L.A. Weekly's "Best Podcast About L.A. History" is Esotouric's You Can't Eat the Sunshine

Gentle reader...

As we continue to celebrate our 10th year of exploring the myths and hidden truths of Southern California, we're honored that You Can't Eat the Sunshine appears in the 2017 "Best of L.A." issue of L.A. Weekly as The Best Podcast About L.A. History. This special neighborhood-centric issue is online if you'd like to explore some of the best things the southland has to offer. And of course we hope you'll give our podcast a listen. With 121 episodes, there's bound to be a story you'll love.

We've just listed the first forensic science seminar of 2018, and it promises to be a moving and powerful afternoon. We hope you'll join us on March 4 for Wrongful Convictions: Investigatory Case Studies from the California Innocence Project (info here), and on November 5 for From The SLA to DNA.

We're on the bus on Saturday with Echo Park Book of the Dead, a time travel trip through the dark side of the streetcar suburbs. Then next week, it's Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. New tours are posted through January. Join us, do!

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RECENTLY TOURED

Paying our respects to the incomparable, original pin-up ghoul Vampira (Maila Nurmi) on the Hollywood! tour.

LAVA'S FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 11/5

Four times a year, we gather in the teaching crime labs of Cal State Los Angeles under the direction of Professor Donald Johnson to explore the history and future of American forensic science. On November 5, 2017, join us for From the SLA to DNA, an afternoon of insights into historic investigations and new crime science. Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. Sold out with waiting list. Click here for more info. Next forensic science seminar is Wrongful Convictions: Investigatory Case Studies from the California Innocence Project (March 4, 2018, info here).

RECOMMENDED READING

As activists like The Cranky Preservationist take on the powers that be in an effort to preserve Welton Becket's iconic modernist Parker Center (1955), it's a fine time to get familiar with the complexities of Chief William H. Parker's character, in this dual biography of the top cop and his criminal counterpart, Boyle Heights mob king Mickey Cohen. L.A. Noir is by John Buntin, who occasionally hosts an Esotouric tour based on the book.

COMING SOON

ECHO PARK BOOK OF THE DEAD - SAT. 10/14... On a crime bus tour honoring the lost souls who wander the hills and byways of the "streetcar suburbs" that hug Sunset Boulevard, see seemingly ordinary houses revealed as the scenes of chilling crimes and mysteries, populated by some of the most fascinating people you'd never want to meet. Featuring the Hillside Strangler, the Bat Man's Love Nest and a visit to Sister Aimee Semple McPherson's exquisite Parsonage, now a museum. (Buy tickets here.)

RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 10/21... Follow in the young writer's footsteps near his downtown oil company offices to sites from The Lady in the Lake and The Little Sister, meet several real inspirations for the Philip Marlowe character and get the skinny on Chandler's secret comic operetta that we discovered in the Library of Congress nearly a century after it was written. Plus a stop at Scoops for noirish gelato creations and a visit to Larry Edmunds Bookshop. (Buy tickets here.)

NEW TOUR! WILSHIRE BOULEVARD DEATH TRIP - SAT. 10/28... Wilshire Boulevard is an iconic Los Angeles thoroughfare—from its prehistoric origins as a path forged by extinct megafauna to the spectacular Art Deco monuments of the Miracle Mile. It’s also ground zero for some deeply strange, only-in-Los Angeles crimes and oddities that played out against the backdrop of the boulevard. The deceptively simple route contains a multitude of mysteries, from cruel plots, divine inspiration, historic preservation, love gone sour, lucky breaks and weird tales, Wilshire Boulevard Death Trip, a dark day’s out among the city’s most glittering architectural gems. (Buy tickets here.)

THE LAVA SUNDAY SALON & BROADWAY ON MY MIND WALKING TOUR - SUN. 10/29... Our free cultural lecture series recently relaunched on the basement level of Grand Central Market with a walk to follow. October's Salon: Mid-Century Art and Architecture of the Civic Center, with Clare Haggarty, the Deputy Director of Collections for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and special guests to be announced. (Free, reservation required.)

WEIRD WEST ADAMS - SAT. 11/4... On this guided tour through the Beverly Hills of the early 20th Century, Crime Bus passengers thrill as Jazz Age bootleggers run amok, marvel at the Krazy Kafitz family's litany of criminal misbehavior, visit the shortest street in Los Angeles (15' long Powers Place, with its magnificent views of the mansions of Alvarado Terrace) and stroll the haunted paths of Rosedale Cemetery. Featured players include the most famous dwarf in Hollywood, mass suicide ringleader Reverend Jim Jones, wacky millionaires who can't control their automobiles, human mole bank robbers, comically inept fumigators, kids trapped in tar pits, and dozens of other unusual and fascinating denizens of early Los Angeles. (Buy tickets here.)

FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR AT CAL STATE LOS ANGELES - SUN. 11/5... Professor Donald Johnson hosts "From the SLA to DNA," a program on vintage and cutting edge crime investigations. Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. (Buy tickets here.)

EASTSIDE BABYLON - SAT. 11/11... Go East, young ghoul, to Boyle Heights, where the Night Stalker was captured and to Evergreen, L.A.'s oldest cemetery. To East L.A., where a deranged radio shop employee made mince meat of his boss and bride in the shadow of the world's biggest tamale. To Commerce, where one small neighborhood's myriad crimes will shock and surprise. To Montebello, scene of a horrifying case of child murder. That's Eastside Babylon, our most unhinged crime bus tour. (Buy tickets here.)

CHARLES BUKOWSKI'S L.A. - SAT. 11/18... Come explore Charles Bukowski's lost Los Angeles and the fascinating contradictions that make this great local writer such a hoot to explore. Haunts of a Dirty Old Man is a raucous day out celebrating liquor, ladies, pimps and poets. The tour includes a visit to Buk's DeLongpre bungalow, where you'll see the Cultural-Historic Monument sign that we helped to get approved, and a mid-tour provisions stop at Pink Elephant Liquor. New: souvenir Bukowski's L.A. booklet available. (Buy tickets here.)

Additional upcoming tours: Special Event: In Search of Imperial California / Richard’s Birthday Bus (11/25), Pasadena Confidential (12/2), Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (12/9), The Real Black Dahlia (1/6), Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles (1/13), The Birth of Noir (1/20), The Lowdown on Downtown (1/27).

OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST

In Episode #121: Once Upon A Time in French-Speaking Los Angeles & Early Days of Angels Flight on Old Bunker Hill, historian C.C. de Vere previews her free LAVA Sunday Salon and Nathan Marsak talks funicular. Plus Neutra trouble, landmark filings, fantasy houses, & more. Click here to tune in. New: find stories on the map!

AND FINALLY, LINKS

The Cranky Preservationist, who loves Los Angeles and HATES what you’re doing to it, returns! Episode 11: Kay Martin’s Lost Bunker Hill Paintings Blues (on Facebook or YouTube).

Preservation alert: glitzy Melrose Triangle project seeks to demolish the streamline moderne Dr. Jones Dog & Cat Hospital, one of the coolest buildings in West Hollywood. It gets its day in court October 24.

Governor Brown will likely strike down Ling Ling Chang's idiotic Assembly Bill 1570, which made it illegal to sell signed books.

Eater LA picked up on our scoop on the demolition of a third of El Cid's historic facade, got a quote. We're not happy about this unpermitted alteration.

File under: (yet another) Pereira in Peril. CBS Television City to be redeveloped?

We’ve saved the 76 Ball -- now let’s Save the 76 Swoop!

CalTech's photo archives are now online, including a wonderful, new-to-us shot of Jack Parsons with fellow rocketeers.

Since funding has stalled for the plan to turn the 1870 Merced Theater into a modern TV studio, why not aim for a more public use. Restaurant? Hostel? More on the theater here.

Remembering Milt Stevens (1942-2017), who shared tales of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society and favorite writers at the LAVA Sunday Salon in 2014. (Video of his talk.)

What's planned for the 1906 trolley car room if the Formosa Cafe wins the Main Street preservation grant?

This miniature Spanish Colonial Revival house project is a magnificent obsession.

Henny Backus' futuristic 1933 Greta Garbo bust came to auction... and didn't meet its reserve.

Tied up in an L.A. estate battle, now there are demolition threats for the Kansas school from the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case.

With Raymond Chandler’s literary estate in new hands, could it be the right time to stage his lost comic operetta at last?

The Rives Mansion is for sale. We're watching this National Register property with cautious optimism. C'mon, city of Downey: find a great steward for this landmark!

The awful morning when two Highland Park landmarks went up like a torch.

Since Eagle Rock’s Bekins Estate won’t become a priest’s retreat, we hope a restoration-minded steward will get it. Ugh, that kitchen.

yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric