May 2013
1 post
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Leaving Life In The Shadows
I was sorry all day yesterday that I was going to miss photographing the May Day demonstrations downtown because of an afternoon Tai Chi Class in Alhambra. But when I stepped off the bus at Union Station I heard a celebration going on at La Placita Olvera. The first group of people I encountered is immediately below.
I was struck by the happiness and exuberance of everyone I saw. I wanted to...
April 2013
1 post
METRO BUS 78 TOWARDS ALHAMBRA
So often I am struck by the rich variety of interior worlds that appear in the bus window. I remind myself that I have no idea what those worlds actually are other than what immediately arise as my own projections. And, of course, much depends on the surrounding light and colors - triggers.
March 2013
4 posts
3 tags
CHINATOWN - BROADWAY
A new building goes up directly across from the Chinese Senior Center and just inside the Golden Dragons entrance. Beautiful Spring day. Late afternoon. Behind me, women were doing Qigong in the Center courtyard.
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METRO BUS 78 TOWARDS ALHAMBRA
Continuing to take photographs from the Bus. The light changes. People change, reconfigure, cause wonder.
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METRO BUS 78 TOWARDS ALHAMBRA
I go out to Alhambra three times a week for a Tai Chi Class. It’s a great class with a superb teacher. Here’s a link if you are interested in taking it up.
www.tai-ji.net/
I began by driving, but then took a big breath when gas went above $4.40 a gallon. Freeway traffic also does a real twist on my general frame of mind. So I looked up the bus schedules.
Discovered. No time...
LITTLE ARMENIA NORMANDIE AVE.
February 2013
2 posts
BROADWAY AND 5TH, RAIN
All Photographs Copyright John Fritzlen
Broadway Early Afternoon
All Photographs Copyright John Fritzlen
December 2012
1 post
4 tags
THE ONGOINGNESS OF MADNESS
After the insanity and sorrow of last week’s massacre in Connecticut, my neighborhood got it’s own call with a twisted mind. Someone phoned police headquarters four times during the early morning Tuesday Dec.18 claiming there was a bomb planted in the police car parked in front of the local elementary school - a block and a half down from my place. The car had been there for several...
November 2012
3 posts
3 tags
PLACITA OLVERA REMEMBERING
All Photographs Copyright John Fritzlen
6 tags
REMEMBERING
Obon is a traditional Japanese Buddhist observance which allows families to honor and feel closer to their loved ones who have died. It’s a time for sharing memories, prayers, rituals of food and drink, nourishment and generosity. Dia De Los Muertos is a traditional Mexican holiday with the same purpose. At the Hazy Moon Zen Center we have combined both in a way that is meaningful for us and...
7 tags
IMAGES COME TO MIND
A day away from the election. So many words. So many angles. So many promises. Images taken during the last year come to mind.
All Photographs Copyright John Fritzlen
October 2012
2 posts
4 tags
JUST A REMINDER
About a year ago I took a series of photographs at Occupy LA. Now, there’s a week left before the presidential election is decided. The issues have not gone away, and we have a candidate, Romney, who got caught talking about his disinterest in 47% of our country’s citizens. In a number of polls, Romney appears to be leading. It’s interesting, isn’t it ? Or...
5 tags
CESAR NUNEZ - HIS STUDIO
Cesar Nunez is a Mexican painter and sculptor. This is his painting studio. It is part of a home that he designed and built near Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico. His property includes a sculpture studio and his wife’s ceramic studio. When I visited the studio, John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, as well as Bach Partitas played in the space. So as you look at these images, you may hear their sound....
September 2012
4 posts
5 tags
A Trimmer's Death
I found this in Today’s L.A. Times.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/09/palm-tree-trimmer-killed.html
I don’t know whether it was this man or not. It disturbed me to read it so soon after my last post. The link at the bottom of the article is to another (from L.A. Times 2006) much longer, complete piece which is worth reading. It’s very revealing about a number of...
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TRIMMING PALMS
Every few years I seem to read about the death of a tree trimmer in the newspaper. It’s invariably about one who was trimming a palm tree. The trimmer suffocates as the palm fronds, dust, and lack of oxygen enclose him as he moves up into the hanging branches, close to the trunk. Most trimmers carry chain saws as well. I once spent several months using a chain saw, cutting trees and wood for...
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Butoh
Let me begin by saying I don’t know anything about Butoh except what I looked up in Google and YouTube; it’s a performance art form that began in Japan during a time of artistic frustration and rebellion. Here’s what someone else said about it (found in Wikipedia).
Critic Mark Holborn has written that butoh is defined by its very evasion of definition.[11] The Kyoto Journal...
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The Black Scorpion
Recently I enjoyed a retreat at the Black Scorpion Temple in Tepotzlan, Mexico - about an hour or so outside of Mexico City. It’s a Zen temple. Beautiful - and in an extraordinary setting.
I arrived a day early. There’s a lot of work to hosting a retreat or sesshin. Here oryoki sets are being prepared for retreatants. Oryoki is a formal Japanese style of eating using nested eating...
August 2012
4 posts
3 tags
Wilshire Boulevard Temple
I’m fascinated by construction projects and can watch them for hours. The way things fit together - from the skillful and dangerous erecting of scaffolding to the sequencing of what comes next in the construction/reconstruction. Wilshire Boulevard Temple, built in 1929 and THE temple for Hollywood stars and executives during the golden years- is undergoing a major facelift as well as...
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CHALKUPY
The August Art Walk was characterized as festive by the Los Angeles Times. It wasn’t. It was boring and hot. Occupy LA had been silenced into a few people cornered in Pershing Square. They called their presence Chalkupy. There were police everywhere. They had set up cameras in the Square and filmed continuously.
There were few thoughtful or provocative messages.
It appeared that...
8 tags
Mount Sumeru
For centuries zen communities have observed “ango,” a three moth period of intensive meditation practice and spiritual training. A priest is selected by the abbot to be “shuso” or head monk for this period. He selects a koan that he must penetrate and then present his resolution before the community as well as accept questions regarding his comprehension. A koan is a phrase...
5 tags
Musicians
There was once a big New York photo exhibit entitled The Family of Man. It became a paperback book which many of us loved, especially when we were young and idealistic. One of the images that I remember was of a young Andean flute player, a visual leitmotif that reoccurred through the pages, seeming to invite us to enjoy the music of life. One of my grandfathers was a classical musician. He and my...
July 2012
3 posts
3 tags
Big Signs
Signs. Big Ones. Most people hate them. I fall into that camp part of the time. But, sometimes I love them. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to buy anything they’re selling, but wow…the surprise of color against the sky, a crow flying by, an open window, a bare arm and a glass of champagne. Much better that than a bare wall.
Condominium, Wilshire and Western, Koreatown
...
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Nothing Simple
The clash between Occupy Los Angeles and the Police at the Downtown Art Walk this past Thursday has its root in what Occupy has chosen to occupy its self with.
Occupy is focusing on what it regards as the callous gentrification of downtown - the indifferent pushing away of the city’s very poor many of whom are mentally ill or with major substance abuse problems or physical disabilities;...
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China Notes By Marlen
Marlen is the granddaughter of my next door neighbors in Koreatown. I met her around six years ago. I gave her an elegant English China Tea Set that I had inherited but knew I would never use. I thought it would be perfect for a young lady to grow up with. The other day I ran into Marlen and her grandmother. When I asked Marlen what was new, she told me she’d just gotten back from China....
June 2012
9 posts
SURPRISE SCOTUS VICTORY
OCCUPY LA medical tent. October, 2011. Hardly the same, but the point remains.
Photograph Copyright John Fritzlen
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FLYING HOUSES AND TRADER JOES
Khenpo Karthar once told me that during the 1930’s in Eastern Tibet he was told that there were airplanes; that they were like houses that flew in the sky with people inside. He thought that was obviously made up. He entered a monastery when he was twelve. Studied hard, did a three year, three month retreat, eventually became a revered teacher even though he came from a nomad family and was...
The Richness and The Cheapness
Fourteen years ago I went to the hospital and saw my friend Edith on the first day of her life. The other day I saw her “culmination” ceremony at Johnny L. Cochrane Middle School. She won a prize for mathematics. Of course I yelled.
I don’t what I was expecting but the ceremony, the parents, the kids, the faculty blew me away. When various kids gave speeches, they spoke with...
Curbed
Remember this from my Occupy LA Photos? Here’s what I originally wrote.
Hi Friends, This snapshot needs a few words for those non Angelenos on the list. The sign was created by a group of young artists that include the fellow on the left. The mug shot is of Robert Rizzo who with his administrative cohorts plotted to rob a city that is part of the vast Los Angeles landscape. The cleverness...
Obama Right and Smart
….but still a long way to go.
The Last Bookstore
Fifth Street between Spring and Main. That’s where it is. Here’s what happened as it started to open a year ago.
“The corner at 5th and Spring, though at the center of downtown’s art district and home to destinations like the Gorbals restaurant, has remained gritty. At 12:20 p.m. on May 10, as people were getting the Last Boosktore space into shape, a suspected drug...
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Art Show At The Vortex
Photograph Copyright John Fritzlen
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Downtown Art Show
The art in the first photograph is by Maggie Mull. The art in the second photograph is by Michael Gittes. Both artists are represented by The Tappan Collective. (thetappancollective.com)
Photographs Copyright John Fritzlen
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A Tale of Two Cities
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…..” Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
It all depends on which block you walk down.
My...
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930 Million Done. 1.5 Billion To Go. Dollars that...
I use public transportation and believe in its importance. So I thought I’d check out the new Expo line. It starts at 7th and Figueroa which is a multi-storied underground transportation hub smack in the middle of downtown. Very confusing for everyone. Not unusual to have Metro people standing at the escalators shouting directions. From there it runs out past USC, turns West and for the...
May 2012
7 posts
Memorial Day, The Quick And The Dead
All Photographs Copyright John Fritzlen
Can't Buy Me Love
OCCUPY LA held a General Assembly on May 23 at Pershing Square. It was mostly a welcome home celebration for those who went to the NATO Meeting protests in Chicago. (apparently 75,000 protesters - who knew?) People were straight off the bus and happy to see each other. The Beatles played for a long time on someone’s sound system.The Beatles? That age of innocence?
P.S. It was...
Only The Shadow Knows
South Hill Street Shadow. Close to Gil’s Burgers and Burritos. I followed him. Was that a body guard with him? I watched the faces of people as he approached. They turned away. Did I imagine that? The coat hung all the way down, flowed with his walk. An Opium Lord? The cane was thick and heavy. He wasn’t using it to lean on.
Photograph Copyright John Fritzlen
Expressing Ourselves
Is there anything better than suddenly doing a turn, jumping in the air, throwing ourselves into something physical? We yearn for it. Who has not done a little dance in the kitchen by themselves? Just a little dance?
All photographs Copyright John Fritzlen
Give Me Education or Give Me Death
The title of today’s blog was taken from one of the signs at this demonstration protesting the elimination of education funds for 330,000 adult Angelenos. Many of these people work two jobs and still go to school. Their energy and drive is beautiful and important. Education is the last thing we should be cutting in difficult times. Why can we not get our priorities straight in this country? ...
Brubeck Sweetens La Placita Olvera
Last Sunday I was down at La Placita Olvera where there is usually Latin music and dancing in the afternoon. Folks come from all over. It’s a chance for people to show their moves. The finesse of women of a certain age - as well as the men - is really a pleasure to watch. Just enough to show coals can still be hot to the touch. The group playing, “Cayambe,” is often there. Two...
