la la love you

The decor is very 60's LA, to me anyway

In honor of my beloved neighbors who are about to move to Los Angeles I've decided to spend this summer changing my attitude. At least towards LA. This is going to be my California Summer, at least in terms of media consumption. I want to find a way to short circuit my knee-jerk east coast aversion to LA. I have been to the City of Angles once and had a wonderful time, but I still find it completely bizarre that people live there permanently. Even more strange, people are from there, born there. Shocking. Now I have typical objections to the place: the hideous car culture, all the evils of suburbia but with crime and heavy traffic; the image-twisting, confidence-sucking, competative to the point of mania-inducing machine that is Hollywood; flip flops; the birthplace of the plastic surgery epidemic; the obscene pressure to be thin; use of the phrases "Hella" and "it's all good"; fanatic California vegans; strip malls instead of main streets. But then I have a New Englander's objection too, the puritian values encoded in my DNA that make me think living somewhere that is continuously warm and beautiful is weak; it is not real life. Living through winter each year shows one's resiliance and resourcefulness. Like I said, this is deep instinctual stuff. Not pretty, not rational, certainly not kind. So I want to do some deprogramming. I'm ready for a mental journey west. I want to find a bi-coastal state of mind. Like Joan Dideon or the Beastie Boys. I think part of my prejudice stems from Hollywood's perpetuation of LA as the vapid and artificial Bimbo of world class cities. Of course there are far more positive images of LA in the collective consciousness. I want to figure out what they are and replace the ones that don't resonate with me with ones that do. I need to overwrite the images of stilletos on the hollywood stars, of a gloomy, disgruntled looking dude in a Barney suit, carrying his head as he walks through a CVS parking lot, or anything I've ever seen on The Hills. 

When in LA two years and 9 months ago, I ate some of the best meals of my life, saw amazing art (Martin Kippenberger is my hero!), I saw some spectacular light (at Venice Beach, on the highway coming back from Venice beach). I hung out in a beautiful garden and ate grapes, I walked a dog in the hollywood hills, I even saw someone sorta famous. And all in the company of two of my favorite people on the planet. It was a good trip. But it seemed like a lonely place. Despite that feeling, I do now hold LA dear to my heart. During that trip, in the ladies room at Zankou Chicken, I found out I was pregnant. My daughter is about to turn two and someday I very much want to take her to LA. So in the mean time, I want to find a way to fall in love with it a little. What am I missing? I'm going to hunt out that magic in the following places. Many of these I've seen or read or heard before, but I think viewing them in succession might make the difference, help me draw parallels.

500 days of summer

 The Weetzie Bat books

Dogtown and the Z-Boys

Lords of Dogtown

Rebel without a Cause

Best Coast

The Endless Summer (for surfer culture if not LA)

The Kids are Alright

A few episoides of the L word

The Big Sleep

Swingers

The Slums of Beverly Hills

The White Album (the book, not the album)

This is the LA in my head

Tony Alva

There are a few different LA's in the mind of popular culture. There is of course classic Hollywood. 1960's mod hey day. Surfer. Richies, Malibu, Hollywood sharks. South Central. When embracing the the strangeness of life on the left coast, this is what I see:

The Interieor

Domino doing it right

Since the demise of Domino Magazine I have been mourning the loss of an accessible, unstuffy, but modern, tasteful and interesting design magazine. Domino showcased a world of interior design that was young, cool, occasionally humorous, livable and somewhat affordable. It was not the designer-dominated world of the classic six and the country house, but instead a world where designers lived, where regular people of discerning taste attempted to make their homes a conscious expression of their own creativity. Not to say there weren't plenty of Richies profiled in the pages of Domino, people who wrote some big checks to some Important designers. Domino was unlike the overstuffed, chinoiserie, miles of drapery and tasseled ottomans of the living spaces in Elle Decor or the sharp lines and overly architecturalized (yeah that's my word, disseminate at will) interiors of Interior Design Magazine, which do little to show the true use of the spaces. That is to say, those other publications seem to put the house before the home. And maybe the colorful, vintage-inspired, mixed era approach of Domino is closer to my own fashion aesthetic. I like a visit to the country club as much as the next WASP, but I don't want to live there.

So what is a design-oriented girl to do when she is disappointed by the market's available media outlets? Why, turn to the interwebs, of course! Back when I had cable TV and sliced bread and brand name conditioner, or maybe it was just during a work-out at the Y, I came across a final episode of Design Star. I immediately loved the cutie blond with the great clothes and great taste, but, like all great things one discovers while flicking, I never came across it again. Many moons later I discovered that said blond, one Emily Henderson, won the reality show and ended up with her own show, Secrets From a Stylist. Through my now complete devotion to Ms. Henderson and her show, available here, I have found a new replacement for Domino. Or at least a handy online stopgap.

(a photo of e. henderson, see when I say cute I mean it)

Rue Magazine is full of mod influences, vintage collections a'la Joseph Cornell, juxtoposing eras, and a good dose of whimsy. The magazine is run by a bevy of incredibly stylish ladies, and, as always, I like me's a girl-driven venture. It can occasionally get a bit too shiny and polished for my taste, but that is interior design, they aren't going to photograph the house with cat hair on the drapes and stacks of folded laundry on the back of the couch. Maybe some day I'll start that magazine. I'll call it Real Life.

Rue's debut issue from this past fall has an article by Ms. Henderson on entertaining, or I should say playing host while an online magazine throws a party in her house. If you need more then Rue to satisfy your vicarious shopping needs there is also Lonny, also online, started by the former editor of Domino. This one doesn't feel quite as fresh as Rue, but maybe that is because it is too close to Domino and Lucky in its layout.

Now while I've been obsessing over all things design I've had a chance to put some of that energy into my own living room. We are shopping for a new couch because our totally awesome vintage, rolled arm number is "impossible to sit on" says PBT. I'm sad to part ways with it after finding it in Allston, Mass. for $100 and having it for the last ten years (it will merit its postmortem blog post, don't worry). We've also acquired a new chair (the orange dream below) which unfortunately has to be recovered due to a persistent oder that was starting to give me headaches and make me irrationally angry.  So I've included below my inspiration board for our interior, the peaceful, verdant landscape at the heart of our little country (cats implied).