Category Archives: Personal Interest

things that interest me in the off- and on-hours

Joan Arnold, 1920 – 2013

Joan Helen Arnold

Tomorrow — Friday, August 16 2013, we will memorialize and bury my aunt Joan Arnold, who died last week (August 8, 2013) in a New York hospice at the age of 92.

The day before she died she told us that she wanted to get strong enough to return to work: “You know, I’m a workaholic,” she said. A pretty amazing force of nature, Joan had one job – and still had it the day she died – for at least 70 years, all of which were spent at Barnes & Noble Booksellers. Which means she started working for that company – which was only a local bookstore back then – during World War II. She once joked to me that they had to keep her on, at least to shelve the books, because she was the only one there who knew the alphabet, a not so subtle dig at how educational standards have fallen.

A single straight woman who never married and had no children, Joan was always a role model for me as she was so totally comfortable in pursuing her single life in the big city, always fiercely independent, even last year refusing to be walked up to her apartment door by a middle-aged relative. “I do this by myself every day,” she said, adamantly.

She led an enormously busy life as well. A season ticket holder to the Metropolitan Opera, I think she also saved every single Playbill for every play she ever attended – and she went to the theater constantly. Not odd, as she was a former actress and stage manager, having appeared in many Off and Off Off Broadway plays in the 1940s and 50s.

“Rehearsal–Robert Carson, director of the Tophatters, gives final instruction to his leading ladies before curtain goes up … on the off-Broadway group’s presentation of ‘The Wallflower’ at the Central Y. M. C. A., Hanson Place. At left is Joan Arnold. Beverly Zatt, center, plays the title role.” (1952)

One of the things I always admired about Joan was her volunteerism – within the last couple of years, she was still helping out at her church, where she made sandwiches for the homeless, as well as at the Natural History Museum (close by in her Upper West Side neighborhood) where she was working on a project cataloguing local island birds.

In the past, she was honored by former mayor Ed Koch for her work with the blind.

Next week we’ll leave her apartment forever to the NYC rental wars. This is bittersweet. This is the first place I ever stayed in NYC, as an impressionable child attending the 1964 New York World’s Fair, as well as the launching pad for my first solo European trip in 1974. When I visit New York in the future, I won’t have a living relative here, which seems very odd.

Yet Joan leaves an enormous legacy of spirit. I’m always searching for appropriate models to guide me on that future path. She’s always been near the top of that list, and will continue to be. Farewell, Joan. I’m honored to have walked you home.

A little bit more on Joan’s life, from my dad:

Joan was born in Akron, Ohio. The family moved to the New York city area in the 1920s and eventually settled In the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn. Joan graduated from Our Lady of Angels grade school and Bay Ridge high school, and completed her education at Alfred University in upstate New York.

She graduated magna cum laude, majored in English and drama and won her class literary prize. Joan liked to travel. Besides seeing most of the USA, she also made trips to Russia, China and Egypt as well as western Europe.

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farewell

(Services were Friday, August 16 2013 at the Crestwood Funeral Home in New York; burial was at St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale, NY.)

Reinventing Los Angeles: Water and Transport

Los Angeles City Hall. Photo by Jimbolaya

Earlier today I saw a Facebook post warning about traffic jams on our freeways as a result of a messy oil tanker truck fire.

I then went to sigalert.com to verify this information and I realized I hadn’t gone to this site since I gave up my car in June. There was no need for it; bicyclists are not usually subject to traffic jams, and certainly not traffic jams on freeways.

In the attached article, writer Jeff Turrentine remarks on his culture shock moving from Brooklyn to L.A., and on the overwhelming insertion of automobile life into almost every aspect of how we go about our days here in Los Angeles. I recently spent a month in New Orleans, and upon returning, I also was surprised at how easily I became aware of the tremendous assault on the environment (and Southern California is truly a beautiful environment) the “car” has. From noise, to pollution, to vast amounts of space necessary for roads and parking lots, etc., it’s almost as if we exist to serve this status quo of machinery.

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In addition to the Southern California water situation (in a nutshell, we don’t have any, it comes from elsewhere) and plans to make that more sustainable, he talks about the resurgence of projects in public transportation, biking and walking infrastructure and what has had to happen politically to get there. A lot of the programs, such as the extension of the Purple Line Subway to UCLA, have a completion date of 2035, when I, gulp, if I live that long, will be 80. But heck, I see people much older than that riding the subway. So I’m looking forward to it.

Michael Woo, my former L.A. City Councilperson and current dean of the College of Environmental Design at California State Polytechnic University-Pomona said this about the reluctance of Inland Empire City Fathers and Mothers to the idea of public transit/density issues: “Many of them believed that low-density living, automobile dependence, a culture based on private backyards instead of public open spaces simply reflected the L.A. version of the American Dream. They were reluctant to embrace transit or density as part of the solution. To them it all just seemed like going backward.”

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That says a lot about why things evolved the way they did. Still, as even car and backyard lovers don’t like sitting in gridlock much at all, everyone realizes some things must change, and we’ve finally found that there’s political will here to do it (and that will extends into Republican Orange County, as well as that Inland Empire). The end result will be a much more livable Southern California, perhaps more garden-like, as the earlier boosters liked to claim.

Now if they could just do something about that pesky seismic problem. . .

Adventures in CarFree L.A.: My One Month Without Wheels

I’m not in this line.

Well, it’s been a month! I sold my car on June 7. It’s been 30 days without a car, and so far the world has not come crashing in on me.

Mostly, I knew what I would encounter. Since I work at home, there was no commute for that on a daily basis.

I’d already experimented with grocery shopping using my bike, now outfitted with panniers. So I knew that worked – if anything, the only thing I’d say about this month with no car at my beck and call, is that there were fewer to no impulse “treats” bought — like if I really really wanted that Haagen-Dazs or chilly refreshing root beer, I’d have to walk over or get on the bike. So there was less of that. My waistline is grateful.

I did experiment with going to the beach using public transport. I took the Red Line subway to the Wilshire Boulevard Rapid Bus #720, picking it up at Vermont. It deposits you right at Palisades Park, Ocean Avenue and Wilshire in Santa Monica, so you get right to the beach (a short walk down the steps and over the pedestrian bridge spanning Pacific Coast ~~Freeway~~ Highway). The good: it gets you right there, for a total cost of $3 (that’s with 1 transfer, I bought a day pass for $5 which made more sense), I was able to read on the bus (Kindle on Android) and I got a seat both ways, which surprised me since it was a heat-wave Sunday, there was very little waiting time — that bus runs every few minutes, and the subway runs about every 10 minutes. No paying for parking at the beach or searching endlessly for a free space somewhere. The not-so-good: it takes forever to get there and get back, between 1.5 hours and 2 hours each way!

So, if you’re spending a couple of hours on the sand, is it worth it to make what is basically a 4 hour round trip (it’s around 20 miles, give or take a few, across the urban congestion of L.A. and West L.A.)? I think that for me personally, next time I’ll plan to spend the day there doing things in addition to my sunworshipping on the sand. That way, it seems more reasonable for the distance and also, travel times would be both later and earlier, thus hopefully a bit shorter.

Then again, one of the tenets to car-free living in a gigantic place like Los Angeles is that you basically “live” in your neighborhood. The beach is not in my neighborhood, so I have to accept that. What I will say is that it’s pretty much a nightmare getting there from the valley with a car as well — unless you leave at 4 a.m.

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I had one minor accident/mishap, totally my fault, and not on the street. It was in the lobby of my apartment building, where I foolishly decided to back up while still astride my bike. I got my foot caught in the pedals and fell backwards on top of the thing. I’m OK, and so it the bicycle, but it was a little bloody.

I’ll spare you a photo of that.

Adventures in CarFree L.A.: going to the dentist

My Chariot, at its former home in Palm Springs.

Another in my series of the occasional challenges of getting around town without a car.

This one being, the dentist — that I’ve gone to for over 20 years and is no longer near where I live. I moved (many, many times); he didn’t. So, I was presented with a couple of options: one of the philosophies around CarFree living is to live local, as in, to patronize and support your neighborhood businesses. I guess that means including dentists and doctors. So, I could’ve easily found several within walking distance of my home. They are legion, actually.

But there you have the rub: I didn’t want to change dentists. He’s a great dentist. He knows my mouth intimately (wait, that didn’t come out quite right . . .) But you know what I mean. There’s a fortune invested in those chompers.

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So, I vowed to get to him, and I did. I live in Valley Village, west and south of North Hollywood, north of Studio City, and east of Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley. The dentist’s office is in West Hollywood near the Beverly Center. For those non-Angelenos reading this, it’s about a 10 mile trip if you’re a crow. There’s also an ancient mountain range between these two locations, sometimes known as the Hollywood Hills.

There is no easy, straight, one-line public transport option between these 2 points. So, I opted for the best alternative I could think of, which is to take my bike on the subway.

Pretty easy, actually, and the bike ride turned out to be my workout for the day. I live about one mile west of the North Hollywood Station of the Red Line. I ride there using the Chandler Bike Path.

I get on the Red Line subway there and get off at Hollywood Highland Station, just two stops, 8 minutes, never a delay. But it does take you over (well, under) that mountain range and deposits you directly into the heart of tourist Hollywood.

Tough getting back on the bike amid the Marilyns and the Zorros. But I prevail. Google Maps tells me the best bike route to my dentist (Melrose and La Cienega) is to take Orange Drive south to Willoughby, then Willoughby all the way west to La Cienega. From there it’s a quick couple of blocks down La Cienega to my destination.

Can I tell you how much I love that Google Maps gives you a car, public transport, bike and walk option for any direction? Even if they’re sometimes wrong, I actually think it works better than Metro’s own website “Trip Planner” function.

I know we’re supposed to hate the Google right now because it’s farming our brains for their own sleazy 1% profit but just for the minute I’m liking this.

So here’s my thoughts:

The good: Nice sunny day for a bike ride. Kind of nice that I don’t have to go to the gym for exercise, my transport is providing it. Being early afternoon on a Thursday, there’s not a lot of traffic and no crazy drivers. I get there with minutes to spare, thus the Google Maps direction timer was accurate.

The bad: Parts of Orange Drive, especially just south of Santa Monica Boulevard, are in terrible shape. Let’s be frank, the street sucks. It needs new asphalt. Why they made it a sharrow street is like torture for cyclists. Also, Willoughby is a sharrow street too (which means you’re supposed to share the lane with a car – um, good luck). What we really need in Hollywood-West Hollywood is a dedicated east-west street with a full bike lane for riders.

Oh, and the cleaning and check-up went great. My teeth may last for another year!

Swamp Tour! Gators!

West Pearl River, LA

Cypress trees

More Cypress Trees

My beautiful sister, Kate Maleckar

Tour Guide with his crawfish haul!

Sharp swamp grass

Hungry river monster!

Water’s rising. . .

Fish Camp

Another river house

Doesn’t look too good. . .

Seen better days

I couldn’t leave New Orleans and Louisiana without finally going on a swamp tour! It’s not that I’m that interested in the gators – although it was pretty interesting actually seeing these wild creatures in their habitat (although I’ll leave the wisdom of the guides feeding them marshmallows and hot dogs up to you).

We picked the Honey Island Swamp Tour as it’s only a half hour or so from New Orleans, in Slidell, very close to the border with Mississippi. In addition to the gators you’ll see pictures of here, we saw a lot of birds, including the majestic Great Blue Heron, as well as a bunch of slider turtles, dragonflies, and frogs. No Bigfoot, as I noticed they tout that on their site.

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How do you say “Los Feliz?”

Enjoyed this. I’ve always been of the camp who pronounced it “Loss – FEE-liz”, instructed as I was, not only by native Angelenos, but also by Joan Crawford as “Mildred Pierce,” who has one of her namesake restaurants in this neighborhood.

What better guide could there possibly be? It’s also the location where a lot of my novel “The Forest Dark” takes place, locations real and somewhat imagined. Indeed, I lived there for four years on Rosalia Road, and, if you count the adjacent Silver Lake location of a former apartment on Auburn Street, a grand total of about 15 years.

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Rock ‘n’ Bowl – New Orleans

Geno Delafose and French Rockin Boogie

the Rock ‘n’ Bowl

Geno Delafose and French Rockin Boogie

Jim Arnold at Rock ‘n’ Bowl

More from the NOLA trip – on May 9, we went to the Rock ‘n’ Bowl, which is “a live music venue located on S. Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans. It is a unique venue that combines a bowling alley and a music club together in one place,” and, there is also food, a bar, and of course (as you will see) dancing.

The night Kate Maleckar (my sister) and I were there, the (nouveau) Zydeco band was Geno Delafose and the French Rockin Boogie. From his online bio: Geno Delafose (born February 6, 1972 in Eunice, Louisiana) is a zydeco accordionist and singer. He is one of the younger generations of the genre who has created the sound known as the nouveau zydeco. His sound is deeply rooted in traditional Creole music with strong influences from Cajun music and also country and western.
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Jazzfest 2013 photos and video

David Bear and Kate Maleckar (at Jazzfest 2013)

Maggie Koerner

Mudd

Miss Claudia’s Singalong (Jazzfest)

Dave Maleckar (far left) with Miss Claudia’s Singalong and kids

Beausoleil amid the mud

Jim and Kate shoes

Congo Stage

Bongos, anyone?

Happy Jazzfest patrons in the mud

Sitting: David Bear, Maggie Koerner and Kate Maleckar.

Friday, May 4 was a wet spring day in New Orleans, so there’s a lot of mud in these pictures and in the video. Despite the weather, the music was fantastic and Kate (Kate Maleckar, my sister) and I had a great time sloshing around.

Here’s a phone video of some of Beausoleil and Irma Thomas in the Gospel Tent.
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In Memoriam: Linda Palmer

Linda Palmer

Very sad to report that one of my beloved writing teachers, Linda Palmer, died on April 21.

Linda was not just a great teacher, but a wonderful inspiration. I always thought of her as a kind of amazing renaissance woman, someone who found her bliss and along the way to that realization did a lot of really interesting things – and had a lot of fun.

She was part of Hollywood royalty, and then she was also a wildlife photographer in Africa; a passionate pet lover, and also a writer of popular mystery novels. I’ll always be grateful that she shared her love and knowledge of writing through UCLA. I remember she was an early champion of my main character “Ben” in my first book “Benediction” — when many in our class had opposite opinions. At that point I think I needed someone to say to me that “this is OK, proceed” — and Linda confidently provided that affirmation. I might have stopped otherwise.
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RIP, dear Linda.

Old Clip of Linda Palmer

Study: Los Angeles Traffic Still Sucks

Well, this hardly comes as a surprise. No wonder the traffic is worse – I just checked some stats yesterday, and the city of Los Angeles has added close to a million residents since 1980 (about the time I moved to L.A.) so it’s no wonder the traffic both seems and is much worse.

Used to be you really could take Fountain or Franklin across town (from the Silver Lake area to West Hollywood) and it would be pretty quick. Not anymore. So I guess that old quip attributed to Bette Davis (Q: How do you succeed in Hollywood? A: Always take Fountain.) is no longer true. But I’m glad to have lived in L.A. when it still was.
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