Esotouric Newsletter Moving Day

Everything is changing in Los Angeles

Including This Newsletter

Gentle reader,

These are strange times for all of us, and we hope this little note finds you safe, healthy, and weathering the storm. We are, hunkered down with our cats and a healthy supply of dried beans, some of which are now sprouting in a victory garden.

Since shutting down our sightseeing tour business on March 11 to help flatten the curve, we've been thinking about the role we can play in this very different Los Angeles, and how we can best be of service.

While not hosting our regular Saturday tours—which is a hard thing to let go of, because we love sharing the city with folks who love Los Angeles—our days are still packed with the volunteer work that has always filled our weekdays.

We're still actively engaged in historic preservation activism, sitting on the board of Save LACMA with its just-filed ballot measure initiative, advocating for the preservation of William Pereira's Los Angeles Times Mirror HQ against a backdrop of blatant public corruption, creating new Cranky Preservationist videos from content already in the can, and assisting some of our preservation pals with advocacy projects.

We're also active on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, if you like your media social.

Plus we've collected quite a rogue's gallery of characters who figure in Los Angeles history who we're blessed to consider surrogate grandparents, and have been spending lots of time on the phone making sure they're not bored and have everything they need to stay put and healthy.

But with our tour business closed, the cost of a paid Mailchimp newsletter that goes out to a lot of people who might book a seat on a tour is one of those places where it makes sense to tighten our belts.

It turns out that newsletters have changed a lot since we set this one up, and a lot of our writer friends have been publishing on Substack. Substack is different from Mailchimp in that it's free for a publisher (that's us) to use, and a reader (that's you) has the option of either signing up for occasional free mailings, or subscribing to receive additional, premium content.

Quite a few of you kind folks have asked us how you can help, since Esotouric tours aren't operating. Your existing subscription has been transferred to the free version of our Substack newsletter, and if you're so moved and can afford it, we'd be grateful if you "topped up" your subscription by becoming a paid patron.

Our plan is to continue to send out regular free newsletters like those you've been receiving, which will include our musings about Los Angeles historic preservation, politics and culture, and those links to keep you up to date with what's happening to L.A. history today. And for those who subscribe to the newsletter to get the premium posts, we'll be digging into our research archives to share offbeat discoveries that we find fascinating. These tidbits might one day make it into an Esotouric tour, when it's once again safe to gather together and explore the secrets of Southern California. Or they might just be cool little facts to enhance your appreciation for this incredible place we are blessed to call our home.

We can’t say just what you’ll be getting, but we promise they'll be things you won't see anywhere else.

You should have already received your first email from Substack, because whoopsie, while adding last week's newsletter to the archive, Kim accidentally clicked "send to everyone." But now you know to expect occasional emails from "esotouric@substack.com." And if you'd like to sign up for a deluxe paid subscription, you can do that here, by the month or by the year.

And while we don't have a new newsletter ready to go tonight, we did want to let you know that there's another Los Angeles City Council meeting scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday morning at 10am. You can watch live on the city website or cable channel 35, and can call in or make written commentby following the instructions on the agenda. It can't be as wild as the last one... unless Federal agents kick down a door and take an elected official into custody live on council TV. Here's hoping! Because Los Angeles deserves so much better, and we think we'll get it, by and by.

yours for Los Angeles
Kim & Richard
Esotouric