intersections

Griffith Park Fire...again!

No sooner was I reminded of last year's fire than we had another one, yesterday, in basically the same place. Fortunately it never got out of control. There is an amazing photo of the LAFD helicopter dropping water at the LAist blog. Do yourself a favor and check it out!

There's a cool series of pictures at the Hollywood United Neighborhood Council website.

A year ago today...

...Griffith Park was on fire and threatening the community of Los Feliz, including our apartment. Here's the picture I took 2:42 pm that day (10 minutes from the time of this typing, so literally one year ago).

Here are my posts from last year:
LIVE...from my driveway | May 8, 2007
We Survived! | May 9, 2007
What's Left | May 10, 2007

Armenian genocide march in Hollywood today

Today, Valerie and I went out on Hollywood Boulevard to hang out a bit with the Armenian community as they held their annual demonstration about the genocide of their people in 1915 at the hand of the Turks. Though many nations of the world officially recognize the genocide of the Armenian people, the United States and the UK are among the countries that do not (though 40 of the 50 states in the US have officially recognized the genocide, according to Wikipedia).

As you may know, Little Armenia is one of the important parts of the Hollywood Community and their website claims that it is "Home of the largest Armenian diaspora in the world."

Meeting with Councilmember Tom LaBonge

There were ten people in our group that visited with Councilmember Tom LaBonge today in his City Hall office - 8 members of the church, Joe Hari, our LA Voice organizer and Man One, our artist. It was a good meeting and we really enjoyed the conversation about the Crossroads @ HOLLYWOOD mural project. We showed he and his staff the draft sketch and Mr. LaBonge made some constructive comments and suggestions.

We also learned a little bit about the process we would have to go through to get our mural approved (not an easy process either). We now need to think about what our next steps will be. I was really proud of our group who has worked so hard on this project. Here's a soundbyte from Alburn Binkley's opening comments:

"The Crossroads Mural project is our latest "gift" that we wish to present to the community around us.  Sitting as a welcome sign to the City Council District 4, the Crossroads Mural will greet residents and visitors alike to a district whose commercial and social growth reflects our own."

Hollywood Sign endangered!

Hollywood Sign Endangered By Real Estate Deal | Huffington Post, AP

This is hardly the most important thing to be worried about, what with news of White House sanctioned torture, renewed fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, and a 7-2 Supreme Court decision in favor of lethal injections, it is a bit troubling that the sign that has marked our neighborhood for generations could suddenly be...gone.

Songkran Hollywood 2008

This past Sunday was the annual Songkran Festival celebrating the Thai New Year. Amazingly, it was the hottest day of the year by far, setting new records all over the Southland (96 F).

Pastor Somchai and the Thai Adventist Group had a booth focused on helping people with their health. While they did encounter many technical difficulties, they did a great service to the community on Sunday. Somchai is pictured above with the lanyard on, speaking to one of his members.

More pictures of some beautiful carved vegetables and the huge crowd after the jump.

2008 Songkran Festival in Hollywood this Sunday

This Sunday, April 13, is the 5th Annual Songkran Thai New Year Festival. The festivities - which include lots of amazing Thai food (of course), cultural music and dancing - start at 8:00 am with a 5K run/walk and last until approximately 7:00 pm. The stretch of Hollywood Boulevard from Western to Normandie is literally transformed into a Thai city street.

An additional feature this year is the First Los Angeles International Curry Festival. This, from the Thai CDC website:

The Thai New Year's Day Songkran Festival in Los Angeles is the largest and the most popular Thai celebration outside of Thailand.  Every year this festival will attract more than 30,000 people (and the number is still increasing!) from around the world to experience the colorful Thai traditions and also the tasty and authentic Thai food.  The participants are always amazed by the beautiful parade, the world largest Pad Thai noodle demonstration, Thai classical dances, music, and more!

Crossroads @ HOLLYWOOD mural update...and more

Yesterday we had our second community input workshop. It wasn't as well attended as the first one - maybe 15 people. Man One was on hand with the first draft of the design. We don't have images to show online just yet of the design, but I can tell you that it is impressive. This guy is one amazing artist.

We've added a new page to the Crossroads @ HOLLYWOOD blog. It's an FAQ written by the team that is leading this project. It's well worded and I think really points out the missional quality of what we're doing here. Be sure to check it out. And subscribe to the RSS feed for the Crossroads @ HOLLYWOOD blog for all the updates we post there.

In other related news...

LA vs. WAR
There is an art exhibit happening this week called LA vs. War. You can read more about it here. Man One and the Crewest Gallery will be taking part in this.

It's this Thursday, April 10 through Sunday, April 13 downtown at...

The Firehouse
710 S. Santa Fe Avenue
Los Angeles CA 90021

    All ages are welcome and admission is free. See also myspace.com/lavswar

The Arts in Los Angeles
On Thursday, April 17, Man One will be part of a conversation at the Getty Center entitled "The Arts in Los Angeles, 1997-2007", moderated by Patt Morrison of the LA Times and KPCC. This event is also free but reservations are required (click here). Parking is something like $7.

The Militant Angeleno Upgrades my status

I'm feeling better already. In an excellent post that I feel settles this issue forever, the Militant Angeleno explains the Eastside/Westside issue once and for all.

3. THEREFORE, west of the Los Angeles River is NOT "The Westside" nor is east of La Cienega Blvd "The Eastside." There is no dividing line between the two. You cannot be on the Westside and throw crap across the street to the "Eastside." You cannot be on the Eastside and hock a loogie across the street to the Westside. You cannot jump between Westside and Eastside in a precisely-located game of hopscotch. Stop thinking binary here.

Read the whole thing here.

For me the reason this whole thing is so funny (and if you live in Los Angeles you'll understand this, I think) is that those of us that live in Hollywood are never sure where we fall into the descriptions of the city. When I look at the weather map in the LA Times, for example, they have temperatures for Burbank, Downtown and UCLA. Because LA has so many micro-climates, I'm confident my weather is different than Burbank, but we're not nearly as far west as UCLA. So I end up going with downtown. I really am only 4 miles from downtown, but in LA that seems so far.

There is, of course, the distinct social differences between "East LA" and "the Westside". To suggest that there is a center that is neither East nor West is, well...messing with the well established social strata of this city. So, now I can be aloof not just in my Hollywood address but in my "neither East nor West but rather Center of the City" status.

Anyway, just a little Los Angeles geography humor to start the day.

Listening to Our Community

This Saturday afternoon our church is doing something truly wonderful. As I previously reported, we received a $10,000 grant from the Office of Community Beautification (part of the City of Los Angeles Board of Public Works). This grant is to produce an art mural on the enormous and unattractive wall of our church that faces the freeway (and attracts taggers).

So, this Saturday afternoon we are hosting a Community Input Workshop which will bring together various parts of our neighborhood. After gathering around tables and discussing the nature and character of our neighborhood with the artist, we will gather around tables for food. After the food, one of our church members, Melinda Rice, is putting on a concert of classical and modern music (she is a professional violinist and my daughter's violin teacher).

You can read the press release we sent out last week, here.

One of the interesting things to come out of this is a conversation about what our role is, as a church, in the neighborhood. Some cannot get over the fact that our mural will not be explicitly religious. Some are curious whether the artist is Christian. Here's what I wrote in the church bulletin this past week.

One of the questions you'll hear people around the Hollywood Church ask a lot is some version of, “"What is God up to in our neighborhood and how can we join Him?”" It a basic recognition that God is present in our neighborhoods. It is a question that changes our vision - the way we look at our community – and how we think about engaging with our community.

One of the goals at our church is to always be imagining ways in which we, as God's people, are sent. Too often the church default mode of operation is to think about how we can get people to come to us. This is the principle behind much of what is called “church growth.” What we are concerned with in Hollywood is how God is calling and sending us to be present in the neighborhoods “where he intends to go”.

One funny side story is that someone in my denominational office wanted to feature what we're doing and gleaned some info off our website. Here's part of what they published

The project's purpose is to add value to the community, foster conversations in the community about Adventist values and vision for the neighborhood.

We never said anything about fostering conversations about Adventist values and vision. He added that. It's just so far outside the norm for churches to foster conversations about the community's values that the only thing we can possibly imagine is fostering conversations about what we want to talk about.

Our real goal is to see if we can discern what God is doing among the people of our neighborhood.