Karin Lewicki, an enigma wrapped in a mess.
November 21st, 2007 Written by: Karin · 1 Comment
Last night at the North Hollywood YMCA, this guy, 30s, dithering in the far end of the slow lane with this kid of about 9. Explaining to him time travel and the speed of light.
Kid: “So you’d get back, and everyone would be three years older.”
Guy: “Actually, it’s worse than that - they’d be dead.”
The tone of his voice, the tone of the whole conversation - AND THAT’S SO COOL.
Which it was.
I don’t usually think of LA as a place where I’ll get taught conversational Einsteinian physics just by hanging out - but I’d like to.
LA is lacking these types of communications and therefore I need my own fortress in order to get away from the drivel.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · LA Backdrop
November 20th, 2007 Written by: Karin · 2 Comments
They’re selling something weird at Macy’s. Not the endless array of weird glass housewares. It’s a hoodie. It’s kind of like a hoodie. It’s a hoodie in that it’s got a tubey cowl neck SO wide and SO big it goes over the head. It’s in the “young adults” fashion section, and it’s worn by a hunched, blank mannequin, whose hands are stuffed in the inevitable front pockets, whose bodily attitude says “screw my posture and your so-called authority,” but…whose hood says she’s appeasing her Muslim parents, or swinging that trick of Indian women who get that last sweep of sari-fabric to stick to their heads by no visible means whatever.
So maybe it’s an international gesture, this neo-hoodie. Something you can jet-set to Karachi in, and not get stoned.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · Fashion
November 20th, 2007 Written by: Karin · 2 Comments
They’re selling something weird at Macy’s. Not the endless array of weird glass housewares. It’s a hoodie. It’s kind of like a hoodie. It’s a hoodie in that it’s got a tubey cowl neck SO wide and SO big it goes over the head. It’s in the “young adults” fashion section, and it’s worn by a hunched, blank mannequin, whose hands are stuffed in the inevitable front pockets, whose bodily attitude says “screw my posture and your so-called authority,” but…whose hood says she’s appeasing her Muslim parents, or swinging that trick of Indian women who get that last sweep of sari-fabric to stick to their heads by no visible means whatever.
So maybe it’s an international gesture, this neo-hoodie. Something you can jet-set to Karachi in, and not get stoned.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · Fashion
November 17th, 2007 Written by: Karin · No Comments
So yesterday I pull into the library, with my car, thinking I’m going to park there. This was the Studio City library, so imagining I could simply pull in to the lot and park was a hopelessly naive idea to begin with, I know. I knew that at the time. What I wasn’t prepared for was the kind of Where’s Waldo cavalcade of assorted randomness that overtook me within feet of my entry. Because actually, a bunch of people were leaving the lot just as I was entering it. I mean a bunch of people! [Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · LA Backdrop · Transportation
November 14th, 2007 Written by: Karin · No Comments
K. Lewicki goes all Thanksgiving on you early, why?
Toluca Lake Dentistry, in Toluca Lake, which is one of those dental clinics built on a kind of shameless day spa model. Do you NEED a chair that feels like a Laz-e-boy, your own tv, and aromatherapy, while you’re getting your teeth cleaned? Not technically. But if ever there was a call for maximum distraction, it’s while a stranger is using sharp metal implements to scrape around your mouth. Plus, they’re happy there. Dr. Jerry Albus may be putting something in the water. In which case, he should bottle it and sell it alongside the electric toothbrushes.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · Local LA
November 7th, 2007 Written by: Karin · 1 Comment
Driving home tonight on Mulholland. About a quarter mile east of Deep Canyon looking south, Westside-ward, and seeing a weird fin of smoke in the sky, like the cloud cover was flat-as-glass ocean and some leviathan just under the surface.
I’ve been driving around on Mulholland for over a decade and it was just a week ago that I realized how completely different the drop-off is on the north and south sides. I always knew it (I guess), but it took until last week for it to come to my attention. Looking north at night is always the reverse starscape, the major boulevards lancing at different angles than you remember, the whole Valley looking alive, somehow ready (and to do what, really? let you get a drive through burger at Tommy’s? It’s still *the Valley*), the view south a completely different animal.
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Tags: Transportation
November 5th, 2007 Written by: Karin · 2 Comments
So I’m hiding out in a Starbucks doing chemistry homework (I don’t know why, but the rice crispie bars help me think about chemistry, they totally do) when a petite blonde settles at a table near the window. This is a Starbucks in Studio City, on Ventura, so it’s a bit of luxe, a bit of see & be seen, so I’m not ENTIRELY surprised at the fur-topped boots ending her jeans, nor at what she’s purchased, to wit: the world’s tiniest, most perfect glass bottle of Pellegrino and the world’s tiniest, most perfect half sandwich in a plastic box.
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Tags: LA Backdrop · News
November 3rd, 2007 Written by: Karin · No Comments
So I did that thing, again, tonight, that we all do. You know, that Beverly Hills/ Hollywood thing. Where you head through a light you know you’re not exactly going to make, in an intersection that you know is between automatic photo intersections, without being sure that this one has one itself.
And you get to the other side, and spend the next five minutes (to hours) asking yourself if you saw a bright flash. You didn’t, really, but maybe you did? You replay it over and over, lecturing and scolding and weirdly savoring how it’s probably all for nothing, because Nothing Happened, that light didn’t have a camera box on it anyway. Except maybe it did?
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · Transportation
October 31st, 2007 Written by: Karin · No Comments
So chances are, this being a big city, and more than that a big city full of people trying to get famous with art, probably you, dear hip reader, have a little known artist you think is absolutely, hands down, THE best kept secret in LA. So do I, and mine wins. Because mine makes puppets.
His name is Jesse Kingsley, and his wee outfit is called the Mystery Bird Puppet theatre. At this point he’s done a number of different shows, solo and not, but the one with the most Youtube footage comes from last year’s Musee Des Femmes, a kind of belly dance fusion revue put on by Desert Sin (you can see the YouTube video of it below)
[Read more →]
Tags: Upcoming events · Visual Arts
October 29th, 2007 Written by: Karin · No Comments
I joined it today. The set of People Currently Selling a House in Los Angeles, Relentless Newspaper Reports of Imminent Housing Debacle Be-damned. It’s a line I’ve been trying to cross for about six weeks now, six relentless weeks of contractors and early morning house calls, and enough visits to the Goodwill that the guy there knows my name.
The result is a house freshly painted and largely emptied of my personal belongings (which are in a kind of Great Wall of China box formation in the garage). It looks very nice. It unfortunately confirms something I already knew about myself; I’m no good at buying furniture. I’ve gotten about as far as unstained Ikea. It’s a good thing I’ve got tablecloths.
[Read more →]
Tags: LA Backdrop · News
October 22nd, 2007 Written by: Karin · 1 Comment
Dear Reader,
Please look kindly on this non-review of the Sander Kleinenberg concert at the Avalon this past Saturday night. Please forgive my having bailed at a mere 1am, while the peppy young intro DJ was still on, pumping his fist in the air periodically, in admiration of his own mad skilz. My excuses are many (two midterms! boyfriend with bronchitis!) but the real reason I had to pack it in was I just couldn’t take any more of the shoes.
Yes, shoes.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · Music · Reviews
October 22nd, 2007 Written by: Karin · 1 Comment
Dear Reader,
Please look kindly on this non-review of the Sander Kleinenberg concert at the Avalon this past Saturday night. Please forgive my having bailed at a mere 1am, while the peppy young intro DJ was still on, pumping his fist in the air periodically, in admiration of his own mad skilz. My excuses are many (two midterms! boyfriend with bronchitis!) but the real reason I had to pack it in was I just couldn’t take any more of the shoes.
Yes, shoes.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · Music · Reviews
