Los Angeles Visionaries Association

In 1939, Semyon Kirlian discovered that it was possible to create photographic images demonstrating the "life force" which is manifested as an individual's aura. Other Russian scientists have proposed that the earth's surface is covered with a series of interconnected nodes much as acupuncturists view the human body as a network of energy centers.

On Saturday, March 20, my fellow Visionary Maja D'Aoust, "White Witch of Los Angeles," led Esotouric's "Maja's Mysteries: Rapture & Release" bus tour. Over a period of four hours, we visited a number of locations which I would describe as "psychic hot spots." So, what is a psychic hot spot? This has to be my definition because, to my knowledge, no one else has used this nomenclature. Let me describe some of my personal hot spots. When I get off the subway at Lenox and 135th Street in Harlem, I feel an incredible surge of energy rise from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. At the Capitoline Museum in Rome, I have discovered an 1800-year-old marble bust that could be my portrait. On my only trip to the souk in Fez, Morocco, it all looked familiar. I knew that I had been there before. After discussing these experiences with Maja, she concurred with my perceptions.       

Following Maja to a number of locations, mostly around Hollywood, I knew that I was moving in and out of psychic energy fields. On the surface, each one appeared to be a conventional Los Angeles location; however, I knew that there was something special to be explored at each location. Here is a recap of the highlights from my point of view.

Vedanta Society (1946 Vedanta Place, Hollywood, 90068)
Perched above the Hollywood Freeway, one is transported into the world of a sanctified Eastern religion with the peace and quiet that it embodies. "Vedanta teaches that man's real nature is divine, that the true object of human life is to unfold and manifest this divinity, and that truth is universal." Here one finds a temple, a convent, a monastery and an outstanding bookstore devoted to Eastern religions.

The Aetherius Society (6202 Afton Place, Los Angeles, 90028) 
"The Cosmic Teachings of The Aetherius Society were given by Masters from Beyond this Earth, operating mainly within our own Solar System and speaking through yoga Master Dr. George King." We saw a video projection of Dr. King taking us on a terrestrial journey. Unfortunately, I slept through most of it. This recalled a similar somnambulist experience when I was in a graduate school art history seminar. When the lights came on, my professor pounded the table yelling  "Mr. Schoener we don't sleep in my classes." I should have apologized to our hosts, but was too embarrassed. 

The finale was a visit to the Parsonage of Aimee Semple McPherson's Foursquare Angelus Temple (1801 Park Avenue, Los Angeles, 90026). Our guide, Jackie Muller, never actually met Sister Aimee, but she provided a knowledgeable and impassioned tour of her private quarters. Hundreds of thousands of people in thirty countries became disciples of Sister Aimee's Four Square Gospel evangelism. The first years of her ministry were spent in tents, tabernacles and auditoriums. Sister McPherson felt led by  God to build a permanent headquarters in  Los Angeles. The Angelus Temple, adjacent to the parsonage,  opened on January 1, 1923. Together, they serve as monuments to the memory of this extraordinary person. 

Is Los Angeles special because of its  psychic hot spots? I would definitely say so.

Illustration: Sister Aimee's personal bathroom in the parsonage, photo: Kim Cooper

Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The Lowdown on Downtown - The Secret History of LA (an Esotouric bus adventure, February 27, 2010)

As a new LA resident (I landed here on January 15, 2010), I have been anxious to learn about the downtown that I hardly knew  existed.  Over the years, I have visited LA on a number of occasions and developed an impression of it as a sprawling constellation of suburbs linked by freeways.

It was only on my last visit two years ago that I learned that there was a real "Downtown LA." It was a blurred memory of some 1920s multistory buildings lining Broadway and the modern monstrosities commanding Bunker Hill. Over the last six weeks, I would spend either Saturday or Sunday driving around downtown trying to make sense out of it. Much to my delight, I discovered that there was a real urban core configured around a rectangular street grid that was periodically punctuated by an expressway. When I felt safe shifting my vision to the sidewalk, I could see numerous pedestrians representing visible street life, but I could not make any sense out of it.

Today, I went on the Esotouric bus tour of downtown LA conducted by Richard Schave with assistance from Kim Cooper.

Having a passion for cities, this was an incredible experience for me. I was exposed to geography, architectural history, social and ethnic history, some local legends plus an insight into the loft/art community. All of this was inescapably viewed through a
current prism evaluating the impacts of "urban renewal" in the 1950s and 1960s and today's loft gentrification. Richard exposed his well informed passions and prejudices; they were cogent and convincing. When appropriate. he called on members of the tour with specialized knowledge of certain areas to speak about them.

For me, the highlight was the Grand Central Market. I had no idea that such a viable urban commercial environment existed anywhere in LA. The Mercantile Arcade stretching from Broadway to Spring Street epitomizes the dilemma confronting future
developments downtown. Broadway and the Mercantile Arcade are viable segments of a Mexican American commercial district being threatened by loft gentrification. The Mercantile Arcade lends itself to becoming a replica of Boston's highly successful Faneuil Hall Market. If this occurs, what happens to the Mexican American merchants?

On the tour, I made some comparisons with SOHO in New York. Primarily the remnants of a Civil War era industrial area, I have witnessed SOHO's evolution over the last forty years from artists' living/work space into a kind of Disneyland with it own Bloomingdales attracting "bridge and tunnel" people as well as tourists from around the world. I shared a fourth floor walkup space in a building at 26 Greene Street that had been owned by an Italian family for several generations. The building was sold and modernized. The ground floor is now the showroom for a Swiss office furniture manufacturer. The stairs remain as a relic of the past complemented by an elevator serving four floors of modernized lofts with price tags in the millions.

This demonstrates the potential danger of converting industrial space into artists' space and then into residential lofts. The gritty character of the neighborhood which appealed to the artists can be transformed into expensive gentrified real estate devoid of personality. This danger lurks on many street corners in Downtown LA.

Having some previous experience organizing bus tours in Cincinnati, London, New York and Paris, I would give today's tour four stars. Esotouric offers other tours; I hope to take as many as I can.

It was 1954. I was a curator at the San Francisco Museum of Art assisting Frank Stauffacher, a filmmaker and critic, who ran a series of programs at the Museum highlighting the creative achievements of Hollywood directors. This was clearly an avant-garde recognition of Hollywood directors as auteurs. Among those whom Frank selected were: George Stevens, Vincent Minnelli, Rouben Mamoulian and Fred Zinnemann. Each director was invited to come to San Francisco to show selections from his films, comment on them and answer questions from the audience. Why would Hollywood giants come to San Francisco for nothing but a free plane ticket? Through his Art in Cinema series at the Museum, Frank had developed a very sophisticated film audience. Art in Cinema presented a melange of avant-garde, classics and documentaries. There was nothing else like it anywhere in the country at that time. The Museum of Modern Art in New York had its Film Library collection which managed to place films on a par with paintings and sculpture. There were regular showings in the Museum’s basement theater and duplicate prints of some films were lent to film societies around the country. The focus of MOMA at that time (1950s) was to acquaint American audiences with the history of modern art from the beginning of the twentieth century. In doing that, the Museum presented modern art in a context broader than painting, sculpture and printmaking. Architecture, graphic design and films were among its expanded scope. Thus, D.W. Griffith and Claude Renoir fell within its purvey, but Hollywood was off limits.

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Having been given the responsibility of contacting Rouben Mamoulian as a possible speaker for the Art in Cinema directors’ series, I went from San Francisco to Los Angeles and was invited to meet him at his home. Mamoulian was a highly successful film and theater director. Typical of many directors of his era, he was a cosmopolitan European. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, of Armenian descent, he was the son of a bank president; he spent part of his childhood in Paris and later studied at the Moscow Art Theatre. He arrived in America in 1923, later making a name for himself as the director of lavish Broadway productions including George Gershwin’s operatic version of Porgy and Bess as well as Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma. Migrating between Hollywood and Broadway, he developed a reputation for lavish film productions rich in color, costumes, decor and music -- among them Blood and Sand (1941) with Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell and Rita Hayworth.

We met in his grandiose living room, which could have been the set of one of his films. When we concluded our negotiations with his agreeing to come to San Francisco, conversation shifted to more mundane topics. His wife was present throughout our discussions. At this point, Mamoulian was in his late fifties; she appeared to be in her forties with an untortured body and bleached blonde hair. She and I seemed to hit it off. We shared a passion for things Italian, discussing food, wine and coffee. I told her of an Italian domestic espresso machine that I had just purchased from Thomas Cara in San Francisco’s North Beach. He was a pioneer introducing Italian espresso machines to this country. As our discussion and shared nostalgia for real Italian espresso became more passionate, I offered to send her one of Thomas Cara’s Italian domestic espresso machines. (Incidentally, I still have mine and use it.)

Can I prove that Mrs. Mamoulilian’s espresso machine was the first to land in Hollywood? I doubt it, but I can assume that if there had been others available in the circles in which the Mamoulians traveled, she would have known about it. These simple cast aluminum contraptions were placed directly over the burner with chambers filled with coffee and water and heated to the point at which espresso gushed out of the coffee chamber into the waiting pot sitting below. Espresso makers have become more elaborate and complicated in recent years, when I was in Rome a few months ago, I saw variations of this espresso maker in housewares stores.

As a final note, a brief history of espresso coffee makers is in order. In 1901, Luigi Bezzera patented the world’s first espresso machine, a gigantic steam powered device that served as the prototype for commercial espresso makers for generations. In 1947, the espresso revolution began with the Gaggia Crema Caffee machine which made espresso a generally affordable commodity.

I wonder if the Mamoulian’s heirs treasure their 1950s vintage espresso maker the way that I do mine.

For more information about the history of Italian domestic and commercial espresso makers, check out these links:

• Homespresso, 1900-1970 Immagini della Collezione

• An Espresso Century, an exhibition 30 of the most important commercial espresso coffee makers that has been traveling internationally since 2000.