Destination: California
The Beat Museum Opens in San Francisco
by Jim Benning | 01.20.06 | 1:00 AM ET
A one-room museum celebrating Beat Generation luminaries such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg has opened in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood with a slew of memorabilia, including photos, early book editions and an autographed copy of “Howl.” Jerry Cimino, a 51-year-old Beat fan and collector who worked at American Express and IBM, started the museum to “make more of a difference doing something no one else would try,” he told the Associated Press.
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Yahoo! BuzzL.A.‘s Ambassador Hotel: It’s Gone
by Michael Yessis | 01.18.06 | 1:33 PM ET
The last bits of the famed hotel have been cleared away and The Ambassador is officially no more. The Ambassador’s Last Stand will be hosting a wake next Tuesday at the HMS Bounty, the bar across the street from the hotel’s former location.
Key Notes
by Michael Yessis | 01.17.06 | 1:14 AM ET
I just returned from a long weekend in San Francisco, where I stayed at the travel-themed Hotel Carlton. It’s got many great touches—globes throughout the lobby, travel photos hung on the walls, maps and postcards decorating the interior of the elevators—but I liked the hotel’s room key cards most.
Update: Farewell to L.A.‘s Ambassador Hotel
by Michael Yessis | 01.06.06 | 7:24 AM ET
Only a small portion of the famed hotel still remains, and The Ambassador’s Last Stand has the latest photos of the demolition. Readers have also sent in a couple photos of the pantry where Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy in 1968.
2006: The Year of the Long-Haul Airliner
by Michael Yessis | 01.04.06 | 1:36 AM ET
Superjumbo jets like the soon-to-debut Airbus A380 “will fundamentally change the experience of flying around the world,” writes Joe Sharkey in today’s New York Times. Besides making it easier for travelers to get from continent to continent, the planes also promise extra comfort. Airports around the world are beginning to modify their infrastructure to accommodate the 500 to 900 passenger behemoths, but some are lagging, including Los Angeles International Airport.
LAX Through Hotel Room Windows
by Jim Benning | 01.02.06 | 12:58 PM ET
Photographer Zoe Crosher embarked on an unusual and oddly compelling project in 2001: She decided to photograph planes coming in to land at Los Angeles International Airport, shooting them through the windows of 31 motels and hotels around LAX. “Crosher shoots in the morning, and the images (which often feature the plastic linings of cheap curtains) are in a sense second to the narrative thread of the series: transience, anonymity and the fleeting promise of Los Angeles,” writes Steffie Nelson in last Thursday’s L.A. Weekly. A book collection of the photos, “Out the Window (LAX),” is due to be published this spring, with an introduction by Pico Iyer.
Farewell to L.A.‘s Ambassador Hotel
by Michael Yessis | 12.19.05 | 6:02 PM ET
Not too long ago I took a drive east along Wilshire Boulevard from Koreatown to downtown, a part of Los Angeles that many people seem to be avoiding these days. It’s just too painful for a lot of them, Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, recently told the L.A. Downtown News. The reason: That’s where the demolition of the Ambassador Hotel, a Los Angeles landmark since 1921, is currently taking place.
Kerouac’s “On the Road” Manuscript to be Displayed in San Francisco
by Jim Benning | 12.19.05 | 5:38 PM ET
A yellowing, 36-foot section of the original “On the Road” manuscript scroll will be displayed at the San Francisco Public Library from Jan. 14 to March 19, along with Kerouac-related books and photographs.
“Kerouac wrote the novel over a 20-day span in 1951, typing on 12-foot rolls of tracing paper so he didn’t have to pause to load paper in his typewriter,” an AP story on ABC News explains.
The AP story also notes:
After Kerouac died from alcoholism in 1969, the single-spaced manuscript, which has become yellow and brittle with time, changed hands several times. Some said it spent time in a dorm room closet before it turned up at the New York Public Library. Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay bought the scroll in 2001 at an auction for $2.43 million.
Related on World Hum:
* Jack Kerouac’s “Dharma Bums” Mansucript Moves to Florida
Gilmore v. Gonzales: Should U.S. Airline Passengers Have to Show ID?
by Michael Yessis | 12.14.05 | 1:08 AM ET
Last week the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard arguments in the Gilmore v. Gonzales case, in which San Francisco resident John Gilmore is challenging the requirement for air passengers to show identification before boarding a flight within the United States.
Shameless Plug: Intro to Travel Writing in San Diego
by Jim Benning | 12.07.05 | 10:42 PM ET
I’ll be teaching an introductory course on travel writing at UC San Diego Extension beginning Jan. 11. It’s a nine-week hybrid course that includes five classroom meetings. Students will post their work online.
I’ve taught a number of travel writing courses at UCSD and they’re always a lot of fun. Travel writing is a tough way to make money, much less a living, so I make no promises of fame and fortune. But I do promise a solid introduction to the business and craft of travel writing, some great discussions and critical feedback on writing.
For those interested in the business of travel writing, as well as the pleasure of the work, I think Lonely Planet global travel editor Don George got it about right when he spoke with me earlier this year. His book is recommended reading in the course.
R.I.P. Los Angeles Times Outdoors
by Jim Benning | 12.06.05 | 12:08 PM ET
The Los Angeles Times published its ambitious Outdoors section for the last time today. The paper launched the weekly section in September 2003 as a sort of Outside magazine for Southern California. It was a grand idea, and I was happy to contribute occasionally to its pages. Unfortunately, Tribune Co. has been making lots of cuts lately, and Outdoors was one of them. Editor Thomas Curwen offers a fond fairwell.
MTV’s “Laguna Beach” Spawns Reality Show Tourism
by Jim Benning | 12.01.05 | 6:19 PM ET
The Southern California town of Laguna Beach has always attracted its share of tourists, but it’s getting plenty more now, thanks to the MTV reality show Laguna Beach. The interest is so great, in fact, that the Laguna Beach Visitors & Conference Bureau has issued a guide to the show’s key spots (not available online).
Is Simon Winchester Inadvertently Creating Natural Disasters?
by Jim Benning | 11.18.05 | 12:54 PM ET
You be the judge. He wrote “Krakatoa,” which involved a tsunami, and shortly thereafter, tsunamis struck South Asia. Then he wrote “A Crack in the Edge of the World” about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and a horrific quake hit Kashmir. Winchester himself told an amused audience in Menlo Park, California last month that his publicist is concerned: “She said, ‘Simon, have you ever thought people are going to start to say, whenever Simon Winchester writes a book, Stay indoors?’”
Fighting Pirates With a ‘Nonlethal Acoustic Weapon’
by Jim Benning | 11.09.05 | 12:30 PM ET
You no doubt heard about the cruise ship that fought off a pirate attack Saturday. Today’s San Diego Union-Tribune has an interesting story about the “nonlethal acoustic weapon” the cruise ship employed to fend off the pirates. It’s called the Long-Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) and was developed by a San Diego-area company for military use.
Simon Winchester on Public Radio
by Jim Benning | 11.01.05 | 12:36 PM ET
Occasional travel writer and raconteur extraordinaire Simon Winchester is making the rounds to promote his new book, A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. He is scheduled to appear today on two Los Angeles public radio shows that broadcast or podast online: Talk of the City at 89.3 FM at 2 p.m., and Politics of Culture on 89.9 FM at 2:30. Winchester is one of the most articulate and compelling storytellers around, and whether he is talking about travel, the Oxford English Dictionary or geology, he’s always a pleasure to listen to.