9:04 p.m. Echo Park. A dog barking in the canyon, no make that three, no make that five. One is barking rapidly, staccato, another, who is closer, just a languid two or three eruptions per ten seconds. My daughter, in bed, is whistling through her nose as she sleeps (the song of one of the 4000+ strains of rhinovirus probably). In her fist is the ribbon to a Trader Joe's balloon; the balloon makes no discernible noise as it drops closer and closer to the bed. Meanwhile, over us all like a sound umbrella is the muted boom, boom, boom of the fireworks at Dodger stadium. They started at 9:03, and now that it's 9:08, they're done. The Dodgers said four minutes, and that's what it was. Now I hear the neighbors calling to their dogs to quiet. The air is no longer splitting apart. The neighbors are talking to one another. "They're done," Tina (I think) says. A motor is revving on the street. Now I hear the downhill sound of wheels. Now I hear my own breath as things have gotten quiet. Seven or fifteen minutes from now I can definitively say I didn't hear the sound of sirens. Another car, uphill this time. Funny, how cars sound so different, depending on which way they're going.

Meanwhile, speaking of Elysian Park, an amphitheater that has been closed for decades -- closed so long I didn't know it existed; it was more than forgotten -- is not only reopening but there is a Thanksgiving performance planned.

According to a Los Angeles Theatre Academy press release dated Nov. 6:

After decades of being closed, the amphitheatre at the Elysian Therapeutic Recreation Center (ETRC) re-opens. Michael Kendall, the new Director for the ETRC and Alejandra Flores, Founder of the Los Angeles Theatre Academy (LATA) are working together to make this dream come true by presenting the first short play "A Thanksgiving Story" with over 40 kids on stage.

The Dodgers have informed the community of a four-minute fireworks show in the stadium parking lot tonight.

Dear Neighbor, As part of our commitment to inform the community of events taking place at Dodger Stadium, please be aware that a brief four minute firework show will take place in the outfield parking lot tomorrow, Friday, November 21, at approximately 9:00 p.m. As always, the safety of those attending the event, our neighbors, the surrounding community and the firefighters themselves is of paramount concern to us. Should the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) request that we cancel the fireworks on Friday due to weather concerns, or any other concern for that matter, we will happily comply. Decisions on this will be made right up until the time of the show. Finally, LAFD personnel (including a water truck) and Stadium management will be on site to manage the event.

Should you have any concerns relative to these events, please call our Neighborhood Focus Line at (323) 224-2636.

Chicken Corner appreciates the heads up but wonders what's the celebration, and are we invited? And what happened to a good old brass band parade?

Just for the record, a few clucks about how dry it is out there and we just had big fires last week -- there's still ash all over the leaves of my avocado tree. In fact, everything looks a tiny bit dull outdoors around here because of the thin layer of ash dust. Cluck cluck cluck. And a moment to wonder if the Dodgers have participated recently in any kind of underbrush clearing in Elysian Park beyond the confines of its own stadium property.

When it gets quiet at night, if you're below the ridgelines in EP, you hear the trains blowing their horns down by the L.A. River. It sounds like a call from some other time. Though not everyone loves it. I know some people who sold their house at the north end of Elysian Heights in part because the hooting of the trains drove them around the bend. (They moved to a more sonically sheltered part of the neighborhood.) But for others the deep horn resonates.

The Los Angeles Railroad History Foundation will screen a film honoring that resonance at the Echo Park Film Center this evening (Thursday) at 8 p.m.

EPFC describes This Was Pacific Electric:

In 1902 Southern California was a collection of small farm towns. It was waiting for something to pull it together. That something was The Pacific Electric. This Was Pacific Electric is the story of the rise and fall of the “The World’s Greatest Electric Railway.” It is a complete history starting in 1872 with L.A.’s first horse car line and continuing through the last Red Car in 1961. The story is told using rare film footage, hundred of photographs, animated maps and extensive interviews. In fact, the PE Red Cars operated along Glendale Boulevard nearby the Echo Park Film Center and today, LARHF has installed a mini-museum open to the public in the Belmont Station Apartments located at the south end of Glendale Blvd. where the PE tracks used to disappear into a subway tunnel leading to the Subway Terminal Building on Hill and 4th Streets.

Featuring a Q&A with Josef Lesser, President of the Los Angeles Railroad Heritage Foundation. EPFC: 1200 N. Alvarado Street; 213-484-8846.

Photo: Onion puppets, by Chris Barrus.

We had good news regarding cell towers and tenants. But things are looking deadly for the famous Bob Baker marionettes theater on Glendale Ave., as you may have heard. Basically, Baker is facing foreclosure on both the theater and his home. It used to be that the term "a bad loan" referred to the borrower; recently, "a bad loan" has turned around to point to the lender. In Baker's case, it seems he may have signed for a bad one with complex terms that were overly difficult to understand and payments that simply shot skyward.

A couple of months ago, my friend Tembi and I took our daughters to a show at Baker's theater. It was wonderful, a full-length review, a complete alternate reality with disco puppets, dancing dachsunds, princesses, ghosts. It was by far the longest show my daughter (who is four) has watched all the way through. The marionettes were made in a workshop on the premises. I am sure that some of them also perform in the evening shows. The theater was founded in 1963.

I think it's stating the obvious to say it would be a significant loss for Los Angeles if this venue were to go down. But it needs to be said.

A pair of communications from CD-13 delivered good news. T-Mobile is giving up its evil plan to put cell towers on the top of the Del Mor Apartments on Echo Park Ave. And Countrywide is abandoning its evil plan to toss out tenants of a foreclosed three-plex on Scott Ave.

Julie Wong, Eric Garcetti's press person, emailed:

Just thought you might want to know that all of the tenants in the triplex on Scott Ave. (where the building was foreclosed and the renters were pressured to leave) have been contacted by the agent working on behalf of Countrywide. In all cases, the evictions have been canceled and the cash for keys offers were rescinded.

As for the towers, CD-13 posted on a neighborhood list:

A T-Mobile representative just contacted our office to inform us that they have submitted a letter to the Planning Department to pull the proposed project scheduled for 1551 Echo Park Avenue. The T-Mobile representative did not provide specific reasons as to why the project was pulled, but they wanted to inform the Council Office of their decision. If you have any questions, please contact Albina Ferreyra at (323) 957-4500.

Got any evil plans you were hoping to dispose of? A drop box will be set up at the Magic Gas intersection, 24-hour access, no questions asked.

At about 11 a.m. this morning, I rolled past the northwest corner of Echo Park Ave. and Sunset. There was no fruit cart. Instead, there was an empty shopping cart, casting a shadow onto the 4-foot-ish cinderblock wall that encloses the parking lot. There was silver-painted graffiti -- crazys, the name of an Echo Park gang. Otherwise everything looked as usual as could be. No outward sign -- like a split pineapple rotting on the ground -- of last week's rousting of fruit vendors by police and what seemed to be city subcontractors, who behaved like thugs, according to an account emailed to me by a friend. In response to my post about the scene in which the vendors' goods were confiscated, a couple of readers who asked not to be named told me that local organized criminals tax the fruit sellers in this area. One reader guessed this might be why the nopalito vendor was crying and shaking -- because, with her product hauled away, she wouldn't be able to earn the money to pay the other authorities.

(Yesterday, at 2:30 p.m., there also was no fruit cart at the corner. But there was a guy with boxed fruit across the street, and there was a fruit cart in its usual spot near the public parking lot behind the south-side Sunset Blvd. shops. This morning, that fruit cart was there was well.)

Here's a snapshot of last Thursday's police action as it wrapped up at Echo Park Ave. and Sunset.

Bye, fruit cart. Thursday, November 6, 2008.

*Today, 3 p.m. The fruit cart is back at the corner of EP Ave and Sunset.

Photo: Small duck at Echo Park Lake, November 9, 2008; by Martin Cox (c)

A new odd duck water-landed at Echo Park Lake last week, and it could be a Bufflehead.

According to Martin Cox, Chicken Corner's famous waterfowl correspondent, our new oddball has been at the lake since Monday, November 3. (He heard this from Judy Raskin, who saw the bird first.)

Jenny - you know what a bird man I am and I never even HEARD of a Bufflehead so yes it's news!

He's definitely a male and on his own. He seems chummy with the Ruddy Ducks

It was my husband, Thomas, who first saw him, he knew this was something we had not seen before and phoned me. I abandoned lunch to zip down to the lake with camera to get a photo of this interesting visitor. I don't think it's a rare bird, but I have never seen it at the Echo Park lake in all my years of observing. He would spend only about 10 seconds on the surface, then dive for 30 seconds, popping up somewhere new.

According to Cornell U's bird site, the Bufflehead is the smallest duck in North America. But he's a big deal around here.

Photo by Ken Hively/Los Angeles Times

Madonna was in Elysian Park a few days ago, and ripples of complaint are still sounding out across the neighborhood, not so much against Madonna herself but the levels of volume required for the singer-dancer to get her message across...the canyon.

The concert was reviewed by Mikael Wood, who said in his (her?) November 8 LA Times review:

Forty-eight hours after America elected its first black president and California voted to ban gay marriage, Madonna brought her Sticky & Sweet Tour to Dodger Stadium on Thursday for a night of triumph and defiance. One of pop's longest-lived provocateurs, Madonna always has had something to say -- even when she hasn't. (Remember her utterly useless version of "American Pie"?) Yet like a firefighter or the cast of "Saturday Night Live," the singer is at her best at moments of consequence; she needs life to supply her with a canvas as big as her music wants to be.

As well as a big sound, it seems. Even bigger than the three tenors. I did not hear the concert Thursday. But Rochelle, who lives on Park Drive, wrote:

Hi Jenny: Did anyone write to you about the sleepless night and the chaos Madonna brought to EP Thursday night? I could hear every word, every drum roll, every guitar chord from my home on Park Drive and the music grew louder and louder as the night progressed. It reached peak volume at 11:30 PM, yes 11:30, when my home literally shook from the musical storm. I have not experienced anything like it in my nearly a decade living here, not the Stones, not from AC/DC, nothing remotely close.

One of my more pleasant addictions is to the fruit sold by vendors all over this side of town in quilted-aluminum push carts with umbrellas. They always seem to be manned, so to speak, by young men (what, women can't handle a machete-like fruit knife?) from Mexico. I like the cart at Echo Park Ave. and Sunset because of its location. I make a deal on which fruit and which price with whichever young man has been stationed there that day (usually, pineapple, jicama, cantaloup and cucumber) -- and he serves it in a plastic bag with lime, salt and hot pepper, Mexican style, I believe. At $3 it's relatively cheap. The dude probably works for less than he should -- just like the fruit and flower sellers all over town -- but the cart is clean, and it's a service I value. It's not as if I could walk into Vons and come out with the same product. It may not be organic, but it is the best kind of fast food.

Then, last night, I opened my email and received the following report from a friend of mine, who owns a business on Sunset Boulevard.

Hi Jenny, I thought I'd pass along this disconcerting event I witnessed today. The police and a bunch of thugs were rounding up the fruit vendors on the corner of Echo Park and Sunset. The Senora who sells the napoles was devastated. She was weeping and shaking uncontrollably while the cops and the "enforcers" surrounded her and the other vendors. I watched until a truck came and took all their wares, fruit and equipment and carted it away. They are just trying to make a living. When I asked why it was happening the cop said that it was "requested" by Eric Garcetti. I put a call into Mitch who I know in the CD 13 office and he said he knew nothing about it. It was an ugly scene. Especially the vendor task force folks who are rather "unsophisticated." I mean those vendors have been there for as long as I remember and are as much a part of the neighborhood as Pioneer Market (oh yeah that's gone). Lets hope that this little bit of character isn't wiped off our map too.

To be honest the lake has turned into a swap meet. Its relatively new but the folks on the corners are part of the landscape around here. I mean fruit, snacks, hot dogs fine. Tube socks? uh, no.

When I spoke to Eric G's office Mitch did seem somewhat sympathetic but also intimated that they do this once or twice a year. I'm willing to bet its local businesses but the cops there said it was requested by the CD13 office.

So, I guess this makes Chicken Corner a criminal accessory to fruit crime -- the crime of a nice, clean fruit cart and chopped pineapple, with lime, salt and pepper at a corner with heavy foot traffic and four bus stops.