Gustavo Dudamel, by Marion Eisenmann, Nov. 12, 2009.
Marion Eisenmann and I have been looking at Los Angeles landmarks as a modern version of Nuestro Pueblo, but we realized that the debut of Gustavo Dudamel as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic is also part of local history. Marion was fortunate in being able to attend a rehearsal and she sends her impressions of Dudamel. She says: His personality, playfulness and passion speak in this study.
| This 1940s vintage Thomas Bros. map of Los Angeles has been listed on EBay. These maps and street guides – which show the city before freeways – are entertaining and can be useful references for anyone researching the history of Los Angeles. I rely on them often at the Daily Mirror HQ in tracking down streets that have vanished over the years. Bidding on this map starts at $4.99. |
This is Big Game Week and I might as well get into the act, too. I suppose it’s true — once a sports writer, you never get over it entirely.
SC and UCLA are being criticized for the way they play football. Also the Rams, who can’t win for losing. Everyone’s disgusted with them.
The Trojans have a great defense, the hecklers say, but their offense falters. Oh sure they’re No. 2 in the nation, but that’s because of the wonderful McKeevers. The heck its is. It’s because they’re strong in all 11 positions.
UCLA, newly come alive, sends the self-appointed experts into despair. The team looks good one game, bad the next. Not only that, it plays the single wing, which the critics call horse and buggy football. I happen to find the single wing a refreshing change from the ubiquitous T system, with all its variations. Continue reading
I’ve come to the labored conclusion that housewives lead more interesting lives than career girls.
This, I’ve done without benefit of polls or surveys. In fact, I’ve even ignored those subtle inferences in the Kinsey report.
It’s strictly my own, personal conclusion. I reached it myself.
I’m probably dead wrong, but, the way I see it, it’s better to come up with a wrong conclusion than to just sit around and come up with no conclusion at all.
You know the old saying, idle minds gather no moss. Continue reading
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| Nov. 20, 1957: “Chuck Heston did as much painting as acting in ‘The Big Country,’ so his canvases will be used to publicize it.” |
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Update: As many readers realized, this is Milton Sills. Although there’s no caption information on the back, the photo is evidently from “The Sea Hawk.”
Sept. 16, 1930: The Times reports the death of Milton Sills.
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| After the release of “Amelia,” the film about Amelia Earhart, I thought it would be fun to get into The Times’ photo archives and see what we had. Here are two pictures dated March 25, 1937, in which an anonymous photographer evidently tried to get some glamour poses of her. In the left photo, she’s looking through the radio antenna from the aircraft. In the right photo, she’s sort of draped herself against the propeller of her airplane. Earhart was a good sport about these poses – but honestly. |
“Wonder What a Decoy Thinks About” by Clare Briggs
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| Nov. 20, 1919: A judge refuses to declare that a young girl is Eurasian simply because a man charges in a divorce suit that the father was a Japanese cook employed by his wife’s family. |
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| Nov. 20, 1909: An unidentified woman, deranged over the death of her brother, is taken to a hospital after the school nurse finds her undressing in front of her class. |
“I walk alone,” the voice on the phone told me, more as an apology than as a boast. “With me, it’s habit. I guess I never learned any other way.”
The voice was a man’s and a drawl. It continued: “Funny I should be calling somebody like you for help after all these years of going it alone.”
The time was about 3:45, yesterday afternoon.
“What do you need?” I asked.
“I need-” he started, and stopped. “Is this phone tapped?”
“No.”
Continue reading
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| Nov. 19, 1956: "Jose Quintero, bright young director of the "Long Day's Journey Into Night," is a rage overnight. He's a Hollywood boy who couldn't make good in his hometown — tried as an actor there and came to a little theater project in Greenwich Village. Mrs. Eugene O'Neill saw his direction for "The Iceman Cometh" and insisted he direct the O'Neill autobiography." |
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| A lot of letters written to Ann Toth, who was the roommate of Elizabeth Short – the Black Dahlia, were listed on EBay. The vendor carefully noted that the letters were from the 1950s to the 1970s, rather than from 1946, when Toth lived with Short at the home of Florentine Gardens executive Mark Hansen. The vendor also noted that none of the letters were written by Toth. Instead, there are letters from a son, a bill for auto insurance, employment contracts, a receipt for the purchase of a television set and miscellaneous letters of transmittal, etc. |
| Clare Briggs on “That Guiltiest Feeling.”
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| Nov. 19, 1919: Pietro Buzzi, operatic tenor, is take to the psychiatric ward of county hospital after being removed from a Hollywood studio. According to a 1916 story in The Times, he portrayed Kaiser Wilhelm in an unidentified Universal film. |
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| Nov. 19, 1909: The Moquis of Arizona, now known as the Hopis, throw some Mennonite missionaries out of Oraibi. |
Everyone remembers certain of his teachers, particularly the ones who inspired or stirred him, even if he has lost touch with them and never sees them now.
Julius Sumner Miller, physics instructor at El Camino College and KNXT commentator, is more fortunate. His old math prof, the revered Robert Ernest Bruce, of Boston University, lives in retirement in Redlands. Miller occasionally visits him.
They recall the great men of the Boston U. faculty and how they literally radiated knowledge and instilled in their students a respect for learning.
On a recent visit, during such a discussion, Bruce, now in his late 80s said, “Julius, I think you are now entitled to call me Robert.” Continue reading
While we’re all gathered here together, in this smoke-filled room, I’d like to say a few words in behalf of politicians.
They are our friends. Behind that stodgy facade that they put up, they’ve all got hearts as big as Daddy Warbucks’.
And what they do, they do in our best interests.
I am prepared, I might add, to give you an example.
You remember, a couple of months ago, when Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois drafted a resolution calling for a government expenditure of $200,000 to permit himself and his 99 colleagues to fly to Waikiki to welcome Hawaii into our union of states? Continue reading
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| Nov. 18, 1955: While on tour in Chicago with “The King and I,” Yul Brynner worked on a doctorate in philosophy at Northwestern and gave drama lessons to the rest of the cast, Hedda Hopper says. |
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Nov. 18, 1959: Shirlee Garner Witty seeks a divorce, saying that her husband was always making snide remarks. Witty competed for the title of Miss Universe in 1956 even though she was a wife and mother, because at that time married women weren't banned from the beauty contest.
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 “The Sound of Music” opens with more than $2 million in advance ticket sales. |
| “You Know I Can’t Get Better.” |
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| Hey, Keith, will the Bruins smite USC in their tilt? |
Aug. 19, 1938: Joe Seewerker and Charles Owens find a windmill on a farm at Garfield Avenue just north of Gage Street. Below, the area today, via Google maps’ street view. It’s interesting to note that Seewerker refers to Mayor Fred Eaton’s role in the aqueduct because he’s usually overshadowed by William Mulholland.
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| Aug. 24, 1938: Joe Seewerker and Charles Owens find evidence of an old brickyard in Chavez Ravine and touch on the Chinese Massacre.
Note: The original run of Nuestro Pueblo concluded in 1939. I’m going back and picking up the entries that I missed the first time. |
