D.J. Waldie
D. J. Waldie is the author of "Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir" and "Where We Are Now: Notes from Los Angeles," among other books about the social history of Southern California. He is a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times.
An unexpected downpour is a reminder of Christmas babies, bird guano, and the guns of August 1914.
Are the new development guidelines more of the same, with little real impact, or are they something else?
Not all angry shouts are inevitably strangled for reasons of decorum. Some are painted over.
I tend to be a skeptical optimist, particularly in a city with a long history of connivance with developers when there's money to be made (and spread around).
Yesterday, 1,440 persons were buried in the "potter's field" at the Los Angeles County Crematorium Cemetery.
A "luxury gap" on Wilshire is the most garish irony in Metro's boulevard busway. But there's even more opposition from elsewhere on the westside.
Buried in the pages of the new ordinance is an "Easter egg" for developers - a 20 percent increase in density to be granted administratively.
The farm is gone, blighted by poverty politics, ethnic conflict, developer hubris, and sleazy land deals. But some of it lives on in San Marino.
I think of the physical humiliations of using Art Leahy's buses and trains. If only he were here with me, I would feel less alone in the cold and the dark.
Picking buttons for a 40-year-old coat with the Button Lady was an occasion for small-scale joy.