Smith referred to the local bookstore growth as a “phenomenon that has been taking place over the last two to three years.” She considered locating in Normal Heights, but decided there would be too much competition.
Ironically, Phyllis Brown, who moved her popular Grounds for Murder mystery bookstore last month to 3287 Adams Ave. in Normal Heights said the only specialty bookstore missing on Adams Avenue is a science-fiction shop.
Brown, who operated her bookstore for the 10 years in an upstairs, hard-to-find shop in Old Town, said she has had her eye on Normal Heights for 2 1/2 years.
She and husband Lewis Berger feel they now have the ideal location. The building gives them more space, reasonable rent and infinitely more visibility. Business has increased close to 50%, Brown reported.
Grounds for Murder, with its flashy storefront sign, is the highest profile bookstore on Adams Avenue. Neighboring merchants attribute increases in business to it.
In 1985, there were only two bookstores in Normal Heights. The scene changed after Robert Schrader opened the Normal Heights Bookstore (NHB) in 1986 at 3349 Adams Ave.
Schrader credits himself with being the catalyst for the creation of the Adams Avenue book row. He quickly saw the benefits of a book row, since he had witnessed the demise of bookstores isolated from other bookstores. “There were a few bookstores in El Cajon and a few in Hillcrest, but there really didn’t appear to be anyone intent on clustering--like others do with auto parks and antique shops.”
NHB, which has between 20,000 and 25,000 volumes, offers a wide variety of books. One recent shopper said Schrader “has the best selection of military history in the county.” Shrader, who has long offered customers an informal national book search service, has plans to link up by computer with a national network in March.
Schrader is quick to point out that his book row dream would not have materialized without Jack Hastings, who brought bookstore No. 4 to 3201 Adams Ave. In May 1988, Hastings opened The Prince and the Pauper, specializing exclusively in books for juveniles.
“It was Jack who really began to talk up the idea of a Book Row when he came here in 1988,” Schrader said.
After considerable study, Hastings, who has a marketing background, chose to locate in Normal Heights because it is centrally located, there were three other bookstores in the neighborhood, and the commercial and residential areas represented quite a bit of diversity.
“Normal Heights has a real small-town neighborhood feel,” Hastings said. His colorfully designed The Prince and the Pauper, is stocked with an estimated 50,000 used and antiquarian children’s hard-bound books. About 95% of his books are out of print, and he also carries about 1,000 new titles.
Last March, in what former San Diego State University chief librarian Louis Kenney termed a “very courageous” move, Ruben (Rube) Goldberg opened the expansive San Diego Book Mall.
The Mall, at 3401 Adams Ave., offers space to 20 independent dealers with a combined inventory of about 25,000 titles, according to Goldberg, who grew up in Normal Heights. “Half our business comes from our neighbors and East San Diego. We get a lot of business from San Diego State students and faculty. We also draw quite a bit from Los Angeles and Orange counties.” Because the Mall houses so many dealers, it is perhaps the best place on Book Row to purchase hard-to-find books, according to Schrader.
Jeff Bohanon of nearby Safari Books, 3311 Adams Ave., might take issue with that statement. With at least 60,000 books, this aptly named shop features the largest inventory along Book Row but is the least conveniently laid out. It is best suited to those who like to hunt for odd topics through nooks and crannies.
Although Safari doubled its retail floor space last June to 3,200-square feet, the place still is bulging at the seams, and Bohanon is searching for even more room. “I even have started putting books in my office,” he said
Bohanon says he carries all subjects, “from Art to Zebra. . . . I got guys coming in here from Vegas for pre-1920 erotica and dealers from as far as Boston for Bible reference books.”
Newest on the block in Normal Heights is Paradigm, a small shop featuring lesbian and women’s literature. Karen Merry, who opened Paradigm Feb. 9, moved her business to 3343 Adams Ave. from Kettner Boulevard and A Street.
In El Cajon, the Valley Book Store moved to a new location on East Main Street in February. Owner Cliff Clifford estimates his inventory of new, used and antiquarian books at 50,000. “I’ve got books that range from 1 week old to 100 years old,” he said.
A quick check of his bookshelves shows that the shop carries a wide variety of specialty subjects (soft- and hard-bound), including hunting, fishing, military history and Americana.
Across East Main Street at 50,000 Books, veteran bookseller Tom Chambers said his business has substantially picked up in the past year. “I’m selling over 4,000 books a month to people who come here from all over the county. . . . San Diego’s book market has been somewhat underrated for some time.”
Perhaps San Diego, once hard up for good supplies of good reading, has begun a new chapter.
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198cb4657980d4b98bd4f5f1aed0f893 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-3046-story.html | Parties Give Singles Something to Sing About : Entertainment: Many find harmonious relationships at the house gatherings--as well as opera, show tunes and now Yiddish folk songs. | Parties Give Singles Something to Sing About : Entertainment: Many find harmonious relationships at the house gatherings--as well as opera, show tunes and now Yiddish folk songs.
They come to sing, and to hear singing, and to see who else is singing. Then, perhaps, they may find someone interesting and do their own duet.
These singles sing-alongs have been going on at different residences in the San Fernando Valley for nine years, organized by free-lance journalist Rena Dictor Le Blanc, who was separated from her husband and was lonely.
Now Dictor Le Blanc is back with her husband, Jerry, but the singles parties have continued. Only about a dozen people attended the first parties, she said, but now as many as 100 show up, and Dictor Le Blanc said she’s running out of houses large enough to hold them.
The musical parties on alternating Saturday nights feature show tunes (called “A Night on Broadway”), opera (“Opera Encores”), or the newest addition, Yiddish folk music (“Back to the Shtetl”; shtetl is Yiddish for small village). The first Yiddish show is set for Sunday. Each show costs $15.
“I like cultured people, and this is where I can find them,” said Canoga Park resident Maureen Bascom, who has worked in a factory for 17 years. “My co-workers are into beer, cigarettes and sports, but I don’t drink or smoke. I like singing.”
So three years ago, Bascom went to her first meeting and eventually met Dr. Saul Matlin, an internist from Northridge who also plays the accordion.
“We’ve been going together now six months,” Matlin said.
“A good man is hard to find,” Bascom added, squeezing his hand.
A recent party hosted at the Calabasas residence of Charlene Capetillo attracted about 70 people. Some had to squeeze into the living room and sit on the floor.
“The first man I met at one of these parties was sitting at my feet because he didn’t have a place to sit. It was nice,” Capetillo said, giggling. “I’m 46, and I’ve gone out with a 36-year-old who came to one of the parties. It’s a respectable way to meet people.”
Sonia Flaum, from Canoga Park, started going to the sing-alongs seven years ago after her husband died. “My husband was a hard act to follow, and I tried a few dances and other singles events, but never liked it as much as these parties,” said Flaum, who became one of the regular performers at the shows and earns standing ovations when she sings “My Funny Valentine” and “I Feel Pretty.” She brought along a friend, Anita Capper of Woodland Hills, who is single after 36 years of marriage and comes to the Saturday parties to make new friends.
About one-third of the people at the parties attend regularly, more than half are women. Usually after an hour of social chatter with wine, cheese, coffee, soft drinks and pastries, the parties become a show with a paid professional singer and a half-hour intermission. After that, some members of the audience join North Hollywood pianist Wayne Behlendorf around the piano to sing requests from the group.
Although the parties are advertised for singles 21 to 55, the crowd tends to gravitate toward the upper end of that age bracket--and some surpass it. “We don’t ask for IDs at the door,” Dictor Le Blanc said.
The average age of the group disappointed at least two young women who came for the first time to a recent party in Calabasas. Tired of the bar scene, they said they saw an ad for the parties and thought they would meet men their ages.
“I’m willing to try anything once, but I won’t come back,” said Lisa Spiwak, 29, from Sherman Oaks. “I thought it would be a hipper group.”
Her friend, Bonnie Schachter, 38, who drove from Santa Monica, said, “I’d like to sing to Beatles songs or something that someone in their 30s would know, not something that was written in the 1930s.”
For the singles gathered at the party, mezzo-soprano Lori Berg sang show hits such as “Getting to Know You” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
“She’s great, isn’t she?” asked longtime regular David Schwartz. “It’s great to come here and meet women with some substance. There’s some great thinkers here.”
“It’s not threatening. You don’t feel like you’re on display,” said Betty Alberts of Woodland Hills, who came to the party with her friend and neighbor, Sheila Levin.
“It’s more fun than going to a movie,” said Levin, who added that she enjoyed the last party so much she brought a friend to this one. “And it’s closer than going downtown to hear music.”
A few women were indiscreetly eyeing one of the tuxedoed singers, Carlo Michael Mancini of North Hollywood, who whispered to a fellow single man: “Just keep your eyes opened. Sometimes some real foxes come to these events.”
People come from as far away as San Diego and Santa Barbara to see the singers who have entertained at such places as La Scala Opera House in Italy and New York’s Carnegie Hall. Other singers featured at the parties are Lynn Bell and Susan Rheingans of North Hollywood, Carlo De Constanza, from Argentina, Erica Tanenbaum of Tarzana and Wardell Howard of Panorama City, who jokes about being a black man who specializes in singing Yiddish music.
The parties have been such a success and have grown so large in the Valley and West Los Angeles areas that Dictor Le Blanc is investigating franchising in other parts of Southern California.
“People don’t have a chance to sing very much, except in the shower, and I can’t fit many people in my shower,” she joked. “So, it’s more fun to sing with other people here.”
For information about any of the parties, call (818) 716-7372 for the Opera Encores and Night on Broadway or (818) 703-5097 for the Back to the Shtetl hot line.
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9134f2e087e3ebe01c83cc9ff7b78ef0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-3048-story.html | The Shirt Market Has Discounts Up Its Sleeve | The Shirt Market Has Discounts Up Its Sleeve
I ran across The Shirt Market quite by chance, just strolling down a charming shaded plaza in Montrose. The whimsical window dressing first caught my eye and then the magic words “Manufacturer’s Outlet” pulled me into a most unusual shop.
Quality men’s shirts from a major manufacturer (the owners asked me not to reveal the label in print) that are carried in many of the better stores across the United States for double the prices are selling here at just a tad over wholesale.
Brace yourself for a most unusual decor. I call it “Early Meat Counter,” and it reaffirms the whimsy in the window. According to their flyer, “We are a manufacturer’s outlet. We chose the butcher shop decor as, originally, we were going to sell the shirts by the pound. However, due to bureaucratic red tape, the Department of Weights and Measures got into the picture, and that put an end to the concept of by the pound.” Too bad. It was a neat idea.
Dress shirts range in price from $14.99 to $19.99, and the sizes range from 14 1/2 32/33 to 17 1/2 34/35. They are 100% cottons and various cotton and polyester blends in solids or patterns. Adhering to the butcher shop concept, there is a “Pickle Barrel,” where some Salesmen’s Samples make super deals at $9.99.
But it doesn’t stop at dress shirts. There are wonderful sport shirt designs in the oversize look in fashion right now. These are a 50-50 rayon-cotton blend, washable and sized from small to extra large. The retail price on these is $69 and up. But here, at this small outlet store, it’s $24.99 for short-sleeved and $29.99 for long.
There are also some excellent buys in ties, most of them silks, handmade in Italy, in some great designs and priced from $9.99 to $35, although on the day of our visit some mighty nice ones were tagged at $5.
If you love the ties, be sure and check out the socks. These are not the standard socks but in some very hot designs, and many match the designs of the ties. The price is $5, and they sell fast.
The manufacturer’s wife, Barbara Sawyer, runs this little treasure of an outlet store, and I promise you a pleasant and frugal shopping experience. The Shirt Market is a find.
THE SHIRT MARKET, 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, (818) 248-0788. HOURS: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, or by appointment. MasterCard and Visa. Geri Cook’s Bargains column runs every Thursday in Valley View. Questions about shopping may be sent to her, in care of Valley View, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311. Letters will not be answered individually, but topics of general interest will be discussed in future columns.
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3ee3e5af8b1dc2837997d257931c711d | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-vw-3049-story.html | Thrifty Lingerie | Thrifty Lingerie
In the seven years that Ellis Simon has been manager of the Jewish Homes for the Aging Thrift Shop in Reseda, he has learned a lot about used menswear, women’s wear, crystal, china, baby wear, lamps, furniture and other items donated to the shop for the benefit of the homes.
He has also become an authority on women’s undergarments--the kind with the cloth missing from the middle of the panties and the middle of the bras.
“Frederick’s of Hollywood is one of our strongest supporters,” Simon said with a broad grin.
“About four times a year, they send us a huge shipment from their current catalogue. We get frilly bras and panties, those one-piece garments they call teddies, slips, nightgowns, men’s and women’s G-strings, and some samples of their men’s and women’s clothing lines,” Simon said.
He said the shop, which annually raises about $50,000 for the homes, has other corporate donors, but that Frederick’s is one of the largest.
Simon said many young women come in to shop for used blue jeans, suede jackets and other donated goods, and come upon the Frederick’s things accidentally. “They start going down the rack, holding up one thing and then the next, and sort of peek over at me to see if I know these things are there,” Simon said with a laugh.
Once they learn that these are regular items in this shop, they come back often, he said.
“I think one young woman tells another, and the word of mouth is what brings people in,” said Mamie Wurzel, volunteer assistant manager. “The prices are right because I mark everything down about 50%.”
Wurzel picks out a few items, such as crotchless panties and holey brassieres, that she says are big sellers. She then holds up a small piece of leather with straps and brass studs on it. “Sometimes we’re not exactly sure what everything is.”
She’s not the only one.
“We’re always getting people coming up to the counter saying the goods are damaged or incomplete,” Simon said of the minimalist underwear. “I’m always having to explain that that was the way the things were designed.”
Sometimes they ask why, and he has a number of answers.
“Please don’t forget to mention that you get 10% off if you model the Frederick’s things before you buy them,” the manager said, twirling an imaginary mustache.
“I’ve never had anyone take me up on the offer, but there’s a first time for everything.”
Sending a Message
Ernie Martin is another person who believes in doing what he can, only in his case it’s getting mail to the troops of Desert Storm.
Martin is a veteran of World War II, a martial arts instructor, world traveler, established artist, screenwriter and published author.
He is now a greeting card publisher.
Martin has created a number of handsome cards--all with patriotic motifs--that people may purchase from his stand on the lower floor of Topanga Plaza. If you don’t know anyone serving in the Middle East, but it would make you feel better to send a card to someone, he has arranged with the local military services to have the cards shipped to men and women serving in the Gulf.
For children, he has set out two tables, with crayons and paper, so they can create cards and write their own messages.
He also has American flags, pins, yellow ribbons, bumper stickers and other items showing support for the troops.
Lyn Starrman, who mans the card stand, said the response has been good.
“People seem to be so happy that we are here. They buy cards and encourage their children to make one. It gives people a way to personally communicate with people over there, to say that they are thinking of them and supporting them.”
Here Comes the Dog
Jim Ferris bought the old market at 28912 Riverside Drive in Agoura two years ago, giving it new life as a banquet facility and himself a few bad moments, as well as laughs.
The Canyon Club, as it is now known, has four banquet rooms that hold 50 to 500 people each. There is the Oak Room, the Blue Room, the Garden Room and the Grand Ballroom.
Many local organizations hold events here, but Ferris is partial to weddings.
“I figure we’ve had about 1,000 receptions since we opened, and everyone enjoys them because they are so upbeat,” Ferris said.
Well, usually.
“There was the time the bride didn’t show up to walk down the aisle, and we finally found her in the bathroom having a cigarette and second thoughts. She finally went through with it, though,” he said.
Another time, after a lot of money and time had been spent on an elaborate reception, the bridegroom called up and said he wasn’t interested in getting married after all, but that everyone should enjoy the party anyway, Ferris said.
Perhaps the most unusual wedding was the one in which the bride’s dog was the ring bearer.
“The bride had the usual maid of honor and all that, but when it was time for the couple to exchange rings, we let the dog loose down the aisle and he carried a pillow in his mouth with the rings on it,” Ferris said.
He said the dog got the pillow and the rings down the aisle but was so excited it almost knocked over the wedding party.
Eco Cleaning
Linda Kristoffersen of Canoga Park operates a cleaning service that is ecologically correct.
She uses vinegar instead of ammonia on windows, soaps that do not damage the water table, cloth towels instead of paper, and generally tries to be a good citizen as well as businesswoman.
Kristoffersen, who has been in the housecleaning business 10 years and has a number of employees, said she has found that using toxic-free cleaning substances and not using plastic or paper doesn’t cost any more than the traditional way we’ve come to think about cleaning, although it does take some thought and ingenuity.
“I also encourage people to recycle their plastic bottles, papers, glass and other items, and I never put plastic liners in garbage cans,” she said. “If people are recycling and using their garbage disposals, they won’t get their trash cans dirty. And if they do, we will be happy to give the cans a good scrub.”
Kristoffersen also leaves ecological reading material for her clients, mostly from a booklet called “Fifty Ways to Save the Planet.”
She’s not sure how much good it does.
“I have clients who call to say how much they appreciate what I am trying to do, but the majority of them, I think, may be pretty oblivious.”
That doesn’t concern her.
“You do what you can, and that’s it. I get their houses clean without damaging the ecosystem. What they do from there is their business,” she said.
Overheard
“Because of the water shortage, I don’t have to worry about having my lawn mowed anymore. It’s dead.”
--Woman at the Warner Center Club
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1c4a8cdba9dc8c06f1e40ff9d0d5dbac | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2757-story.html | Plane Crash Revives Call for Safety : Santa Monica: Sunday’s accident was the sixth since July, 1989, involving the airport, which is surrounded by residential areas. | Plane Crash Revives Call for Safety : Santa Monica: Sunday’s accident was the sixth since July, 1989, involving the airport, which is surrounded by residential areas.
The crash of a single-engine airplane into a West Los Angeles neighborhood Sunday as it approached Santa Monica Municipal Airport has revived questions about the safety and appropriateness of a busy general aviation airport in a densely populated residential area.
The crash-landing of a six-seat Piper Malibu into a home in the 1800 block of Sherbourne Drive, about three miles east of the airport, was the sixth crash since July, 1989, involving planes heading for or departing the Santa Monica airport. The plane’s four passengers and the house’s four occupants all escaped serious injury.
The airport, in the southeast corner of Santa Monica bordering the Los Angeles neighborhood of Mar Vista, has been the focus of debate and legal battles for years.
After each accident since 1989, critics have called for the immediate closure of the airport. This week, however, the focus of concern appeared to have shifted to the pilots and to proper maintenance of aircraft.
Although it will be several weeks before federal officials issue a formal statement on the cause of the crash, preliminary findings by police and fire officials at the scene Sunday indicated that the plane had run out of fuel.
“The airport has been there since the beginning of time it seems, and the number of accidents has been very minimal,” said Greg Thomas, a Mar Vista resident who in the past has been critical of the airport. “But what I’m really concerned about is that the pilot apparently knew he was in trouble and thought he could make it to the airport. That’s kind of a crapshoot. When you run out of gas on the freeway, you can pull over. The alternatives in a plane are quite different.”
“Sunday’s crash was very, very unfortunate. . . . But it and other crashes were not, per se, the fault of the airport,” added Veronica Pinckard, who is co-chairwoman of the airport noise and safety committee of the Friends of Sunset Park, a Santa Monica neighborhood group near the airport.
Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden, whose district includes the site of Sunday’s crash, also questioned where blame should be placed.
“I think pilots of these small planes should be reminded not to fly them unless they are mechanically safe and, by all means, unless they have enough gas to get to their destination,” Holden said this week after inspecting the crash site.
Airport Director Jeff Mathieu said he could not explain the flurry of crashes that has occurred in less than two years, but he is convinced that the airport did not directly contribute to any of them. (Prior to a July, 1989, crash, it had been nearly two years since a plane leaving the airport was involved in a crash.)
“All of the crashes have been for different reasons,” said Mathieu, who has held his job since January, 1990. “We have been unable to glean any particular reason or solution to preventing any that have occurred.”
Mathieu said that after each of the crashes, his staff conducted its own evaluations to look for patterns or similarities. He said his staff could not find any.
“Air traffic controllers are doing their jobs. . . . Lighting and navigation apparatus are functioning. . . . Runway surfaces and markings are adequate not to have caused any of the accidents,” Mathieu said.
After the October, 1989, crash of an experimental airplane heading toward the airport, Mathieu’s predecessor, Hank Ditmar, asked the Federal Aviation Administration for permission to ban such aircraft from its runways. However, the FAA denied the request, saying that experimental planes--a category consisting mostly of home-built craft that nonetheless must meet the agency’s tough safety standards--could not be singled out for banishment.
Unlike most general aviation airports, Santa Monica airport is surrounded primarily by residential areas. Mathieu said that fact makes him even more concerned about airport safety.
“We do not have the typical buffers between residential neighborhoods surrounding the airport.” he said.
A spokeswoman for the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates airplane crashes, said statistics comparing crash frequencies at general aviation airports were not immediately available.
One readily available comparison, however, is Van Nuys Airport, the nation’s largest general aviation airport with more than 527,000 landings and takeoffs each year, compared to about 200,000 for Santa Monica. A spokeswoman at the San Fernando Valley facility said there have been just two crashes there since 1989--one at an air show in 1989, the other in August, 1990, when a plane’s landing gear failed to open.
Sunset Park resident Pinckard, who lives about a quarter-mile from the Santa Monica airport and who has dealt with airport-related problems for several years, said she thinks calls for closure of the airport have diminished in part because of conscientious noise-reduction efforts by airport managers, and because residents seem to have accepted that the city has a legal obligation to keep it open for at least another 25 years.
That obligation was set forth in a 1984 settlement of conflicting lawsuits filed by residents and pilots. The pilots and the FAA won the right to keep the airport operating until at least the year 2015. In return, city officials agreed to consolidate airport facilities on the north side of the 215-acre property, as far as possible from nearby homes, and to enforce anti-noise regulations.
But strict enforcement of noise and curfew laws was not always maintained, Pinckard said, creating tension between residents and the aviation community.
However, since Mathieu took over management of the airport, airport officials have been “very responsive,” Pinckard said.
“All the laws on the books are being enforced,” she said. “They are being very responsive to all aspects of the airport. I really feel that Mr. Mathieu has cleaned up the airport’s act, so to speak.”
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d5208d6ee8c4c9c33be601fa90aa7fe9 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2758-story.html | Toilet Overflow : Santa Monica Is Not Exactly Flush With Ideas of What to Do With Its Collection of Cast-Off Commodes | Toilet Overflow : Santa Monica Is Not Exactly Flush With Ideas of What to Do With Its Collection of Cast-Off Commodes
Just off the end of the runway at Santa Monica Municipal Airport, amid a field of wildflowers and beneath a stand of eucalyptus, there are thousands of discarded toilets that nobody is quite sure what to do with.
And no, it’s not funny.
The toilet graveyard is a byproduct of an innovative $2.9-million water conservation program that requires Santa Monica homeowners and landlords to replace water-guzzling toilets and shower heads with low-flow fixtures. Almost half of the average household’s water is flushed down toilets or washed down shower drains.
The law, which took effect last July 1, made Santa Monica the first California city to require that existing residences be retrofitted with the low-flow fixtures or face monthly fines.
The city offers $100 rebates for installing the shower heads and toilets. New toilets range in cost from $99 for a basic loo to $400 for a designer model. City officials will cart away the old johns to the field, situated near the eastern end of the runway, for free.
Since the law went into effect in 1990, nearly 8% of the city’s households have participated, replacing nearly 6,000 toilets, according to Atossa Soltani, the city’s conservation coordinator.
Soltani said the new toilets, which use only 1.6 gallons of water per flush instead of about six gallons for a conventional toilet, are saving the city about 200,000 gallons of water a day. Installation of low-flow toilets and shower heads cuts the daily water use of an average household about 20%, Soltani said.
She predicted that the City Council’s decision this week to order a 25% reduction in water use, beginning April 1, will swell the ranks of residents who replace their toilets with the thriftier models. “It will be the only way that households can easily reduce their water consumption by the required amount,” she said.
The council this week also doubled the monthly water-bill surcharge for owners who fail to install the low-flow fixtures to $2 a month. In addition to the surcharge, property owners whose water consumption exceeds their monthly allowance face additional fines, regardless of whether they have installed the low-flow fixtures.
The stiffened water-saving rules are likely to bring a new influx of old toilets to the airport field, where a sign now reads, “No Unauthorized Dumping.”
The program’s success has created an ecological dilemma: What to do with the discarded toilets, which now number nearly 5,000?
“It’s a problem that’s been hanging over us since the start of the program,” Soltani said. “We’ve got a sea of toilets, and we’re running out of room.”
“It’s an eyesore,” said Soltani’s boss, Richard Holland, the city’s environmental programs administrator. “We’ve traded off a water conservation problem for a land-use problem. Our dilemma is we don’t want to throw them away into some landfill. It makes sense to conserve and reuse them.”
Airport director Jeff Mathieu said the toilets were actually “good tenants” and were not creating any big problem yet.
When the rebate plan was first considered, city officials had a plan for the old toilets: They would be dropped into Santa Monica Bay to create an artificial reef that, over time, would become a hospitable habitat for fish, kelp and other marine life.
“I guarantee the fish do not see these as toilets. They see them as condos,” said Councilman Dennis Zane, a supporter of the plan.
But state officials flushed away the reef idea. A couple of researchers from the state Fish and Game Department dove into the ocean to see what had happened to an experimental clump of commodes placed off the coast near of Marina del Rey. They found a pile of porcelain shards.
“The toilets break up real badly from anchors and wave action,” said Dennis Bedford, a marine biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game. “Cities with the same problem have made similar suggestions up and down the coast. But it looks like a dead end.”
Officials next considered looking for someone to peddle them to a buyer or buyers in Mexico, but worried they’d break during the trip down. Besides, Soltani said, allowing someone else to use a wasteful toilet defeats the whole purpose. “We want to see that toilet destroyed,” Soltani said.
The latest hope for a solution is to recycle them. City officials have had preliminary discussions with G.P. Milling Co. in Oxnard, which has used its rock and concrete crushers to transform tons of toilets from drought-stricken Santa Barbara County into base material for road pavement.
Larry Farwell, a water conservation coordinator in the Goleta Water District, predicted that the recycling project will become popular as localities struggle to comply with drought measures and to meet a new California law requiring cities to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfills by 25%.
“It’s very weird,” Farwell said. “I never thought I’d have to be a toilet expert when I grew up. But toilets are hot right now. This is an important step in making our country more efficient and not wasting our resources.”
Soltani said that the city hopes to begin clearing its field of toilets and trucking the fixtures to a milling operation in the next month or so. “We just want to get rid of them,” she said.
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a68790dabb48dd174f99410d5b077a27 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2759-story.html | NEWS ANALYSIS : Rough Sailing Ahead Over Marina Revenues : Finance: As newly elected County Supervisor Gloria Molina looks to build county coffers, she will probably be drawn to the marina and its powerful leaseholders. | NEWS ANALYSIS : Rough Sailing Ahead Over Marina Revenues : Finance: As newly elected County Supervisor Gloria Molina looks to build county coffers, she will probably be drawn to the marina and its powerful leaseholders.
The historic election of Gloria Molina as Los Angeles County’s first Latino county supervisor in more than a century is likely to mark the opening of a new and dramatically different chapter in the history of Marina del Rey.
For as Molina searches for additional revenue to support the county’s financially strapped social programs, the county-owned marina is likely to be one of the first places to look.
All businesses in the marina--from boat slips to apartments, restaurants to retail stores--operate on public property leased from the county.
Although the Board of Supervisors has long considered the marina as Los Angeles County’s most important piece of property, the county receives less than $20 million in rents out of more than $300 million generated annually by marina businesses.
As the county’s financial woes worsen, pressure is building to boost the marina’s contribution to the county’s general fund, which supports social programs.
Molina spokesman Robert Alaniz said the supervisor-elect would not comment on marina matters until after she takes office next week and has had a chance to closely examine the county budget.
But during her supervisorial campaign, Molina, a Los Angeles city councilwoman and former state assemblywoman, promised to support increased funding for the county’s troubled trauma centers, mental health clinics, AIDS programs, and social services.
Although she offered few specific proposals on how she intended to pay for expanded programs, Molina did recommend that the county impose a business license tax in unincorporated areas of the county, including Marina del Rey.
Molina--the first woman ever elected to the board and first Latino since 1875--may be the most independent supervisor since Yvonne Brathwaite Burke was appointed in 1979.
Burke angered Marina leaseholders by seeking to defend price controls then in effect on apartments and boat slips. Marina leaseholders, determined to defeat her, contributed to Deane Dana’s successful supervisorial campaign in 1980.
Ever since it was carved out of the wetlands in the 1960s and transformed into the world’s largest man-made small craft harbor, Marina del Rey has been under the sway of a group of politically powerful leaseholders who have had a close relationship with the board of supervisors and have been large campaign contributors.
Molina was clearly not their choice to replace retiring Supervisor Pete Schabarum.
Campaign contribution reports show that the preferred candidate among the major players in the Marina was Republican Sarah Flores, a longtime Schabarum aide. Her contributors included Abraham M. Lurie, the Marina’s largest leaseholder, and his Saudi Arabian partners; developers Ellis, Selden and Douglas Ring; the Marina Lessees Assn., and powerful Los Angeles attorney Richard Riordan, who is a legal consultant to the county on negotiations with the Marina leaseholders.
Partners in the proposed Playa Vista development, adjacent to the Marina, also backed Flores.
When Flores failed to win a place in a runoff election earlier this month, state Sen. Art Torres became the favorite of some Marina interests. He received contributions from Lurie’s Saudi associates, from developer Jona Goldrich, and from some of the partners in the Playa Vista project. Riordan also checked in again as a major backer, giving at least $20,000 to Torres.
Molina was not a recipient of the leaseholders’ largess to any significant degree, although she did receive $5,000 from Riordan and $1,250 from Allan Kotin, an economics consultant to the county on marina matters.
When Molina is sworn in on March 8, she will join fellow liberal Democrats Ed Edelman and Kenneth Hahn in ending a decade of Republican dominance of the nation’s largest county government.
The transfer of power comes at a critical time in the marina’s history.
During Molina’s first term, the board will be faced with far-reaching decisions on:
* Construction of Playa Vista, a vast city-within-a-city, on land adjacent to the marina, including some unincorporated county land. Intensive high-stakes negotiations are in progress behind closed doors between county officials and the lead developer, Maguire Thomas Partners, over plans to construct a new marina as part of the vast, multibillion-dollar project. But the new harbor can only be built if the county agrees to allow construction of a new channel across county land.
* Sale of long-term leases on marina properties to foreign investors. The board may be asked to approve Lurie’s plan to sell virtually all of his remaining marina interests to an investment group headed by billionaire Saudi Arabian businessman Abdul Aziz Al Ibrahim, a brother-in-law of King Fahd. The deal, which has stalled recently, would give the Saudi investors complete control of long-term leases on three hotels, two apartment complexes, office buildings, shops, restaurants and more than 1,000 boat slips in the marina.
* Long-delayed plans to intensively redevelop the marina into a more densely packed community with more residential units, hotels, restaurants, shops and offices.
* Conversion of aging apartment buildings to condominiums, presumably at large profit to the leaseholders.
* And efforts by the leaseholders to obtain long-term extensions of their leases.
In addition, Molina will have the right to appoint a new member of the county’s Small Craft Harbor Commission, an advisory body that oversees the marina.
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cb81cf582e58ef4936988f01026e5b36 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2760-story.html | End of the Line : Malibu: A day laborer hiring center near Zuma Beach will close Saturday. Merchants and neighbors had complained about the workers, and a new site could not be agreed upon. | End of the Line : Malibu: A day laborer hiring center near Zuma Beach will close Saturday. Merchants and neighbors had complained about the workers, and a new site could not be agreed upon.
A hiring center for day laborers at Malibu’s Zuma Beach, which has been opposed by neighbors and unable to attract widespread community support, will shut down Saturday, its sponsors said this week.
“We did everything we knew how to do to stay open, and it’s sad that it wasn’t enough,” said Honey Coatsworth, who heads the Artifac Tree, a nonprofit thrift shop that led the effort to set up the center last year.
The center, on county property at the entrance to the beach, opened last May at a time when merchants and others complained that day laborers were harassing their customers and passersby on street corners and parking lots.
But it quickly ran afoul of Zuma Beach residents, who claimed it was a magnet for men with no place else to go, and that fires lit by laborers camping overnight in the nearby brush posed a threat to the area’s expensive homes.
Others said the center failed to noticeably reduce the number of workers standing on street corners.
“If the purpose of this site was to keep day workers off the streets and make customers going to places of commerce more comfortable, it didn’t work,” said Paul Kinloch, who was among about 100 residents opposed to the Zuma Beach location.
An estimated 150 day laborers commute to Malibu from Los Angeles each day in the hope of finding jobs clearing brush or helping at construction sites. Many, including most who were regulars at the center, come on Southern California Rapid Transit District buses.
“The mood among the men, and the volunteers, is understandably very sad,” volunteer Connie Fox said. “It’s as if everything we worked so hard for is about to be swept away.”
Modeled after a similar facility that the city of Los Angeles set up in Harbor City in 1989, the center provided day laborers with English instruction, access to public restrooms and a noon meal. Employers seeking workers were asked to register, and a minimum wage of $5 an hour was requested, although not required.
The center has continued to attract about 50 workers per day, although volunteers say that in recent weeks the number of men who obtain employment has dropped sharply, to fewer than 10 per day.
Detractors have insisted that a public beach was no place for a hiring facility.
Critics complained that a house trailer used as the center’s office, which was donated by a local real estate broker, was placed on the site illegally, without a permit from the California Coastal Commission.
After the neighbors complained, Los Angeles County officials last November said the center violated zoning laws and ordered that it be removed. The Board of Supervisors intervened, allowing the facility to remain open while sponsors searched for a new location. But the effort--which was unsuccessful--became almost as controversial as the center.
An ad hoc committee of day worker advocates, community officials and other residents settled on a new site in the civic center area after being unable to secure any of several more preferable locations.
But the Artifac Tree group, which has been at the forefront of the effort to sustain the center, announced two weeks ago that it was bowing out, calling the proposed site behind county government buildings in Malibu’s main commercial area unacceptable.
“It was essentially a place that was out of sight and out of mind, which may have satisfied some people in the community. But everyone we talked to, including the men themselves, indicated it would be a waste of everyone’s time and effort (to put it there),” Fox said.
“Our feeling was why should we be asked to raise money and shoulder the burden for something that, because of the location, wouldn’t do the men any good,” she said. “We were being asked to sacrifice for something we didn’t believe in.”
Meanwhile, participation on the committee dwindled from about 20 last November to fewer than six, she said.
Last month, the center’s supporters sponsored a seminar at a local community center, hoping to generate widespread community interest in the dayworker’s plight, but aside from a panel of experts, volunteers and about 20 dayworkers, only a handful of others attended.
“Let’s face it, helping dayworkers is not a very sexy issue,” said Sheriff’s Capt. Don Mauro, who helped coordinate the effort to set up the center. “It’s a hot issue when someone’s ox is being gored, but you remove the horn, and the interest drops off sharply.”
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9d134f41c051b53e87ba58852a90cc1a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2761-story.html | Culver City : Military Pay Plan Approved | Culver City : Military Pay Plan Approved
Culver City employees called to military duty in the Gulf War will continue to be paid for up to five months, the City Council decided Monday night.
After less than five minutes of discussion, the council unanimously approved the plan that provides the difference between military pay and regular salary for up to five months after the first 30 days of active duty. Federal law requires full pay during the first 30 days of active duty.
So far, Culver City has only one employee, a legal secretary, who has been called to active duty.
The average cost of salary and benefits for the five months is $8,300 per employee, said Personnel Director Gordon Youngs.
Culver City joins Santa Monica, Los Angeles, San Bernardino County and the state of California in implementing a salary continuance plan.
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671bf81521b0f771d70ff127eae06d54 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2762-story.html | Miracle Mile’s Desmond Building Designed to Rise Above the Rest | Miracle Mile’s Desmond Building Designed to Rise Above the Rest
In the late 1920s, the Miracle Mile represented the best hope for the new metropolis of Los Angeles. A string of shops ranging from the glamorous to the friendly, anchored by department stores, filled a stretch of Wilshire Boulevard. Ambitious merchants threw up towers against the flat Los Angeles landscape and welcomed both the car and the pedestrian shopper.
The city here had a clear structure: linear and automobile oriented. As Los Angeles expanded along the lines of its great boulevards, so did linear shopping districts like the Miracle Mile. The Desmond’s Building, finished in 1929, remains the most expressive monument to this fleeting moment of urbane consumerism.
Both the 11-story tower and the curved, two-story base from which it rises had a specific function. The tower served as a kind of billboard, a signal to those driving along the boulevard that this was where they could find the Desmond’s store, and the base attracted shoppers walking along the Miracle Mile. Desmond’s was scaled to both the automotive city and the pedestrian.
The actual architecture of Desmond’s translated that dual function into an almost seamless composition. The solid base looked as if it had been pulled open to reveal a world of plate glass, granite and brass luxury. The streamlined storefront rose up at the corners into bands of curved windows that announced the store to the cars zipping by. The rest of the building gathered itself up into layered piers that rose up in two setbacks to an exuberant crown. Up close and from a distance, Desmond’s sold itself and seduced you inside, where elaborate carved flowers and animals swirled up above the entrance to support a ceiling sporting a 14-karat gold mural.
Desmond’s was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, an architect who not only graced Los Angeles with the Federal Courthouse but designed numerous elaborate train stations, as well as such great “boulder-style” buildings as the Awahnee Lodge in Yosemite and the North Rim Lodge at the Grand Canyon. Underwood spent his career trying to come up with designs that would express the grandeur of the landscape of the West while celebrating the new technology of trains and cars. He created monumental forms that were equal to the forces of nature as well as the fast motions of the Jazz Age.
Today, both the Miracle Mile and Desmond’s have fallen on hard times. The ground-floor storefront has been replaced with the kind of mindless signs that can be found in strip malls, and newer buildings on Wilshire make the tower look positively tiny. Inside, however, the inlaid-wood floors, carved stone and Art Deco flora of the lobby still beckon. On the second floor, the Ace Gallery has taken the entire 27,000-square-foot space and converted it into a landscape of bare concrete that reveals the power of the original construction.
And in the tower, almost every floor harbors the office of a different architect. Each of them, one hopes, is trying to live up to the optimistic promise of the building in which they practice.
Desmond’s Building (Wilshire Tower), 5514 Wilshire Blvd.
Architect: Gilbert Stanley Underwood
Completed: 1929
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dd4519491f07a43c6ce58b669e5ad995 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2763-story.html | Santa Monica : Latino Group Gets Funding | Santa Monica : Latino Group Gets Funding
The City Council has approved funding for the Latino Resource Organization, the Westside’s only social service group for Latinos, which has gone through major reorganization in the past year.
Last summer, city officials agreed to finance the organization for half a year until it could prove that it had taken steps to reestablish its programs and management.
In approving $61,535 for the remainder of the fiscal year, city officials lauded how swiftly the group had met city requirements. Over the last six months, the organization has assembled 10 board members and hired an executive director, while raising $21,235.
But city staff members were concerned that the organization was far from meeting the city’s requirement that it raise by June $68,908 or 25% of the amount the city provides. Staff members were also concerned that only 50% of those served under the group’s community-outreach programs lived in Santa Monica.
The organization was established in Santa Monica in 1983. It conducts after-school educational programs, a program that promotes family reading and community forums designed to look at issues in the Latino community.
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9915d6a25b4660321589801ffe4bcd00 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2764-story.html | Culver City : Nonsmoking Policy Studied | Culver City : Nonsmoking Policy Studied
The City Council is seeking to create a smoke-free environment in public buildings and is looking at a policy to hire only nonsmoking firefighters.
The council Monday night directed staff to draft a policy to prohibit smoking in all enclosed public work areas, including city vehicles, and a policy to hire only firefighters who do not smoke.
Council members eliminated an option that the city hire only nonsmokers for all jobs, saying that would impinge on employees’ personal lives.
Currently, there is no smoking in City Hall, but other city buildings have their own regulations.
Last year, the council banned smoking in restaurants with fewer than 25 seats and passed a temporary ordinance restricting smoking in larger restaurants.
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19910687708862b2dab411db211bebfc | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2765-story.html | Pico-Robertson : Office for Armenian Group | Pico-Robertson : Office for Armenian Group
The newly formed Armenian-American Chamber of Commerce has opened an office on South Robertson Boulevard, hoping to attract investors for joint ventures and other business deals with the Soviet republic.
Emil Rezaieh, chairman of the group, said that it is linked with the Armenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, based in the Armenian city of Yerevan, which represents 395 industries.
Although the chamber expects to attract most of its clientele from the large Armenian community in Southern California, Rezaieh said membership is open to anyone interested in doing business with the Soviet Union.
He said Armenia offers a highly educated work force and access to the huge Soviet market with a minimum of red tape. Partners in recent joint ventures include Armentoy, a Chicago-based manufacturing company, and Benetton, the clothing chain, he said.
Mayor Tom Bradley and City Council President John Ferraro attended the opening ceremony Sunday, along with Armenian representatives.
“The local government is very eager to attract foreign investment and tourism, and to promote culture and music,” Rezaieh said.
Although the Armenian community is concentrated in Hollywood and Glendale, Rezaieh said the chamber chose to locate on Robertson simply because “it’s an excellent business location.”
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1422dfb92db25ae7c66f670ca61d103e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2766-story.html | Malibu : Facility Links With Hospital | Malibu : Facility Links With Hospital
The Malibu Emergency Room is now affiliated with St. John’s Hospital and Health Center of Santa Monica and will expand services, its owner said this week.
Dr. Susan Reynolds said the facility, to be known as the Malibu Family Medical Center, will add a second full-time doctor to its medical staff and expand the number of health education programs it offers.
The Malibu facility currently has one full-time doctor and 11 part-time doctors, including an orthopedic surgeon and a plastic surgeon, she said.
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5d78c81ba543b1b4b02e48690764f58f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2767-story.html | West Hollywood : City Hall Planning Starts | West Hollywood : City Hall Planning Starts
West Hollywood city officials are seeking statements of interest from developers and property owners interested in helping to develop a new City Hall.
The City Hall is expected to be about 50,000 square feet, with the potential to expand to about 66,000 square feet. It will house the city’s administrative offices and serve as a public meeting place.
Although no site has been chosen, several east side locations have been mentioned. Among them are the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Fuller Avenue, and another next to the demolished site of the West Hollywood Hospital on La Brea Avenue.
City officials say they will consider several development options, including a lease with option to purchase, direct land purchase and agreements combining public and private uses.
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b99f27052e9c5cc9aac8cb14ac11c64b | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2768-story.html | Culver City : Anti-Graffiti Law Approved | Culver City : Anti-Graffiti Law Approved
Property owners who do not voluntarily remove graffiti or permit the city to do so are committing a misdemeanor, the City Council decided Monday night.
Without discussion, the council unanimously passed an ordinance that makes property owners who fail to remove graffiti subject to a fine of up to $1,000 and a jail term of up to six months.
In the past, some property owners who did not remove graffiti also refused to allow city staff to remove or paint over the graffiti. The ordinance, which declares the presence of graffiti a public nuisance, does not mandate that the city eliminate graffiti on private property, but it authorizes the city’s chief administrative officer to use city funds for the cleanup.
The city anticipates spending $200,000 this fiscal year to clean up graffiti, according to Dale Jones, chief administrative officer.
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6c22544006d4c687bc1804a15e908495 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2769-story.html | Santa Monica Extends Building Moratorium : Development: The ban on large commercial construction will continue for one more year while the city devises a permanent plan. | Santa Monica Extends Building Moratorium : Development: The ban on large commercial construction will continue for one more year while the city devises a permanent plan.
The Santa Monica City Council this week extended for one year a moratorium on large commercial developments, but vowed to speed up a process of permanently controlling development in the city.
For more than a year, the city has been updating its General Plan in response to the unprecedented surge in commercial growth that began in the latter half of the ‘80s. City planning staff members were seeking a two-year extension of the moratorium, which was imposed in mid-1989, but on Tuesday the council unanimously agreed that one more year was enough.
“The council wanted to create greater discipline in the process to get the work done,” said Councilman Dennis Zane.
The moratorium will exempt the construction of public facilities and development at Third Street Promenade, the airport and the pier.
Some small developments are exempt from the moratorium, but the council reduced by about 33% the allowable size of projects that would qualify for exemptions. In a typical commercial neighborhood, for example, the largest allowable office building would be 15,000 square feet under the revised emergency ordinance, down from 22,000 square feet.
At Tuesday’s meeting, developers, council members and representatives of the Santa Monica Area Chamber of Commerce all criticized city staff for moving so slowly to update the General Plan.
In a letter to the council, Kenneth L. Kutcher, chairman of the chamber’s growth task force, said that “confidence in the city’s ability to make land-use policy decisions will continue to erode if no interim standards can be adopted after nearly two years of study.”
Paul Berlant, the city’s planning director, said the process has been delayed because the Planning Commission last year asked Berlant’s staff to amend the entire city General Plan, rather than just the portion dealing with commercial development. In response to the council’s direction Tuesday night, the staff will again focus only on commercial growth, Berlant said.
“We feel that we have done what was asked of us,” he said.
The city first passed the emergency moratorium in 1989 when it determined that commercial development, especially hotels, had overrun the city and had already reached development goals to the year 2000.
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75cb615f3373bf4460d28a712f880b2a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2770-story.html | In our Dylan phase we walked around... | In our Dylan phase we walked around...
In our Dylan phase we walked around with a red bandanna covering our head, and slouched a lot. When our parents spoke to us, we used to smile dreamily and mumble something about them getting out of the way.
One day, however, mom asked if it was our turn to take out the garbage.
“Hey, it ain’t me, babe,” we replied.
And that was the end of our Dylan phase.
Then came our Woody Guthrie phase. In our mind we saw Guthrie as a heroic figure emerging from a veil of dust, guitar in hand, to ramble all across the country singing against injustice and about the plain, unadorned beauty of life.
Then Phil Ochs caught our ear, and Pete Seeger our heart.
Music of protest, commitment and grass-roots genuineness.
Which brings us to folk singer Tom Chapin.
With the release of his third children’s album, “Mother Earth,” Chapin adds to an impressive list of credits that includes three albums of folk songs, and his work as host of the TV children’s show “Make a Wish” and as a Broadway performer, musical director, arranger and producer.
Chapin brings his troubadour ways to the Wadsworth Theater at 2 p.m. Saturday. Ticket prices vary. For information call (213) 825-9261.
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f6a0f56b1ed9c01d91e634b73707e1ec | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2772-story.html | Do a Little Research Before Shopping for Study Plan for SAT | Do a Little Research Before Shopping for Study Plan for SAT
For many high school students, springtime means more than a school year almost finished and a summer waiting to begin. It’s also the time to get ready for an educational rite of passage--the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
This three-hour exam is used by most U.S. colleges and universities to help choose applicants. For some colleges, particularly the more selective ones, a SAT score is sometimes as important as a grade-point average.
Many students first take the SAT in 10th or 11th grade, then retake it early in their senior year in hope of improving their scores.
Because the SAT can make or break college plans, many students begin preparing well ahead of time and grope for every edge possible.
There are a variety of good ways to prepare.
The most inexpensive and convenient way is to study on your own using practice materials included in the SAT registration packet or study guides from the school library.
Some school districts offer a more structured way to study by holding free or inexpensive prep courses for their students.
Hiring a tutor is also common because it allows more scheduling flexibility and one-on-one attention.
But the most popular--and expensive--way is to take classes offered by companies that specialize in coaching students for a number of academic exams, including the SAT and admission tests for law or medical schools.
More than half a dozen such companies have opened on the Westside in recent years.
The cost ranges from $200 to almost $1,000 for a series of these classes. Participants are taught the SAT format, types of questions, scoring methods and strategies for analyzing and answering questions. Students most likely also take timed practice exams.
With so many different SAT prep courses vying for your money, choosing the right one may seem bewildering. But if you do a little research before signing up, you can find the program that will help you the most.
Here are some things to look for when shopping for a SAT study plan.
* If you will be taking the SAT for a second time to improve your score, get some opinions on whether you even need a prep course.
Many students are unhappy with their first SAT scores and take classes to produce an increase the second time around. But you may already have the score you need for the college you want.
Talk to a college counselor and representative of some preparation programs. Tell them your grade-point average, current SAT score and the college you want to attend. Then ask whether improvement is needed. A score of 1,200, for example, may be enough for Cal State Northridge, but maybe not for Yale.
* Figure out how much money you can spend on an SAT prep program, then explore only those that you can afford. Make sure you have been quoted the total cost and that no hidden fees will arise later. If possible, get the exact price in writing, on the company’s stationery with a representative’s signature and date, so they cannot ask a higher price later.
* Find out if the price includes some kind of guarantee of your success. Some companies, for example, will let you repeat the course if your score does not improve by a certain number of points.
* Convenience is important. A program is useless if you don’t have the time to attend. Decide which days and hours you are available and eliminate the programs with schedules that conflict with yours.
* Ask about the training of the instructors. Those with teaching licenses or classroom experience and special knowledge of the SAT are most desirable.
* Get a list of the materials that are used. Avoid programs that rely heavily on books you have to buy in a store, and look for courses that give you take-home assignments to help focus your learning. The better courses have computers and a good file of old tests.
Besides the teaching materials, teaching methods can also determine whether the course will help. Could you stand, for example, several hours of straight lecture? Do you need a variety of activities? Can you learn in a big group or do you need individual attention? Are the verbal and math sections always covered equally, or can you focus on the part that gives you the most trouble?
* Make sure you will be grouped only with students who match your ability level, so the materials will match your specific strengths and weaknesses.
* Finally, talk to friends who have actually completed the programs that you are considering. This may be the best way to collect honest and thorough opinions about what works and what doesn’t.
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560250666611a851abce612a2a086b97 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2774-story.html | UCLA’s Successful Men’s Gymnastics Team Is Work of Art : Colleges: Coach Art Shurlock has built the Bruins into a national powerhouse. Several of his gymnasts have competed in the Olympics. | UCLA’s Successful Men’s Gymnastics Team Is Work of Art : Colleges: Coach Art Shurlock has built the Bruins into a national powerhouse. Several of his gymnasts have competed in the Olympics.
Years ago, Art Shurlock, UCLA men’s gymnastics coach, had to get out and bang the drum to publicize his program.
Today, the program speaks for itself.
Years ago, men’s gymnastics was not the glamour sport it is today, nor was UCLA among the nation’s top teams. In 1979, the Bruins were ranked No. 60 in the country; this week they are No. 1.
Things began to change in 1980, when Peter Vidmar and Mitch Gaylord arrived as freshmen at UCLA.
Vidmar earned a spot on the national team for the 1980 Olympics, but the United States boycotted the Games that year to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
In 1981, Vidmar was third in the all-around in the NCAA championships, and he won the NCAA all-around title in 1982 as well as individual championships in the pommel horse and highbar. In his senior year of 1983, he won his second consecutive NCAA all-around title and received the Nissen Award, given to the nation’s best college gymnast.
The high-water mark for UCLA--and for American men’s gymnastics--was reached in 1984. That year the Bruins won their first NCAA team title, and Gaylord finished first in the all-around, followed by teammates Tim Daggett and Mark Caso, who were second and third, respectively.
Then, at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Gaylord, Daggett and Vidmar led the U.S. men’s team to its first gold medal. Fittingly, the site for the competition was UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion.
UCLA men’s gymnastics has remained at or near the top ever since.
In 1987, the Bruins added a second NCAA championship, and last year they finished third as Chris Waller won the high bar with an impressive 9.975 score and Brad Hayashi won the vault, a first for a UCLA performer.
Waller, a senior last year, still is reflecting glory on the UCLA program. Last week he and fellow-American Trent Dimas helped bring U.S. gymnastics its greatest international success in years at the American Cup competition for athletes from 13 nations in Orlando, Fla. Dimas won the gold medal and Waller the silver in the men’s all-around, and American performers Betty Okino and Kim Zmeskal were one-two among women in the all-around.
Shurlock thinks the U.S. teams in men’s and women’s gymnastics are “going to get stronger” and that “things will get back” to the way they were in the 1984 Olympics.
He also thinks that a couple of performers on his team, Scott Keswick and Chainey Umphrey, could help the U.S. team in the 1992 Olympics at Barcelona. Keswick and Umphrey were tied for first in the nation in the all-around in this week’s rankings.
“They have the capacity to be great ones,” Shurlock said. “I’d be disappointed if they did not make the U.S. Olympic team.”
Keswick is also one of the nation’s best college gymnasts in the rings and parallel bars. Umphrey also excels on rings.
Two weeks ago, Umphrey won the all-around with a 57.2 at the Southwest Cup in Tempe, Ariz.
On Sunday, UCLA defeated No. 6 New Mexico, 283.55-279.45. It was UCLA’s highest score of the season. In the all-around at Albuquerque, Keswick with a strong 58.05, Umphrey at 57.00 and Hayashi at 55.30 were one-two-three, each with a season-high score.
The quality of U.S. collegiate gymnastics may be on the rise, but quantity is on the wane. The number of men’s college teams in the three NCAA divisions dropped from 78 in 1981-82 to 47 in 1988-89, according to an NCAA survey. Currently, there are 103 women’s teams in the NCAA divisions, down from 179 in 1981-82, according to another NCAA report.
Shurlock, in his 27th year at UCLA, said that college athletic departments--looking for ways to save money--often turn to so-called non-revenue sports such as gymnastics, wrestling, water polo or cross-country when they want to drop a program.
“It’s ironic that the levels of skill and competitiveness are increasing (in gymnastics), but we have lost a lot of teams,” he said. “They haven’t been doing that (at UCLA); it’s been holding pretty steady.”
The UCLA men (8-1) and the UCLA women (8-3), two of the nation’s steadiest teams, will combine their annual meets this year in the UCLA/Times Invitational. The meet begins at 7 p.m. Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at Pauley Pavilion.
The men’s field includes Nebraska, Minnesota and UCLA, which finished one-two-three at last year’s NCAA meet. Others are New Mexico, Illinois and Arizona State.
The women’s teams besides UCLA, ranked No. 8 last week, are No. 4 Oregon State, No. 9 Arizona State and California.
Top men in the meet include John Roethlisberger of Minnesota, Luis Lopez of New Mexico and Christian Rohde of Arizona. Joy Selig, last year’s NCAA champion in floor exercise and the balance beam, leads the Oregon State women, and UCLA’s top all-around performers are sophomore All-American Carol Ulrich and senior Natalie Britton.
Shurlock has been on the job at UCLA for a long time, but he does not long to retire.
“I’d still like to win some more NCAA championships and get some more guys into the Olympics,” he said. “I’m enjoying it more than ever. I work with high-caliber athletes, which really increases your job incentives.”
Shurlock may not have to wait until next year to win another NCAA championship.
He said that Keswick and Chainey Umphrey (whose brother Greg is also on the Bruin team) used to be relatively weak on the pommel horse but that they are now “extremely strong in every event.” The Bruins are not only very strong on the high bar, he said, but also “have a chance to be one of the strongest teams ever on the vault,” led by Hayashi, the defending national vault champion.
UCLA should hold its own in other events, but the vault is where the team may have an edge at the NCAA meet, he said.
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7029636802cc55b8cbe43d6916d3dfab | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2775-story.html | SPORTSCOPE : Bruin Tennis Team Attempts to Keep Home Streak Alive | SPORTSCOPE : Bruin Tennis Team Attempts to Keep Home Streak Alive
The No. 2-ranked UCLA men’s tennis team (14-0), which has won 49 consecutive dual matches at the on-campus Los Angeles Tennis Center, will attempt to keep the streak alive when it plays host to Michigan at 1:30 p.m. today and to San Jose State at 1:30 p.m. Monday.
On Saturday, UCLA travels to UC Irvine for a 1 p.m. match.
Last week the Bruins beat USC, 5-2, in the final of the Intercollegiate Tennis Coaches Assn.'s team indoor championships at Louisville, Ky. UCLA’s other tournament vic tories were against Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina.
The No. 3 UCLA women’s tennis team (9-0) will compete this week in the women’s portion of the ITCA team indoor championships at Madison, Wis. The Bruins open play today against No. 13 Tennessee. The final will be Sunday.
The Bruins defeated Oregon, 9-0, and Pepperdine, 7-2, last week. Undefeated UCLA singles players in dual matches are Cammie Foley (8-0), Mamie Ceniza (7-0) and Iwalani McCalla.
The No. 11 Pepperdine women’s tennis team (12-1) will play No. 4 Georgia today in the first round of the ITCA team indoor championships.
Last week the Waves beat Pacific, 8-1, and No. 12 USC, 6-1, but lost to No. 3 UCLA, 7-2. Pepperdine’s Marina Bottazzi is 13-0 in singles and teammates Janna Kovacevich and Noelle Porter are 10-0 in doubles.
The No. 16 Pepperdine men’s tennis team (9-1 at the start of the week) will play host to No. 7 California at 1:30 p.m. today and to Michigan at 1:30 p.m. Monday.
In last week’s ITCA team championships, the Waves lost to No. 18 Harvard, 5-1, but beat Utah, 8-1, and No. 20 Kansas, 6-3. Freshman Ari Nathan’s 9-1 singles record is Pepperdine’s best, and he and Ashley Naumann are a team-best 7-0 in doubles.
The Santa Monica College men’s tennis team (2-1 overall, 1-1 in Western State Conference play as the week began) will play Saturday morning at Cuesta. Last week the Corsairs beat Bakersfield, 7-2. Jean-Bernard Keen and Drake Jantzen, No. 1 and No. 2 singles for SMC, each won in straight sets.
The Santa Monica College women’s tennis team (1-1) will play host to Cuesta at 2 p.m. today. Last week the Corsairs finished third at the College of the Desert tournament.
The top-ranked USC men’s volleyball team (11-0 overall, 7-0 in the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. play) will play at Pepperdine (6-3, 3-3) at 4 p.m. Friday. The Waves are ranked No. 5 by Volleyball Monthly and No. 6 by the American Volleyball Coaches Assn.
Last week No. 3 Cal State Northridge snapped Pepperdine’s four-match winning streak by defeating the Waves in three games. Tom Sorenson had 16 kills and Dijon Douphner had 13 for the Waves.
The UCLA men’s volleyball team, ranked No. 6 by Volleyball Monthly and No. 7 by the AVCA, will play Saturday night at Stanford (4-5).
Last week the Bruins (5-4, 5-1) defeated Loyola Marymount in four games. UCLA was led by Dan Landry with 24 kills and Carl Henkel with 19.
The Santa Monica College men’s volleyball team will play host to Pierce at 7 p.m. Friday and play at Westmont at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
The top-ranked UCLA women’s softball team (15-0 as the week began) will compete this weekend in the Nevada Las Vegas invitational.
The Bruins are led by pitcher- third baseman Lisa Fernandez, who has a 5-0 record and has not given up an earned run this season. Fernandez also leads the team with a .422 batting average.
The Pepperdine baseball team (11-4-1 overall, 4-2 in West Coast Conference play as the week began) will play a three-game series this weekend at Santa Clara (9-8, 7-2). There will be a single game on Friday and a Saturday double-header.
Last week the Waves beat Cal State Long Beach, 5-4, and UCLA, 10-6, and then split a double-header against UC Irvine, losing, 4-1, and winning, 9-6. Wave pitcher Steve Montgomery had a win in relief against UCLA and a save against Irvine. For the week she worked nine innings and gave up six hits and two runs and had 13 strikeouts.
The Santa Monica College baseball team (10-9) will begin Western State Conference play with three games this week and next. The Corsairs will play host to Santa Barbara City College at 2 p.m. today, play at Pierce at 1 p.m. Saturday and entertain Bakersfield at 2 p.m. Tuesday.
SMC leaders are outfielder Paul Johnson with a .513 batting average, second baseman Damian Valdivia with a .449 average and 13 runs batted in, outfielder Sal Moreno at .370 and third baseman Mike Stella at .333 with 11 RBIs.
The UCLA men’s track team will compete at Cal State Los Angeles at 1 p.m. Saturday. The men’s hammer throw will be at 10 a.m. at West Los Angeles College.
The Bruin women’s team will compete at 9 a.m. Saturday at the San Diego State invitational.
In last week’s Long Beach Relays, the UCLA men’s 4-by-1, 600-meter relay team finished first in 17:09.23, and Tracie Millet, a top weight thrower for the Bruin women, finished first in the discus at 178-5.
The Santa Monica College women’s and men’s track teams will be the hosts of a quadrangular Western State Conference meet at 2 p.m. Friday at the college. Other teams entered are Moorpark, Bakersfield and Oxnard. The discus competition will start at 1 p.m. at Santa Monica High.
In a WSC quadrangular last week, the SMC men and women each finished third. Los Angeles Valley won the men’s meet and Los Angeles Valley and Ventura tied for first in the women’s competition. Corsair winners were Lewis Capes with a 49-8 1/2 in the shot put, William Bowling with a 6-10 in the high jump and Frederic Seydoux in the 1,500-meter run.
The UCLA women’s basketball team (13-12, 8-7 in Pacific 10 Conference play) will play host to Washington State (16-8, 8-6) at 7 p.m. Friday at Pauley Pavilion and to No. 9 Washington (20-3, 12-2) at 2 p.m. Sunday at the John Wooden Center.
Rehema Stephens has scored 1,241 points in two seasons and has moved to sixth on UCLA’s career-scoring list.
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487e7816a369cf7b335467992b3cb477 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-2776-story.html | Michael Uwich, 13, of Culver City, shot... | Michael Uwich, 13, of Culver City, shot...
Michael Uwich, 13, of Culver City, shot three holes in one during a round Jan. 30 at the Rancho Park nine-hole, 3-par golf course, according to course manager Clyde Blake. Uwich’s aces came at the fourth, sixth and seventh holes.
Blake, who has been involved in golf for more than 25 years, said that he had never heard of a similar feat.
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167abffac162c80f316a81e49b08f77a | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-28-we-3051-story.html | Number of Hispanics, Asians Up on Westside : Census: Federal count shows Anglos still the largest group. Culver City is the only Westside municipality to show overall growth. | Number of Hispanics, Asians Up on Westside : Census: Federal count shows Anglos still the largest group. Culver City is the only Westside municipality to show overall growth.
Westside cities showed a sharp increase in Hispanic and Asian residents over the last decade, according to data released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau.
But despite the waves of immigration that have changed the face of California since 1980, Anglos still dominate the populations of Beverly Hills, Culver City, Santa Monica and West Hollywood, the census found.
For the record:
12:00 AM, Mar. 03, 1991 For the Record Los Angeles Times Sunday March 3, 1991 Home Edition Westside Part J Page 3 Column 1 Zones Desk 1 inches; 23 words Type of Material: Correction Santa Monica mayor--An article in Thursday’s Westside section incorrectly identified City Councilman Dennis Zane as mayor of Santa Monica. Judy Abdo is the mayor.
The increase in Hispanics and Asians has been obvious, even without the census confirmation.
“I’m not surprised or upset. It’s pretty much the trend in California,” said Steven Gourley, mayor of Culver City, where the percentage of Anglos dropped by 10% while blacks increased by 27%, Asians shot up by 51% and Hispanics of all races showed a 19% upsurge.
Gourley doubted the Census Bureau’s total population figures, however, saying the reported 2% increase to 38,793 in Culver City was “hard to believe, given the growth and expansion that we’ve had on the Westside.”
Since state estimates over the last several years showed higher population totals, Westside cities stand to lose state and federal tax money if the federal count remains unchanged.
A number of cities, including Los Angeles, have filed suit against the Commerce Department, demanding that its totals be adjusted according to a formula intended to make up for undercounting of minority areas.
Culver City was the only one of the four Westside municipalities to show any growth over the last decade.
At 31,971, Beverly Hills experienced a negligible overall loss of about 300 people, but even in that high-priced enclave, the ethnic make-up of the population changed, albeit at a slower rate than the rest of the state.
With Anglos dropping in numbers by 5%, Asians more than doubled, to 1,708, while Hispanics boosted their numbers to 1,725, a 27% increase from 1980, and blacks showed a modest increase of 7%, for a total of 528.
“The fact that the population is flat doesn’t surprise me, because we are a mature community,” said Beverly Hills Mayor Allan L. Alexander. “That doesn’t strike me as showing any significant trend, other than a stable population because of the nature of the community.”
Although minority groups showed high percentages of growth, their numbers do not reflect any significant change in the ethnic make-up of Beverly Hills, where the Anglos are 87% of the population, blacks 2%, Asians 5% and Hispanics 5%.
The city’s growing Iranian-born population was counted in the Anglo category, a Census Bureau spokeswoman said.
In Santa Monica, a 9% increase in the number of dwelling units coincided with a 2% drop in population, something that Mayor Dennis Zane found hard to accept.
“Until we sit down and ferret out what it means, I don’t think anyone can respond with any confidence to these kinds of questions,” Zane said.
The 1990 Census found 86,905 in Santa Monica, three-fourths of them Anglos, 4% blacks, 6% Asians and 14% Hispanics. Asians had the sharpest increase, 56% since 1980, reaching a total of 5,385. Hispanics of all races totaled 12,210, 6% more than 10 years ago.
West Hollywood experienced a similar growth in housing units, increasing 8% to 23,821, while its population grew by a modest 1%, to 36,118.
West Hollywood saw increases of 44% for Asians and 57% for Hispanics during a decade when the black population declined by 9%. Total figures showed that Anglos made up 85% of the population last year.
The city, home to thousands of Soviet immigrant families, was the only one on the Westside to show an increase in the number of children under 18. The 2,557 youngsters represented 10% growth over 1980.
“This is certainly a trend the city feels good about,” said Mayor John Heilman. “We’ve been trying to create more day-care programs, to create a Head Start program for immigrant children.”
Although an appeal to the Census Bureau resulted in an increase in the city’s population total of about 1,000 over preliminary estimates, West Hollywood officials still feel that at least 1,500 residents were not counted, Heilman said.
“A large part of it is the language barrier. A large part of our residents are recent immigrants, and we believe that some of them do not understand the need to respond to the census, or are fearful or distrustful of government in general, because of where they’re from,” he said.
There was a 13% drop in the 18-and-under category in Santa Monica, a 10% drop in Beverly Hills and a 6% drop in Culver City, where the school district has closed schools at a time when Los Angeles schools have been forced to go on a year-round schedule.
Officials of all three cities noted that housing costs increased dramatically over the last 10 years, at the same time that the last of the baby boomers were leaving home and older couples made way for younger, two-income families who put off having children.
“It’s not a first-time home market for most people because of the high cost of housing,” Alexander said.
Although the number of blacks declined in the city of Los Angeles as a whole, blacks increased their numbers in the unincorporated residential enclaves of Ladera Heights and View Park-Windsor Hills, the data showed.
The Census Bureau report also indicated an 8% drop in the population of Marina del Rey, to 7,431.
Eric Bourdon, deputy director of Los Angeles County’s Department of Beaches and Harbors, which administers the marina, said he was surprised by the decrease. The marina’s apartments have a vacancy rate of 4%, he said.
ETHNIC/RACIAL DISTRIBUTION Following are the latest U.S. Census figures on the racial/ethnic population breakdown in Westside communities compared to the 1980 totals. In the data, the U.S. Census makes a distinction between racial groups and ethnic groups.
All categories except “Hispanic” are considered racial groups. The “Hispanic” category is considered an ethnic group and includes Hispanics of all races. Anglos are non-Hispanic whites.
All of the groups together represent the total population picture.
% Chg. % Chg. City Total from ’80 Anglo from ’80 Black Beverly Hills 31,971 -1 27,937 -5 528 Culver City 38,793 2 22,414 -10 3,881 Ladera Heights 6,316 -5 2,195 -37 3,596 Marina del Rey 7,431 -8 6,461 -12 301 Santa Monica 86,905 -2 65,184 -5 3,732 Vw. Pk.-Windsor Hills 11,769 -3 918 -37 10,185 West Hollywood 36,118 1 30,596 -2 1,155
% Chg. City from ’80 Beverly Hills 7 Culver City 27 Ladera Heights 38 Marina del Rey 2 Santa Monica 7 Vw. Pk.-Windsor Hills 2 West Hollywood -9
% Chg. % Chg. City Asian from ’80 Am.Ind. from ’80 Beverly Hills 1,708 122 42 55 Culver City 4,555 51 176 36 Ladera Heights 235 -17 12 -32 Marina del Rey 327 167 19 53 Santa Monica 5,385 56 270 -3 Vw. Pk.-Windsor Hills 176 -26 37 -10 West Hollywood 1,066 44 105 na
% Chg. % Chg. City Others from ’80 Hispanic from ’80 Beverly Hills 31 -89 1,725 27 Culver City 100 -78 7,667 19 Ladera Heights 38 -46 240 31 Marina del Rey 2 -97 321 22 Santa Monica 124 -89 12,210 6 Vw. Pk.-Windsor Hills 51 -54 402 38 West Hollywood 43 -88 3,153 57
Note: Percent changes for Asian and American Indian categories include Hispanics and non-Hispanics.
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census ETHNIC GROUPS
City Anglo Black Asian Am.Ind. Other Hispanic Beverly Hills 87.4% 1.7% 5.3% 0.1% 0.1% 5.4% Culver City 57.8% 10.0% 11.7% 0.5% 0.3% 19.8% Ladera Heights 34.8% 56.9% 3.7% 0.2% 0.6% 3.8% Marina del Rey 86.9% 4.1% 4.4% 0.3% 0.0% 4.3% Santa Monica 75.0% 4.3% 6.2% 0.3% 0.1% 14.0% View Pk.-Windsor Hills 7.8% 86.5% 1.5% 0.3% 0.4% 3.4% West Hollywood 84.7% 3.2% 3.0% 0.3% 0.1% 8.7%
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census POPULATION AND HOUSING
% Chg. % Chg. City Adult from ’80 Children from ’80 Beverly Hills 26,677 1 5,294 -10 Culver City 31,548 4 7,245 -6 Ladera Heights 5,232 -2 1,084 -17 Marina del Rey 7,115 -10 316 101 Santa Monica 74,928 0 11,977 -13 View Pk.-Windsor Hills 9,700 3 2,069 -23 West Hollywood 33,561 1 2,557 10
% Chg. % Chg. City Dwellings from ’80 Per dwelling from ’80 Beverly Hills 15,723 6 2.0 -7 Culver City 16,943 6 2.3 -4 Ladera Heights 2,677 4 2.4 -9 Marina del Rey 5,419 -4 1.4 -4 Santa Monica 47,753 9 1.8 -10 View Pk.-Windsor Hills 4,749 4 2.5 -6 West Hollywood 23,821 8 1.5 -6
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census
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1e11432d5b6f394a635bc43aafb18d21 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-01-vw-2217-story.html | Comic Books Not Just Kid Stuff : Crusade: Their sex and violence are poisoning our children, says a man who wants publications cleaned up. | Comic Books Not Just Kid Stuff : Crusade: Their sex and violence are poisoning our children, says a man who wants publications cleaned up.
John Fulce has all the fervor of a man reformed. Only in his case it’s not cigarettes. Or booze.
John Fulce has sworn off comic books.
Fulce used to sell comic books. Actually, he lived comic books. He owned 30,000--a whole garage full--of them. There wasn’t room for the family car.
Then Fulce watched a television movie about Jesus that led, he says, to his being born again. After that, he began to look a little more closely at the content of the comic books he sold over the years.
And that’s when he sold his comic book shop, The Land of Oohs and Ahs in Fountain Valley. Out went his private comic book collection. His kid even sold his comic book collection.
What caused this reformation?
“When I started reading comic books, they had heroes you could look up to,” fumes Fulce, 40. “Now they’re telling kids it’s OK to curse, to commit adultery.”
Today, caped heroes have sex before marriage, occasionally sleep with somebody who’s married and seem to be a lot less reluctant to slice up a villain or drill him full of holes.
“We’re poisoning our culture, not just with comics but with movies and TV too,” says Fulce.
Like all serious collectors, Fulce was aware of comicdom’s most famous book. The book, “Seduction of the Innocent,” was written in the early 1950s by a psychologist named Frederic Wertham. In it, Wertham said comic books caused juvenile delinquency.
A Senate subcommittee heard about the book and hauled some of the comic book companies into hearings that the subcommittee was holding on juvenile delinquency. The companies were grilled about subverting America’s youth for profit.
Chastened by the bad publicity, the publishers vowed to go and sin no more. They adopted the Comics Code, which prohibited all the usual sorts of sex and mayhem and went even further in making the comics an uplifting experience. You couldn’t, for instance, portray a police officer or a government official in an unflattering light.
Last year, Fulce wrote a sequel to Wertham’s book called “Seduction of the Innocent Revisited.” It was published in August by a Christian publishing house that specializes in exposes of the New Age Movement and other bugbears of the Christian right.
All of this might seem like a tempest in a teapot to most adults, except that comic books are widely regarded as a children’s medium, even though the comic book companies say the majority of their readers are young adults.
But since kids are also reading them, Fulce says parents should at least take a look at what their offspring are reading.
At one end of the scale, Fulce objects to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles saying damn.
At the other end is stuff that most people would probably agree ought not be sold to children.
Fulce carries a stack of them around in a plain brown envelope when going on Christian talk shows. They are underground comics that depict sexual acts.
This stuff isn’t being sold to kids, comic book shop owners insist. It’s kept behind the counter and sold only to adults.
As for the more traditional comics--the super heroes like Batman and Spider-Man--shop owners say, each family should decide what its children can read.
What Fulce is doing, the shop owners say, is really trying to censor what can be read by adults.
Fulce is careful to dance around the “C” word. He’s done enough interviews to have acquired a pocketful of euphemisms for it. But question him far enough and his views are plain: “If the comic book industry can’t clean itself up, I’ll do everything in my power to see that they will. I’ll do whatever it takes--boycotts, lawsuits, whatever.”
Comic books started out life in the 1930s with a lot of adult readers. During WWII, millions of adults in uniform chuckled over them. But after the war, those people went home, got jobs, bought houses, started families and drifted away from comic books.
The publishers, desperate to hold onto their adult readers--people with the most cash--juiced up their product. There were horror comics and violent detective comics with sexy dames and crooked cops.
Then along came “Seduction of the Innocent” and the Senate hearings. The comics got tamer. They became, for the first time, almost entirely written for children.
Wholesome comic books--Fulce remembers Mighty Mouse fondly--were the ones he started reading in 1957, when he was 7 years old and laid up in the hospital for months with a ruptured spleen. His family was a blue-collar one in Dallas with seven children and a father who drove a truck.
Fulce wasn’t particularly religious.
He landed in Southern California with a wife and two children--a third would come later--in 1976. He worked for a landscape designer. In 1978, he became a born-again Christian. In 1980, he turned what was by then a hobby of more than 20 years into a business and opened the comic book shop.
It lasted seven years.
Until he began to believe that the old Comics Code of old was in the trash heap.
In 1987, he sold his store. Then he went home and wrote the book.
What’s in the book? Mostly a lot of panels taken from mainstream comics that, Fulce says, advocate abortion rights in Batman; revel in magic and nudity in the Books of Magic, which isn’t labeled--as some comics are--for mature readers only; espouse New Age philosophy in Thor; and portray fundamentalist Christians unflatteringly in several different comic books.
“If the porno industry were to use a vehicle to lure kids in, it would be comic books,” says Fulce.
Fulce has lately made the rounds of the Christian talk shows while studying to become a minister in the Church of God and dealing in antiques to keep body and soul together. His wife is a preschool teacher.
He lives in a comfortable house on a side street in Fountain Valley.
On a recent morning, he was dressed in an open-necked plaid shirt, slacks and loafers. He leaned forward in an overstuffed chair to make a point, an attach e case on the floor next to him crammed with a marked-up calendar, papers and newspaper clippings.
He was responding to a rumor that was making the rounds of the local comics shop owners, who say he started this crusade after his own comic shop began going down the tubes.
“Comments were made that I was so conservative I ran off my customers, that the shop was not doing well,” he said. “That’s a blatant lie. I made a very good living out of that shop until I couldn’t stomach the stuff the publishers were putting out anymore.”
It was shops like his that gave the comic book industry a new lease on life after the mom-and-pop stores that used to be where most people bought their comics were finished off by chain convenience stores. Comics sales went downhill for a while but started coming back as the comics shops proliferated in the 1970s and 1980s.
Now some of these shops have been swept up in the backlash against sexually explicit lyrics and pornographic videos. Little of the backlash has been seen in more liberal California, but in Illinois a few years ago a comic book shop owner was convicted of selling obscene materials and lost his lease; about the same time an owner in Calgary, Canada, was convicted on an obscenity charge.
What would Wertham, author of the original book, make of all this? He might be amused to find that in the world of big-time comic book collecting, where a 1940s-era Batman comic can sell for $10,000, copies of his book are now collector’s items at $60 to $300 a copy.
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aea60ec02f400430b0332c8146ab6987 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1596-story.html | MUSIC REVIEW : Perick Conducts Opera as Concert | MUSIC REVIEW : Perick Conducts Opera as Concert
This, in case you’ve been away from the planet lately, is Mozart Year. It also happens to be the year in which Christof Perick was appointed music director designate of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Both milestones, momentous and relatively modest, were commemorated Thursday night at Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, where a rather sparse though eminently enthusiastic audience braved the damp to attend a concert performance of “Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.”
Neither theatrical fish nor musical fowl, concert performances often tend to be frustrating affairs. This time, however, one had to be grateful even for limited favors. Mozart’s semi-serious Turkish delight had not been heard in the Los Angeles area since 1985, when it was mustered by the Long Beach Opera.
For this potentially festive occasion, Perick placed the orchestra center stage, an enthusiastic chorus from Occidental College at the rear, and the solo singers--decked out in formal attire--at either side. The noble protagonists inhabited a platform behind the fiddles, while the comic characters dwelt in similar fashion behind the cellos.
The arrangement seemed a bit fussy, and it put the principals at something of a visual as well as acoustical disadvantage. But it did suggest a useful semblance of dramatic definition.
That semblance was compromised, unfortunately, by the omission of all dialogue. In its place, someone decided to employ a new narration by Marvin Himelfarb. The text mocked the essential Baroque conventions, disrupted the dramatic flow, trivialized the pathos of the libretto and--given the presence of a plot synopsis in the program booklet--seemed patently redundant. Alan Chapman read the arch interpolations archly.
Still, it would take more than fatuous or cutesy monologues to destroy the impact of this intimate masterpiece. The music was, for the most part, well served.
Perick had demonstrated his affinity for the Mozartean rhetoric--delicate one moment, grandiose the next--when he led the memorable Music Center Opera production of “Cosi fan Tutte” in 1988. He inspired comparably elegant playing from his little orchestra-to-be amid the exotic intrigues of “Entfuhrung.” He again accompanied the singers sensitively, apart from oddly hasty tempos in “Wenn der Freude Tranen fliessen” and the great second-act finale.
That finale came, not incidentally, at a surprisingly anticlimactic moment: shortly after intermission. Perick chose to play the three acts in two unequal parts, sending the audience out to stretch after the bravura flights of “Martern aller Arten” and damaging Mozart’s precise structural balances in the process.
Replacing the originally scheduled Susan Patterson as Constanze, Elizabeth Carter conquered the ornate, stratospheric hurdles of that great aria with heroic thrust and compelling agility. Under the circumstances, it didn’t seem very important that her tone sometimes turned harsh under pressure and evaporated in the impossible descending passages.
Janet Williams as Blondchen provided the proper contrast of a sweeter, smaller coloratura soprano and, some inexactitude aside, exuded soubrette charm. Craig Estep complemented her as an eager, exceptionally bright-voiced Pedrillo.
Jonathan Mack, the romantic Belmonte, and Kevin Langan, the wily Osmin, had performed similar duties at a concert “Entfuhrung” presented by the now-defunct L.A. Opera Repertory Theater at the Music Center a decade ago. Here, the tenor made up in vocal finesse for what he lacked in vocal allure, and earned special gratitude for venturing the often deleted “Baumeister” aria. The basso demonstrated a genuine flair for comic portraiture and, despite increasing strain at range extremes, mustered a reasonable mini-growl for the bottom D in the florid vengeance aria.
The cast could boast no dizzying virtuosos. Nevertheless, everyone sang with style and point. It was enough.
Additional performances are scheduled tonight at the relatively cavernous Wiltern Theatre and Wednesday at the intimate Irvine Barclay Theatre.
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cdd16b23de182db8ca2947c804ae267f | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1603-story.html | STAGE REVIEW : ‘Sing for Your Supper’ Is Tasty Comedy | STAGE REVIEW : ‘Sing for Your Supper’ Is Tasty Comedy
Plays about unemployed actors aren’t unusual in this often narcissistic town. But “You Gotta Sing for Your Supper” is one of the most enjoyable.
“Sing” had a too-brief 1988 run in Hollywood, remaining largely unsung. You’d think the thousands of struggling actors in the neighborhood would have flocked to it. Now they get a second chance--Ned Eisenberg’s comedy has been revived at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, in a production virtually identical to that 1988 rendition.
We’re at Nick’s tiny New York flat on a steamy summer night. He has invited over four of his pals, all actors, to suggest that they form a group to sing doo-wop on the streets. The paid work has been slow lately--why not create a street corner showcase?
Nick’s fellow New York actors are skeptical. But then a new arrival from California (funny and flip Cain DeVore) laughs at the very idea--which is enough to fire up the New Yorkers with enthusiasm for it. It helps that the Californian has just snagged the role of a New York Italian on a soap opera. This news drives the group’s bona fide New York Italian (Frank Como, magnificently choleric) to distraction--and to doo-wop.
The first rehearsal starts well but soon threatens to disintegrate. It looks as if this will be just one more arena in which these actors can be rejected. Eisenberg takes us farther into actors’ fears and insecurities that you might imagine from such an affable little play.
So far, in fact, that nit-pickers may question the ease with which the group finally re-groups. But Eisenberg and the cast make us believe in the bond between these men--without resorting to male bonding cliches.
Eisenberg himself plays Nick, the smooth-talking mediator. Billy Strong huffs and puffs as the guy who incessantly trains his body, waiting for his big break; he’s likelier to get a big breakdown--and he knows it. The lone newcomer to the cast, Jordan Jacobson, fills in nicely as the assimilated Greek-American who incessantly trains his voice, afraid to look for his own big break. Bob Monroe, repeating his directing duties, deserves credit for the seamlessness of the ensemble.
“You Gotta Sing for Your Supper,” Beverly Hills Playhouse, 254 S. Robertson Blvd., Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Indefinitely. $15-$17.50. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.
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13cf29ba7af3156220d79fe253b13ce6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1605-story.html | TV Reviews : Ghosts, Romance in ‘Lantern Hill’ | TV Reviews : Ghosts, Romance in ‘Lantern Hill’
If ghosts, eccentric old ladies, resourceful little girls, deathbed drama and romance are your cup of tea, “Lantern Hill” is a splendid treat. Originally seen on the Disney cable channel, this well-crafted film is now accessible to a wider audience, airing Sunday on PBS’ “Wonderworks Family Movie,” at 5 p.m. on Channel 28.
It’s another Prince Edward Island adventure from “Anne of Green Gables” author Lucy Maud Montgomery--one of her best.
Twelve-year-old Jane Stuart (Mairon Bennett), whose mother is ill, must live with her tyrannical, rich grandmother (Zoe Caldwell). Miserable in her new private school, the target of her cousin’s spite, she learns that her father isn’t dead--that her mother left him when Jane was a baby for dark, unspoken reasons.
Then Jane meets her father (Sam Waterston), his interfering sister and the mysterious Hepzibah (Colleen Dewhurst), who guides Jane’s destiny.
As she and her father find their way together, Jane discovers the strength to bring peace to a restless ghost and right the wrongs that separated her parents. Part of that strength comes from tough little orphan Polly--"I ain’t riff-raff. I works ‘ard to pay my own way"--delightfully played by “Avonlea” star Sarah Polley.
The production is first-rate, from the uniformly solid performances to Kevin Sullivan’s silky direction and the colorful screenplay he wrote with Fiona McHugh.
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bc3ebf4a46c4325c70b5b051664cf7b8 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1606-story.html | TV Reviews : ‘Father Grew Up’ Wilts in a Soggy Story | TV Reviews : ‘Father Grew Up’ Wilts in a Soggy Story
It’s rare if not unheard of that a play that originated on a small Hollywood stage should wind up as a prime-time network movie. But much of the material dramatized in the under 100-seat L.A. area theaters has a lot in common with the relationship dramas that pop up as two-hour television movies (really 95 minutes, sans commercials).
“The Summer My Father Grew Up,” starring John Ritter (at 9 p.m. Sunday on Channels 4, 36 and 39), was first produced as a play called “Tooth of the Lion” at the Melrose Theatre in 1982, with Paul Kent in the title role. Interestingly, playwright Sandra Jennings’ stage drama about the effects of divorce on an 11-year-old boy has made the transition to prime time almost intact.
What’s unfortunate, in this case, is that Jennings’ adaptation is the same soggy story that it was on stage. It’s fun for awhile to see the remarried Ritter character bitterly squabble with his ex-wife over the summer custody of their son. Any parent who’s been through a divorce can identify with these scenes.
The trouble with the production is its lack of bite. There’s no edge here. As the boy, juvenile actor Matthew Lawrence is insufferably bright and woefully good-looking. All hard-luck kids should have his problems. He really has it made--two loving, albeit brainwashing, parents who lead enriched professional lives. The divorced parents are happily remarried. There’s even a new baby on the way in the Ritter household.
Will the boy forgive his father for dumping his mom for another woman? With whom will he spend the summer? This is almost a non-story.
Ritter’s characteristic charm can’t save it. Director Michael Tuchner certainly can’t. Lee Holdridge’s music is soppy. The boy’s fierce, dad-bashing mom (Margaret Whitton) sets feminism back 100 years, and Ritter’s new wife (Karen Young) is too luminous and sweet for words.
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97a9afa9842e76ad8265599a8eb52c90 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1609-story.html | WEEKEND TV : Focus on Aftermath of the Gulf War | WEEKEND TV : Focus on Aftermath of the Gulf War
The euphoria and uncertainties of peace will dominate the talk on TV this weekend.
Highlights include Secretary of State James Baker discussing his upcoming tour of Middle Eastern capitals and U.S. political goals in the aftermath of the Gulf War on “Meet the Press,” Sunday at 8:30 a.m. on Channels 4, 36 and 39.
“The McLaughlin Group” will follow at 9 a.m. (4), 5:30 p.m. (50), with a debate over the lessons learned in the Gulf War, a look at Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf and whether to hold Iraqi President Saddam Hussein accountable for war crimes.
Today at 4 p.m. and again at 8 p.m., Speaker of the House Thomas Foley (D-Wash.) joins CNN’s “The Capital Gang” in a look at the political future of the Middle East.
And if the war’s end has put you in the mood for song, Channel 28 presents the works of two veterans in “Johnny Mathis,” tonight at 9 and “Sinatra, the Voice of Our Time,” Sunday at 8 p.m., hosted by Mel Torme.
Other weekend shows include:
TODAY John Sununu, White House chief of staff, is interviewed on “Evans & Novak,” 9:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. CNN. . . .
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney discusses the war on “Newsmaker Saturday,” 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. CNN. . . .
Pat Boone, Mary Frann and Robb Weller host the 18-hour “Easter Seal Telethon,” 11 p.m. (5).
SUNDAY Arab-American reaction to the war is the topic on “News Conference,” 6:30 a.m. (4). . . . “Sunday Today” reports on the situation in the Middle East and former football player Izzy Lang,7 a.m. (4)(36)(39). . . .
“Newsmaker Sunday” airs at 7:30 a.m. CNN. . . .
“Sunday Morning” reports on Kuwaiti emigres’ plans to return to their country, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s uncertain future and the movie “The Doors,” 7:30 a.m. (2)(8). . . .
Robert Reischauer, director of the Congressional Budget Office, discusses the impact of the war’s end on the recession on “Business World” at 9:30 a.m. (7), 10:30 a.m. (42). . . .
National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft guests on “This Week With David Brinkley” at 10 a.m. (7)(10), 3 p.m. (3)(42). . . .
“American Interests” examines relations between Britain and the United States, 10 a.m. (28). . . .
Military experts Andy Lightbody and Lew Snider reflect on the war on “Midday Sunday,” 11 a.m. (11). . . .
“Signs of the Times” examines “the evolution of Asians in Los Angeles,” 11:30 a.m. (11). . . .
“The West” checks out a Kansas town’s role in the war effort, a Las Vegas hotelier and winter landscapes, 3:30 p.m. (4), 5 p.m.(36). . . .
“60 Minutes” reports on est founder Werner Erhard, women’s status in the Soviet Union, and an allegedly botched search for a missing Illinois family, 7 p.m. (2)(8). . . .
“Expose” investigates a reputed “dirty” bank and truck-stop dangers, 8 p.m. (4)(36)(39). . . .
“Real Life With Jane Pauley” looks at a Korean man’s search for the U.S. soldier who saved his life, and film director Martin Scorsese, 8:30 p.m. (4)(36)(39). . . .
“Judy Garland: The Concert Years” features clips of the famed actress singing “Over the Rainbow” and a duet of “Get Happy” with Barbra Streisand, 9 p.m. Disney Channel. . . .
“Jesse Jackson” talks about minorities in the military, 11:30 p.m. (8), midnight (9). . . .
“Face the Nation” airs at 3:30 p.m. (8), 1 a.m. (2).
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31cbc6720f334790422c8e25ea6e1df7 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1610-story.html | Bishop Vinton R. Anderson, who presides over... | Bishop Vinton R. Anderson, who presides over...
Bishop Vinton R. Anderson, who presides over 255 African Methodist Episcopal churches in the western states, was recently elected one of seven presidents of the World Council of Churches.
Anderson, 63, is the first black American to hold the position.
He has residences and offices in Los Angeles and St. Louis and has headed the AME Church’s Fifth District since 1988.
Anderson’s election as a World Council president came at the 7th Assembly of the world body in Canberra, Australia.
The presidents generally have been nominated and elected to represent a cross-section of the World Council by denomination, continent, gender and racial heritage. Some delegates argued strongly at Canberra that the process was unfair or unwieldy. Other presidents elected in Australia included Egypt’s Pope Shenouda of the Coptic Orthodox Church and Eunice Sanata of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Puerto Rico.
Anderson was among 18 U.S. church leaders who made an anti-war peace pilgrimage to the Middle East last December as a part of the mainline Protestant and Orthodox opposition to war in the Persian Gulf. While several clergy went to Baghdad to press their concerns, Anderson was among six church leaders who visited Jerusalem.
He has been especially active in ecumenical relations. He was on the National Council of Churches governing board from 1984 to 1989 and is vice president of the Consultation on Church Union. Since 1988, he has been moderator of the World Council’s liaison committee for the historically black churches.
PEOPLE
William A. Dyrness, 48, will be formally installed Tuesday in Pasadena as the new dean of Fuller Seminary’s School of Theology. Most recently, Dyrness taught theology at New College for Advanced Christian Studies in Berkeley and was president of that school from 1982 to 1986. He taught at Asian Theological Seminary in Manila before that. He has written eight books, the latest titled, “Learning About Theology from the Third World” (Zondervan, 1990). During his 10 a.m. installation service at Pasadena’s First Congregational Church, Dyrness will give an address on challenges to theological education.
San Diego-based evangelist Morris Cerullo, who opens a faith-healing crusade Thursday night at Crenshaw Christian Center’s large Faith Dome in Los Angeles, will be traveling abroad or around the country for the next eight months--leaving management of Jim Bakker’s old theme park in other hands. Yet-King Loy, one of his Malaysian partners and the park’s president, will run New Heritage USA in Ft. Mill, S.C. Final decisions at New Heritage--for which Cerullo paid $45 million last year--reside with a small executive committee of Cerullo, his son David, Loy, and Lawrence Chai, president of a Canadian investment company.
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04dae96f4fe1d5dd3853faa71c0b65b2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1612-story.html | Unwrapping ‘Fun in a Box’ Series on Videocassettes | Unwrapping ‘Fun in a Box’ Series on Videocassettes
Different and delightful, the “Fun in a Box” videocassette series is aptly named. Aimed at ages 6 to 12--but with adult appeal too--each 30-minute tape is an eclectic, let’s-see-it-again mix of multi-award-winning animated and live action shorts.
The centerpiece of “Fun in a Box 1: “Ben’s Dream and Other Stories and Fun,” is the animated “Ben’s Dream,” based on the book by acclaimed children’s author-illustrator Chris Van Allsburg. Stunningly rendered pen-and-ink drawings come to life, taking viewers on a surreal tour of the world’s historic monuments.
The live-action “Fish” sneaks up on you. Moving and humorous, with a surprise ending, it’s about a lonely little girl who hires three quirky, Keats-quoting detectives to find her brother. Steve Segal’s animated “Red Ball Express” rounds out the tape.
“Fun in a Box 2: “New Friends and Other Stories & Fun,” is highlighted by a funny, animated version of James Stevenson’s book “New Friends,” about a lost duck who winters in New York City. Other segments include the mesmerizing, hand-painted “Metal Dogs of India,” “Kinetic Sculpture” and “Why Cats Eat First,” told by a bearded storyteller.
A third tape, “Fun in a Box 3: “The Birthday Movie” will be released this month.
Made-to-Order Productions, $14.95 each. Information: (800) 232-5252.
“The Magic Fox,” a touring fairy-tale musical presented by the Golden State Children’s Theatre, is more muddle than magic.
The level of professionalism within the cast varies--standouts are Stephen Wolfe as Finnigan Flannigan Fox and Alan Anderson as Peter the Cobbler. Adriane Gabrielle evokes giggles in her campy role as Slimella the evil sorceress, and there are a few well-executed song-and-dance numbers, but they play against a limp script and unimaginative sets.
It’s a disappointing effort from Raun Yankovich and Adriane Coros, creators of the truly magical “Wolftales.”
“The Magic Fox,” Lincoln Junior High School, 1501 California Ave., Santa Monica, today, 2 p.m.; $3; (213) 828-1371 . Fontana Performing Arts Center, 9460 Sierra Ave., next Saturday, 1 p.m. ; $3; (714) 350-6734. Running time: 1 hour.
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61af492b843e4b31b445c979d628cca2 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1716-story.html | CLASSICAL MUSIC : Talmi to Bring Back U.S. Music to Symphony in Fall | CLASSICAL MUSIC : Talmi to Bring Back U.S. Music to Symphony in Fall
Contemporary American music, notably absent from this season’s San Diego Symphony offerings, will stage a mild comeback in the 1991-92 winter season recently announced by symphony management. Music director Yoav Talmi will set a good example, opening the new season Oct. 4 with Jean Berger’s “Sinfonia di San Petronio.” A German-born composer who has worked in the United States since World War II, Berger is better known for his choral compositions than for his symphonic works. But his unambiguously tonal, Impressionist idiom is unlikely to ruffle any feathers.
The respected American composer Lukas Foss will conduct the San Diego Symphony on Nov. 8-10 in a program that includes his “Fanfare for Orchestra,” written in 1973, and the infrequently performed Third Symphony of Aaron Copland. Foss, music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and conductor laureate of the Milwaukee Symphony, is equally at home on the podium and at the composer’s desk. Earlier in his career, Foss had the distinction of following Arnold Schoenberg as UCLA’s professor of composition.
Although Talmi has included the ubiquitous Samuel Barber “Adagio for Strings” for May 15, 1992, the majority of his American music choices are definitely off the beaten track. Symphony principal cellist Xin-Hua Ma will solo in David Ott’s recent Concerto for Two Cellos on Nov. 22, and guest pianist James Tocco will perform John Corigliano’s Piano Concerto on Feb. 13, 1992.
It has been 10 years since the orchestra has performed a Benjamin Lees composition, so Lees’ Concerto for Brass Choir and Orchestra on March 13, 1992 should prove a welcome addition.
Outside of San Diego, Talmi has a reputation for conducting new music. In January, he conducted premieres of Arne Nordheim’s works with the Oslo Philharmonic. Talmi also made a recording of these compositions by Nordheim, whom he described as Norway’s most important contemporary composer. Talmi’s approach to contemporary music on this side of the Atlantic, as evidenced by the virtual absence of contemporary music during his first season as music director, has been particularly cautious.
Talmi has carefully larded the early months of the 1991-92 schedule with audience-pleasing blockbusters. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony will be the main salvo of the opening night concert, and principal guest conductor Robert Shaw will conduct the Beethoven “Missa Solemnis” before the month is out, in Oct. 24-25 concerts. November will bring Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and December a Mozart marathon with Symphony No. 41 (“Jupiter”) and the “Requiem.”
The music director’s long-range cycles--one per year of Bruckner and Mahler--continue with Mahler’s Fourth Symphony Oct. 18, with soprano Georgine Resick and Bruckner’s expansive Ninth Symphony Nov. 14. Brahms figures heavy in 1992, with an all-Brahms transcription concert Jan. 23 that will end up on a compact disc; Brahms’ “A German Requiem” on March 27 and the Brahms Second Symphony on May 15.
Free operetta. Members of the “Die Fledermaus” cast, San Diego Opera’s Civic Theatre production opening tonight, will perform in Wednesday’s free noon concert at the Civic Center Concourse. Soprano Cheryl Parrish (Adele in “Die Fledermaus”), mezzo-soprano Suzanna Guzman (Prince Orlofsky) and tenor Ronald Stevens (Eisenstein) will sing their favorite operetta arias. Stevens will also sing a medley from “Camelot” and the song Enrico Caruso made famous, “For You Alone.” Roger Pines, the company’s education director, will host the program. The Wednesday series continues March 27 and April 3.
War casualty. Fearing its potential audience would be glued to television’s blow-by-blow account of the Persian Gulf ground war, the Kingston Mainly Mozart Festival rescheduled its fund-raising radio marathon to March 11. The event, which had been originally slated for Feb. 25, will be broadcast on classical music station KFSD-FM (94.1) from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m.
Hosting opera techies. San Diego Opera will be host to about 70 production managers and technical directors at Opera America’s annual technical-production meeting April 11-14 at the Marriott Suites Hotel. San Diego City Councilman Bruce Henderson, who admits to being a San Diego Opera subscriber, will welcome the conferees, who will attend the company’s production of Carlysle Floyd’s “The Passion of Jonathan Wade.” Sets for this co-production with three other American opera companies were constructed in San Diego Opera’s Scenic Studio.
Unusual this week. Robert Shaw will conduct the San Diego Symphony in John Harbison’s “Remembering Gatsby” Thursday and March 9. Shaw premiered the work, a commission by the Atlanta Symphony, in Atlanta in 1986. The composer describes it as a “fox-trot for orchestra.” Last month, New World Records released an impressive disc of Harbison’s recent works, including the 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Flight Into Egypt.” Harbison was the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new music adviser and composer in residence.
Early music aficionados will not want to miss the Musicians of Swanne Alley, an American ensemble that will perform British Renaissance music at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral Friday at 8 p.m.
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7f7062e19ef4c3f47172d7cd41fcd178 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1719-story.html | Undercutting SCR, Spirit of LADCC Awards | Undercutting SCR, Spirit of LADCC Awards
South Coast Repertory recently received great news from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle. The LADCC had nominated SCR for 10 Distinguished Achievement Awards. SCR co-founder Martin Benson was the only person to receive two nominations, and SCR’s world premiere of “Search and Destroy,” a challenging play that we had commissioned and developed, had won the first Ted Schmitt Award for Best New Play.
To Orange County readers, however, it appeared that SCR had been embarrassed by the nominations: The Times Orange County Edition (“SCR Not So Dominant in Critics Circle,” Calendar, Feb. 27) reported that the theater had “slipped several notches” in receiving “just 10 nominations.” There was no mention that we had in fact received the same number of nominations last year. There was only the reference that SCR had “dominated” in 1987 and ’88.
This undercuts the spirit of the LADCC, which goes out of its way to ensure that the awards are non-competitive, calling them Distinguished Achievements rather than “Bests,” and being free to give multiple awards, or no awards, in any category.
That one of the theaters most acclaimed by the LADCC over the past decade is located 60 miles from most of the critics (all but one of the 18 LADCC members live in Los Angeles County) is an achievement worthy of Ripley’s.
CRISTOFER GROSS
Director of Public Relations
South Coast Repertory
Costa Mesa
MORE LETTERS: F3
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817ceb3e92053f58eb834dbbf542136e | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1914-story.html | Those Daring Young Men in the Cirque’s Front Office | Those Daring Young Men in the Cirque’s Front Office
What garlic is to life, loud is to the circus.
Not always. Take a look inside the big blue and yellow tent off the 405 Freeway in the parking lot of South Coast Plaza where Canada’s Cirque du Soleil is holding forth. There, majestic among the band’s amplifiers and Fenders, is something older even than the circus, an acoustic, stand-up string double bass. Unplucked and bowed, daring solos come from it, all done without benefit of net or spotter.
Clearly, any circus with a mellow, deep bass fiddle has a message to tell.
And the message: If you build it . . . they will come.
Canada’s Cirque du Soleil is an example of inventive and imaginative building, a prospering circus during a time of hit-or-miss success rates for the more traditional three-ring, hardtop indoor shows. Cirque is also an example of how a growing number of arts and entertainment companies diversify themselves, becoming self-contained mini-conglomerates in order to stay financially strong. It’s not enough anymore to count on the box office and the popcorn machine.
In Hollywood it is called secondary sales where spin-off companies or divisions distribute home videos, record albums, cable and television shows and produce souvenir merchandise from sweatbands to sweat shirts. In television it is called syndication, reruns, even the selling of transcripts and cassettes.
In art galleries and museums, it is the gift shop.
That bass fiddle among the brass is just one small sign of the imaginative measures Cirque du Soleil takes in producing a new type of circus and at the same time building an audience following in the United States. It started and has remained a most untraditional traveling big-top show. It has no wild animals. No three rings. No sawdust. No stars. No long-term performers. No hawkers under canvas. And no creditors waiting in line to grab the day’s receipts.
The average age of its 150 roadshow employees is 24. Its executives are in their very early 30s. Its performers work only two years and then move on. The show itself changes totally every two years. None of the original acts has remained. Unlike most other circuses, it is a themed show with its performers acting out a story. Its lighting and stage effects are space age and high-tech. Eighty-five percent of its engagements are in the United States, heavily along the Pacific Coast.
Paradoxically, much of what Cirque has done could also describe the very early American circuses. That’s the belief of Robert L. Parkinson, a circus historian and research director of the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wis., where Ringling got started 107 years ago. Early American circuses also were based on story lines: A visitor comes to town, for example, and discovers wondrous things as he moves from performer to performer. The early circuses had no wild animals, but they did have equestrian acts. Early circuses invented new forms of entertainment. Many, like the human cannonballs and the lion tamers, became circus traditions. “Circuses always had a tradition of variety and newness,” he says. “They suffered in the 1960s, though. The recession kept people away and killed off some circuses. Television ate into the audiences. Those circuses that stuck it out saw inflation bring ticket prices to a more attractive level.”
Cirque du Soleil is also carrying on another, almost ancient circus tradition. It makes money, conceivably Canada’s answer to balance of payments.
While its parent is a nonprofit company, Cirque turns a profit. It has expanded in tour dates and earnings in an era where the number of American circuses have dwindled to 100, with only three able to take limited national tours. Cirque more recently grossed $25 million in one tour. The subsidy provided by various Canadian government agencies to form Cirque in 1984 and to send it to Los Angeles four years ago has dropped from 95% of budget to less than 7% this year.
What has helped power the Cirque organization along with its strong showmanship and marketing is its financial organization. The parent holding company is Le Groupe du Soleil Inc., and in its short history has developed a number of related businesses, self-sufficient spin-offs. In effect, they’ve sent in the clones.
Cirque du Soleil Productions is the traveling circus, the one that opened the first Los Angeles Festival in 1987 in an empty downtown lot. It has twice returned to Southern California and when it closes its current West-Coast run after hitting San Francisco, Santa Monica, San Diego and Costa Mesa it will head east for New York before summering back home in Canada. It produces 300 shows a year, only 85 of which are staged in Canada.
Early on the Telemagik company was formed. It is a video company that has produced and marketed cassettes, developed television specials for HBO and the Canadian Broadcasting Co., and is working on new TV and movie projects.
More recently, the parent company bought into Admission, a computerized box-office, ticket-selling enterprise, a sort of Canadian Ticketmaster. It also formed Microflex, a computer software company that also is involved in entertainment ticketing with a division for home and business security projects.
To run the business and creative aspects of Cirque, Creations Meandres was formed. It helps develop and manage performers and Cirque artists along with a music publishing business.
Cirque also formed an investment and marketing company, Entreprises Tous Azimuts, as well as a division to develop and distribute promotional items, Enterprises Naga.
The parent company is a strong financial supporter of a school for the circus arts in Montreal where some of the present performers were trained and where future artists are being developed.
There’s one other project that the company hopes to get off the ground. The Cirque’s Jean David is out there looking for a sponsor. He is vice president for marketing and communication and he is looking for an American company willing to put up a hunk of front money to be identified with Le Cirque. “It would be good for a big company to be associated with us,” he said, “you know, like ‘AT&T; Presents Le Cirque du Soleil.’ We are young and dynamic. Other American companies sponsor concerts and art exhibits. With a sponsor we would be totally on our own. Maybe we would not need the (subsidies).”
There has been some interest, David says, but so far no brass ring. Meanwhile, Cirque’s creative business energies took another turn in Southern California.
During its Costa Mesa run, Le Cirque tried a spin by opening a satellite ticket and retail store in the Jewel Court of South Coast Plaza. After all, when in California, do as Californians do and hit the mall. On sale: T-shirts, music CDs, program books, pins, sweat shirts and, of course, tickets.
The mall idea fits into a strong Cirque marketing concept: be visible and be reachable. It wants to be seen. It wants parking. Those are some of the things Danny Pelchat, Cirque’s executive producer, was looking for in early 1990 when he began to stalk Orange County for a site.
Pelchat rarely gets to see the circus. In planning for sites more than a year in advance he is usually in Quebec or on the road. Right now, he’s thinking 1992, hopefully a return to Santa Monica, Costa Mesa and San Diego. And beyond? Maybe Japan. Some Latin American countries have shown an interest. Europe, England? Well, maybe. Last year a second company was formed and sent to London and Paris. All of the magic didn’t work there. “They thought we were an American company,” one executive said.
“Some of the critics beat up on us. Our press releases carried our old advertising line about how we had reinvented the circus. They didn’t like that so they tried to reinvent us.”
This time around, the advertising message is nouvelle experience . Enough French for American ticket buyers to understand. Enough French to suggest something new, now that they’ve already reinvented the circus.
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ad6462f644b59014976b3a62ebbd46b0 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1917-story.html | Newport Beach Pastor to Run for Post | Newport Beach Pastor to Run for Post
At the urging of evangelical leaders in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a Newport Beach pastor has decided to run for the post of moderator in his 2.9-million-member denomination, which faces a battle at its June convention over a controversial report on sexuality.
The Rev. John A. Huffman Jr., pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, said in an interview this week that he believes “the task force report flies in the face of biblical teaching on sexuality.”
The wide-ranging report has drawn fire for endorsing “responsible” sexual relations outside of marriage and recommending that pulpits be opened to non-celibate homosexuals. The study goes before delegates to the Presbyterian General Assembly, which convenes June 4-12 in Baltimore.
“We dare not declare right that which the Bible says is sin,” said Huffman, who is a board member of Presbyterians for Renewal, a national evangelical group within the denomination that has denounced the task force recommendations.
“I am relieved that the discussion is not just on homosexuality,” he said. “Biblical standards need to be applied to all of us, regardless of our sexual orientation. Under no circumstance do I see the Bible giving room for adultery and premarital intercourse for heterosexuals or for intercourse by homosexuals.”
Huffman, 50, who has pastored the 4,500-member Newport Beach church since 1978, is one of three nominees for the one-year moderator post. Previously nominated were the Rev. William Gillespie, a prominent black pastor in St. Louis, and the Rev. Herbert Valentine, the executive for the Presbytery of Baltimore.
The moderator presides over the General Assembly sessions and travels extensively around the country during his term as a spokesman for Presbyterian views and values.
Huffman was nominated by the Los Ranchos Presbytery, a district of churches extending from the Los Angeles City Hall to Long Beach and all of Orange County. He was moderator in 1988.
Huffman recently returned from Australia, where he attended the World Council of Churches Assembly as one of 15 Presbyterian accredited visitors.
In his bid for the moderator’s post, Huffman emphasized that he is a denominational loyalist whose church gave $1.6 million to Presbyterian causes last year--one of the top contributors nationally for the Louisville-based denomination.
Huffman said he will emphasize his confidence in the mainline denomination to thrive and grow despite the downward trend in membership in recent decades.
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1eb0956c1d9ac33acc951672ab496ef6 | https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-02-ca-1920-story.html | Stardust Memories at Final Curtain of ‘Lido’ : Las Vegas: Four hundred former showgirls share in cast’s farewell to the show, which is being replaced by a new musical production opening in July. | Stardust Memories at Final Curtain of ‘Lido’ : Las Vegas: Four hundred former showgirls share in cast’s farewell to the show, which is being replaced by a new musical production opening in July.
Showgirls and show-goers wept as the final curtain closed on a 32 1/2-year fixture on the Las Vegas Strip, with 400 former showgirls sharing in a poignant farewell for the “Lido de Paris.”
The show, imported from Paris in 1958, has drawn 19 million people for 22,000 performances here. Artistic differences and costs have prompted the Stardust Hotel, the “Lido’s” home, to opt for a new musical production, scheduled to open in July.
Current dancers and those of another era began to weep Thursday night as the band played “Thanks for the Memories” following the show’s finale.
Some showgirls wiped away tears streaking heavy stage makeup and others blew kisses or flashed a thumbs-up sign to former showgirls in the the audience who had been in their place two or three decades ago.
“I suppose change is good, but I love this show and I’m really going to miss it,” said showgirl Michelle Lensky. “It’s really sad.”
Among those watching the final bows were illusionists Siegfried & Roy, who were featured attractions of the production in the early 1970s, working for $1,800 a week. Today they headline in their own show at the Mirage Hotel, two blocks away, and are in their second year of a five-year, $57.5-million pact.
During the final performance, former “Lido” showgirls throughout the audience applauded and cheered various dance segments which have been a part of the show since it opened July 2, 1958, the same day the resort opened its doors. Among the opening night crowd were Bob Hope, Harold Lloyd and the McGuire Sisters.
The show was an offshoot of the original “Lido” in Paris, which opened in 1928. The first cast was flown directly from Paris and consisted entirely of foreign performers. Over the years, Americans have taken over the roles.
The closing of the show left 61 showgirls, dancers and other performers out of work. Most hoped to catch on with other shows here.
Bobby Berosini and his orangutans, the Lido headliner in recent years, will be retained by the Stardust in a public relations capacity until the new show opens, according to hotel spokesman Jim Seagrave.
He will headline the new show, Seagrave said.
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