An Architectural Loss

This morning, while reading The Architect's Newspaper Blog, I came across some depressing images: photographs taken of John Lautner's recently demolished Shusett House.  Built in 1950, this residence was considered to be one of Lautner's major, albeit early, commissions.

The Shusett House, which is located on Monte Leon Lane in Beverly Hills, was purchased in 1987 by Enrique Mannheim.  Mannheim claims he was attracted to the house, not because of its architectural pedigree, but because of its large lot size, low price, and Beverly Hills zip code.  The house itself had fallen into horrible disrepair by the time of Mannheim's purchase, a fate common among aging modernist residences, and Mannheim was unwilling to restore his historic home.

The home's structure, called "organic modernism" by Alan Hess (historian and author of The Architecture of John Lautner), is inspired by a Canary pine tree, now over 100 years old, which is situated on the site.  The community spaces -living room and dining room -surround the tree in a gently curving semi-circle.  A glass facade allowed the tree to enter the home, blending interior and exterior space.  This ingenious design failed to make a lasting impression on Mannheim, who insisted on demolition, despite pleas from preservationists and Lautner enthusiasts.

Frank Escher, a Silver Lake architect and director of the John Lautner Foundation, tried reasoning with Mannheim, arguing, "you have a historically valuable property here. It might be your personal property, but there is a larger responsibility".  Even attempts to purchase the home were turned down. In a last ditch effort to save the home, the city of Beverly Hills even proposed moving Shusett House to a new site.  This move would have both preserved the home and allowed Mannheim to build himself a new mansion without the cost, time, or mess of demolition; stubbornly, he refused even this generous offer.

Due to the nature of Beverly Hills preservation laws (which seem to be rather nonexistent), the city cannot legally halt the destruction of Shusett House.  Thus, the bulldozers went to work three weeks ago; now, all that remains of this early example of Lautner's legacy are photographs and memories.

As a lover of modernism, especially the California modernism expressed by Lautner, and a proponent of preservation, I am deeply saddened by the loss of Shusett House.  The demolition of this historically significant work is a reminder that preservation laws, many of which have remained unchanged since the 1960s, require extensive revamping.  The cultural identity of Los Angeles cannot sustain itself without its architectural treasures.

Photographs of the Shusett House (both before and after demolition) can be found at: http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/8359/before-and-after-lautner/

Lemonade

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  Well, folks, get in line because it looks like I will be making lemonade for the masses.  Oh, it can't be as bad as that, you might think.  Well, it isn't much better.

It seems as though every time I solve one problem, another quickly jumps up to take its place.  I have no peace.  Now, a mere two weeks after crashing my car to bits and then vainly trying to manage an 80 mile a day commute, carless, my cell phone has mysteriously disappeared.  I say the phone has disappeared (and not been lost, stolen, or haphazardly dropped in a puddle) because it was in my purse when I arrived at work, it was stowed in a locker while I was at work, and it was nowhere to be found when I was through with work.  I looked high and low, in places where no phone would ever have occasion to be.  I prayed, I hoped, I exercised good karma.  All efforts proved futile.  My phone remains, stubbornly, a fugitive. 

Being phoneless, as I have discovered in the last twelve hours, is a horrible thing to be.  Without my phone, I cannot (brace yourself) make phone calls in the grocery store.  This morning, I actually had to buy my milk without having a meaningless conversation with my mother (who, herself, had to buy milk without having a meaningless conversation with me).  The experience was -quiet.  Eerily, cloyingly quiet.  Add to this bizarre silence the looks of shocked disbelief I elicited as I made my muted way to the dairy case, and you can understand why I will not be rushing back to repeat the ordeal.  

The hardship of being without phone extends beyond the boundaries of the grocery.  I addition to being forced to purchase food without distraction, I also cannot check my email on the highway, cannot update my Facebook status at a stoplight, and cannot look up the weather while sitting in the park.  

To this list of handicaps, I would ordinarily add that I cannot text, tweet, or poke at work but, alas, I have no job.  Or, more correctly, I have a job at which I work about twelve hours a week, for which I commute about thirteen, and with which my term of employment will soon end.  My lack of phone, therefore, will affect my work life very little (see --a silver lining!).

Being poor, I will probably not be able to replace my phone for some time.  It will take some research back into the days of yore when people had to rely on landlines and payphones, but somehow I will overcome this disquieting hardship.  Until then, I will talk loudly to myself in public places, bluetooth prominently displayed on my ear, and will trick the world into believing that I, too, am normal. 

The Next Chapter

The Fire Ant, my beloved 1991 Plymouth Sundance, found its final resting place on Sunday, after crashing headlong into a stopped vehicle on the freeway.  Or, more simply, I got distracted while driving, didn't see that traffic had come to a sudden standstill, and, going 65, I rear ended the car in front of me.  The airbag deployed, the front was transformed into an accordion, fluids flowed freely onto the cement, and, hysterically crying, I extracted myself slowly from the whole mess.

Despite the horrible mess of it all, however, I continue to find silver linings: the car I hit was not damaged nearly as badly as mine was; the driver and passenger (both young women about my age) were unscathed and not angry; only two vehicles were involved; I learned interesting (unpublishable) information about the workings of the California Highway Patrol.  And now I get to find out how possible it is to survive in Los Angeles with no money, no car, and a job that is 40 miles away from home.  Starting tomorrow, I will become a maven of public transit.  My commute will be longer than my shifts at work.  At the moment, though, this is my only option and so, until some new opportunity presents itself, I will have lots of time for reading and writing and thinking as I sit for hours on buses and trains.  Actually, this may not be a bad arrangement.  Mandatory time for contemplation.  I'm almost jealous of myself.

I can't say that I am looking forward to this next adventure, but I am not dreading it, either.  If nothing else, my experiences as a penniless, carless, Los Angeleno will provide many entertaining stories.  

To New Beginings; or, How to Stay Away from Loneliness

Yesterday, I was blessed.  Tired, again, of being alone, and weary at the thought of having to entertain myself all day, I was clutched with anxiety.  I had no plans, no responsibilities, and, therefore, no desire to be productive (I find it possible to manage the business affairs of my life only when I am doing a million things at once; methodically planning my day sends me into deep depressions, furthering my personal impression that I would make a horrible housewife: with nothing to do all day except laundry and cooking and paying bills, I would shoot my husband in an instant).  So, as I walked out of the Pomona fairgrounds after another unexpectedly short day of work training, and the realization of another long directionless day began to weigh on my spirits, who should call but my darling friend Arianne, eager to moan together about our lives.  

An hour of laughing and complaining and discussing later, I was still sitting in my hot car in the parking lot, sweating to death but thoroughly happy.

Arianne and I have been friends for years (six years this month, to be exact), meeting during first year orientation at Wellesley when she approached me with the invitation to make vegan cookies with her since, as she so eloquently put it, "neither of us have any friends".  Realizing that it was better to attempt a friendship with this strange girl than to create an instant enmity, I assented.  Today, I would throw myself down in front of a bus to save her vegan ass. 

We rarely talk, now, though, since she has deserted me to live in Prague with her boyfriend Pavel, and I can't figure out how to make Skype work on my computer (I know its easy, and I know that someone who has only a vague understanding of computers could make it work, but I don't have the energy to figure it all out and so I simply don't bother).  Our conversations take place only when she has time to call me and, given the distance between our different countries, usually those times tend to be while I am at work.  The confluence of our schedules yesterday, therefore, was a lovely, much sought after, treat.

Finished catching up with Arianne, I headed off in search of my mother and money (moving has meant that I am constantly short on funds and constantly begging from kind friends and family).  I located Diane in Santa Monica where she was helping her friend Cynthia (whom I believe I can now say with confidence is my friend, as well) to move.  It would have been impolite to simply take my coveted cash and make a run for it so I stayed, chatting and providing as much moral support as I could muster.  Like mine, Cynthia's move was made of the necessity of creating a fresh start.  She, like me, has just made it through a divorce and wants to surround herself by her own, new, single life.  The biggest part of that new life is creating a new space that is yours alone.  I had the beginning of that feeling of autonomy in Waltham with Sara, but the proximity to Nick and the continuity of lifestyle (same job, same friends, same daily patterns) made it impossible for me to truly create my own identity.  I grew stronger with Sara, much stronger than, during my marriage, I had thought possible.  Still, the part of me that I identify as my self -introspective and independent - was atrophied.  Nick taught me that I was worthless and that I could never survive on my own.  He taught that I could be successful, but only with his help.  He taught me to stop believing my own ambitions. 

His lessons stuck.   

Moving across the country and beginning life from scratch has taught me that, while I do need help (all the thank-yous in the would could not express my gratitude to the friends who have helped me, and who continue to help me, during this period of transition), I am not helpless.  I may no longer be a three year old longing to become a train conductor, but I can still do anything I set my heart toward, as long as I remember to breath.

This is not to suggest that I am infallible.  My self-sufficiency is prone to periods of panic and doubt when it is all I can do to shower.  These episodes often consist of blind trips to someplace like Target (the idea being that buying something useful will make me feel like a productive member of society and, therefore, will make me happy again), which end with me wandering aimlessly around the store for embarrassingly long periods of time unable to see anything because there is so much fear in my head. 

I am learning, however, to take control of my panic, a process accelerated by living alone.  Earlier this week, for example, scared to tears at the thought of being alone, my eye was caught by a highway sign for the LA Arboretum.  I recklessly cut across traffic, figuring that anything was better than allowing myself to wallow in depression and, as an added bonus, I have never been to an uninteresting arboretum.  And so, instead of spending my afternoon crying in bed, I spent it smelling roses and watching peacocks loll in the sun.  Running from panic, I forced myself out of the comfort of routine, and ended up remembering how much I can enjoy my own company. 


Watching Cynthia make preparations yesterday for her new life, I was happy to help provide support.    And last night, as I drank Karma beer and ate Himalayan food with my new friend, I was further grateful to her for unknowingly keeping me from loneliness.

Atarxia in Los Angeles

Welcome.  This blog is written partly for my own pleasure, but mostly to stop the endless nagging from family and (a rare occurrence) friends to write down all the ridiculous things that happen to me on a seemingly daily basis.  I have the tendency to fall off of treadmills, to lock myself out of my car and then out of my apartment, and to break an alarming number of martini glasses, wine glasses, and plates of food during busy serving shifts.  More than one person has pointed out that it is a miracle I have survived without ever landing myself or anyone else in the hospital.  

Mostly, these mishaps occur because I am enjoying myself to the point of being absolutely oblivious to the world around me.  Wrapped in an idiotropic (don't worry, even spellcheck doesn't believe this is a word; look it up, figure it out from context, or conclude that I am an idiot and stop reading immediately, but never accuse me of making up words)  daze I forget that things like gravity exist.  I spill, I drop, I run into, I trip, and I am often lost.  I am, however, happy.  Or, at the very least, on my way to happiness. 

I have just moved back to the city of my dreams, Los Angeles, to nobody's surprise.  Sunshine agrees with me.  This city, for me, is covered with a halcyonic glow that is immutable; I can't help but smile. 

And so, newly revived by my beloved sunshine, smog, and dry heat, I have decided to go on a personal quest for ataraxia, or absolute calm and tranquility.  My peace exists, however, only within the gelogenic anecdotes that define my life.  By recording these happenings here, I hope to find the convergence between my inherent ditziness and poise.  Or, at the very least, to find the poise inherent within my self.