HOLLYWOOD BABYLON

The Hollywood and Highland Shopping Center (mall) with its design inspired by the Gates of Babylon set from D.W. Griffith's 1916 film "Intolerance." Built in 2001, the elephants, pillars and archway - towering minimally some three stories high - are identical in scale to the sets of the original classic silent film.

The "Intolerance" Babylon set. Built in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles (today, the site of the Vista Theater).

WHO NEEDS OSCAR?

The Four Ladies of Hollywood statues creating the Hollywood Gateway on the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and La Brea. A stainless steel gazebo structure was created by Catherine Hardwicke, and unveiled in 1993. Atop the structure of these female forms reminiscent of the Academy Award Oscar, is a weathervane Marilyn Monroe.

Mae West

Dorothy Dandridge

Anna May Wong

Dolores Del Rio

SAY CHEESE

Bravo Farms in Traver, California. 

Off Highway 99, Bravo Farms is part rest stop, restaurant, Old-West tourist attraction, petting zoo, gift shop, and cheese-lovers paradise.

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

The Ellwood Butterfly Preserve in Santa Barbara, Ca. 

A beautiful hiking path and grove of eucalyptus trees. Home to hundreds of beautiful monarch butterflies.

What We Have Have Made Is Real: We Are In Xanadu

Back in 2002, at a Santa Monica, California exercise studio, dancer Ken Anderson held a "Xanadu-Weekend" of special classes and events in celebration of the iconically camp 1980 movie starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly. Here is the entrance to the studio, retrofitted and created exclusively by Bruce Zwinge to capture the look and feel of the roller disco in the movie. The huge "Xanadu" sign is plywood and the terrific Pan Pacific Auditorium "fins" that grace the doorway are ingeniously crafted out of cardboard.

Bruce Zwinge & Ken Anderson

Bruce Zwinge's construction of the famous Pan Pacific Streamline Moderne fins in various states of completion.
Hard to believe that one man was responsible for transforming the old Voight fitness studio into a real-life Xanadu for this special event. His work is nothing short of AMAZING!

Workshop Close up of Bruce Zwinge's construction of the enormous ELO logo that graced the wall of the studio for the Xanadu Weekend classes (pic of final result, below)

Bruce Zwinge made 6 "Xanadu Flags" to adorn the interior of the studio. Each flag has an airbrushed "X" on it in the familiar Xanadu font. Photo is of the flags in his workshop. Hard to get a sense of scale here, but the flagpoles were well over 6 feet tall and the flags themselves were the size of three king-sized sheets

For more info about that special weekend, check out this link: http://www.xanadu-fitness.com/news.html

R.S.V.P., Peonies

On a Mission

Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana founded 1797
San Fernando Valley, CA

 

San Fernando Mission Church

 

Statue of Mission founder Father Fermin Lausen



Bob Hope burial site San Fernando Mission Cemetery
Bob Hope Memorial Garden

Bob Hope  (1903 - 2003)  gravestone



HOLLYWOOD CHRISTMAS PARADE

  

The 2010 Hollywood Christmas Parade.

First presented in 1928 when it was known as

The Santa Clause Lane Parade, this fun tradition has had an increasingly troubled history.

Though local kids love it, local celebrities find little publicity value in it and the parade struggles to find celebrities younger than Mickey Rooney to appear in it each year.

77 year-old Larry King was 2010's Grand Marshall. Enuf said.

Personally, I think it would be great if the parade featured Hollywood vets and legends, but the demands of television sponshorship require a young (money spending) viewership, thus making it necessary for the parade to include a plethora of  unrecognizable, interchangable non-stars from music, motion pictures and the Disney Channel clone factory. The parade of young and old /famous and forgotten has the comical effect of having the marching bands nearly drowned out by shouts of  "Who the hell is that?"  echoing along the parade route.

2010 marked the first appearance of Macy's-style balloons, and the newly cleaned-up Hollywood Blvd certainly puts on its best face for the event.

These Poppies Won't Put You To Sleep

Poppy Reserve Antelope Valley, CA

1800 Acres of land, 7 miles of trails

Take Me Down To Logtown

Mariposa's Main Street

The Mariposa County Courthouse

The city of Mariposa, California. A former mining town founded in the 1800's, was once known as Logtown.