Los Angeles Visionaries Association

What motivates a woman to become a criminal? Are some women just born bad, or are they driven to commit crimes for, or because of, the men in their lives? Felonious Flappers will explore the lives and crimes of some of the baddest girls in Los Angeles, from actress and writer Dorothy Mackaye to the ironically named Helen Love.

What is it about Los Angeles that brings out the evil in a woman? Crime writer Raymond Chandler speculated that a local weather phenomenon could cause a woman to contemplate murder: “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

Whether it’s the climate, their greed, or that they’re just plain evil, curvy killers have always been a part of the fabric of Los Angeles. You may empathize with the femme fatales, or find them repellent, but you are sure to be fascinated by them.

Social historian and writer Joan Renner will present an illustrated lecture which will explore the cases of a few Los Angeles women who found themselves on the wrong side of the law during the Art Deco era.

Presentation will be followed by a rare theatrical screening of the pre-code “lady criminal film” THE LADIES THEY TALK ABOUT starring Barbara Stanwyck.

THE CACOPHONY SOCIETY – ZONE SHOW  is Grand Central Art Center’s retrospective look at the Cacophony Society, a national collective of guerrilla artists, dada pranksters, and various eccentrics pursuing “experiences beyond the mainstream.” Dedicated to activities mocking societal expectations, sacred cows, and good taste, The Cacophony Society evolved from the San Francisco Suicide Club and its members were chief organizers of the Burning Man Festival in Northern Nevada. The Society’s pranking served as inspiration for the activities of Project Mayhem in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. The exhibition transforms the museum's main gallery into a wildly immersive environment filled with photos, graphics, video, props, costumes, and original art from Society events. Exhibition runs through April 15. FREE!

BLOCK PARTY: The Feburary 4th opening will be celebrated with a block party featuring carnivalesque music and performance from artists associated with the Society, art cars, competing protestors, dangerous stunts, an on-call ambulance, and other surprises. That is if the Department of Homeland Security doesn't shut us down!

Check http://intothezonemovie.com for updates and complete lineup TBA.  FREE!

Join us for an advance preview screening of this highly anticipated film. Doors and cocktail reception at 3 p.m. with ITZ curtain at 4 p.m. 

This event will roll into The Cacophony Society - Zone Show and related festivities at Grand Central Arts continuous until at least 11 p.m. -- provided the Department of Homeland Security doesn't shut us down.

Tickets: http://www.yosttheater.com/calendar/2011/into-the-zone-the-story-of-the-cacophony-society-benefit-preview-screening/

Keep checking IntoTheZoneMovie.com for additional information

This is the definitive tour of Tom Waits' formative creative life in Los Angeles, and the people, places and late night pastries that shaped it.

Calling all rain dogs, gin-soaked boys and Gun Street girls! Climb aboard as your hosts David Smay (author of the new 33 1/3 series book on "Swordfishtrombones") and Esotouric's Kim Cooper (a Zoetrope Studios intern who'll tell how she used teenage subterfuge to arrange a private concert by Tom) lead you on a scrupulously researched ride through Tom's epic misdeeds and shenanigans, from the Trashing of the Troubadour to epic nights at the Tropicana.

And oh, there are such tales to tell, from food fights with L.A. Punks and smackdowns with L.A. Police. We'll crawl through the Sewers of Paris, tattle on the Ivar Theater, and get the lowdown on Tom's legendary performances at the Wiltern and elsewhere. Before departing for points rural, Tom left his mark all over L.A., from Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios to Sunset Sound to Skid Row. We'll show you where Tom found his true love and collaborator, Kathleen Brennan, and how all the pieces came together to transform a drunken, desperate singer into the multi-faceted, multi-media artist he'd become.

Raised near San Diego, Tom Waits launched his musical career in L.A., signing with David Geffen's Asylum Records in 1972, living at the raunchy Tropicana Hotel (where he sawed off the kitchen drain board so his piano would fit), and building a reputation as a songwriter willing to risk his own health and sanity to get inside the sad sack characters that peopled songs like "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)," "On The Nickel" and "Pasties And A G-string (At The Two O'clock Club)."

By 1980, Tom was 31 and starting to feel the effects of his hard living. While scoring the music to Francis Ford Coppola's "One From The Heart," he met Kathleen Brennan, whose influence would completely transform his life and his art. After a whirlwind courtship the pair married and began a 28-year creative and personal partnership, beginning with the revolutionary album "Swordfishtrombones," the subject of tour host David Smay's new book.

Marking the symbolic passage from lonesome bar hopping to family joys and sobriety, the tour begins at an important downtown site. Passengers gather in the King Edward Saloon, the last surviving Skid Row bar with the Christmas 2007 loss of Craby Joe's, before boarding Esotouric's luxury coach class bus, where the mood is set with vintage photos and live footage.

"Crawling Down Cahuenga" spans Tom's personal city, from The Nickel (aka Skid Row) to once-ratty West Hollywood, favorite strip clubs and midnight diners, recording studios, night clubs, record labels and film studios, before rolling back downtown for a last tipple at the King Edward Saloon.

ABOUT THE HOSTS: Longtime collaborators David Smay and Kim Cooper co-edited the books "Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth" ("quite simply the most fun music book I have ever read." -Bucketfull of Brains) and "Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed" ("the perfect book for the advanced record collector" -Ear Candy) before penning their solo 33 1/3 series books on Tom Waits and Neutral Milk Hotel. Kim gives Esotouric's rock history and true crime tours. David Smay lives in San Francisco, where he is working on a history of the Beats.

Southern California 1931: Amongst the burgeoning urban sprawl built atop bulldozed orange groves and the bitter realization that you can’t eat the sunshine, recent emigré James M. Cain found a kernel of truth and his voice, which would eventually distill through his novels, ”The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Mildred Pierce” and “Double Indemnity” and subsequent film adaptations into the unique American genre: Film Noir.

How did this East Coat sophisticate go from managing editor of “The New Yorker” to populist novelist accused of writing dirty books? Esotouric's tour explores Cain’s L.A. from Hollywood to Glendale and along old Route 66, and includes illuminating visits to Forest Lawn Memorial Park (a Glendale institution and site of the funeral of Mildred Pierce’s “other” daughter, Ray), the Glendale Train Station where the “Double Indemnity” murder plot played out, and the punch line to a Billy Wilder joke so subtle, it’s taken 63 years for anyone to get. The tour will also cover the artisans who transformed Cain’s tales into film, including Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler, Joan Crawford and Lana Turner, each an important contributor to the Film Noir canon.

 “Your presentation was the highlight of the California Crime Writers Conference.” - Tyler Dilts, Author of "A King of Infinite Space" and the forthcoming "The Pain Scale"

•“Yours was one of the most meaningful workshops I've ever attended. Keep up the good work.” - Dr. Bernie DePaolis

• “Top 3 Reasons I Recommend THE WRITERS HOMICIDE SCHOOL taught by SGT. DEREK PACIFICO

#1. Sgt. Pacifico is a truly talented speaker and a gifted teacher. Sure, you can sit at home and read about police procedure and investigation, but nothing compares to seeing and hearing the actual detailsofamurdercasefirst-hand. I had to cover my eyes for some of the photos, but otherwise, perfect!

#2. During the two-day seminar, we were able to ask questions and discuss issues with a veteran homicide investigator, and there just aren't many opportunities to do that.

To spend this much time with police detectives, I would've had to commit a felony and get arrested.

#3. I learned that ‘Decomp Smoothie’ is not a delicious, vitamin- enriched protein drink at Jamba Juice. It's something else.” - Carol Rotundo 

The CRIME WRITER’S HOMICIDE SCHOOL brings you real details from actual homicides. In this dynamic, three-day lecture series, you'll learn what happens in a murder investigation from the moment police are called all the way to the end with police interrogation techniques. You will know how the cops get confessions without the rubber hose and hot lights. You’ll learn about response procedures, evidence collection, autopsy protocols and much more, taught by an experienced homicide detective.

And for authors, it's the heart of mystery. Whether you write page-turners; thrillers; classic private eye novels ; or cozies with kitty cats and cookies, a dead body and a cop will show up in your story sooner or later.

Bring life to your characters and plots with authentic procedures and crime scene details you can only learn from someone who's been there for hundreds of murder cases and thousands of interviews and interrogations.

Your Speaker: Sergeant Derek Pacifico

•21 year veteran of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department

•6 years in the Homicide Bureau

•Hundreds of murder investigations

•Thousands of interrogations

•Public speaker and law enforcement instructor since 1995

•Private training consultant since 2005

Bungalows. Crime. Hollywood. Blondes. Vets. Smog. Death.

This was Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles, which resonated under deft and melancholy fits from his writer’s bow.

Join us as we go down the mean streets that shaped his fiction, and that in turn shaped his hard-boiled times, in a four hour tour of downtown, Hollywood and surrounding environs: The Los Angeles Athletic Club, Musso & Frank, the Hotel Van Nuys, Paramount Studio’s gates, and much, much more, including a Chandler-themed gelato stop at East Hollywood cult favorite Scoops.

Through published work, private correspondence, screenplays and film adaptations, we trace Chandler’s search for meaning and his anti-hero Philip Marlowe’s struggle to not be pigeonholed or give anything less than all he has, which lead them both down the rabbit hole of isolation, depression, and drink.

LAVA - The Los Angeles Visionaries Association is pleased to announce a free roof-top screening of a newly-discovered circa 1949 short color film of Main Street and other downtown Los Angeles locations, the Union Rescue Mission-produced Of Scrap & Steel. The screening celebrates the launch of a new series of downtown stories on the In SRO Land time travel blog, featuring material from the Union Rescue Mission Archives. 

ABOUT THE FILM: In mid-1948 the Board of Directors of the Union Rescue Mission approved the expenditure of $5,000 to make the 30-minute film Of Scrap & Steel which portrays the redemption and good works of Arthur Hawkins, an alcoholic executive who ended up on the streets of Los Angeles and whose life was saved when he turned to the URM for help. Porter Hall (Arthur Hawkins) is one of only two actors in a film otherwise populated by real Los Angeles characters. (You may recall Hall's performance as the pesky guy on the train in Double Indemnity.) 

Of Scrap & Steel  was only shown in screenings organized by the URM or related organizations, and would have been completely lost if Liz Mooradian, URM historian, had not saved a deteriorating 16mm print and had it transferred to video before it was too late. Of Scrap & Steel is just one of the remarkable artifacts discovered in the Union Rescue Mission archives and explored in the In SRO Land blog.

This entertaining and powerful short film is a compelling snapshot of life on Skid Row (Main Street) circa 1949, and a fascinating document of the important work that the URM continues to do with the most needy in the community. Although downtown Los Angeles features in numerous noir films, it is extremely rare to see color images of eastern downtown, and rarer still to see full-color live-action footage of the vibrant street scene that included rescue missions, pawn shops, amusement parlors, bars, restaurants and the ever-patrolling paddy wagon in search of drunkards to haul away to jail or County work crews.

This free rooftop screening is jointly organized by LAVA - The Los Angeles Visionaries Association, the In SRO Land time travel blog and the Union Rescue Mission. Seating will be provided, and attendees are encouraged to dress warmly for the cool night air. 

Gourmet box dinners: “Meals with a purpose” will be available for purchase ($7, cash only), with a choice of sandwich (vegetarian, roast beef or chicken), cookie, fruit, crackers and beverage. 100% of proceeds from your meal donation goes to the URM, and the proceeds from each dinner will feed two other people.

Limited free parking is available at the URM’s underground parking lot. Just tell the attendant you are there for the film. Please carpool: if each guest arrives with one other person in their car, there should be enough parking for all. Those arriving later will have to leave their keys with the parking attendant. Should the URM lot fill up, there is also off-site, paid parking available at Joe’s Parking Lot at 1st & San Pedro. A free shuttle will run between this parking lot and the Union Rescue Mission from 5pm-9pm. Nearest Metro station: Little Tokyo.

Rain check: if it's raining on October 20, this event will be rescheduled for October 27. 

Schedule

6pm Doors open (reserved guests check in at the main entrance and are sent up to the roof)

6pm-7pm Box dinners available for purchase, guests can watch the sunset (6:13pm)

7pm

• Introduction to the URM by Rev. Andy Bales, CEO
• Historians Nathan Marsak & Richard Schave introduce the film in the context of the neighborhood's history, and their work on the In SRO Land time travel blog.

7:30pm Film screening

8pm Q & A

8:30pm Event ends

To sign up for this free event: First register as a user on this site, and then return to this page. Refresh the page and the signup tab will appear just to the left, above this paragraph. Click "signup" and reserve your spot. No plus-ones; each guest must register individually.

Bungalows. Crime. Hollywood. Blondes. Vets. Smog. Death.

This was Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles, which resonated under deft and melancholy fits from his writer’s bow.

Join us as we go down the mean streets that shaped his fiction, and that in turn shaped his hard-boiled times, in a four hour tour of downtown, Hollywood and surrounding environs: The Los Angeles Athletic Club, Musso & Frank, the Hotel Van Nuys, Paramount Studio’s gates, and much, much more, including a Chandler-themed gelato stop at East Hollywood cult favorite Scoops.

Through published work, private correspondence, screenplays and film adaptations, we trace Chandler’s search for meaning and his anti-hero Philip Marlowe’s struggle to not be pigeonholed or give anything less than all he has, which lead them both down the rabbit hole of isolation, depression, and drink.