샌프란시스코에서 온 블루 버틀 커피는 메트로 역에서 많이 먼데 포틀랜드에서 온 스텀프타운 커피 로스터는 더 멀다. 그래도 나한테는 걸어 갈 만하다. 이유는 몇 개 있다. 처음 갔을 때는 마셔 보고 싶은 게 있었다. 나는 포틀랜드에 여행갈 때마다 꼭 스텀프타운에 커피를 마시러 갔기 때문에 스텀프타운의 맛에 익숙했다. 그런데 스텀프타운은 로스앤젤레스의 아트 디스트릭트에 지점을 연 후에 새로운 […]
For a couple years now, I’ve met my Korean speaking partner Mi-young once a week at a coffee shop. During the first few months we always met at the Tom N Toms just up the street from me, but you can only hear their corporate-issue music loop so many times before it becomes a problem. Besides, life’s too […]
Those who envision themselves living in Santa Monica, the wealthy and politically progressive coastal enclave west of Los Angeles, no doubt envision themselves living happily there. It would seem to have everything: miles of coastline with beaches open to all, the striking Santa Monica mountains just to the north, plenty of equally striking southern-Californian architecture […]
Crash drew great acclaim, up to and including an Academy Award for Best Picture, as a searing and incisive examination of racial tension and prejudice in Los Angeles, yet I’ve never met an Angeleno who likes it. Its indictment of the city — not, of course, a “real” city — as a tinderbox of incomprehension […]
I had lunch not long ago with Geoff Nicholson at Mr. Ramen, Little Tokyo’s finest perpetually reggae-soundtracked noodle shop. He reminded me of the existence of the James Irvine Japanese Garden, a fixture of (and fairly well-known wedding venue at) the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. Built to the side of the JACCC’s not-particularly-loved gray […]
Colin Marshall talks with Sam Sweet, who has written on a variety of subjects, especially ones having to do with Los Angeles, in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, and Stop Smiling. He’s currently writing and publishing All Night Menu, a series of five 64-page books on “the lost heroes and miniature histories of Los Angeles.” You can stream the conversation just […]
I had the chance last week to interview Bae Suah and Cheon Myeong-kwan, two well-known Korean writers, when they came to Los Angeles under the auspices of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea to make an appearance at UCLA. Not one to miss a podcasting opportunity, I packed up my recorder and rode over to where they […]
On the Wilshire Walk I met Michael Lane and Jim Crotty, creators of Monk magazine, a journal of “travel with a twist” and subcultural phenomenon that ran between 1986 and 1997. During that whole time, Michael and Jim traveled America in an RV and put the magazine together using early desktop publishing software and every Kinko’s they […]
Colin Marshall talks with Patricia Wakida, editor of Heyday Books’ new LAtitudes: An Angeleno’s Atlas, a collection of cartographically organized essays on the real Los Angeles from such contributors as David L. Ulin, Glen Creason, Laura Pulido, Lynell George, and Josh Kun. You can stream the conversation just above, listen to it on the LARB’s site, or download it on iTunes.
I’ve long wanted to walk the length of Wilshire Boulevard, the closest thing the whole of Los Angeles has to a “main street.” The city does have a street actually named Main, which runs north-south through downtown all the way up to Lincoln Heights and all the way down to the port, but Main somehow […]