Librarians are some of my personal heroes, providing a beacon of light in a world that often seems hellbent on devolving into the movie Idiocracy faster than you can say illiterate.

This weekend, more than 12,000 members of this noble profession from around the country and as far as Norway descended upon Anaheim for the annual American Library Association conference, participating in panel discussions, snapping up new releases at publisher booths and learning what’s new and helpful in their field.

I was there Saturday and Sunday, signing books and chatting with librarians. They are a groovy bunch who are unabashedly enthusiastic about books and reading, and we can talk openly about having 1,000 books at home without feeling like freaks.

But what I want to leave you with is not a tale about how librarians are beleaguered, or have reinvented themselves for the digital age, or now sport tattoos and pink hair, but rather to muse on three short stories about librarians that I read recently.

The first is Aimee Bender’s brilliant “Quiet, Please,” in which a librarian takes off her glasses, steps out of her nondescript clothes and beds down a variety of male customers in her public library – in the stacks, in a quiet empty room! - on a grief-stricken day. It's in her collection "The Girl in the Flammable Skirt."

The second is “Magic For Beginners” from Kelly Link’s upcoming collection “Pretty Monsters,” a fantastically imagined tale in which a pirate TV show called “The Library” becomes a cult hit that holds audiences spellbound.

“The Library” features a brave and daring librarian named Fox who wears a green t-shirt and “long full skirts to hide her tail” as she battles pirate magicians in the Free People’s World-Tree Library, which contains at least 140 floors and includes lush parks and underground seas.

The third is “In the House of the Seven Librarians,” a lovely short story by Ellen Klages about a girl raised by nurturing librarians in a hermetically sealed library world. This terrific tale is included in “Firebirds Rising, an Anthology of Original Science Fiction and Fantasy.’

I’m really happy to see writers paying homage to librarians in such whimsical and often Borgesian prose. For many of us, libraries have been a lifelong refuge, and the place where we first felt that rush of exhilaration for books and reading. And we want to make sure that libraries continue to receive enough support to provide this for new generations of kids, as well as adults.

That’s why I was happy to see so many librarians in one place, talking about what they do. And I guess it’s really true, as Aimee Bender says in “Quiet Please,” that everyone’s got a librarian fantasy.

Headlines we can plan to see a lot more of, because of the Justices' not surprising trouble with punctuation in the Bush era—just a very few that the Los Angeles Times and New York Times reported on this year.

But please don’t just think of of the victims. Think also of the families and friends—of the many hundreds, of the huge circles of people--that just these very, very few homicides have touched.

14 people slain in L.A. County over the weekend
Groom found shot dead in Pico Rivera
Crash investigators find man shot in the head
Handguns discovered with five bodies
Boy, 17, fatally shot in Hollywood
A Torrance man kills son and mother-in-law
Student shot in Oxnard
Woman shot to death in Gardena
Rifleman opens fire before festival at Granada Hills church
East L.A. rocked by double homicides
Woman shot dead on Hollywood Freeway offramp
Boy, 12, is killed, man wounded in Long Beach shooting
Second homicide in four days in Santa Monica
Street shooting claims another child—this time in Echo Park
Man shoots wife, kidnaps 2 sons
Boy, 6, shot in the head
A youth ‘on track’ until fatal gunfire
Shooting at south Florida restaurant leaves two dead
In Maryland, boy charged in four deaths [of parents and brothers]
One survivor at shooting in Illinois mall
Gunman kills five people at City Council meeting
Student kills two and himself at a Louisiana college
Student shot at a school in Memphis

In my last post, I wrote that one of Malibu's best-kept secrets is that Carbon and the other public-private beaches are open 24 hours--that's true--and that the 17 access gates, while they close at sunset, remain unlocked from the beach side.

Which turns out to be true with one exception--the Carbon Beach gate at 22126 PCH. To leave Carbon after dark, you have to exit a mile up the coast at the other Carbon accessway at 22706 PCH. (Keep an eye on the tide, though, since the high tide sometimes covers part of that mile.)

I think that's the best-kept secret in Malibu.

Enjoy the beach--and watch out for the paparazzi.

The Orange County Register's decision to outsource some editing to India shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone in our ailing newspaper industry, particularly here in Southern California, where a Pasadena news outfit flirted briefly in 2007 with the notion of outsourcing reporting to the subcontinent.

With 2008 shaping up to be the worst year on record for ad revenue, more creative solutions, and associated workforce reductions, are likely.

Not so in India.

They're accepting applications in India.

The company that the OC Register hired, Mindworks Global, has several job listings* posted on its Web site.

Because I've never worked on a copy desk, most editors would probably say I lack the experience necessary to perform the duties of a "copy editor." However, as Mindworks has made copy editing part of its mission, I thought I might help clean up its Careers page*. Consider it a bit of reverse outsourcing.

My edits are noted in the excerpted copy below. Strikethroughs and [suggested changes in bracketed bold italics] are mine. In the interest of brevity, I've omitted some of the copy, as noted with a [Snip ...]:

Copy Chief -- You should be able to lead a team of sub-editors and take overall responsibility for the editorial quality of assigned projects.

[Snip …]

You must have [an] excellent command over [of the] English [language] and close familiarity with [have a working knowledge of] international media.

[Snip …]

Senior Sub-editors -- Mindworks is looking for people with strong editorial skills who are able to turn around copy fast and flawlessly.

[Snip …]

Ability to perform well under pressure is a must and so is ability to work well in [on] a team. You need to have 2-5 years of work experience.

Copy Editors -- Mindworks is looking for graduates with an excellent command over [of] written English. The job involves working on varied and exciting editorial projects with people across the globe and the chance to acquire world-class skills.

We are looking for graduates/postgraduates who have always dreamt [dreamed] of working in the media, and have a passion for writing/editing.

The right candidates should be alive to [keep abreast of] current events, have high analytical skills and a burning desire to learn.

The ability to perform well under pressure and work with teams is a must.

Online editors -- Mindworks is looking for people to edit user-generated content on media web [Web] sites. You should be able to follow prescribed guidelines to select/edit user content, and also have good language skills to edit and upload text and photo [photos] on web [Web] sites.

Good comprehension skills are a must, and so is an ability to work well in [on] a team. Prior work experience is not a must, but experience with web-based [Web-based] content management systems for uploading/editing text will be an advantage [is preferred].

* UPDATE -- June 28, 2008 -- The content of the Mindworks Careers page has been modified since the posting of this blog entry on June 26.

Click to e-mail TJ Sullivan

WASHINGTON D.C., JUNE 25, 2008: In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier today struck down as cruel and unusual punishment a law that allowed the death penalty for child rape, reserving the ultimate punishment only for cases involving murder. "The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child," wrote the Court, in voiding a Louisiana law.

In an accompanying decision, the Court voted 8-0 in declaring that a public outcry for the immediate death of Bonnie Overturf, a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory franchisee whose employees (she was not on the scene) refused a mother’s multiple urgent request to use the employee bathroom because her five year old daughter with explosive diarrhea was in danger of soiling herself, "is also a little over the top." With the restroom unavailable, the child was forced seek another bathroom in a nearby theater, but did not make it in time. "My daughter was humiliated, forced to defecate on herself due to the lack of compassion exhibited by the store," the mother later said, according to a story in the Orange Country Register. Overturf said her employees were following insurance policies for her store, and there were at least a dozen restrooms near the store the mother could have used.

Though the Court refused to rule on the legality of the lynch mob's second choice -- throwing feces at Overturf's home -- Justice David Souter opined that "Boycotting the store" in Huntington Beach, CA's Bella Terra Mall "is probably sufficient remedy. Besides, it will take at least a week to clean all the chocolate-dipped strawberries -- and even then will you really be able to tell if she got everything? It's a chocolate store, for Chrissakes! Ms. Overturf will be lucky to have any customers until after the July 4th holiday."

Justice Clarence Thomas abstained on principle, saying, “The Constitution has no jurisdiction over fecal matters.”

It's not everyday that an Angeleno publicly discloses a 70th birthday.

But Chinatown is no ordinary Angeleno. First, it's a place--one of our oldest neighborhoods-- rather than a person. And the neighborhood is more than a neighborhood: it's a legend, landmark and portal of possibility all rolled into one. L.A. Chinatown Business Improvement District with cooperation from the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, the Chinese American Museum, the L.A. Chinatown Corporation, and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles plan to highlight all of the area's dimensions on Saturday, June 28th with a free festival celebrating the birth of the "New Chinatown."

City leaders will be on hand to re-dedicate of one of area's original plaques—recently discovered buried in storage—and an original replica on which is inscribed the words “Dedicated to the Chinese Pioneers Who Participated in the Constructive History of California.” This plaque was originally dedicated by California Governor Frank Merriam on June 25, 1938.

The fun starts on the Central Plaza from 7 to 11 p.m. with 1940’s style big band music and dancing, cocktails from the era, a video montage of the many movies shot in Chinatown, and a narrated video presentation of historic photos. Judges will be on hand to award "a "Best Costume Contest" for those who choose to come in 1930’s or 1940’s attire. Other entertainment will feature Chines martial artists, lion dancers, and book-signings and readings by authors whose books celebrate Chinatown history.

h/t to Blogdowntown.com for the reminder

The Coastal Commission has now posted highly user-friendly maps of the public easements on Carbon Beach, aka Billionaires Beach—the places where you are welcome to use the dry sand. Warmly welcome. This 1 1/2-mile mile beach has 56 easements. Fifty-six. All are large and inviting. The maps also show you the locations of the two accessways you can use to get on to the beach—at 22706 and 22126 PCH. Download all 6 maps--they proceed west to east--and be sure to use a color printer, since unlike the maps for Broad Beach, these are color-coded.

That's one of Malibu's best-kept secrets: the existence and locations of the dry-sand easements. Here's the other: This beach is open 24 hours, as are all the beaches that are part public and part private—and that includes the easements. Here’s the catch: the access gates close at sunset. However, most of the gates (though not 22126, sadly) remain unlocked on the beach side--you can always leave, in other words--so as long as you enter before sunset, you are quite warmly welcome to stay as late as you want. Moonlight picnics on the beach! Also feel free to arrive after dark via kayak, parachute, jetpack, or breast stroke.

For a guide to Malibu’s public-private beaches, you can download the handy 1-page Los Angeles Urban Rangers guide, as well as my 3-part LA Observed guide, on the Los Angeles Urban Rangers website.

I can't believe that George Carlin is gone.
A hugely influential force in stand-up comedy.
One of the greats; Carlin is irreplaceable.
He changed comedy forever for the better.
Once, we rode in an elevator together.
I got to shake his hand. Wow.
Seven words that describe how I feel ...

Shit! Piss! Fuck! Cunt! Cocksucker! Motherfucker! Tits!

Online since April, the relatively new LA Eastside.com group blog is one of my favorite blog stops.

This week, the site posted two items on the rapid disappearance of many Eastside murals. On Saturday, Ed Fuentes posted his recap of the “Against the Wall: The Ruin and Renewal of L.A.’s Murals” panel hosted by Morono Kiang Gallery on June 14th. Judith Baca, Artistic Director of SPARC and Professor of Art at UCLA, Man One, owner of Crewest, Yreina Cervantez, muralist and Associate Professor, Department of Chicano/a Studies CSUN City of LA Department, Pat Gomez of Cultural Affairs, and USC Adjunct Professor Michael Woo spoke about the fading of L.A’s mural culture, urging attendees to support plans to restore the famous image of Anthony Quinn dancing in front of the Victor Clothing Company. Fellow Eastside LA blogger, Victoria Delgadillo followed up on Sunday with an editorial on the role of East Los Angeles politicians in the eradication of the area's murals.

Why all the fuss?

LA murals are not just important to L.A.'s identity as a multi-ethnic area and important markers for our every evolving streetscape, but also served to inspire state and federal laws protecting public art.

Also check out Al Guerrero's wonderful photo tour of Whittier Boulevard movie theaters.

So I’m driving along Interstate 5, minding my own business, when a car one lane over and ahead of me runs over some debris and it flies up.

It’s coming at me. I duck and the next thing I hear is an explosion at 55 mph and my first thought is, dang, I ran over it. My second thought is that suddenly there’s this evil-looking metal cudgel in the passenger wheel well and holy merde, my windshield has erupted, shattering glass everywhere, and there’s a huge effing hole about six inches from where I sit, gripping tight to the steering wheel and trying not to run off the highway.

At that point, my limbs pretty much turn to jelly and I start pulling over. It’s like they say about death-defying moments. It seems to happen in slow-mo, and you go on autopilot and a Higher Force takes over. The next thing I remember is groping my head and face, expecting to feel wet warm viscous fluids, but nope, the stereo’s still playing Tori Amos, the engine is fine, the A/C is blasting and it’s just me and a million pieces of glass and a 15-pound cast-iron trailer hitch, cruising along.

How I didn’t veer and cause a 10-car pile-up, I don’t know, and y’all who were traveling northbound on I-5 near the 134 interchange around 4:30 this afternoon should count your blessings, cuz you dodged a bullet.

As did I.

I had just participated in a Black Dahlia Bus Tour that took people to the last places that Elizabeth Short was seen alive in 1949 before her dismembered body was found in a field in Leimert Park. We’d talked about the dangers that beset single women in postwar 1947 Los Angeles and how her killer was never caught and I’d talked about my new novel set in 1949 Hollywood.

Now, the truth is that I’m a paranoid city girl. My radar is on high alert in subterranean parking lots like the one in Pershing Square, across from the Biltmore Hotel where I parked this morning before starting the tour. After 10 years as an L.A. Times reporter and seven as a crime novelist, I’m generally suspicious and skeptical of everything. But nothing could have prepared me for a hurtling metal projectile on the freeway.

I am lucky to be alive. I’ve read too many stories about drivers killed or suffering horrible brain damage when freeway debris went through their windshields.

Shaking and hyperventilating, I managed to drive home with my new souvenir. And now I’ve got this trailer hitch that clearly says U-Haul and has an identification number. Which means it fell off somebody’s vehicle. So did they not notice? Did they not care that it might hurt or kill someone? Was it fastened incorrectly? Did they try to notify anyone to get it off the freeway? Who do you call in these cases, anyway?

I’ve puzzled over what the moral to this story might be. Everything happened in split seconds and I’m not sure what I should have done differently. Had I swerved into another lane, I might have caused a horrible accident. Plus, it was hard to tell which way the projectile was headed as it flipped through the air.

On Monday, I’ll be contacting my insurance company, though the reality is that that my deductible may be greater than the price of a new windshield. I’m still trying to pick shards out of my face, hair, clothes, purse and briefcase. I feel like shattered glass myself.

For someone who makes a living out of writing about humanity’s darker impulses, it’s sobering to come face to face with my own mortality, and the reality that not all dangers grow out of premeditated evil intent.

Here it is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and all I want to do is stay inside to read books. There's plenty of book events happening this weekend so I can have fun in the sun and satisfy my book cravings.

'Hollywood Bread' advertisement, Oakland Tribune, 1941

You don't have to be a Los Angeleno to greet all diet claims with immediate suspicion, if not full-on Fran-Drescheresque laughter, but given this Hollywood Bread advertisement was published in the Oakland Tribune nearly 70 years ago, it not only amused me, but deepened my understanding of human gullibility and the pitfalls of misfiling long-term lessons in the short-term memory bin of our brains.

As Pres. George W. Bush once said (on camera): "fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

An excerpt from the ad, circa 1941:

Until recently many a screen star was a "poor little rich girl," who had to go hungry — for the sake of a dainty figure. Today all that is changed. Screenland's population eagerly buys Hollywood Bread, the delicious filling new loaf that knocks Old Man Hunger for a loop, yet contains so few calories that it is a cinch to make room in a rigid diet for a couple of slices at every meal.

[snip...]

One of the reasons why Hollywood Bread is so good, and so good for you is that it contains the essence of eight different vegetables including celery, lettuce, spinach, carrots, pumpkin, cabbage, parsley and kelp. These give the most marvelous flavor to toast and to sandwiches of all sorts. Toasts evenly, too.

I'm acquainted with "Old Man Hunger," but I've never been to "Screenland."

Click to e-mail TJ Sullivan.

My father, Elmer Price, left frustratingly few personal papers behind--no letters, no records from his community work, no documentation of his awards as a lawyer--but had rather saved just a very few things. He'd saved birthday cards from my mother: we found those in his safe deposit box at the bank, where most people keep jewels and stock options. He'd kept copies of letters he'd sent in May 1961 to his political representatives to ask why they were on the sponsor list for the Greater St. Louis School of Anti-Communism, and whether they supported the School's ties to the John Birch Society. And he'd kept two sets of notes for talks he'd presented in the early 1960s: one on 1st Amendment rights; and one that refuted the assertions of a propaganda film about the House Un-American Activities Committee.

In the 1950s, when he defended people for the ACLU against charges of communism, the prosecution once presented its evidence in the form of a sealed envelope, whose contents the judge and defense were not allowed to see--and my father still won. In the 1960s, he was voted onto the School Board by a huge margin, and then he was voted off it by a huge margin in the next election after he proposed a desegregation plan--a plan not unlike the one the school district would adopt twenty years later.

He was by all accounts a witty, fearsome litigator in the courtroom--legendary, I'm told, actually--which I find quite easy to believe, having grown up in a heady political era around the dinner table with the gentler version, my three brothers, my mother, two labradors (whom my father lovingly dubbed Smartass and Bonehead), and noise levels that took freedom of speech to grand new heights. I didn't truly win an argument with him until I was around 25--the perfect 1st Amendment rights in our family notwithstanding. Sometimes I was right.

He believed that the practice of law should be a profession, not a business (and he felt the same way about baseball.) He believed that to believe in the spirit of the law was to believe in the letter of the law. He didn't cheat on his taxes, and he observed the speed limit: I know no one else who does both. He believed that honesty was essential especially in the most inconvenient situations.

Above all, he believed in his children.

He did not believe at all in Father's Day, however--nor has my mother believed in Mother's Day. We barely celebrated them, even when my brothers and I were kids. My parents rejected these days as crass, commercial, entirely pointless, and hardly any measure of their children's love, which they did not demand and felt no need to measure.

But Dad, on this one Father's Day--and this one only, I promise--let me say two things:

In these past two months, as the Supreme Court finally affirmed our constitutional principles on the detainees issue, and Barack Obama won the Democratic presidential nomination, still these momentous events, without you to share them, have felt a bit like we're sending triumphs of integrity and civil rights into the wind.

And in these last few weeks, as I've encountered the word "father" everywhere--plastered, crassly and commercially and pointlessly, in newspapers, on websites, on buses, and in store windows...Well, I have to admit that on this one Father's Day--the first one without you--this relentless onslaught has conjured meaningfulness and immeasurable love as never before.

It's 11 am on Saturday afternoon and I'm on a big bus traveling backward up a curvy street in the Hollywood Hills. I have no fear as we round a turn at an alarmingly awkward angle. I have faith for I am one of about 30 seekers who have joined author Erik Davis and Esotouric Tours on a five hour pilgrimage to local occult landmarks cited in Davis's 2006 book, The Visionary State: A Journey Through California's Spiritual Landscape.

The Krotona Inn, off Franklin Avenue near the 101, is our first stop. Named for an ancient Pythagorean community, the Krotona Inn housed visitors and guests of an important Theosophical community established by Albert Powell Warrington in the Hollywood Hills in the early 1910s. The retreat space is now a collection of private apartments arranged around a patio courtyard with a lotus pond. Erik pointed out the complex's east wing where colony members once meditated under the remaining Moorish dome. Erik led us up a pathway to inspect a gorgeous stained glass window, the only remaining remnant of the Grand Temple of the Rosy Cross, another Moorish-style structure now subdivided into apartments. Then it was back on the bus. My fellow passengers and I, stuffed with information about Rosicrucian and metaphysical art history, waved at a line of Jehovah Witness proselytizers puffing up the hill on foot. I chuckled over the idea of them proselytizing in a neighborhood that may be even more spiritually susceptible than they can even guess.

Photograph of Erik Davis by Richard Schave

The day raced by as we visited nuns cloistered in The Monastery of the Angels one hill over, intergalactic communicators at the Aetherius Society, devotees at the Vedanta Society, and metaphysicians at The Philosophical Research Society ("PRS"). I've wanted to visit the the PRS since I was 11 years old and never really found the time until now. We had a fantastic welcome from Maja D'Aoust, the PRS research librarian, who shared info about the PRS headquarters and library, designed by that master of Mayan Modernism architectural kitsch, Robert Stacy-Judd, and showed us PRS founder Manly P Hall's personal glass slide collection of symbolic art using an incredibly preserved old slide projector. Attendees geeked out over this piece of ancient tech as much as the occult books on display.

Manly P. Hall's presence dominated the tour and subsequent activities involving Mr. Davis. After visiting PRS, our bus returned us to Skylight Books where advance copies of the new Manly P. Hall biography awaited us. Written by Los Angeles Times staffer Louis Sahagun, the The Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly P. Hall is access into the life of a major figure who shaped the Southern Californian esoteric landscape. Indeed, Esotouric hosted a post-tour brunch with Erik at Clifton's Cafeteria on Sunday. Erik told us about the importance of Clifton's in the development of occult salons all over the city. Mystics, gurus and alternative sects treated Clifton's as a recruiting grounds during the Depression. The cafeteria's owner never hid its Salvation Army agenda, offering spiritual sustenance as well as affordable nourishment to L.A.'s down and out. Louis Sahagun joined the discussion, telling us how Manly P. Hall complained to the cafeteria's owners after discovering that a rival evangelical group had installed a mole amongst Clifton's kitchen staff who wrapped sandwiches in the group's hand bills.

As Erik told us that seminal science fiction fan, Forrest J Ackerman, hosted meetings of the Los Angeles chapter of the Science Fiction League at Clifton's in the 30s and 40s, attracting folks like Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen, in a room very likely where we assembled that morning, I thought about his opening remarks on the bus the day before: how these structural bits and pieces left behind by past seekers have formed an embedded mosaic that still resonates with a palpable a mystic ambiance this area and its inhabitants can never truly escape.

Here are some upcoming events involving Erik Davis and/or Manly P. Hall:

June 15, 2008: Occult LA at The Silent Movie Theatre with Erik Davis and Louis Sahagun at 8 PM, Silent Movie Theater, 611 N Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles

June 21, 2008: Master of Mysteries Slide Show at the Philosophical Research Society to celebrate the publication of Master of Mysteries,
noon-3 PM at Philosophical Research Society, 3910 Los Feliz Blvd, LA

ETA on 6/18/08--Postscript:
We get letters. LA Observed reader Lynda Akin wrote in to offer additional LA sites tied to Theosophy and the occult. She writes
"I am surprised since you were taken up the hill that they didn't include Besant Lodge on Beachwood Drive...it is still owned by the Theosophical Society, and lectures are held there. There are beautiful stained glass windows (http://www.gnosis.org/gnostsoc/besant.html)...
I am also surprised that the involvement of the Theosophical Society in what is now Hollywood Bowl was not mentioned...


[Erik Davis's book neglected] the Highland Park/Mt Washington area [which] is rich in occult/spiritual connections. Swami Parmahansa chose Mt Washington to be the world headquarters for SRF [Self Realization Fellowship]..(and they host a great Halloween party every year--their location has an almost panoramic view of LA, worth visiting for that!), Mystic Dharma Buddhist temple has been in operation for decades (pre 80's)...the first Coptic church is located on Mt Washington...and BOTA (Builders of the Adytum) is on Figueroa, not far from the temple (also around for a l-o-n-g time...). "

There’s a place known in paleontology circles as “The Barnyard.” The Barnyard has tracks, not bones - tracks of camels and elephants and birds, but mostly horse tracks, thousands of them, coming from the past and going towards the future, preserved forever in a mountain range that wasn’t there when they were, magic ciphers embedded in a permanent and ever-open ancient scroll.

These horse tracks are on a wall in a secret location inside Death Valley National Park. They are accessible only by way of ranger-led hikes. I visited them two years ago, after reading about them in an obscure park service newsletter and making a reservation months in advance. To get there, I took an interstate to a highway to a desert two-lane deep inside the park, and then parked my car and joined a small group of pilgrims. We followed the ranger up an alluvial fan, through giant washes where tender once-a-century flowers were blooming after the recent rains. After two or three miles, the desert street began to shrink and we were on a narrow path that wound through slot canyons lined with sandstone and except for the crunching of hiking boots all was silent.

As time passed, the path got thinner still, winding along a ribbon of sand that was lined by sheer granite walls. We traversed upwards across rough desert gravel at an incline of about 15 degrees. As the sun rose to the high noon mark, we stopped for a rest, then trekked on as a stir of air came down off the higher elevations. The path emptied into a sprawling white bajada criss-crossed by fault lines and ringed by mineral-veined mountains. After awhile, we reached the far side of the bajada where the path resumed. We walked another hundred yards or so until we reached the seven-mile mark, the outside bend of a steep and craggy gypsum slope.

“Okay, everybody,” the ranger said, pointing to a wash. “This is it. The Barnyard. Put down your backpacks and go in single file. Take your time.” I was talking with a companion and my voice fell to a whisper, lest I somehow derange the invisible horses and the tracks vanish. I gingerly clambered over giant boulders and chunks of gravel as the sun – rising higher - illumined the ancient hoofprints. They were scattered across the wall of rock, equine signals that appeared to be heading in every direction, this way, that-a-way, away away home. Some of the prints faced upwards to the sky, some down, some east, others west and northwest. It was a Miocene movie, an antediluvian Western, with hundreds of hoofprints left in the dust, but no vestiges of the animals they came from – just tracks, running across a wall.

Like all deserts, Death Valley was once comprised of many lakes. In the lakes were vast islands of grass where mammals gathered to feed during seasonal monsoons – horses on the lush flora, saber-tooth tigers on the flesh of horses. As they fed, they made tracks in the mud and when the waters receded and they moved on, the tracks were preserved. This process would repeat itself over thousands of years, with animals leaving tracks in different layers of mud. As the terrain evolved and sheets of rock were thrust upwards through the earth’s crust, the tracks emerged – on slabs, creating an equine Rosetta stone. I placed my hand inside a hoofprint, the timeless cipher which would later become a talisman for warriors and barbarians of nations old and new. It was as big as my outstretched palm and many others appeared to be the same size.

The Shoshone Indians of this region may have known about this site for a long time, our guide explained, but it was officially discovered in 1932 by Donald R. Currey, the first ranger of what was then called Death Valley National Monument. So many anthropologists and paleo devotees began to visit the site that officials scheduled visits for certain days at certain times of the year, like the one I was on. With the sun rising higher in the sky, it was soon time to go.

We began to make our way out of The Barnyard, stopping for lunch – appropriately – at Carnivore Ridge, another sprawling track site. Then we packed up our gear and retraced our steps, our tracks, down the rocky paths and through the slot canyons and across the alluvial fan that led to our cars. As I later found out, due to budget constraints, we were the last citizens outside of academia or the strange and flourishing world of anthro crooks to have taken the hike - an obscure event on a park service calendar that just happened to link today to always, an expedition to an accidental stone mural upon which horse tracks, the very beginnings of the American story, are forever preserved.

Excerpt from the author's new book, Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West (Houghton Mifflin).

Librarians and other book professionals attending the American Library Association conference in Anaheim at the end of the month can expect lots of fun and games this year. The California Myth Authority, as the organizers call themselves, have just announced an information scavenger hunt for conference attendees. Players or teams can sign up to play the "California Dreaming" game designed to highlight Californian pop culture history. Participants must find clues spread out across the entire convention campus, popping up in conference materials, exhibits and session areas. Winners can obtain prizes in a new Games Pavilion in the exhibition hall.

Great idea. Perhaps Disney's California Adventure can use the same concept.

I got a phone call tonight from LAUSD Superintendant David Brewer urging me not to participate in tomorrow's UTLA-(United Teachers Los Angeles) sponsored job action. Did you get it too? It went out to every parent in the district.

For the first hour of the instructional day tomorrow (Friday, June 6th) teachers and parents district-wide will picket in front of their respective LAUSD schools in protest of the massive budget cuts to education currently before the state legislature. Mr Brewer explained in a warm, condescending tone that while the LAUSD was certainly in agreement with teachers about budget cuts, this action will only hurt the governor and the legislature, and of course, our children. Which is hilarious. You KNOW Arnold's kids are in private school. And as for our kids? Well, not having teachers at all is what will hurt them far more than missing an hour of school. Sitting in airless, overcrowded trailers next year trying not to get left behind while yacht owners sail off into the tax free sunset is really going to hurt.

Us mommies are mad. We have baked and fund-raised, sold magazines and clocked in endless unpaid hours at our children's schools trying make up for previous budget cuts that have left us without teacher's aides, arts programs, working computers, you name it. We have labored beside these teachers collating handout pages and collecting money for field trips, serving snacks and writing grants and they have become our friends and collaborators. These are the people (not Brewer, nor Schwartzenegger) who are helping us to rear our children into informed, responsible citizens. Citizens who hopefully will have learned by our example that sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in and do what is right, no matter what the cost or inconvenience.

And if tomorrow's action isn't enough for you, then please join us in Sacramento on June 17th for the California Children's Rally Led by artist, activist and "Mother on Fire" Sandra Tsing Loh, this will be an historic event. Thousands of pissed-off moms, put-upon dads and their underserved children will converge on the capitol steps to protest these draconian cuts. But you won't hear adults making speeches. Instead the children will square dance and tell jokes, they will dress up and sing gold mining songs and construct a giant elephant out of trash. Together we will celebrate the creativity, brilliance and vast potential of California's public school children that is being jeopardized by these cuts. We will kick off the hootenanny tomorrow by standing shoulder to shoulder with our teachers, who are sacrificing an hour of well-deserved pay to fight for their future, the future of our children and the future of California itself.

See you on the picket line!

Just in time for summer—the public-ification of Carbon (Billionaires) Beach, the destruction of Broad Beach, and the LA Urban Rangers safaris (announcement below) to see it all happening:

THE GOOD:

Hooray for the Coastal Commission, which is about to post user-friendly public-easement maps for Carbon Beach on its website (click the “maps” link—they’ll be there "soon, very soon"--we trust in time for July 4).

We all know we can use the wet sand on the Malibu beaches that are partly private. However, the locations—not to mention the existence--of the many hundreds of dry-sand public easements has long been one of Malibu’s best-kept secrets. The majority of houses on Carbon Beach—a long gorgeous beach just west of the Malibu pier—boast nice big public easements, which have just been waiting for the public to figure out where they are. Go. Sprawl. Enjoy. (Enter the beach at the accessways at 22126 and 22706 PCH.)

THE BAD:

While you’re on the website, you can download the maps for Broad Beach—the only other Malibu beach for which easement maps are available—but they won’t do you much good.

Broad is the infamous beach where, in 2005—remember?—the homeowners bulldozed tons of sand out of the public tideland, and used it to extend the private dry-sand dune in front of their houses 25 feet farther toward the ocean. The Coastal Commission had them de-bulldoze it almost immediately, but the beach has never been the same, as the restoration left the dune a bit higher and the sea floor lower than they had been before.

Three years since, the steady erosion against the dune has created a ~6-20-ft. jagged private cliff, towering above a small remnant strip of public beach that’s regularly covered at high tide. To use the dry-sand easements, you’ll have to scale that cliff--which is pocked with illegal sandbags, rockwork, and old irrigation pipes. Many of the homeowners can’t even get down the cliff to their own beach (at least now they know how we feel....). In sum, the erosion has turned one of Malibu’s most accessible and beautiful beaches—and my personal favorite—into a private fortress and an ugly unholy mess. Go. Gape. Take your rappelling and scuba gear.

THE UGLY: see “the Bad,” above.

THE LOS ANGELES URBAN RANGERS "MALIBU PUBLIC BEACHES" SAFARIS

SUMMER 2008 SCHEDULE--for those who want a bit of help with how to use the Malibu public beaches:

The "Malibu Public Beaches" safaris show you how to find, park, walk, picnic, and sunbathe on a Malibu beach legally and safely. Each safari visits two different beaches. Skills-enhancing activities include a public-private boundary hike, sign watching, a no-kill hunt for accessways, and a public easement potluck.

SAT June 14, 11:00am-2:30pm (East Malibu)
SUN June 15, 11:00am-2:30pm (West Malibu)
SUN July 27, 9:00am-12:30pm (East Malibu)
SAT Aug 2, 3:00pm-6:30pm (West Malibu)
SUN Aug 3, 3:00pm-6:30pm (East Malibu)

Safaris are free. Spaces are limited. To sign up, e-mail info@laurbanrangers.org w/name, # of people and preferred date. For further information on the safaris and the Los Angeles Urban Rangers, please visit www.laurbanrangers.org.

A downloadable "Malibu Public Beaches" guide is available on our website.

Imagine Rocky Horror Picture Show meets Little Shop of Horrors. Now, throw in cockroaches, cloak & dagger CIA types, hitmen, a love story and lots of rock, rap and dancing and you’ve got an idea of what you’re in for with Pest Control, the Musical.

Playing at the NoHo Arts Center through June 15, Pest Control is a hallucinogenic experience. My mouth literally hurt from laughing for two-and-a-half hours straight.

The play has its roots in a novel by my fellow L.A. crime writer Bill Fitzhugh in which a bug exterminator is mistaken for a hit man and hired to kill a South American dictator. Not your typical musical fare, but the supple and genre-busting minds of James J. Mellon (director) and John J. Moores, Jr. (who adapted the book) saw an ideal vehicle which they hope eventually to ride to Broadway. Word is out about the play, which garnered a rave in the L.A. Weekly and even grudging praise from the Los Angeles Times.

Another cool thing is that it’s perfect for kids. (Those below nine might find it too spooky, and there are a few bad words and a coke-snorting scene if that’s an issue). My brave friend Rachel and I took seven boys (ages 10-12) and the unanimous tween verdict was: awesome.

While the initial appeal was groovy cockroach costumes, the show’s constant action, creativity and high energy kept them spellbound. Because it’s only a 99-seat theater, the actors came into the lobby afterward and we got a chance to talk to them.

Fitzhugh himself will be doing an audience talkback after this Saturday night’s (June 7th) show, but I thought I’d get the ball rolling here with a few questions.

Q: What was the genesis of your crime novel becoming a musical?

A: A little less than a year ago I got an email from an attorney inquiring about the stage rights. I looked at my Warner Brothers contract and found that I had the stage rights (trust me, it never crossed my mind that someone would want these). My understanding is that [playwright] John J. Moores read the book ten years ago and wanted to make something of it ever since. And boy did he. The guy is amazing."

Q: How long did it take?

A: These guys (Canum Entertainment) move fast. Whereas Warner Brothers has owned the film rights for over a decade without shooting so much as a foot of film, Canum Entertainment in association with Open At The Top Theatre Company, had the world premier ready less than a year after signing the contract. The plan, as I understand it, is that after this initial run, is to do a rewrite, adding songs, deleting songs, reworking the story, etc. Then they'll put it up again, run it a while, then take it back to do a final polish before trying to take it to Broadway.

Q: How much input did you have?

A: Not counting the book, zero. Zip. Nada. This was all the work of Melon, Moores, and the incredible people they hired to arrange the compositions of Vladimir Shainskiy. And of course the musicians and the actors and the lighting people and the costume designer and everybody else involved."

Q: What do you think of it?

A: I love it. I agree with the producers that it's not quite there. But I think it's on a very solid foundation and a good polish will put it over the top. They insist this is only a workshop version of the show, that it will expand and become more elaborate as they develop it for Broadway. I was expecting a cast of talented but unknown actors of which there is no shortage in Los Angeles. Instead I got Cleavant Derricks who won the Tony Award (and the Drama Desk Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award) for creating the role of James Thunder Early in "Dreamgirls" on Broadway. All the other main actors (Darren Ritchie, Beth Malone, Joanna Glushak) are Broadway pros as well.

When I was ten years old I flew out to New Mexico from New York to go to sleep away camp. It was my first time out of state alone, and facing a month away from my family, I was scared and nervous.

My coach ticket had me seated next to a heavy-set black man dripping in turquoise jewelry. He wore a fancy bolo tie, a silver belt buckle the size of a '45 and chunky, turquoise rings on every one of his fingers. He crowned it with a big, beige cowboy hat with a turquoise band.

I sat down next to him with my copy of "Jonathan Livingston Seagull," but reading on the plane made me airsick. So I struck up a conversation with this gentleman, who was really friendly. He told me he was a musician, headed to New Mexico where he lived when he wasn't out on the road. We talked the whole way. He seemed genuinely interested in me. I told him about my school, my friends, my cats and my Wacky Pack collection back home.

He told me he had played music with guys named Chubby Checker, Fats Domino and someone named Muddy Waters, all names I had never heard of and which made me laugh, they sounded so silly. He showed me his guitar case stashed in the overhead compartment and said he would never send it through baggage. He said it was a really special guitar.

The time literally flew by. By the time we landed in Albuquerque I felt I had really made a friend. We said goodbye in the airport and I went to find a pay phone to call my mom and tell her I had made it there in one piece.

"How was the flight?" she asked.

"Oh, great," I told her, ripping into a Three Musketeers bar I had picked up at a newsstand. I was starting to feel like maybe the world away from home wasn't so bad after all. "I made friends with a man on the plane and we talked the whole way."

"Oh? Who was the man?"

"A musician named Bo Diddley. He was really, really nice."

My mother laughed and laughed, though I didn't get what was so funny. I do now.

R.I.P Mr. Diddley. Thanks for the music and the memories.

Observing an L.A. Photographer: fifth in a series

Photographer Charles Brittin is not as revered in Los Angeles as his work deserves. In the 1950s and '60s, he documented the Los Angeles avant-garde artists like Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin and John Altoon. Brittin's friend, the artist Wallace Berman, introduced him to the Beat culture and social life of the Ferus Gallery, a legendary exhibition space that opened in 1957 on North La Cienega.

The Ferus was notable for showcasing innovative young artists who would become famous, and was the site of Andy Warhol's first solo pop art exhibition. Founded by artist Ed Kienholz and curator Walter Hopps, it was just around the corner from Barney's Beanery, where the artists and friends such as Frank Gehry and Dennis Hopper gathered to smoke, drink and talk about art.

Brittin's photographs are sure to become better appreciated now that the Getty has acquired his archives and plans to feature him in a major L.A. art retrospective. "Charles' work stands as an important record of the Los Angeles art scene in the 1960's," senior curator Frances Turpak told me.

Brittin, now 80, wears his long hair in a ponytail. His subjects have also included Venice Beach when the view was filled with oil derricks, Ocean Park before it became gentrified, and the civil rights and antiwar clashes of the '60s. As the child of an abstract expressionist painter who was active in Los Angeles then, I jumped at the chance to meet Brittin and see his photographs. We met in the Seminar Room of the Getty Research Institute and went through box after box of prints, proof sheets and negatives.

A surprise for me was seeing Brittin's photographs from the 1966 art installation called "The Peace Tower," which was conceived by the L.A. Artists Protest Committee as a response to the Vietnam War. The 58-foot steel tower, built in an empty lot on Sunset Strip, was designed by artist Mark di Suvero. It held 418 2 foot-by-2 foot paintings contributed by artists including Vija Celmins, Elaine de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Motherwell. Brittin's color image of the installation appeared on the cover of Artforum magazine.

Brittin's work was also published in the Los Angeles Times, Harpers Bazaar, the New York Times, and Semina, the handmade Beat literary and art magazine created by Wallace Berman. Born in the Midwest, Brittin moved here in 1944. He lived first in the Fairfax area, where he says, "I was politically and culturally awakened." After attending high school in Pomona he enrolled at UCLA and discovered photography. He was attracted to the work of Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand and admired the documentary style of Robert Frank.

He moved to Venice and helped attract attention to the young painters and sculptors who were creating an exciting new art movement in Los Angeles. In the 1960's, he became involved with CORE and the Black Panthers. His growing political activism moved him to document civil rights demonstrations in Los Angeles and the South. His photo of a woman being arrested at the Los Angeles federal building in 1965 is among his images from that time in a 1999 book, "Charles Brittin," from Smart Art Press and the Craig Krull Gallery.

Later he worked for the designers Charles and Ray Eames. The 1970's saw Brittin drop off the radar. He put everything aside to deal with health issues and survived liver and kidney transplants. After an extended recovery period, he began photographing again in 1996.

Over the years, Brittin has utilized various photographic formats from 35mm to 4x5 view cameras. He has recently embraced digital technology and carries a camera with him "always." He continues to be primarily interested in photographing people. His love of the ocean and living in Santa Monica Canyon keep him close to his old haunts.

While we talk, his pleasure at having his work acquired by the Getty is palpable. His images will be included in a 2011 exhibition entitled "On The Record: Art in L.A., 1945-1980," being curated by Getty Research Institute assistant director Andrew Perchuk. Referring to the late 50's and early 60's, Perchuk says that Brittin's photographs help bring attention to this "very difficult period of art history to study. Many of these artworks no longer exist. He was a real insider to the scene. You get a sense of the personal connection he had with his subjects."

Many of his Beat friends never knew about his later work. "Until I had the privilege of reviewing Charles's work for this book, I had no idea of the range or the amount of work he'd done," Ferus gallery co-founder Walter Hopps said in the 1999 book. "Some artists are always out there pitching the goods but Charles has never done that, nor have I ever heard him complain about not getting more attention. His self-effacing modesty is, of course, key to his sensibility as an artist."

Brittin is still out there shooting Los Angeles. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

This is the fifth post in an occasional series about Los Angeles photographers whose subject is the city. Previous entries featured Iris Schneider, Julius Shulman, teenagers Downtown and Joyce Campbell.

All photos courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Trust

The National Needle Arts Association's 3rd annual Stitch N' Pitch tour lands in Dodger Stadium tonight. The group invites knitters, crochet enthusiasts, needle workers and crafters to come and watch the ball game while working on projects. It's a fun night filled with lots of freebies such as sock and cap patterns, seat cushion kits and T-Shirts.

You can still get tickets at the stadium, at the Stitch N' Pitch site or via the following local needle art stores.

1. Jennifer Knits, Brentwood, 310-471-8733
2. Unwind, Burbank, 818-840-0800
3. Alamitos Yarn Company, Long Beach, 562-799-8484
4. A Mano Yarn Center, Venice, 310-397-7170
5. The Knitter’s Studio, West Hollywood, 323-655-6487
6. Abuelita's Knitting & Needlepoint, South Pasadena, 626-799-0355

Other Dates in California:
San Diego Padres on June 29th
Oakland Athletics on Sept 4th
San Francisco Giants on July 24th