Did You Hear The One About Netflix Buying the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre?

Gentle reader...

Letters, we get letters! Also phone calls, emails, DMs and hushed whispers in cobwebby corners. And after the fifth person reached out to tell us they were really worried about a rumored property transaction, but didn't want to go on the record as opposing it, we boiled their concerns (which we share) down into a post on the Esotouric blog:

"Netflix In Talks To Acquire Hollywood’s Historic Egyptian Theatre From American Cinematheque": What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Turns out, quite a few things, for the non-profit and the landmark theatre. If you care, please read and share. It's important to get the word out about these issues, since last we heard, American Cinematheque members still have not been notified about the possible sale of the venue that is the organization's home, and home to eclectic festivals, including Cinecon, Noir City and this weekend's debut MaltinFest.

Whatever is next for this gem of old Hollywood, it needs to play out transparently, and with community and member input. We're confident that the financial problems facing the Cinematheque can be solved with a little daylight, and a lot of good will.

Saturday is the date for our once-a-year tour of Tom Waits' Los Angeles, guest hosted by author David Smay, and there are still five tickets available. Join us for a time travel trip through the 1970s L.A. music scene, with offbeat detours into the side streets where Waits found memorable characters to populate his songs and a wild romance that challenged everything he knew about music and himself. With fresh updates for the 2019 edition and stops at Hollywood's incredible beat generation sidewalk relic and Canter's Deli for a nosh, you won't want to miss it!

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COMING SOON

SPECIAL EVENT: CRAWLING DOWN CAHUENGA: TOM WAITS' L.A. - SAT. 5/11... In our very occasional guest tour series, a delightful excursion that only comes around once a year, the Tom Waits tour hosted by acclaimed rock critic David Smay (author of Swordfishtrombones). This voyage through the city that shaped one of our most eclectic musical visionaries starts in Skid Row and rolls through Hollywood and Echo Park, spotlighting the sites where Waits was transformed through the redemptive powers of love and other lures: the Tropicana Motel, Francis Coppola's Zoetrope Studios, the raunchy Ivar Theatre and so much more. Join us for a great day out in 1970s Los Angeles celebrating the music, the culture and the passions of Tom Waits. (Buy tickets here.)

SPECIAL EVENT: TWO DAYS IN SOUTH LA: THE 1974 SLA SHOOTOUT - SAT. 6/1... Join author Brad Schreiber (Revolution's End) to discover how the radical Symbionese Liberation Army's political kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst came to a fiery end in a lengthy stand off that introduced a new form of police response, SWAT, to American television viewers. But how did these bumbling revolutionaries come to South Central. The weird tale is revealed through startling new research. (Buy tickets here.)

RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 6/15... 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.)

EASTSIDE BABYLON - SAT. 6/29... Go East, young ghoul, to Boyle Heights, where the Night Stalker was captured and to Evergreen, L.A.'s oldest cemetery where we'll share newly unearthed tales of secret burials. 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 true crime tour. (Buy tickets here.)

PASADENA CONFIDENTIAL - SAT. 7/13... The Crown City masquerades as a calm and refined retreat, where well-bred ladies glide around their perfect bungalows and everyone knows what fork to use first. But don't be fooled by appearances. Dip into the confidential files of old Pasadena and meet assassins and oddballs, kidnappers and slashers, black magicians and all manner of maniac in a delightful little tour you won't find recommended by the better class of people. (Buy tickets here.)

FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 7/14... Four times a year, we gather in the teaching crime labs of Cal State L.A. to explore the history and future of American forensic science. The Serial Killer Summer Session is an inquiry into the impact of the Night Stalker murders on Southern California. Your ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. (Sold out with waiting list. More info here.)

NEW! WILSHIRE BOULEVARD DEATH TRIP - SAT. 7/20... 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 horrors and mysteries. Join us for a dark day’out among the city’s most glittering architectural gems. (Buy tickets here.)

Additional upcoming tours: The Real Black Dahlia (7/27), The Lowdown on Downtown (8/3), Curse of the She-Devil (8/10), The Birth of Noir (8/17), Boyle Heights & Monterey Park (8/24) and Mansonland (8/31).

RECOMMENDED READING

Every time we give our Black Dahlia tour, someone asks if we can recommend a book about the case. We find Piu Eatwell's Black Dahlia, Red Rose the most thoughtful, but once she settles on her suspect, that's an angle we just don't buy. But in Hallie Rubenhold's The Five, a multi-character biography set in the cruel streets of Victorian London, comes a fascinating premonition of the story of Beth Short's tragic life and death. Homeless, vulnerable, self-destructive, made famous and infamous in death, the victims of Jack the Ripper regain their humanity at last in this tough, beautiful and deeply researched book.

OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST

Episode #132 is Illuminating Los Angeles: Elmore Leonard & The Triforium. Meet Gregg Sutter, who is hosting a new tour about the screenwriter he aided for 33 colorful years, then get the skinny on reactivating Joseph Young's 1975 musical phantasmagoria. Click here to tune in. New: find stories on the map!

AND FINALLY, LINKS

Fascinating bummer of tale of DIY urban shade structures, old money in old trees, City Hall's failures and sweaty waits for the bus that never comes on time.

Angelenos have had enough of developers destroying the prettiest things in town to build mediocre mixed use, and they're taking the fight to City Hall, for the Good Luck Bar and for the lost and lovely streamline moderne storefront at 1626 Silver Lake. MONA, meanwhile, seeks to save the bar's sign. Seems like the pressure might be working.

Extraordinary Sunday morning: one of Los Angeles' most powerful politicians arguing with the L.A. Times’ architecture and culture critics about his unpopular vote to demolish and shrink the LACMA physical campus.

A fascinating portrait of Harbor City dentist and one-time LACMA trustee Richard Simms, and how his Käthe Kollwitz collection ended up at The Getty.

Bradbury Building news: All that office space that LAPD Internal Affairs moved out of will be co-working space for NeueHouse.

Not-So-Happy Preservation Month! The exquisite wee French 1925 castle at Beverly and Laurel has a green fence and demolition notice posted.

A bittersweet twist to the revival of the old Union Station Harvey House as Imperial Western Beer Company: revenue down, Traxx has shuttered after 22 years.

Captivating, and it almost went in the garbage: a lost Vienna emerges in Hanne Wassermann's archive.

Clean up in aisle DONE. (But it's not enough to change jockeys. The Los Angeles Neighborhood Council system needs massive reform).

Dan Dan Mien and some old school Chinese menu fare coming to the restored Formosa Cafe under chef David Kuo. Would the Goldwyn Studios crowd recognize the joint? We'll have to wait and see.

So much benzadrine! Sneak a peep at Lawrence Lipton and pals as they invented Venice beatnik culture, with the tape machine running quietly in the corner.

May 5, 1970: one day after National Guardsmen killed four student protesters at Kent State, LAPD rioted at UCLA. The Chancellor's Commission report is a chilling document.

Los Angeles lost a good one when Rick Cole (one of Eric Garcetti's original Deputy Mayors) took his policy chops to Santa Monica. Now that city is funding a new historic preservation position.

yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric