Lost In Translation

Los Angeles Weekend: Friday

I decided to stay at Shelter Hotel, a boutique hotel, located in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles.

My first stop Grand Central Market, which is a great space that has all kinds of restaurants, bars, coffee shops, food stores, bakeries, and dessert makers all under one roof.

My first stop Sarita's Pupuseria, Salavadorian food.

Two pupus-one with bean filing the other with cheese and pork with cabbage and carrots.

Followed by Berliner Weiss beer with pirogis at Golden Road Brewery.

Angel Flight is across the road.

On the plane I was reading the in-flight magazine and they mentioned a cool new restaurant in Koreatown Here's Looking At You, so I checked it out-interesting fusion fare, great service and obviously very popular-packed on a rainy night.

Stacciatella Cheese: pepita, yuzu koshi, perilla, with charred bread-excellent. I may have to come back.

Koreatown.

Beer Belly for some craft beer.

Korean food court.

Frank & Hank excellent dive bar.

There's another fun bar at Hotel Normandie.

I Am Not Your Negro

I have been hearing good things about Raoul Peck's innovative documentary I Am Not Your Negro (2016), which is up for best documentary at eh Oscars this year. Innovative because he is using an unfinished 30 page fragment from 1979  about Medger Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. left behind by writer James Baldwin as the basis for his film on the civil rights movement and race in America. Peck establishes the relevance today when in an interview with Dick Cavett Baldwin says: "The question is what is going to happen to this country?" This is followed by a montage of police brutality on blacks from recent times like the Ferguson, Missouri riots in 2014. The voice over of Baldwin's words (other materials such as letters to his agent are used throughout) by Samuel L. Jackson. There was plenty of powerful archival footage combined with more contemporary background pieces and examples of the continuing police brutality and suppression of rights of black Americans. This a powerful document of racial relation in America that is still relevant today and is essential viewing like OJ: Made in America and The 13th Amendment.

The OC: Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, & Huntington Beach

I am staying at the Coasta Mesa Crowne Plaza for my business trip evaluating the the UC Irvine study abroad program. In the lobby there is Fireside Tavern that has an excellent happy hour from 5-7 and 9-11 with food specials and $5 craft beer pints.

Nearby is the South Coast Plaza which had this display for the lunar Chinese New Year.

The marina at Newport Beach at Lido Isle.

Lunch at Bear Flag Fish Company.

Inside the shop.

Manhattan clam chowder.

Fish tacos.

The Lido theater was showing a very Los Angeles-centric film-La La Land-I also came back to see it.

On Main Street in Huntington Beach.

The Art Deco Post Office.

Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum.

The Huntington Beach Pier.

Fortunes from Zoltar.

Ruby's Diner.

I wasn't so hungry after the breakfast buffet at the hotel, so I settled for a bowl of chili at Sugar Shack Cafe, a Huntington Beach institution.

I stopped in at the Spanish tapas restaurant Vaca (incidentally it means "stupid" in Japanese) in Costa Mesa after seeing the documentary I Am Not Your Negro nearby.

Croquetas de Pollo (creamy chicken fritters) with a Spanish gin and tonic.

Albondigas (Roasted lamb meatballs, lemon-yogurt, cucumbers).

Under The Big Black Sun

When I saw that there was an oral history, Under The Big Black Sun (2016) written by John Doe, I was excited to read it. Once I started reading it and realized that it wasn't a biography of his band X per se, but an oral history of the early LA punk scene I soured somewhat. But once I got into it and read entries from people such as his ex-wife and band mate Exene Cervenka, Go Gos Jane Wiedlen and Charotte Caffey, Chris D., Henry Rollins, Mike Watt, and ex-Blaster and X member Dave Alvin among a host of other scenesters, musicians, journalists and the like I started to enjoy the history of the scene that included more than a few bands that I liked. This book captured what was great about it and why it was short-lived and what it became. The South Bay hardcore scene is what it became and it was scary, violent and a far cry from the variety and openness of the scene that included women, gays, and Chicanos. I became a fan of the the roots influenced bands that emerged from the scene-hardcore was never my cup of tea-but they explain how this happened and speculated on why it happened.

La La Land

While I was visiting Newport Beach I saw that one of the more lauded films of 2016, Damien Chazzell's (Whiplash) La La Land, was playing so I decided to check it out. It seemed like a good thing to do while visiting Los Angeles. As a rule I'm not a big fan of musicals, but exceptions can be made. I can see why this was a big success and it mostly relies on the charisma of the leads Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, although neither is a superior dancer or singer-they make it work. It was a bit of escapism that was captured in a very cinematic way. I know there was some late critical backlash and I don't quite understand why. I felt it was an afternoon well-spent.

UC Irvine

I have been asked by my university, TWCU, to come to evaluate the study abroad program at UC Irvine. It was a rare rainy day in Southern California and my first time in Irvine and Costa Mesa (where my hotel is). It is an impressive campus like UC Davis and looks to be a good place for the students to study.

There some great landscaping on the campus as well.

The dorms on campus have names taken from J.R.R. Tolkien's novels. I know some Tolkien loving guys who would have loved that.

In-Flight Films (Los Angeles)

I was disappointed with the film selection on my flight to Los Angeles. However, one highlight was that I was finally able to see the end of Brooklyn (2015). I think it deserved all the praise it had garnered on its release. It's a kind of coming of age film about a young woman, (an impressive performance from Saoirse Ronan) who leaves Ireland for an uncertain future in Brooklyn, New York. The story was more complicated than I expected and surprised me at times.

I was less impressed with Shin Godzilla (2016) which had some dodgy science mixed in with uneven acting and nationalistic sentiment. Most of the acting was on par for Japanese style "overacting." The biggest offenders were the male (Hirokui Hasegawa) and female leads (Satomi Ishihara). The scientific explanations were pie in the sky ridiculous and the America president was portrayed as Reagan-esque (For the love of god, why? Is that the writer's idea of a great statesman?). The whole struggle with attacking to break the constitution coupled with the American response to nuke Godzilla is very victimizing and self-pitying of a nation who started a war of aggression. It also had too much CGI and overlong.

I was also surprised by 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), and I am glad that I didn't know much about it-except that it had been getting good reviews and was aid to be a great "popcorn" movie. That and the fact that J.J. Abrams name was attached to it-which is a good thing. I will refrain from saying too much about this film except that it had very clever script and also surprised me several times throughout the film-a rare trick that happened twice on this particular session of watching in-flight films.

Nakayoshi

There's a a great gyoza (dumpling) restaurant near Minami Asagaya, Nakayoshi, which does Hakata tetsunabe gyoza. Basically this is a style of gyoza in Fukuoka that cooks dumplings in a metal pan (see above). It is also unusual in that the fillings are mostly nira (leek), garlic, and trace amounts of pork I think. It was very popular with a high turnover on a Sunday. It seems this is the only branch outside of Fukuoka. It's just down the street, so I'm sure I'll be back.

Memento Mori

Muriel Spark seldom disappoints with her impressive writing style, but sometimes the characters and plots do not live up to the the same high quality of her style. And that was the case with Memento Mori (1958), which displays her high style about a group of elderly people living in a communal house. There is a mystery about an unknown phone caller who begins calling the occupants and saying "Remember you must die." Spark does an admirable job of creating character who are well beyond her own age at the time of the writing as well as the believably of their concerns, conversations, and day to day life. I suppose Charmiam Colston, the elderly novelist, is supposed to the be the main character, but I couldn't sympathize or identify any of the major characters, hence, my dissatisfaction with the novel. However, as usual there were some great lines throughout the novel:

Her words depressed him. they were like spilt sugar: however much you swept it some grains would keep grinding under your feet.

And:

How banal and boring, Guy thought, do the most interesting people become when they are touched by a little bit of guilt.

I have now read all of her most well-known novels, and I'm not sure I'll bother with the lesser known less well-praised novels.

Drive (2002)

A friend suggested I watch Drive (2002) directed by Sabu and made references to Quentin Tarantino. I can see some similarities in violence and humor, as well as the episodic nature of this film calls to mind Pulp Fiction. This film about a salaryman office worker (Shinichi Tsutsumi gives a impressive performance) getting his car hijacked by bank robbers is a bit over the top withe the humor and has many fantastical elements that make it original but far from the more grounded in reality of Tarantino. I guess I found those fantastical elements necessary and distracting. However, there were enough positive elements in the film to interest me in seeing more films by Sabu.