REARVIEW 2007 (3)

1025 Highland

The Giant People of Hollywood - Part 1

I don't know the dimensions of the signs, but they're huge. Giant pieces of patchwork fabric cover the North and South sides of the building entirely. When I'm looking down on LA from the top of Runyon Canyon I can see the sign clearly from over a mile away. An iPod ad perpetuates its iconography on the side facing the Hollywood Hills and a movie advertisement perpetuates the local industry on the side facing Downtown. The building is at least 15 stories high and half again the width of that, but it is very narrow, like each floor is made up entirely of one long hallway.

When I first arrived in Hollywood the the building held up an an ad for the movie of Dreamgirls. Over the roofs of the low houses and buildings and through the palm tree tops, I could see the top half of the sign from the front door of my apartment. The back of three sequin-dressed girls as they take center stage, facing a crowd obscured by glaring footlights. The black edges of the sign met the sky, which at night gave the illusion that the girls were walking into outer space - or were at least headed for a hike in the Hollywood Hills.

Tim and I would joke that the Dreamgirls advertisement was a tarot reading for me and him and our friend and neighbor, Doug.

Subsequent signs have contained visual and metaphorical hits and misses.

The Bee Movie.

Transformers.

The Come Back Kid. (!)

However, last November when Johnny Depp's sinister face - framed in fright wig hair then a blood red backdrop - filled the sky, I must say I felt a bit of a tingle.


The movie being advertised right now is the new Indiana Jones adventure.

Nostalgia herself has decorated Hollywood in the colors of treasure maps and hand drawn jungle creatures.

One of the few efforts worth the size.

Adventure in 2008?

A treasure at the end?

Who am I to shrug at excess done up in such appealing hues?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meta Victim or Palm Tree Mimic

Image
Due to new and long-standing issues with time, computers, and discretion I have been criminally lax with the upkeep of this here blog. A Year in Review is scheduled to post before 2007 comes to a close. Perhaps this will calm the clicking throngs who come surfing here for the latest on yours turly...or...at least the two of you with diminished enough lives to check back here more than once - you know who you are. I'm almost ready, my darlings. Ready to reveal a year of so-so survivalism, crazy love, and time spent under the garish, pock-mark-enhancing, light of self-examination. Tune in...very soon...for the not-so glamourous account of an ex-mormon sausage chaser who decides, in the throes of mid-life, to toss his crisis smack dandy in the middle of a shiny cloud of pollution called Los Angeles.
Read more

Suiting the Actor to the Word

Image
A number of weeks ago I took part in my first casting director workshop. "The workshops are kind of a racket," said the actor who turned me onto them, "but it is a good way to be seen by casting directors and to network with other actors." I haven't shopped extensively for acting instruction, but I've done enough looking around to know that most classes are at least a few hundred bucks and usually lead to more classes in the same price range. At $35 a pop, casting director workshops seemed to be the most affordable way for an actor to keep his teeth white. I audited a workshop before deciding to participate. It appeared to be an awkward hybrid of a professional resource class and a practice audition...and as good a way as any to get started in LA, so I signed up. The night I attended, a casting director for The Office was running the workshop. She was pretty and polite. She spoke briefly about her agency and then grouped actors into twos and three...
Read more

Plants & Animals

Image
I am not a dangerous person.  I've never been arrested, caused a car accident (beyond a fender bender), burned down a house, over dosed on drugs, gotten a girl pregnant or given any one a sexually transmitted disease.  I don't steal or owe great sums of money. I am not violent. My last fist fight was in grade school. And for the most part, I do not lie.  But, I hold things back.  I calculate and calibrate my words and behavior based on what I see and hear. I am careful in the wording of my thoughts when in conversation.  I let others fill in the spaces I leave between words.  And I have a fear of conflict. I reassure people who I disagree with by reframing the discussion or sometimes just changing the subject.  Ironically, I feel best and most authentic when I do not employ these tactics for civilized engagements.  I like to be liked and I enjoy getting along with others. But, my slow disclosure syndrome does not mask devious ulterior motives...
Read more