As the city towers over me

I picture you

like me

though our city towered differently

when you lived here.

My mind tints the images to a coffee stained hue:

—–

You’re on a motor scooter

in a miniskirt

maybe Hollywood Boulevard

—–

You’re asleep at the door,

keys in the lock

[Your parents’ place in LA?  Laura lived there too?]

—–

You’re in a bustling office building

saying no to a man

who sips from a coffee cup full of whisky

—–

You’re outside

like me

peering up.

The sky an ocean.

—–

—–

Diving into the wreckage

we find popup books

timelines on our hands

that bleed through perfect pencils

growing filled and filling pages

—–

We’re excavating memories

and un-memories

searching for the linchpin

that can give us air

or

reveal the reason why we breathe

—–

Rolled hay

Arkansas sweat and tang

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

Bernerd

Lorna

Lorna

—–

Mom

like me

looking down

making maps

chronicling the evidence

seeking revisions to a storyboard

that will always thrive as incomplete

I shrank into a smaller me

That crawled between gravel

And traveled, meekly, upon the plankton of the sea

Take Los Angeles down off that shelf

It doesn’t belong so far away

Fingerprints damage less than dust

Take the city down and flatten it

Use your hands to spread the city out

Turn the hills into braille under your palms

Use some lipstick to trace the highways

Including back-ways to avoid the freeways

You’ll make the maze of the city streets

And turn the barrios into different homes

That you can fold into your pocket

All the neighborhoods into mental maps

Until the stretch of Los Angeles

With its dark distances made to travel by car

Has your fingerprints and isn’t so far

__________________________________

*For some reason I couldn’t get the stanzas to space out correctly.  I think you can get the point, though

These words keep me company
like late night phone calls
They lift me up
like a single eyebrow
They remind me
like leaving the house lists
photographs in books
cartoons on a refrigerator
notes on a mirror

These words are our words
un-ordinary dictionary
connotation collaboration
omission and completion.

_______________________

His continuous breath
between seconds --
how staccato
is many
and not just one --

creates
constructs
conveys
 a mild hesitance
in the air,
that I can deny,
and do,
because I have no words for it.
There is the in-between,
and nothing else to prove
the feeling.

And so the air is heavier.
He feels it
I feel it
Perhaps physics offers an equation
To explain.

I want to slowly introduce a new thought, the old thought, the same thought, without too quickly interrupting the sanctioned time that some other melody calls its own.  My prelude, my exhale carbon monoxide breath breathes enthusiastically discreet, as though I’m clearing my throat romantically, as though my preparatory synapses have the strength to tap on a mic.

The Billboard Liberation Front subverts corporate "art" with public "vandalism" in LA

Visual culture overwhelms the public spaces of Los Angeles. Billboards, blimps, and the eyes of action stars in movie advertisements on buses follow us, and, often, move with us (quite literally, in the case of the buses). LA loves mass media, and mass media, with its giant, plastic, and mass produced heart, loves LA. Advertisements are the boring and expected elements of Los Angeles visual culture, however. The giant faces of celebrities and the catch-phrase catechisms of capitalism cover the sides of buildings like bird poop on a car that is already dirty, anyway. The public art that I wish to LA Rave about hides in plain sight amongst that commonplace glare of those friendly and invasive advertisements.

Since 1989 the city of Los Angeles has

Origins of Gay Rights Movement segment on The Great Wall of Los Angeles, along the Tujunga Flood Control Channel of the San Fernando Valley (there's a nice bike path there)

commissioned over 150 public artworks. Before that, in 1976, SPARC, the S.ocial and P.ublic A.rt R.esource C.enter, started finding spaces, people, and time to create community murals that communicate a narrative of Los Angeles that is far more compelling than any $10 movie, or one million dollar movie poster. And even before that, in the 1930s, David Alfaro Siqueiros, of Los Tres Grandes, ‘the three great’ Mexican muralists (and communists…the best known, perhaps, is Diego Rivera), painted three murals in Los Angeles.

“La América Tropical”, 1932 detail by David Alfaro Siqueiros on Olvera St

Siqueiros’ mural “Tropical America” still covers/makes up the space on the second floor of the Italian Hall on Olvera Street. Siqueiros’ use of public space to represent a critical view of the United States in relation to Latin America almost got him kicked out of the country (he had already been kicked out of Mexico). Controversy is key, and public art that challenges the mundane humdrum of city streets and understandings, keeps new images and ideas out on the visual culture playing field.

Los Souls Cafe Downtown

I’m not saying that all public art in Los Angeles challenges the status quo with subversive intentions.  I’m just so thrilled when I see some art/graffiti/murals that represent the thoughts and interests of somebody who’s not trying to get me to watch a TV show, buy a car, or care about either of those things.  Thank goodness for drawings I’ve never seen before, and even that mural of joggers on the 10 west leading out of Downtown that I’ve seen so many times.  I also like that creepy baby holding a ball on the Santa Ana Freeway.  If you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about.

Other people, more into lists than I, have compiled routes and archives of some of the more monumental displays of public art in Los Angeles.  This website is thorough in regards to commissioned installations.  Here you can find information about the art on the purple line.  This is another website that talks about LA murals and their connection to Los Angeles culture and history.

Great Wall of Los Angeles

Although I’m excited that these resources are available, and I’m sure you could spend some money buying guide books, coffee table books, or going on tours, the great part about the public art is that it’s everywhere.  It’s on the sides of buildings and freeways.  It’s in coffee shops, parks, and those electrical boxes that interrupt the sidewalks like metal bushes.  These images help me find my way around the city, or at least make getting lost much more interesting: past the giant guns that point in either direction, before the long orange face, if I see the caged monkey I’ve gone too far, ect.  So this is my first LA Rave: Public art!  It’s everywhere, it’s free, and anyone can participate.

more good news, or just some thoughts:  i like the words “world” “pillow” and “day” alright, but i’m not sure i’m on the “fight” boat.  what about, World Pillow Play Day.  i like “play”ing more than “fight”ing, for sure.  well, now that that’s settled…