Destination: California
What Would Los Angeles Look Like Without Traffic?
by Michael Yessis | 11.19.09 | 12:32 PM ET
This series of eerie, terrific photos is an ongoing project from Tom Baker. (via Coudal)
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Yahoo! BuzzVideo You Must See: Mountain Light in California
by Eva Holland | 11.17.09 | 1:11 PM ET
(Via The Daily Dish)
Travel Song of the Day: ‘Lodi’ by Creedence Clearwater Revival
by Michael Yessis | 11.05.09 | 4:32 PM ET
Don’t Bring Your Minivan to Yosemite
by Eva Holland | 10.28.09 | 1:01 PM ET
Why not? Because the park’s resident bear population prefers breaking into the vehicles over other models. Seriously.
Photo You Must See: Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles
by World Hum | 10.27.09 | 11:43 AM ET
REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson A view of the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
George Saunders Goes to Tent City, U.S.A.
by Michael Yessis | 10.08.09 | 1:04 PM ET
It’s in Fresno, California, and he lived there this April. Saunders writes on his website:
It was a very moving, sort of scary experience, that had the effect of re-energizing certain tendencies in my fiction and in me as a person, I guess, among these: respect for the real; a distrust of the American capitalist juggernaut; suspicion of my own Pollyannaish tendencies; new enthusiasm for the variety and weirdness of the world.
His 12,000-word piece about it—and an audio slideshow—can be found at GQ.
Interview with Bonnie Tsui: ‘American Chinatown’
by Jenna Schnuer | 10.07.09 | 10:07 AM ET
Photo by Matthew Elliott Jenna Schnuer talks to the author of a new book about American Chinatowns and why "broken Chinese is the mark of being Chinese American"
Travel Song of the Day: ‘Los Angeles’ by X
by Jim Benning | 09.01.09 | 3:50 PM ET
Book Passage Travel Writers Conference 2009
by Jim Benning | 08.07.09 | 2:00 PM ET
The annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference kicks off Thursday in lovely Corte Madera, just north of San Francisco. Given the tumult in the publishing world, this year should be interesting, to say the least. The faculty lineup is impressive, as always, including such writers and editors as Tim Cahill, Jen Leo, Rolf Potts, Spud Hilton, John Flinn, Phil Cousineau, Pauline Frommer, Larry Habegger, Michael Shapiro and Wendy Perrin.
I’ll be teaching a three-hour class each morning on Travel Writing in the Digital Age. We’ll cover everything from blogging to producing audio slideshows to writing personal essays and web-friendly articles. And we’ll dig into the business side of things. Jen Leo and Rolf Potts have promised to pop in to offer their perspective.
The Hard Life of Los Angeles’ Street Tamaleros*
by Jim Benning | 08.07.09 | 10:55 AM ET
We’ve written before about the sometimes tough plight of L.A.’s taco trucks. Fortunately, taco trucks these days are ascendant—thanks in part to the mobility patterns of young urbanites.
So let us now turn our attention to L.A.’s Mexican street-food vendors. They’ve never had it easy, what with gang battles sometimes raging around them and the watchful eye of health inspectors threatening their livelihoods.
Public radio’s Marketplace recently put together a fine little profile on the struggles of one tamale vendor who works the tough neighborhood of MacArthur Park.
Tamalero Antonio, who sells tamales out of a box mounted on a tricycle, told the show: “It’s dangerous. It’s very, very dangerous. You have to be careful with the gangs, you have to be careful with the police, you have to be careful with the cars. There are a lot of dangers in the street.”
(Via Boing Boing)
* Update 4:16 p.m. P.T. Speaking of dangers, today’s L.A. Times reports that at least 22 taco truck operators have been robbed at gunpoint in East L.A. in the last three months. (Thanks for the tip, Eli.)
Hitchens: A Taste of Japan in California
by Eva Holland | 08.05.09 | 5:02 PM ET
In his latest over at Slate, Christopher Hitchens visits a Japanese cultural festival in Palo Alto and makes a nice point about reconciliation in the wake of Pearl Harbor, civilian internment camps and the atomic bomb. What I liked best, though, was his observation about the resilience of cultural events in the face of rising tourist interest. Hitch writes:
There’s a large turnout of non-Japanese for these attractions, getting larger every year it seems to me, but it doesn’t succeed in swamping the main event or in making it into a mere tourist attraction. You come across a group of grave and serious Japanese gardeners, engaged in the judging of a bonsai competition, and you suddenly appreciate that nothing can turn this consideration into a hucksterish sideshow.
(Thanks Frank Bures.)
Travel Song of the Day: ‘Lights’ by Journey
by Alicia Imbody | 08.04.09 | 2:17 PM ET
Moon-Gazing Around the Globe
by Alicia Imbody | 08.03.09 | 10:32 AM ET
From Puebla to Paris, 12 photos by moonstruck world travelers
See the full photo slideshow »
Jackson Mourners Still Heading to Neverland
by Eva Holland | 07.31.09 | 1:26 PM ET
Consider my earlier question answered. USA Today reports that “hundreds of fans” are showing up daily at the gates of the secluded ranch. Unsurprisingly, local opinion is split on whether the pilgrimage spot should become an official Graceland-esque attraction. (Via @amybp)
Finding Leonard Cohen in Montreal and California
by Eva Holland | 07.30.09 | 10:03 AM ET
In the latest issue of Geist, Ann Diamond tells the story of her series of near-encounters with Leonard Cohen—with 1970 Montreal, in the midst of the October Crisis, as the grimly compelling backdrop. And if that’s not enough Cohen-related, travel-esque writing for you, check out Pico Iyer’s 1998 essay about visiting the poet/rocker at a Zen Center in the San Gabriel Mountains, outside L.A.
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