#The narrative of work as pejorative when it comes to art is a too far pendulum swing

[thisismenow3]

I feel like this is missing the forest for the trees. You keep decrying “virtue” when art that is made in a certain way is often different categorically from art that is made with other tools. People are getting caught up in the metaphors here so let me try my best; this ain’t “digital music” vs trained musicians using analogue instruments, this is a painting of food vs a website for a restaurant. The way you create something often separates it categorically within artistic persuits not just from analysis but from experience.

Human history can be simplified to be just us “finding the easier way with better and better tools” but that reaches oversimplification here cause that has more to do with tech broadly, not with art or politics/culture I’d argue. With music people ain’t just reacting to the sound, we are always conscious of many layers of context. That’s true of all art. Knowing someone wrote their own lyrics can enhance a song for people, knowing that the sounds were created using live instruments can help a listener feel the feeling they want from the sound better because their ideas of what music is come from an idea that it is “primal.” People ain’t wrong to say they prefer someone who’s more than just a parrot for the words, especially with genres where half the point is this idea. And live recordings exist to help further a “primal” feeling for people who prefer their music mostly analogue.

But in all these analogies the common thread ain’t “human uses tool” it’s “human uses tool but in a way that has to have some work to it because that work is a prerequisite for it to be the art we agree meets this definition.” A person dancing, however subjectively good or bad, is very different than a person rendering a 3D subject doing the same dance. We can all argue over which we like better but both are a kind of art.

‘machine learning art’ is a person asking Siri to render a 3D model dancing for them. That ain’t art, that’s fundamentally different than the digital counterpart in the dance example because at a certain point sufficiently advanced tools change the category of art and machine learning art is sophisticated enough it’s essentially just making a DJ request to the universe. There can be uses for people obviously, but those uses don’t change the fundamental nature of the thing. Not everyone can draw or play guitar or sing well or dance well or take a sample and change it enough to meet a know it when you hear it level of effort be their own, and all of that can be deemed still whack by someone with different tastes. Machine learning art is actually not art because it is both theft and even in hypotheticals where it’s fed all things given willingly the lack of anything other than guidelines means no one created it, it’s shapes in the cloud that haven’t been photographed or painted yet.

Your turning on a light analogy worked perfect except for where you landed with it. When we say we turn on a light we don’t think about how this is shorthand for “I manipulated one switch that only helps bring light because of work someone else did installing the wiring and etc.” But turning on a light is using FL studio to make an instrumental, machine learning art is a CEO giving parameters to RandD about making a product they envision but don’t have the skills to tackle even a piece of the creation on their own.

My god my girlies

MY GIRLIES. I am still crying, I am still crying about this. Every day I cry about this.

You bitched so hard about being forced to read 1984 in school when it’s so problematic (tm)

Maybe you should have actually paid attention when you read it

Because all these AI fics

You are LITERALLY MAKING THE GARBAGE NOVELS FROM 1984 that are written by machines

You have literally recreated the worthless soulless machine-made books

Literally,

Literally. Every once in a while it hits me in a fresh wave of disbelief and anger. You have literally created the dystopian book from the dystopian story about why dystopia is bad, and you are passing it around like it’s this amazing thing. I’m crying, I’m crying.

[art-in-the-age]

Part 2: Witnessing Conflict

Young people are increasingly getting their news through the lens of social media, which makes it that much more essential to understand the way different platforms refract information. For as long as people have used social media, the content posted has reflected current events more generally, something that is becoming especially acute as time passes. Tumblr users bore witness to several conflicts that unfolded across the world in the year 2014, something Rosemary Pennington chronicled in her article in the International Communication Gazette, “Witnessing the 2014 Gaza War in Tumblr”, through which she explores how several Muslim Tumblr users interacted with and witnessed the violence occurring towards Palestinians during the 2014 Gaza War. She writes in her introduction, “Traditionally, it has been witnessing that can make us feel close to those suffering through the violence we see in media as well as others we imagine are in the audience witnessing the event with us,” (Pennington). Tumblr as a platform provides both a means to witness the violence, as well as a community of fellow witnesses, inspiring feelings of closeness that would heighten emotions. In the case of the Gaza War, the bloggers take note of the fact that the mainstream media centers the experiences of Israelis and largely neglects Palestinian suffering in the construction of their narrative (Pennington). Through the usage of Tumblr, Palestinians can share photos and narratives that reflect their experiences, which can then be disseminated by bloggers elsewhere in the world, such as those who were the subject of Pennington’s research. The platform provides the space to construct an Oppositional Gaze, in the words of bell hooks. hooks writes of the oppositional gaze, “By courageously looking, we defiantly declared: ‘Not only will I stare, I want my look to change reality.’ Even in the worse circumstances of domination, the ability to manipulate one’s gaze in the face of structures of domination that would contain it, opens up the possibility of agency,” (hooks 116). Palestinians are able to control their gaze in a way that stares back at those who are oppressing them, counteracting the narrative that they are the sole aggressors and thus giving them agency. Tumblr elevated the narratives of Palestinians to the point where they could be held in conversation with and in contradiction to those pushed by wealthy media conglomerates. Communities centered around sending aid can also be formed on the platform which is only possible through the shared experience of witnessing. Pennington posits with her research that Tumblr was a crucial piece in raising global awareness of the situation in Gaza, a lasting impact of the platform.

Six years later, the world is no less familiar with incredible amounts of violence and suffering, especially as we live through the COVID-19 pandemic. Relegated to our houses, many Americans turned to TikTok for entertainment but found within it a well of resources for activists as the nation erupted in protests this summer in response to the killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans. TikTok, like Tumblr, allowed the average citizen to both bear witness to violence and share their narrative of the situation without it being refracted through the lens of a mainstream media source. TikTok, however, is still plagued by the same issues endemic to the platform; All content distribution is of course driven by the algorithm, which incentivizes outrageous or highly emotional content, raising the stakes to a point that may desensitize viewers after a certain amount of information. The algorithm can also end up prioritizing only a few voices, typically those who already have a platform. This in turn creates its own hierarchy which, although independent from traditional news networks, is still exclusionary. A lot of the information viewed is not controlled, as the primary interface on the app is the For You Page; if the average user is not putting in effort to control the type of information and content they are viewing, it’s not likely that they will put in effort to ensure that it is accurate or unbiased. 

TikTok and Tumblr users alike are fond of their image-based communities and continue to source them on the same platform that they source their news, the unintended consequence of which being the fascist aestheticization of politics as theorized by Benjamin in his 1935 essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. He writes, “All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war,” and later continues, “Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order. This is the situation of politics which Fascism is rendering aesthetic,” (Benjamin 19-20) In the context of 2020 civil unrest, on TikTok, the juxtaposition of violent oppression with daily vlogs from teens in thrifted clothes dancing around big cities has led to both being subsumed into a dominant identity that holds “activism” as a core component. To truly be a member of the alt-TikTok community, one should be a self-identified leftist and activist. Both are noble ideas, and pushing for more accessible leftist literature is not a bad thing, but the issue arises when those looking for membership in the community are not willing or unable to do the work. The process of unlearning carceral understandings of justice and the subtle ways in which racism is intertwined in our everyday lives is a conscious, long, and oftentimes difficult process, that teens are undertaking with the ultimate goal being membership in a community of which the spokespeople are predominantly white and wealthy. The shortcut has become adding “BLM” and “ACAB” to a user’s bio, signaling to other users that they are socially aware. Memes that consisted of a cartoon character, such as Hello Kitty, saying “ACAB” were added to profiles, repositioning the acronym with long traditions in anti-racist and leftist activism as an aestheticized trend. The acronym is not entirely devoid of meaning, because leftist circles extend far beyond the teenage communities on TikTok, but to this new generation, adding ACAB to a bio means less a radical resistance to the carceral state and more a display of performative activism. This practice has led to the acronym being reappropriated into the pejorative term “Emily ACAB”, which typically refers to a wealthy, white teenage girl attempting to be performatively woke without renouncing any of her privileges. Emily ACAB is the rebellious teen daughter of the Karen who uses a movement meant to protect the lives of systematically marginalized groups as a way to separate herself from her family that “just does not understand” but ultimately won’t take too strong of a stance if it means sacrificing something of importance to her. The aestheticization of politics neutralizes the message, something that Benjamin knew all too well, and that TikTok teenagers, many of whom are well-meaning, now find themselves falling victim to. 

Despite being only separated by six years, teens in 2020 find themselves living and comprehending current events in a dramatically different world. No generation comes of age without a tremendous amount of hardship, personal and interpersonal, but Gen-Z is the first to have that hardship published on the internet. Social media has revolutionized organizing in many ways for the better, but as with all developments, it is one that requires active participation and checking of power. TikTok and Tumblr have made positive contributions to activism, but the nature of social media’s democratization of information requires we all pay attention to ensure neither platform does more harm than good.

[cancatervation]

favourite music 2017

The affording of enormous weight to barely concealed fragility and vulnerability; when I pore over the contents of my iTunes from the last twelve or so months it’s plainly apparent that this is the hill I’ve elected to die on. Almost all the albums I found myself infatuated with at some point or another in 2017 meditated upon desire, the transience of romance, and the anguish that often accompanies its pursuit.

I’m acutely aware of how oddly this contrasts with my own life, which for the past almost-two-years has been romantically fulfilling in the way that my previous 25 absolutely weren’t. On this, I would say two things. First, that stability is elusive even (maybe especially?) for the most outwardly rose-coloured of us, and that maintaining relationship hygge takes compromise and is not easy, and for those reasons feelings of vulnerability are never far from the front of my mind; and, second, that it’s testament to the skill of certain songwriters and performers that their work was able to make this gay-ass conventionalist really feel something every now and again last year.

I wouldn’t want to suggest that I only just worked out that the theatrical presentation of desire is something I’m drawn to, but certainly there were some things in the past year that I really did begin to understand. Theatricality is often used in a critical sense as pejorative; something that is too extra, that goes too far, that is all tell and no show. Despite its predisposition towards excess, musical theatre has, for instance, always played out as sterile and spurious to me. (Sorry. And look at it this way, you don’t ever need to worry about getting me tickets to Hamilton). It’s so dramatic that it becomes too dramatic; your self-awareness isn’t allowed the chance to be suspended, even for a moment. An album like Lorde’s Melodrama makes its intentions apparent before you’ve even heard a note of it, but its theatrics (and there are many - think of the wailed chorus of “Writer In The Dark”, the gory car crash of “Homemade Dynamite”, the bridge in “Supercut” that accelerates like you’re on a bike rushing down a hill) are as easily consumed by sitting silently in tears as they are dancing, or walking, or lifting heavy weights, or running up a hill (to make or not to make a deal with God), or lying in blissful supta baddha konasana. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that hyperemotional vulnerability is for all seasons and for all hours of the day and I am now happy to welcome it into every aspect of my life.

I wrote over fifty blurbs for various songs on the Singles Jukebox last year. Some I loved, some I hated, what’s new. I wrote a blurb for “Praying”, Kesha’s first solo single in nearly five years, which turned out to be both the highest scoring song on the site for 2017 and the champion of my personal “list”. I sort of said all this already on the Jukebox, but my love for “Praying” lies nearly entirely in the way Kesha leans so heavily into her aphorisms, finding new ways to bring profundity to ostensibly simple lines like “I’m proud of who I am”. (Contrast this with most of Taylor Swift’s 2017 work, which forewent specific detail in favour of portentously loaded maxim, but forgot about nuance and came up mostly dry). When Kesha punctuates her sermon with a thunderous kick drum, it’s basically game over. As the stories of survivors of sexual assault, abuse and harassment began to dominate news media in the second half of the year, the song only gathered further resonance.  

Lorde’s album held court as my favourite for most of the year. A promo image released by Kelela at the beginning of August threatened a coup. The odds shortened a few days later upon the release of its lead single and the arrival of the full album at the beginning of October marked the tangible takeover. Take Me Apart is all juxtaposition, which when applied to albums is often code for jumbled quagmire, but here there’s too much attention to detail, steadfastness of narrative, and, er, feeling, to get mixed up in anything like that. It see-saws between playful flirting, introspection, self-acceptance, control, loss of control, falling slowly through the sky, and falling fast through the abyss. I love it so much. It’s also very queer and very Black. Support Black queer art! Especially when it’s this well crafted.

Aside from all THAT, my favourite things in music last year were Moses Sumney’s Tiny Desk Concert, attending the Lorde show in the Botanic Gardens,  the line “every single day I fight another war; every single night I feel more powerful!” in Rina Sawayama’s “Take Me As I Am”, and Rihanna telling Diplo his music sounded like a “a reggae song at an airport”.

My ten favourite songs of 2017 were:

1. Kesha “Praying” - as above and here;

2. Lorde “Green Light” - see here. The score given, however, is wrong. Add another point.

3. Sigrid “Strangers” - see here. I can’t wait until she’s everywhere and everyone knows her; her potential to me scans as “unlimited / infinite / fucking enormous, if it must be quantifiable”.

4. MUNA “I Know a Place”. The album version is acceptable but I’m also partial to this live one, which involves some changes to the lyrics.

5. Tove Lo “Disco Tits”. Like a wonky, filthy Kylie B-side played underwater.

6. Kelela “Turn To Dust”. Refer also to the first set of songs below. She didn’t play this at her concert this week, which is lucky, because otherwise its title may have proved prophetic.

7. Nilüfer Yanya “Baby Luv” - see here. See also dirgey diatribe above re: vulnerability.

8. Rae Morris “Do It” - I’ve become more and more besotted with this as time has passed and am not sure whether I’m most impressed by a) the wordplay b) the ping-ponging percussion in the second verse c) the subtle yet giant switch-up halfway through d) the soaring vocals or e) managing all of the above in less than 3 and a half minutes.

9. Rina Sawayama “Alterlife” - it did not take me long to request for lamination of a stan card for a popstar who loves key changes and here deftly incorporates influences as diverse as the Need For Speed soundtrack, Samantha Mumba and Madonna at her glassiest.

10. Tove Styrke “Mistakes” - see here. I’m ready for her to run away with 2018, in or out of a wedding dress.

Aside from those, here are some other songs I enjoyed in 2017, variously categorised and (with the “top 10″) collected in a Spotify playlist, located here:

Songs that can make you feel like you’re floating slowly heavenward

Björk “Arisen My Senses”

Charli XCX “Track 10”

Julie Byrne “Natural Blue”

Julien Baker “Appointments”

Moses Sumney “Quarrel”

Rae Morris “Do It (Nico Muhly Dance Remix)”

Sampha “(No One Knows Me) Like The Piano”

Sevdaliza “Loves Way”

Slowdive “Slomo”

St. Vincent “Slow Disco”

Susanne Sundfør “Undercover”

Dance music that I barely pay any attention to throughout the calendar year and then become unusually enthusiastic about come end-of-year-list season

Bicep “Vale”

Gerd Janson x Shan "Surrender”

Honey Dijon “Catch The Beat”

Jad & The “Strings That Never Win”

Kink “Perth”

Minor Science “Volumes”

Octo Octa “Adrift (Avalon Emerson’s Furiously Awake Version)”

Shanti Celeste “Make Time”

SW. “Untitled B2”

The xx “On Hold (Jamie xx Remix)”

Yaeji “Raingurl”

Songs for the summer gloaming

Charlotte Day Wilson “Doubt”

Daniel Caesar “Blessed”

Frank Ocean “Chanel”

Jessie Ware “Stay Awake, Wait For Me”

Ladi6 “Guru”

Rachel Foxx “Happen To Me”

Sampa The Great “Bye River”

Sevyn Streeter “Before I Do”

Syd “Body”

Tyler, The Creator “Garden Shed feat. Estelle”

Plaintive songs for grey afternoon walks

Alvvays “Dreams Tonite”

Amandla Stenberg “Let My Baby Stay”

HAIM “You Never Knew”

Kehlani “Advice”

Khalid “Winter”

Lana Del Rey “Love”

Laura Marling “Next Time”

Paramore “Forgiveness”

Perfume Genius “Die 4 You”

St. Vincent “Happy Birthday, Johnny”

SZA “Prom”

Taylor Swift “New Year’s Day”

Best bangers

Amber Mark “Heatwave”

Charli XCX “Lipgloss feat. Cupcakke”

Charli XCX “Porsche feat. MØ”

Charlotte Gainsbourg “Deadly Valentine”

Charly Bliss “Glitter”

Drake “Get It Together feat. Jorja Smith & Black Coffee”

Dua Lipa “New Rules”

Haiku Hands “Not About You”

Ibibio Sound Machine “Give Me A Reason”

ionnalee “Samaritan”

J. Balvin x Willy William “Mi Gente feat. Beyoncé”

J. Hus “Did You See”

Jessie Ware “Your Domino”

Jorja Smith x Preditah “On My Mind”

Kah-Lo “Fasta”

Kelela “Truth Or Dare”

Kendrick Lamar “LOYALTY. feat. Rihanna”

Kllo “Last Yearn”

Leikeli47 “Miss Me”

Lorde “Sober”

Maliibu Miitch “4AM”

Miguel “Banana Clip”

Nite Jewel “2 Good 2 Be True”

Paramore “Hard Times”

Phoenix “J-Boy”

Rina Sawayama “Take Me As I Am”

Ronika “Better Than Ever”

Rose Elinor Dougall “All At Once”

Sigrid “Don’t Kill My Vibe”

Stormzy “Big For Your Boots”

The Horrors “Something To Remember Me By”

Tove Lo “Shedontknowbutsheknows”

Whethan “love gang feat. Charli XCX”

Wolf Alice “Don’t Delete The Kisses”

Finally, here are thirty albums I loved last year. Onwards and upwards!

1. Kelela Take Me Apart

2. Lorde Melodrama

3. SZA Ctrl

4. Fever Ray Plunge

5. Charly Bliss Guppy

6. Wolf Alice Visions Of A Life

7. Rina Sawayama RINA

8. Jessie Ware Glasshouse

9. Tove Lo Blue Lips

10. Charli XCX Pop 2

11. MUNA about u

12. Moses Sumney Aromanticism

13. Sevdaliza ISON

14. St Vincent MASSEDUCTION

15. Susanne Sundfør Music For People In Trouble

16. Ibeyi Ash

17. Sampa The Great Birds & The Bee9

18. Kink Playground

19. Daniel Caesar Freudian

20. Bicep Bicep

21. Sophia Kennedy - Sophia Kennedy

22. Miguel War & Leisure

23. Laura Marling Semper Femina

24. Ibibio Sound Machine Uyai

25. Jen Cloher Jen Cloher

26. Dua Lipa Dua Lipa

27. The xx I See You

28. Honey Dijon The Best Of Both Worlds

29. Kesha Rainbow

30. Leikeli47 Wash & Set

[emilysn2019-blog]

Our 2019 Los Angeles visitor’s guide offers tips to plan a vacation, including best things to do, best places to eat in L.A., hotel suggestions, and how to navigate Southern California. LA is one of our favorite cities in the world, and we’ll provide you insider tips to experience both the touristy highlights and hidden gems. (Last updated August 21, 2019.)

Maybe you need convincing that Los Angeles is one of the world’s best cities. After all, L.A. doesn’t exactly have the best reputation among some people. Complaints abound about traffic, smog, and the Hollywood culture. Some people pejoratively refer to Los Angeles as La La Land, thinking that everyone is out of touch or fake.

I prefer to think of Los Angeles as diverse and beautiful–in just about every conceivable way. Frank Lloyd Wright put it best when he stated, “tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.” Los Angeles is the ultimate melting pot. A beautiful and sometimes strange amalgamation of different cultures, architecture, geography, and more…

When it comes to architecture, Los Angeles was a blank slate for much of the 20th century. This, coupled with a diverse population and favorable climate led architects to test a variety of styles. As development continued, more designers were drawn to the city, and it became a creative hub. While there are downsides to this (sprawl), for better or worse, Los Angeles is still a creative hub.

It’s also a topographical hub…assuming that’s a thing. Surrounded by mountains on one side, ocean on another side, desert on another side, and…what used to be orange groves on another side (okay, Orange County is obviously more than that now…there’s also Disneyland!), there is natural beauty in virtually every direction. You can surf and ski in the same day, and traverse the arid landscape of the desert the following morning before hiking through the forest that evening.

Then there’s the endless summer of the Los Angeles climate. This makes it a popular place both for locals who enjoy outdoor living, and tourists who flock to Southern California for all of the reasons stated above…but mostly the sunshine (and In-N-Out Burger, probably).

If the prospect of enjoying delicious burgers in sunny weather doesn’t convince you to visit Los Angeles, I’m not entirely sure what will. Let’s get started with out Ultimate Guide to Los Angeles, California…

What’s New in LA for 2019 and Beyond

Given that Los Angeles is a major city, there’s obviously always something new to see or do, whether it be a temporary exhibit at one of LA’s museums, a weekend event, pop-up, or something else entirely. If you’re looking for something to do while you’re in town, check out Discover Los Angeles’ Calendar of Events.

Right now, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is all the rage, and so too is seeking out the many real-world backdrops from the film. The movie was shot on location in Los Angeles, and entire blocks of Hollywood Boulevard (among other places) were transported back in time to 1969 by the filmmakers. Check out this map of locations in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood if you’re a fan of the movie and want to see it ‘in real life.’

The biggest development in traveling to Los Angeles is, quite literally, a boom. This has led to an evolving (read: growing taller and denser) skyline, most notably the OUE Skyspace LA, which is California’s tallest open-air observation attraction. There’s also significant investment in public transportation. For the next couple of years, visitors to Los Angeles will mostly notice this in the form of construction on Metro lines and new stations.

This is all part of the Metro Vision 2028 Plan, which is a comprehensive development approach to projects between now and the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. This includes dozens of infrastructure improvements in a quest to give Angelenos and tourists more public transit options so they don’t have to take the freeway.

Many new museums are also on the horizon. In 2020, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will not open on the Miracle Mile. This is a $400 million project that’s been in development for 8 years, renovating a 1939 L.A. landmark. The architecture is expected to be striking, with a defining spherical structure and 1,500-panel glass dome. In total, the Academy Museum will have 300,000 square feet of public and exhibition space.

Following that in 2021 is the the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art featuring George Lucas’ personal collection of art, which consists of about 10,000 paintings and illustrations. This includes works by Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth and R. Crumb, along with Hollywood memorabilia from films such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones. The planned 275,000-square-foot, $1-billion museum will be located in Downtown’s Exposition Park.

In addition, several new hotels have opened in and around Downtown Los Angeles. Notable names among these include InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown, Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, Hotel Indigo Downtown Los Angeles, and Kimpton Everly Hotel Hollywood.

Other hotels on the horizon are Park Hyatt Los Angeles at Oceanwide Plaza, Fairmont Century Plaza, and Hotel Nue Hollywood Hyatt Unbound–along with several other Hyatts at LAX and elsewhere in Los Angeles.

We don’t recommend waiting to visit until any of this debuts, but that’s what’s on the horizon if you’re visiting between now and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics…

When to Visit

The smart-ass answer to this question is whenever. If you’ve ever talk to an Angeleno about California, they are sure to let you know that the weather is usually perfect in Los Angeles. Southern Californians like to compensate for traffic and cost of living shortcomings by referring these problems as the “Sunshine Tax,” which I suppose is a sort of Faustian Bargain for beautiful weather year round.

In reality, it’s not quite as simple as that. Los Angeles does get hot in the summer, and even though “it’s a dry heat” it’s still hot. Perhaps more importantly, summer is tourist season for Southern California, which means higher crowd levels and more expensive hotel costs. If you’re only visiting Los Angeles, this probably is not as big of a deal. Prices don’t spike to the same degree downtown, nor do crowds.

However, it is a bigger problem in the beach cities, to which people flock for summer retreats. In Malibu, Santa Monica, or even places like Newport Beach, you’re going to encounter considerably heavier crowds and significantly higher prices. You’ll also find crippling traffic on Pacific Coast Highway as everyone wants to go for a Sunday drive…every single day of the week. Sure, the weather in the beach cities is picture-perfect in the summer, but it’s more or less perfect whenever.

Then there are places to the east that you might also want to visit. Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park are highly recommended side-trips from Los Angeles, but with temperatures over 100º throughout the summer months, they aren’t worth it in the summer. (If you can tolerate that weather, you’ll find some absolute bargains on hotels in Palm Springs during the summer!)

As with any tourist destination, in addition to the summer months, there are isolated spikes in crowds whenever school is out of session, particularly in California. Thanksgiving and Christmas are popular times, as is Easter, and college spring break season.

In terms of the best times to visit, taking everything into account, I’d recommend September and October or February and March. November through January can also be good (outside of the holidays), particularly in terms of crowds and pricing. The downside to those months is cooler weather. This is also “rainy season” in Los Angeles, but those are most definitely air quotes, as many cities get as much rain in a week as Los Angeles gets in a year.

Transportation

When it comes to transportation, there are two components: getting there and getting around. For most visitors, the gateway to Los Angeles is LAX, one of the largest and busiest airports in the world. Other nearby options include John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Long Beach Airport, LA/Ontario International Airport (in Ontario), and Bob Hope Airport in Burbank.

To figure out which airport will be the cheapest option, we recommend using ITASoftware, typing in LAX, and selecting all nearby (LAX + SNA, LGB, ONT, and BUR) airports. Sometimes, this will have you flying into one airport and out of another, so be mindful of that.

Unless you’re staying in Orange County or score a random deal elsewhere, you’re almost certainly going to arrive into LAX. It’s the huge, utilitarian airport in Los Angeles. Note that it is not downtown, though. None of these airports are downtown. You get downtown, you’re looking at around a $25-40 Uber ride, depending upon traffic.

Then there’s getting around Los Angeles. In most ‘world cities’, public transportation suffices to explore the city. This is not the case in Los Angeles. Due to the way Los Angeles’ population boomed and sprawled without a sufficient master plan, it is notorious for terrible traffic. To compound matters, the city’s public transportation has not kept up with population growth and visitation.

While there are a lot of persistent, negative myths about Los Angeles, the terrible traffic is no myth. There’s no sugar-coating how awful the gridlock is in and around Los Angeles, and the only real “solution” is to do most of your driving during off-hour windows, which are basically between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and after 8 p.m.

One thing about Los Angeles transportation that is a myth is that public transportation is useless. While it’s definitely true that public transportation is not viable as a comprehensive option, it can be quite useful. In recent years, the expansion of the LA Metro has made it easier to get from downtown to some of the beaches (Santa Monica or Long Beach), and you can also get to North Hollywood and beyond.

The LA Metro is far from a comprehensive solution, but it can be leveraged to get some places, and avoid costly Uber fares or parking in some scenarios. It can also be particularly helpful if you’re staying outside of Los Angeles but want to visit the city for a day. We like using the Metrolink from Orange County, particularly the $10 unlimited weekend pass.

With that said, you have to recognize the limitations of public transportation in and around Los Angeles. If you’re expecting to arrive at LAX and never sit in a car, you are going to be disappointed. It is essential to supplement public transportation with either renting a car or relying on ride-sharing services like Uber or Lyft. Each of those options has its downsides.

The downside with renting a car is potentially paying for parking at your hotel (and all over the city) and being stuck driving in traffic scenarios that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable. If you’re not used to traffic in a major city, driving in Los Angeles may amount to unnecessary stress on what should be a relaxing vacation in Los Angeles.

If you feel comfortable driving in L.A. traffic, we’d recommend renting a car. In that case, you should choose hotels or vacation home rental around this scenario.

A minority of Los Angeles hotels offer free parking–usually those in locations where space is not at a premium. Meanwhile, others charge over $40/night for it. This is a pretty big swing in pricing, so keep parking costs in mind. (Likewise, some Airbnb and other rentals include spots or are in locations with free street parking.)

Then there are ride-sharing services. The downside to this is the potential cost. Even if you use online calculators to determine what your Uber fares might be, those numbers have the potential to be unreliable because traffic and surge pricing could throw a monkey wrench into things.

The upside to Uber or Lyft is that they’re abundant in and around Los Angeles, and hassle-free. If you’re uncomfortable driving yourself around the city, this is the best option. You can even avoid that pricey LAX ride cost by using a shuttle service, such as SuperShuttle. (They’re awful, but hey, at least the price is right!) Public transit is also an option from LAX, but it’s not convenient to most locations.

Oh, and as a courtesy to the locals, please don’t expect your friends and relatives to be your personal chauffeur. (Especially if your goal is to get from Orange County to North Hollywood at 4 p.m. on a weekday. Those places are like 3 hours apart at that time of day; IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW CLOSE THEY LOOK ON THE MAP, MOM.)

Things to Do in Los Angeles

There are thousands of things to do in Los Angeles, and listing them all is well beyond the scope of this post. If that’s what you’re looking for, we highly recommend downloading our free eBook, 101 Things to Do in Southern California. Well over half the things on that list are in Los Angeles, with additional suggestions for the Beach Cities, San Fernando Valley, and even San Diego.

If you’re looking for ideas specific to L.A., check out our Top 10 Things to Do in Los Angeles post. Unlike a lot of “best things in L.A.” lists, this is exclusively points of interest and attractions within the Los Angeles city limits. Meaning you’re not going to find Disneyland (Anaheim) or Santa Monica Pier on the list. Not that there’s anything wrong with either…they’re both just a decently long drive from Los Angeles.

We are also highlighting our favorite attractions and points of interest via individual posts, which you can find by browsing our posts about Los Angeles. Each of those offers our review of the point of interest, photos showing what to expect, and other tips for making the most of your experience. (Mostly, that means when to visit to avoid crowds, where to park, and good nearby dining options. I like to eat. A lot.)

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the possibilities, we have put together an index with numerous Los Angeles & Southern California Itineraries that take the planning work out of the equation. Here are some of the best ones:

1-Day Los Angeles Highlights Itinerary

2-Day Los Angeles Highlights Itinerary

1-Day Downtown Los Angeles Walking Itinerary

1-Day Hollywood Itinerary

1-Day Westside Itinerary

There are also a lot of totally free things to do in Los Angeles, with the beaches and recreation below being prime examples. Our other top free picks are the Getty Center, the Broad, and Griffith Observatory. That’s just a small sampling, though. You could spend several days doing only free things in L.A.

If you’re building an itinerary of largely paid activities, we recommend reading about the Go Los Angeles Card. It definitely is not for everyone, but if you’re planning on doing theme parks, studio tours, or other costly experiences, you can leverage one of these cards to save some money.

Beyond that, we want to highlight a few broad categories of things to do here…

Beaches – Los Angeles County has 75 miles of coastline that include world-famous beaches in Malibu, Santa Monica, and Venice. You cannot visit Los Angeles without making a trip to the beach. Even if swimming is not for you (which is fine–very few Californians actually swim at the beach), these beaches are popular draws.

In Malibu, you have some of the most beautiful, photogenic coastline in the world. My personal favorite is El Matador State Beach, which I call the “Megastar of Malibu.” This beach features stunning rock formations, tide pools, hidden sea caves, arch rocks, and more, all of which makes El Matador the most naturally beautiful beach in the area.

If you head north or south out of Los Angeles County, you’ll find more serene options in terms of beaches. Santa Barbara is a favorite to the north, but I’m partial to Laguna Beach to the south. Check out our Top 10 Beaches in Laguna, California list for my top picks there.

Closer to Los Angeles is the affluent community of Newport Beach, which is nice, too. I would not bother with the beaches between Venice and Newport–none offer anything that the aforementioned beaches don’t do better; you’re just wasting time with the commute.

Recreation – With weather like this, it should be no surprise that Angelenos spend a lot of time outdoors. Thankfully, Southern California is quite conducive to outdoor living. Of course, there’s the above-mentioned coastline and beaches. This is great not just for sunbathing, but also walking, surfing, skateboarding, and biking.

Thanks to Los Angeles’ topography, there are also some great hiking trails, right inside the city! Skip Runyon Canyon, which is the one hike everyone visiting Los Angeles hears about (and consequently, everyone does) and opt for the miles of footpaths in Griffith Park. They’re also busy, but not as bad. For visitors, the most iconic hikes in Los Angeles are those that offer an up-close perspective of the Hollywood sign.

I’m partial to starting at Griffith Observatory’s parking area a few hours before sunset, hiking out to the Hollywood sign from there, and then returning just in time to catch sunset and dusk fall over the skyline from the Observatory itself. Consult our Tips for Hiking to the Hollywood Sign for step-by-step instructions, and alternative routes.

If that’s not enough, places like Joshua Tree National Park are easily accessible by car during a day trip. While there are several National Parks in California, Joshua Tree is the closest to Los Angeles–and well worth a visit, in my opinion.

Museums – There are a lot of museums in Los Angeles. There are the mainstays, like the plethora of art museums, plus the California Science Center and Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. Los Angeles being a cultural capital with a diverse population, there are also more focused museums, like the Japanese American National Museum and the Museum of Tolerance.

Then…there are the ‘Museums of the Weird.’ Places that stretch the meaning of the word “museum,” like the Museum of Ice Cream and the Museum of Death. The former has turned into a place to be seen thanks to a celebrity-driven marketing campaign, so good luck getting tickets. The latter is incredibly morbid and seems to thrive on shock value (do not even consider taking kids there).

All things considered, Los Angeles has some of the best museums in the world. I always recommend the Getty Center to visitors, and I’m also a big fan of the Getty Villa. The Natural History Museum of LA County is great for dinosaur fans (which should be everyone), and the Broad features beautiful design and free admission. Other museums can be great options, depending upon your interests. These include the ones focused on specific cultures, as well as places like the Petersen Automotive Museum.

Hollywood – In this case, I’m not referring to the geographical location, but rather, the entertainment industry. While most tourists flock to the Hollywood Boulevard to see the Walk of Fame and take selfies with aggressive versions of Mikey Moose and Spider-Dude, I’d recommend three alternatives to the go-to tourist traps.

First, see a movie at an iconic Hollywood theater. If you look past the shenanigans out fron, the TCL Chinese Theater is a really cool place to watch a movie. Same goes for the Egyptian Theater (if you’re noticing a trend, both of these were originally built by Sid Grauman). If you’re a cine-file looking for an arthouse experience, check out New Beverly Cinema, owned by Quentin Tarantino, or the outdoor Cinespia. Everyone in L.A. has their personal favorite, and mine is the ArcLight; specifically the famed Cinerama Dome, which makes the most of its 70mm projection and huge curved screen.

Second, do a studio tour. Most of these are not in Los Angeles, but they’re close enough. These include Universal Studios Hollywood‘s Studio Tour, the Warner Brothers Studio Tour, Sony Pictures Studio Tour, and Paramount Pictures Studio Tour.

For visitors with limited time, I’m a big fan of Universal Studios Hollywood because it offers the Studio Tour, plus traditional theme park attractions like the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. You kill two birds with one stone this way. The Warner Bros. Studio Tour is also really popular, and we highly recommend it. Both of these are slickly produced tours meant to churn through a lot of guests. For a more behind the scenes tour, the Sony Pictures Studio Tour is your best option.

Finally, attend a television show taping. I’d recommend something that airs live. Even if you’re the head of the Sheldon Cooper Fan Club (I’m sorry for you), avoid sitcoms. For the same reasons you probably wouldn’t want to tour a hot dog production factory, you don’t want to do this. Sitcom tapings are long and drawn out, with a lot of reshoots. It becomes tedious after about hour 4.

Theme Parks – Southern California is arguably the theme park capital of the world, being home to the world’s most recognizable theme park, Disneyland, and the world’s first theme park, Knott’s Berry Farm. Despite being the epicenter of fun (feel free to use that as a tag line), there actually is not a single noteworthy theme or amusement park in Los Angeles.

Disneyland and Disney California Adventure are in Anaheim, Knott’s Berry Farm is in Buena Park, and Six Flags Magic Mountain is in Valencia. Farther away still are Legoland and SeaWorld, both of which are in the San Diego area. Universal Studios Hollywood is the only one that’s almost in Los Angeles, and even that is in the San Fernando Valley.

Still, they’re all easy-enough to access from L.A., and should be considered as things to do. Unless you’re a huge theme parks fan, I’d caution against going to too many of these. There are a lot of great things to do in and around Los Angeles, and theme parks can eat a ton of your time–and I offer these words of caution as someone who is a huge Disneyland fan. (I’ve made that mistake on trips back when we didn’t live in California.)

Shopping –  I’m out of my element here. Most of my shopping is done via the internet, or as I am begrudgingly dragged to the local mall. The extent of my shopping in Los Angeles is usually at the various farmer’s markets and specialty grocery stores and eclectic shops in places like Little Tokyo. Other “cool” places to shop (that are more about the place than the actual shopping) are Amoeba Records in Hollywood and the Last Bookstore downtown.

With that said, I realize a lot of people visit Los Angeles to shop. Everyone knows about places like the Miracle Mile, but tony neighborhoods and various promenades also feature high-end boutiques popular with trendsetters and fashionistas. Rather than relying on my ill-informed rambling to choose shopping spots in Los Angeles, check out Vogue’s L.A. Shopping Guide.

Beyond this, a lot of what is happening in Los Angeles depends upon the season, or even the week. For some seasonal recommendations, we like CurbedLA’s Things to Do in Los Angeles Right Now. If you want to know what’s happening in L.A. during your visit, consult the wealth of Los Angeles-centric Twitter accounts.

Finally, there’s our favorite category of things to do: eating. This is so crucial to your experience in Los Angeles that we’ll highlight it with its own section…

Where to Stay in L.A.

Even though we’ve approached experiencing Los Angeles from the perspective of tourists, we are not actually tourists in the city…meaning that we don’t need hotel rooms. As such, this is definitely a knowledge gap for us. It’s one we are working on rectifying in the near future, and we have a couple of hotel and Airbnb stays already booked for the fall, once the off-season starts. (Check back for an update then.)

With that said, there are a number of variables to consider when choosing a hotel in or around Los Angeles. First and foremost, is this a Los Angeles-centric trip or are you simply planning on spending time in the city as part of a larger Southern California vacation, or a California road trip? Let’s address each of the most common scenarios…

Los Angeles Trip – We’ll start with this first, as it’s more or less the operating assumption of this whole guide that you’re spending at least a few days in Los Angeles. In this case, I’d recommend staying at a hotel that is in or north of Downtown Los Angeles, in between the 5 and the 405. Santa Monica might be attractive, but it’s inconvenient unless you’re spending a lot of time at the beach (in which case, see the section below).

Personally, I prefer staying on the north side of the city, and think this will be the best option for most visitors. I think this area provides the easiest access to popular points of interest (especially those you might want to hit early in the morning, like Universal Studios, Hollywood Boulevard, Griffith Observatory, or the Getty Center) as well as some of the best nightlife. This also puts you near the best recreational activities in the

If this is a special trip or you have money to burn, consider one of Los Angeles’ historic hotels, or ones with a unique legacy. The kind of places where celebrities have taken up residence or where Hunter S. Thompson has gotten into mischief. Among these are the Beverly Wilshire, the Beverly Hills Hotel and Bungalows, Chateau Marmont, the Hollywood Roosevelt, Millennium Biltmore Hotel, Hotel Normandie, Palihouse Santa Monica, the Georgian Hotel, or the Beverly Hilton. We’ve stayed at exactly zero of these, but have visited several, and they are nothing short of posh.

By contrast, our stays in Los Angeles to date have all been low budget hotels in Hollywood, and our motivation for staying at those places was always having a cheap place to crash to rope drop Universal Studios Hollywood, or to get up early and hike around Griffith Park. We like that area, but would not recommend any of the hotels at which we’ve stayed.

As with all locations, we’re big fans of using Airbnb for a stay in Los Angeles. Obviously, the lower price is the biggest selling point of Airbnb. We’ve had some fun experiences staying at unique Airbnb locations throughout world and really cannot recommend it highly enough. You can use my sign-up link for a free credit your first time using Airbnb!

When it comes to Los Angeles, we like Airbnb because it offers the chance to stay in nice residential neighborhoods where there simply are not many hotels–or hotels are otherwise ritzy and expensive. Los Feliz, Hollywood Hills, and Beverly Hills are all good picks in this regard. You’ll pay a bit more for these locations than you would other parts of Los Angeles, but they’ll still cost considerably less than a hotel.

Beach or Disneyland Vacation – In this scenario, you’re primarily focused on the Beach Cities or Disneyland, and just want to spend a day or two exploring Los Angeles. In this case, stick to your hotel in Orange County and just drive to Los Angeles and back. Traffic aside, this is pretty simple. Be mindful that some of these hotels will be 1-2 hours from Los Angeles, in moderate traffic. During rush hour, your commute time could be even worse.

Read our Laguna Beach Vacation Planning Guide for tips and tricks for our top pick in Orange County. Laguna Beach is absolutely gorgeous, and has a charming seaside vibe. That guide covers everything from hotels to things to do to where to eat. (It’s a lot like this post, except for Laguna.)

Southern California Vacation – In this scenario, you’re bouncing around a bunch of spots in Southern California, and are allocating at least 3 days to Los Angeles. If you’re doing this and don’t mind changing hotels once–which is what we recommend–we’d suggest doing (at least) a split stay, having a hotel in San Diego/Orange County/Anaheim for the Disneyland, beach, and whatever else portion of your trip, and then a separate hotel in Los Angeles for that leg of the trip.

Given that you’re looking at ~3 hours per day in traffic (x3) and all of the stress that entails, we think it makes sense to change hotels halfway through your trip to actually stay in Los Angeles. That makes it easier to get things done, and less time in traffic is always a plus.

California Road Trip – In this scenario, you’re doing a road trip down/up the state (let’s say flying into San Diego and flying out of San Francisco with a one-way car rental). So long as you don’t mind frequently changing hotels, we’d recommend spending at least a night in L.A. no matter how much time you plan on seeing the city. It’ll make your time spent in the city more productive, and you’re going to be passing through Los Angeles at some point, anyway.

Where to Eat in L.A.

One of the greatest upsides to the rich diversity of Los Angeles is the culinary scene. Any type of cuisine you can imagine is available in L.A., and at a range of prices. While we consider ourselves foodies, keeping tabs on the ever-changing Los Angeles restaurant scene is a colossal undertaking well beyond the scope of this blog. We do have a series of posts highlighting some of our favorite things we’ve eaten recently in Los Angeles, but these are far from comprehensive:

Great Food We’ve Eaten in Los Angeles (Part 1)

Great Food We’ve Eaten in Los Angeles (Part 2)

We’ll also recommend a few resources to help you make your L.A. dining decisions…

The sites we usually consult are Eater L.A. and the Infatuation L.A., and by consult, I mean that I see one of their tweets about a trendy new spot, and we head there. In terms of specific resources, I like their regularly-updated “Hottest Cheap Eats in Los Angeles” map and Infatuation’s Los Angeles posts.

As mentioned above, Los Angeles has a wealth of restaurant choices for every budget, but I skew towards preferring (and recommending) options on the lower end of the spectrum. There are a lot of exceptional ‘fast casual’ options, from street vendors to hole-in-the-wall joints that offer food that will blow you away.

In my opinion, a big part of the fine dining scene is about status. Places where people go to see and be seen. To be sure, there are some truly amazing high end restaurants in Los Angeles, but it can also be a pretty superficial experience. That, coupled with the fact that inexpensive but high-quality, inventive options are available at the cheaper price ranges leads me to recommend sticking with those.

If you do decide that you want something fancy for a date-night (or because you’re hoping to spot Nicolas Cage–can’t say I blame you, he’s a real-life national treasure!), a good resource is Eater L.A.’s Hypothetical Los Angeles Michelin Guide.

If you’ve never been to Southern California, the only specific restaurant I consider a must-do is In-N-Out Burger. This is a California institution, and is deeply ingrained in the culture. From their secret menu to their distinctly California style, In-N-Out Burger is beloved by locals and tourists alike. It may not be the best meal you’ll have in Los Angeles, but it’s the most iconic.

Everything else beyond that is a matter of personal preference. We really like eating in Little Tokyo, K-Town, Chinatown, and Sawtelle/Little Osaka. Speaking of these neighborhoods…

Neighborhoods to Visit

Los Angeles is like New York City in the sense that certain neighborhoods have reputations that precede them. Places like West Hollywood and Beverly Hills need no introduction, but other neighborhoods are not quite as well known outside of Southern California.

In the case of these places, we recommend visiting even without a particular agenda or point of interest you want to see. All of our favorite neighborhoods are worth simply wandering to get a better flavor of the local life and culture. Oh, and you can certainly get a flavor of the cuisine of each, too…

Koreatown – K-Town is usually the place we go to eat after spending some time doing things on Museum Row. Koreatown has some of the best food in all of Los Angeles. Whether you’re looking for great Korean BBQ or traditional fare, Koreatown has it all.

It’s also near DLTA, convenient to public transportation, and is a pleasant place to walk. There are probably other things to do in K-Town aside from stuffing your face, but we are always in such a food coma upon stumbling out of the restaurants that the rest is pretty much a blur.

Chinatown – I’ll spare you the famous, cliched quote from the movie of the same name. The upside to Chinatown is that it’s really convenient to Union Station, making it an easy place to grab a meal when arriving into, or departing from, downtown. The neon-tinted vibe here is cool at night, and the food in Far East Plaza is surprisingly good.

The downside is that proximity to Dodger Stadium and busy freeways take their toll. Looking for a cheap gas station here? Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.

Little Tokyo – If you’re visiting DTLA, Little Tokyo is a must. The outdoor Japanese Village Plaza has some interesting shopping (who does not need a life-sized Totoro plush?!) and some excellent restaurants. Kula Revolving Sushi Bar is an inexpensive, delicious, unique, and approachable place for sushi that I highly recommend. The options in the Plaza for dessert after your meal are pretty much endless. Also nearby are a number of great ramen shops, including Daikokuya, which always has a line. (Go to one of their other locations instead.)

This is also where you’ll find the Japanese American National Museum, the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, and nearby is the Arts District. On any list of Los Angeles’ Most Instrammable Walls (sadly, there are multiple such lists), the Arts District is a popular location. Great news if you want the same ‘unique’ photo as everyone else.

Sawtelle – If you weren’t already convinced Los Angeles is the greatest, how about this fact: it has two ‘Little’ Japans: Little Tokyo and Little Osaka. Official (or is it unofficial?) name aside, most people just call is Sawtelle, because that’s the road that runs through this enclave. Truthfully, I don’t know what there is to “do” in Little Osaka aside from eating and shopping.

This is a common stop for us because it’s conveniently located on the 405, and has some of the best restaurants in all of Los Angeles. In fact, I’d say this is the most restaurant-dense area in L.A. Some seriously good, and mostly inexpensive, dining. Check out my Tsujita v. Daikokuya post for my head-to-head on the two best ramen shops on Sawtelle.

Silver Lake/Echo Park/Los Feliz – Technically, all separate neighborhoods, but they more or less blur together. The former two have an upstart hipster vibe as the beneficiaries of a lot of recent urban renewal. The result of this is a lot of trendy places to eat. That can be a mixed bag, as an unnecessary layer of smugness sometimes enters the fray–but not always. Los Feliz is an older, residential neighborhood.

If I could live anywhere in Los Angeles, Los Feliz would be it. We often detour through its quiet streets on our way up to Griffith Observatory; I absolutely love the vibe and charm of this area. There’s not necessarily much to do in Los Feliz, but it’s a really lovely area, and if you enjoy wandering around neighborhoods (gosh, we sound so old), it’s a good choice.

Santa Monica/Venice – These adjacent cities are the closest beach cities to Los Angeles, and both are less about natural beauty and more about artificial beauty. (In more ways than one!) The big draw here is the iconic Santa Monica Pier, which contains a seaside amusement park. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of Santa Monica’s stretch of coast (or the pier), but there’s certainly something to be said for a sunset ride on the Ferris Wheel overlooking the Pacific Ocean. A short walk from the beach is Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade, which consists of three open-air, car-free blocks of shopping and dining.

Continuing south, there’s Venice Beach. This eclectic community of counterculture and artists. Venice is a bit rougher around the edges than Malibu or Santa Monica, but it shouldn’t be overlooked or avoided. The most well-known aspects of Venice are probably Muscle Beach (where Arnold Schwarzenegger famously pumped iron) and the Ocean Walk. If you’re a bit more…sheltered…these places may not appeal to you. In that case, head inland a bit towards the Venice Canal Historic District, which is modeled after the other Venice.

I think that’s as good of a place as any to stop this. We’re already at ~6,000 words, and I feel we’re only scratching the surface. We plan on updating and refining this Ultimate Guide to Los Angeles as readers ask questions and we have additional experiences. For now, hopefully it’s a good jumping off point!

Any Questions?

If you’re planning a trip to Los Angeles and still have unanswered questions or want personalized planning advice based upon your specific interests, needs, desires, and that sort of thing, your best option is leaving a question in the comments below. While I cannot promise to have advice on everything (see the hotels section above), I’ll do my best. 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101 Things to Do in Southern California

The eBook is 51 pages long, featuring 75 photos, and (obviously) 101 things to do in Southern California. If you want a copy of this totally free 101 Things to Do in Southern California eBook, all you need to do is subscribe to our newsletter and you will receive a link to download the eBook.

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[andburning]

The Exhaustive Train of Queer Decision Making

I remember watching Night of the Living Dead for the first time in my mid twenties and thinking to myself that I empathised deeply with those terrified people, trapped in a farmhouse late at night, surrounded by a horde of ghoulish creatures, shambling around looking every bit like normal people at first glance . I thought to myself — this is what it feels like to be at odds with society. This is how it feels when you’re the ones who don’t fit in. It feels like being locked in a small house, surrounded by a mob of ghouls, hungry for your flesh. It is difficult to express sometimes how it feels to have such a core part of your being be regarded as outside of what is ’normal’.  A lot of my experience of being queer, gender non conforming, or a faggot in general, is just being tired. Tired all the time. Everything is exhausting. Unimaginably so. I imagine that the experiences of all oppressed peoples align on this at some point. I used to be angry, and hold my ground, and speak my mind. But more and more these days, it feels like a war of attrition. It feels like a siege. I feel like those people trapped in that farm house in Night of the Living Dead, hounded by ordinary looking people, pounding at the doors and clawing at the windows. Once I had the desire to fight but now, I am older, and have lost the belly fire, and I’m just so, deeply, deeply tired.

Small things become huge ordeals when you do not conform. Things that for many people are utterly inconsequential for me have associated mental risk-assessments. Just a simple thing as mentioning a partner in passing becomes a small puzzle to navigate. Which word should I use? Should I use ‘partner’ in order to obfuscate my meaning, or should I just bulldoze the status quo and just say boyfriend? This again becomes even more calamitous if my current partner is also gender non-conforming and doesn’t want to be called a boyfriend or girlfriend because of the gender implications. I have learned to make these risk assessments very quickly. Who am I talking to? Is the conversation casual or formal? Who else is in the room? How likely am I to be grilled on my life experience? This is all the work that goes into the sentence: “I’m having dinner with my boyfriend tonight”.  Simple things. The way we sometimes frame ‘coming out’ is as a thing you do once, at sixteen, when you sit down with your mum and dad or parental guardian or whatever, and you admit that you’re a massive faggot and that you want to kiss boys instead of girls. Or vice versa. Or maybe you want to kiss both. Whatever it is, you have a sexuality (or gender identity) which is outside the heteronormative expectation.  It is, however, not as simple. It is sadly not something you can pluck up the courage for (what a brutal thing to expect young queer kids to go through by the way) perform once (and it is a performance) and be done with.  Coming out is something that must be done over and over and over again. It is something that happens whenever we meet new people. Whenever we start a new job. Whenever we join a new school. Whenever we take up a martial arts class, or a pottery class.  No matter how far in life we get, how comfortable we are — in any new experience, any new group, any new situation — until we have revealed that we are gay or queer or transgender or whatever — we are back ‘in the closet’; and it is as uncomfortable and lonely as it was when we were thirteen years old deleting our browser history on the family computer at one o’clock in the morning.  Isolation, and loneliness, and fear are part and parcel of being queer in the world we live in.  

And once again, every time we have to come out all over again, even if we want to, even if we are excited and proud to do so, we must make another internal risk assessment. Usually we will leave it a while before we admit to our sinful difference when starting a new job — scoping the territory, getting the lay of the land. We scope out who seems like a safe bet — “that person seems not too stern, they’re fairly young, they wear fashionable clothes, they seem like they’re probably not a bigot — not like that old grim looking man with the too tight necktie and the corduroy — he seems like a real fag basher”. I am being hyperbolic but also not quite. Sometimes it is often that black and white.

 In the workplace — or in school — these things matter but there are levels of protection.  There are rules in place that everyone needs to abide by. It’s unlikely that someone will just get up and sock me in the jaw in the middle of the office. Unlikely but it could still happen.

Coming out in public is an altogether different experience. The risk assessment process has to be completed quickly, and repeated, over and over, on a street by street basis.  It’s impossible to walk down the street side by side with my partner without constantly thinking about what everyone around me is thinking. Very small things, things we should take for granted, are calculated and considered. Holding hands, a peck on the cheek, hugging before they step onto the train, an arm around the waist.  It’s so deeply tiring to not be able to do these things without having to first scan the crowd around me and think about the consequences of my indiscretion. I have held many of my boyfriends’ hands in public and every time it felt like I was breaking some rule, engaging in something taboo — something filthy and sinful. It’s taken me a long time to realise that this is not my own personal moral failing but the moral failing of the society that ostracises and makes pariahs out of gays, lesbians, and transgender people. 

 The way queer people have been depicted in culture has been by and large a vision of Sodom and Gomorrah: fornicators, sexual deviants, something that needs to be cured, or wiped out, or punished. We are to be kept away from children, and the vulnerable. Growing up with this as a framework is hard work.  I remember feeling so utterly alone as a teenager, not knowing anyone who was like me, not knowing who I could talk to, not knowing what to do. I very clumsily came out quite early at school.  I remember ‘gay’ being thrown around as a pejorative in the same way I imagine a lot of people my age remember it. I was in a fairly unique position in my school in that I was exceptionally tall for my age and pretty much as open about being gay as a fourteen year old can be (in that I didn’t understand it at all but it was 2002 so we all knew who Graham Norton was).  Gay was something to be avoided. It meant you were lesser. It meant you weren’t a real boy. It meant you were a pansy, a girl, a sissy.  The truth is we were all of us working on the information we had at hand.  We all heard our family members subtly reinforcing this narrative at home whenever Dale Winton or Lilly Savage came on the television on Saturday Night.   All of us grew up in families that had lived through the AIDS crisis and the moral panics of the 60s and 70s. I heard stories about how my grandmother refused to visit her local hair salon for months after she found out her hairdresser was gay. I remember watching a television programme when I was a teenager. A gay character on screen kissed his partner. My grandfather, whom I loved dearly, said nothing and simply walked out of the room. It hurt me very deeply.

Both my grandparents are dead now and I never told them that I was gay.  I never felt I had the time, or the words. It never felt like the right place. I never felt like I had the right reason. It always felt narcissistic of me.  I remember when my grandmother was dying I visited her one last time in hospital and I regretted not talking about it then. I regretted it at the time but now, nearly ten years later I think I probably made the right decision. It was as my grandmother lay dying though that I came out to my mother. I was twenty-one. Something about the situation made me feel like I should be open finally about who I was.  I don’t regret not telling my grandparents I was gay — firstly because it would have caused extra tension and emotional difficulties which I already had enough of as a teenager to be perfectly honest, and secondly because it wouldn’t have made me feel much closer to them anyway.  What I do regret however is that it’s something that I even had to consider. I regret growing up in a world where that was something I had to keep secret. I regret growing up surrounded by people who made it very clear to me that they would be ashamed of me were I to reveal myself to be ‘one of those’.  I resent that I had to put up with that.  When I came out to my mother, both of us sat on my bed while everyone else was downstairs, she said something to me that glanced off my hardened emotional armour at the time, but that has since wormed its way inside me like an ancient piece of shrapnel in an old soldier — she said “I always knew”.  It meant nothing at the time. These were words I had come to expect.  The more I think about it, and I think more about it the older I get, I start to wonder to myself — if she always knew, why didn’t she help me? Why wasn’t she the emotional support society and the media and my school and my friends weren’t? It hurts now to think how much she left me to suffer alone in the darkness of my bedroom at night, thinking I was never going to feel the sort of love that everyone else got to. 

I still feel like those people trapped in the house, surrounded by zombies. Sometimes I worry that the further we progress towards liberation, the more precarious our situation. The height we climb is equal to the potential distance we could fall. In the last couple of years the struggle for queer liberation was focussed specifically on so-called ‘same sex marriage’ — the right for someone to marry a person of the same sex as themself.  It was a fight for me that felt like it had no particular weight.  Of course I feel I should be able to marry another person of my sex, should I choose to, and so should everyone else, but it felt like it didn’t address the real and tangible inequalities which add to a profile of persecution. A gay couple, married, perhaps even with children, will walk down the street making those same risk assessments as I do with my boyfriend, to whom I am not married. Very little has changed.  I still don’t feel safe. Every time I see a news story from the United States about the moves that administration is making towards curbing LGBTQ rights, when I see fascists being elected on ‘family values’ tickets in Brazil, or when I see opinion pieces in the Guardian claiming that giving trans people the right to claim their own identity is a moral dilemma here in Britain, I am reminded that we have so much to lose, and our victories are precarious and must be defended.  When the National Socialist party burned books in Germany in the 1930s, many of the books they burned contained over a decade worth of progressive research into sexuality and gender studies from the library of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld and the archives of the Institute for Sexual Sciences in Berlin.  It is impossible to not remind myself of this, when my thinking gets complacent, when I think that what we have achieved can never be taken away. It is a terrifying thought, but it keeps me vigilant, and lights the fire within me to push harder always for the liberation of people like me. I think always to the future when we might live in a world where queer people can kiss in public, hold hands in public, and feel shame only for the tweeness of showing affection in public, not for who they are showing that affection to.  I don’t want the next generation to grow up feeling like those people trapped in a house, surrounded by ghouls, I want us to be able to grow up feeling comfortable with who we are, to be who we are without fear of reprisal.  I want to live in that world now.  There is still much work to do but I am no longer a scared and lonely little boy who can’t tell people who they are.  I want to know that there is a time, not long from now I hope, where we won’t have to worry about being who we are, and we won’t have to regret not having been honest and open about who we love.

[yasbxxgie]

'BLACK' Imagines a World Where Only Black People Have Superpowers

When it comes to people of color taking ownership of their own narratives, the fight for sovereignty has been long and ongoing. In 2013, Steve McQueen became the first black filmmaker to win Best Picture for historical drama 12 Years A Slave, after decades of white filmmakers receiving accolades for their own work on black narratives. The struggle has been similar within the comic-book world: While comic-book companies have recently seemed more eager to put more people of color on the page, they've also showed a reluctance to actually hire them to write, draw, or letter the comics in question. More than ever, though, creators of color are taking matters into their own hands—which is how BLACK came to be. The new comic asks the question, "What would happen if superpowers were real? And what if they were only given to black people?"

Recently, I exchanged emails with Jamal Igle, Kwanza Osajyefo, Khary Randolph, and Tim Smith 3—the creators of BLACK—to hear more about the ideas, production, and challenges surrounding a work that presents such a potentially dangerous question.

VICE: The premise of BLACK is that blackness imbues superhumanity and thereby justifies extreme violence against us—something seen all too frequently in the real world. What were the conversations you had with one another around that? What were you worried about? Jamal Igle: I wasn't worried, particularly because even discussing the base premise would be (and was) considered in some corners as controversial. I walked into the project from the outset with that in mind, so I had no reservations about it. Kwanza, Tim, Sarah [Litt, the editor], and I had a conversation over dinner where we talked about the project in the abstract, and Kwanza and I lined up perfectly on the concept of race, representation, and superpowers.

One of the problems I've had as a comic-book reader and being a casual fan of the X-Men was the idea that the only thing that set mutants apart from characters like the Thing, the Hulk, and the Morlocks was how they were marketed to the public. If Warren Worthington didn't run around in a costume with giant x's all over it, he had enough resources to have the people believe he was an alien—or an actual angelic being. The "First Class" of X-Men were all pretty white kids going to an exclusive private school in Westchester. It's not exactly a bastion of individuality or fear for one's safety, unless you're ginger.

The first cover—a kid in a red hoodie, standing in "hands up, don't shoot" position—is immediately evocative and directly confrontational with white supremacy.  I'm curious about what led you and the rest of the team to take such a brute force technique with the covers. Khary Randolph: We don't pull any punches on these covers. They're brutally honest and don't hold back on what they are about, and I think that's necessary when you're dealing with subject matter that's this serious.

My normal day-to-day comic-book work looks nothing like this. It's much more colorful and pop art. I don't normally do political work, but this was personal—to all of us. We knew we had something to say with this book, so from the moment Kwanza and I first discussed what the book would be about, I knew I had to approach things differently. The very limited color palette, the street art feel, the compositions, and the themes are all very deliberate. On a purely emotional level, this was by far the hardest illustration job I've ever had to do, and I'm very proud of how it's come out.

BLACK is monochromatic—black and white—which isn't the absence of color per se, but is definitely in defiance of the color palette of most modern Western comics. What do you feel like you gained from this technique? Kwanza Osajyefo: I felt that BLACK is a story that readers bring their own experiences to. It won't be the same read for everyone. I thought adding color would, in some regard, distract readers and entertain their imagination less. You could read into it as a metatextual absence of color as a reflection of blacks absence in comics.

Randolph: For the record, I love color. But with this project, not having it lends to the gravitas of the themes that we tackle—and it helps us stand out in a marketplace that's full of oversaturated color. It's a point of pride for us that this is the kind of book and story that really can't be told at the major publishers. We're striving to do something different, and that extends even to the lack of color.

There's some pressure, but also some freedom, in drawing, writing, or creating a black body. How does it feel, emotionally, to work on a project like this? What's the work like? What does it bring to your day-to-day life? Tim Smith 3: If you want to break into mainstream comics, you better know how to draw all kinds of people—but you'll be drawing Caucasians the most. But when you work on a book that's mostly black faces, it will make you slow down and get it right because it's not in the norm of comics. Not every black person looks alike, nor does any other person of any other race. But working on this makes me stop and think about making them look like people. And a part of that is to give each of them a look that unifies and separates them from one another.

I talked to a woman who said she hadn't drawn in years, so when she did draw something, she drew the face of a black woman. Now mind you, she herself was black, but she found it difficult to get some of the facial features to her liking. Looking in a mirror her whole life didn't seem to bridge the gap, nor did looking at her family and friends and TV and books—yet she seemed very comfortable drawing a white face. It's ingrained in our culture: the image of what is to be considered the norm. Artists should break out of the bubble and draw all kinds of people. Test your limits, and don't be told what to draw or settle for what everyone has been drawing. For me, drawing BLACK is a fulfilling means to being an artist and an artist of color.

All of you are men, and while the comic definitely makes strides toward inclusion, the voice and perspective is also rather definitively cisgender male. What conversations did you guys have among yourselves about the absence of women from your creative team? Osajyefo: We're all painfully aware, and it's never lost on me that I need to make extra effort on my contacts list. If black men in comics are unicorns, black women are pegacorns. Fortunately, that's quickly changing.

We were able to have Ashley Woods draw an alternate cover for Chapter One of BLACK that has a Harriet Tubman homage on the cover. I would love work with more sisters on future stories in BLACK, but I'll admit I'm only now just introducing myself.

In one of the issues, a Jamaican man uses the term "batty boy"—a Jamaican pejorative generally meant to target queer men. Could you describe your intent with the phrase and how it fits in with the narrative? That character is SAVAGE, and he's not a good person. He's a hardcore gangster and murderer. I like to write villains who do bad things, so it stands to reason that they also say bad things. Considering he eviscerates people in the chapter that he appears in, why is name calling the focus? Are we that desensitized to violence?

Black characters are not just these one-dimensional tokens to assuage publishers obilivity and pacify readers of color. All that stated, I also know thatIdon't know all the deep roots of all these aspects in blackness, but I wanted readers to have these characters exist.

You guys made a point to have AAVE as a clear part of BLACK's vernacular, which is, as is everything, a clearly political choice. Am I right in thinking you're big believers in showing multitudes to counteract stereotypes? A lot of writers don't use the vernacular, pidgin, etc. Maybe that's a fear of making black characters sound ignorant—or perhaps the issue is that there is not enough diversity to allow for it. Name the last black supervillain from a mainstream publisher. They want black faces on their characters but don't have the internal depth (black people on staff) to show our humanity—good and bad. The fears is backlash of presenting us in a bad light, but they also aren't hiring us in positions to influence that content.

In BLACK, we're attempting to show the spectrum of blackness—on our own terms. I love accents, and black people have them. To me, it would be a disservice to gloss over that for pretense.

What are the elements each of you are hoping readers take from your work on BLACK? What's the one thing you'd like us to pay attention to or notice? Smith 3: This project started as a Kickstarter. I don't know what or where it would have gone if not for that. But we did it there. We were committed in doing it one way or another. But the people wanted it as it was funded so here we are! (Thank you KS and all those helped make this happen!) I want folks to understand that there are no rules to making comics. Whatever you think of the book, know that we got up, did it, and it was accepted and wanted. Now I hope you enjoy something that truly breaks the norm.