Across the Pond

Lights, camera, action! The Hollywood sign, seen from Hollywood Blvd Los Angeles does a lousy job of preserving its heritage, and the district of Hollywood, L.A.'s prime tourist destination, is a perfect example of this failure. Hollywood's dominant feature is a mall at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue that was opened in 2001. The shopping and entertainment center dwarfs the Roosevelt Hotel, the El Capitan Theater, Grauman's Chinese Theater — now actually TCL Chinese Theater, after the company that bought it a few months back — and whatever else may be left of the classical Hollywood. In a pile-it-on mixture of styles and forms, the complex boasts postmodern glass fronts, roof tops reminiscent of bunkers from World War II and elephant statues perched upon voluptuous columns. The site has Las Vegas feel to it. But while such eclecticism might amuse me anywhere in Nevada, I find it eerie everywhere else. I don't want L.A. to look like Vegas. Tha...

On a chilly Sunday night in February two young girls in jeans and light blouses were standing in front of the artists' entrance of one of two local art theaters in Pasadena, California. The pathway beyond the barrier, an iron gate, was barely lit. It stayed empty for a long time while the girls, shifting weight from one foot to the other, chatted and giggled. After a while a figure emerged from the shadows. The girls fell silent but it was the wrong actor. When the right man, Bradley Whitford, finally appeared he was wearing a bicycle helmet pushed way up on his forehead. Whitford is best known for playing Josh Lyman in the TV series  The West Wing   but on that night he had performed in the Pasadena Playhouse's production of Yasmina Reza’s   Art.  The girls stopped the actor, told him about their social studies class and how the teacher would have them watch The West Wing.  Whitford smiled, asked, "Which school is it?" and autographed the two print...

"A foul disease called social prejudice." Mud wagon used in Stagecoach. In 1939 director John Ford squeezed seven people into a stagecoach and gave them a rough ride across the desert. The group encountered Apaches; had to deal with the premature labor of a traveling woman; needed to figure out how to cross the river after Lee's Ferry had been burned down. Sounds hard enough. But what makes matters really bad - and the movie a classic - are the group of seven, their personalities and biographies, and "a foul disease called social prejudice" (words of Josiah Boone, an alcoholic doctor). The seven are: a prostitute, a dishonest banker, a pregnant cavalry officer's wife, a Confederate gambler, a whiskey salesman, the doctor, and a fugitive outlaw. Tensions between these characters run high from the beginning but as life goes - or is it just Hollywood? - they are softened towards the end. Stagecoach* is one of my favorite movies. On a recent trip to...

Sunday, while Hollywood was getting ready for its big night, with Oscars, red carpet, and gowns, we travelled to the mountains to enjoy the snow. We loaded the skis onto the Jeep and headed for our favorite local ski resort, Mount Baldy. Here's what we found: I am sometimes reluctant to make the journey to Mount Baldy. Not that it's a long one by L.A. standards (45 minutes from our home to the parking lot) but - when it comes to skiing I am spoiled because I grew up on a mountain. Anyway, the view from the top is reward enough: the Mojave desert to the north, the Pacific to the south, and a checkerboard called Los Angeles county in between. Mount Baldy is one of those L.A. excursions that make me wonder how one place can have it all: the desert, the beaches, the mountains; surfing, skiing, hiking... Is it a surprise that the movie industry should have settled here? Images from top to bottom: palm trees against the San Gabriel Mountains ;  Lord's Candle, ...