Architectural Rambling, R.M. Schindler

Photo by Susanne Hayek Photography

The 1941 Jose Rodriguez house at 1845 Niodrara Drive in Glendale, designed by R.M. Schindler, has been listed at $2,475,000. The home is an official Glendale landmark. Read more>>> This home sold for $550,000 in 1999 and for $2 million in 2005, according to Property Shark.

Found on EBay -- Enrico Caruso

Caruso in "I Pagliacci."

What appears to be a collection of ephemera given by Enrico Caruso to Rosa Ponselle has been listed on EBay. There is no strong tie to Los Angeles, although both of them performed here. For example, Caruso appeared in a Met production of "Lucia di Lammermoor" in 1905 at Hazard's Pavilion and Ponselle was at the Hollywood Bowl in 1923. I'm noting these items because there may be a few Caruso or Ponselle fans among the Daily Mirror readers who would enjoy knowing about them. Bidding starts at $429.99.

Services for Theater Organist Bob Mitchell

 

Daily Mirror fan Karie Bible of Film Radar reports the death of theater organist Bob Mitchell. Mitchell was a regular feature of the Los Angeles Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats series. He was quite frail at this year's event but it was good to see him. Mitchell's services are scheduled on Friday at 9:30 a.m. at  Christ the King Catholic Church, 624 N. Rossmore Ave. He will be buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd. Memorial donations may be made to the American Heart Assn. or Boys Town. Here's a field recording I made at Last Remaining Seats a few years ago of Mitchell playing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." Thanks to our friend Jon Weisman of the fabulous Dodger Thoughts blog for reminding us that Mitchell was the first organist at Dodger Stadium. At right, an article from April 10, 1962.

Houdini at the Orpheum!

July 6, 1899: The Times reminds tourists to watch out for pickpockets.

July 6, 1899: Look who's playing at the Orpheum. It's Houdini, with his wife, doing the Oregon boot routine. There's also a female impersonator named Tacianu. On May 30, 1897, The Times said: "Taciano is a phenomenal male soprano after the style of Stuart, the male Patti. He is reputed to be a real artist in the matter of female impersonations and the possessor of a sweet, rarely beautiful voice located high on the upper register, on the plane usually monopolized by prima donnas. On June 1, 1897, The Times said: "[Alexander] Tacianu is a wonder. He not only sings with a soprano that is sweet and round and rich in tone, but changes it to a melodious baritone that is sufficiently good voice in itself for any man to travel on. We have had female impersonators of all grades and varieties, and usually they have been of the sort that combines the falsetto of the guinea hen with a certain offensiveness of personality that is difficult of description. But not so with Tacianu. His singing is a finished performance, a work of the voice that shows quality of tone and a liberal amount of expression that could only result from good training and his personality while a simulation of the feminine is wholly without coarseness or offense of any sort. He is one of the very best features yet exploited by the Orpheum management." Very little appears to have been written about Tacianu except that he flourished from 1897 to 1899 and performed in the U.S. and Europe. He predates Julian Eltinge by a few years.

Fourth of July Concert in the Park.

July 4, 1899: The Third Regiment Band will give a Fourth of July Concert at Central Park (now Pershing Square). The program includes the "Los Angeles Times March and Two-Step" by conductor J.B. Reynolds.

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept: Your Entertainment

July 2, 1911: Ethel Barrymore at the Mason Opera House ... and look! It's Marjorie Rambeau!

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept: Your Entertainment

July 1, 1909: "Sergeant Kitty" at the Majestic Theater ... and baseball at Chutes Park.

Holy Barbarians

Above, the dust jacket of Lawrence Lipton's "Holy Barbarians" that's in pretty good shape. Obviously owned by a square. June 28, 1959: Lawrence Lipton uses a review of "The Beat Generation and the Angry Young Men," by Gene Feldman and Max Gartenberg to explore bohemian life of the 1950s. The reading list at the Daily Mirror HQ is long and quirky: "Never So Few" and "Go Naked Into the World" by Tom T. Chamales, "Muscatel at Noon" by Matt Weinstock and EBay's latest contribution to my shelf of books by W.W. Robinson. Then there's the desiderata, like "The Bridal Night of Ronald and Thusnelda." What jumped to the top of the list is Lawrence Lipton's "Holy Barbarians," a 1959 chronicle of the Beats in Venice, which I encountered somewhere in the clips, possibly a Weinstock column, although I can't find it now. The book showed up in the mail a few days ago courtesy of EBay, so I've been playing Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and some Coltrane all weekend to create the right mood while I read it. To do the job right,  I suppose I should have a set of bongo drums somewhere, hang netting and sea shells on the walls and fill the place with stale marijuana smoke, but I'm not that much of a stickler for authenticity. The former husband of mystery novelist Craig Rice, Lipton was born in 1898, so he was about 60 when he wrote the book, roughly the twice the age of the beatniks who considered him an elder statesman of their disaffiliated generation. Lipton was the Boswell of these Beats, capturing their lives in exquisite and often excruciating detail. It's fair to say that the book wasn't written as much as it was tape-recorded. Many conversations, some of them quite long, are merely transcribed from tapes Lipton made of his friends. Behold, actual hipster talk (Page 102): "It isn't art or intellectualism, it isn't genius that's got me hooked. It's the life. Do you have any idea what it's like out there? Sure, it isn't Main Street any more. Sinclair Lewis' Gopher Prairie is a thing of the past. So is Zenith City, for that matter.Squareville is modern now. It's got network television and Life magazine culture. You can tune in the Metropolitan opera on the radio. You can stay out late and come home drunk once in a while without being hounded out of town. You can play around a little, if you're discreet about it, without too much talk. The drugstores carry paperback editions of Plato and Lin Yutang. "But the tension! Wages go up three cents and coffee goes up ten. So they pipe sweet Muzak into the supermarkets and you go around in a daze loading up that cute little chromium-plated cart without looking at the price tags. And let most of it rot in the refrigerator before you get to it. Last year's car is out of style before you finish paying for the tail fins. It's a rat race. Who's got time to laze around in the sand for an hour, or take a quiet walk by the ocean in the evening, or watch a sunset? "Here I can get away from it for a while, at least evenings and weekends. I can do without things. God! do you know what a relief that is? Not to have to keep up with anybody. Nobody to show off for. The people at the office, they don't even know where I live. I tell them I  live in Santa Monica. That's close enough, and it sounds respectable. It's got the same telephone exchange as Venice, so nobody suspects anything. "This is the one place I've ever lived where you can take your skin off and sit around in your bare bones, if you want to. Only the rich, surrounded by acres of land and iron fences, can enjoy anything like that kind of privacy. That's what I mean by being hip. And staying cool." Barbara Lane is part time square and part time hipster, but her heart is in Venice West. "In town, at the office, I work. Here I live," she will tell you. "It's like having one foot on each side of the tracks. But that's the only way I can make it." Notice that there isn't a single "daddy-o." In fact, there isn't one in the entire book. If you think James Ellroy's novels are written in authentic hipster talk, you'll be shocked that their speech is so ordinary -- though they do ramble. I have more to say about "Holy Barbarians," but I'm only halfway through it. You might want to read along. The book is available for free from archive.org in pdf and plain text format. Is it worth reading? Consider these gems: Page 20: By which I meant, I suppose, pretty much the same thing that [Kenneth] Rexroth meant when he wrote, apropos of Bird and Dylan, "Against the ruin of the world, there is only one defense -- the creative act." Page 103: Like Jack Kerouac says in On the Road, "Mexico is a whole nation of hipsters!" Comments? Send them along.

A Kinder, Simpler Time Dept.: Your Music

June 27, 1979: The Zenith, with stereo tuner, plays records, cassettes and eight-track tapes. The price is $469.95, including speakers. That's $1,376.31 USD 2008. And you can probably pick up one in a thrift store for $10.

Michael Jackson: End of the Jacksons?

Sept. 13, 1981: Michael Jackson tells Robert Hilburn that he's done touring with the Jacksons. "I sometimes feel like I should be 70 by now," Michael Jackson says.

"Our parents did push us, but it wasn't against our will," Tito Jackson says. "I think I'd die on my own. I'd be so lonely. Even at home, I'm lonely. I sit in my room sometimes and cry. It's so hard to make friends and there are some things you can't talk to your parents or family about. I sometimes walk around the neighborhood at night, just hoping to find someone to talk to. But I just end up coming home," Michael Jackson says.