If you didn't want to leave the Mother’s Day shopping to the last minute, but you you did, as usual, think about what’s available in Highland Park right now. Flowers, a favorite and fully expected from some moms, are available from Highland Park Flowers, on Figureroa and Ave 58. Also a good stop in case your mom doesn’t live nearby. Also, Floreria Belen, at 6087 York, for many of your bloomin’ needs. Try Edible Arrangements for arrangements of edible goodies.  Looking for gifts? Starting with shiny things,  beautiful handmade glass beads, jewelry, plates, art, and other glass items are at the…

The days are getting longer, the evenings might be warming, so if you haven’t been spending the Second Saturday of the month getting to know the art environment in Highland Park, now is the time. Here are some of the places and things you can do. Avenue 50 Studio Frank Romero, who for 40 years has been a cornerstone of the Chicano art community and the L.A. arts community, will have his first solo show at the Avenue 50 Studio.   At the Avenue 50 Studio Annex Gallery, the work of  Isabel Martinez.  I really love one of the things said about her work, “One experiences pure joy in her choice of …

[Ed. Note] With Occidental College to celebrate the 125th anniversary of its founding on Friday, April 20, we're looking back on the college's Highland Park History. This piece, about Occidental's cameo in Charlie Chaplin's The Kid, originally ran in Feb. 2011 Hollywood became Hollywood because of the weather, some politics and some outright scamming. But I think the best reason Hollywood become the hub of cinema is that so much of Los Angeles can look like so many other places. And when it comes to shapeshifting scenery, few locations in L.A. can match our Arroyo. A great example of a movie …

NELAart's Second Saturday is a night to celebrate the arts in Highland Park by visiting galleries and shops that show us the art being made in our community and the world.  At New Puppy Gallery you will find the work of John Murray Norment--1911 to 1988--who was a highly accomplished cartoonist, with drawings published in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and many other newspapers and magazines. We will find two covers he did for the New Yorker, work on more than a dozen joke books from the from the 1950s through the 1970s, and rarely seen examples of his finer art. New Puppy Gallery is …

Panaderias. Our community has many. If you are a regular at one, keep reading, but this writing is aimed at those who don’t know them, or haven’t indulged themselves lately. For those not in the know, pan means bread in Spanish, so that makes a panaderia a bakery. You will find pan dulce, which is sweet bread. There will be more on that later. You'll also find pan de huevo, which is egg bread, but don’t make assumptions; postres, which means pastries; and bolillos, which are savory rolls. These are very loose translations, so if you disagree, educate those around you, but don’t argue. It is …

People come and go in one’s life. Especially here in the big city.  We meet people and to one degree or another we get to know them and then they are gone. Seems like we forget most of those people; that’s just the way these kind of things go. This is no less true for those of us who like to support small businesses. They come and go, and we tend forget most of them. One of our local gallery boutiques is closing next month. La Vida Loca Galeria will be no more after the end of March. This shop in Highland Park is a unique place--and that will make it much more unforgettable. Owner Anita …

Second Saturday of every month, the good folks at NELAart--that’s the Northeast Los Angeles Arts Organization--organize a wonderful evening of art and community for you, yes you, to enjoy. The weather will be nice, the art beautiful and the food everywhere, so go forth and see what there is to be seen, and be seen. Avenue 50 Studio From a Whisper to a Roar; Women Artists Charting Their Own Course This exhibition is part of the Women's Caucus for Art's 40th Anniversary celebration. Avenue 50 Annex Here is My Heart; 50 Artists, 50 Hearts for Sale A silent auction fundraiser for the Avenue 50 …

Recently, Mrs. O'Roscoe and I had visitors and we met people from Boston, Philadelphia, Montreal, and San Francisco over the last couple of weeks; they were all going on a bit too much about how we don’t have weather here. Then, we got one night of wind. Mrs. O’Roscoe and I had already gone to bed on Wednesday night when she reminded me to turn off our ancient computer, which I did. Then when we heard the winds topple things outside, I went out to batten down some hatches, and out of the corner of my eye I saw our transformer blow, and I looked at the Arroyo and saw many more transformers …

We are here again with the wonderful NELA Second Saturday Gallery Night ready to delight us. The weather oracles are predicting rain on Saturday night. I hope you aren’t like other people in Los Angeles who scamper like bunnies into their warrens at the first sprinkle of rain. We are made of sterner stuff.  Don’t let a little dampness make you miss out on some art, community, and cultural exchange this Saturday night. The word is that MorYork will be closing at he end of the year. If you have never been there, this place alone is worth walking from home in the pouring rain. This month the …

Halloween has to be one of my favorite holidays. The candy--especially the candy of my youth--the candy apples, the costumes, the kids and the decorated houses. I look forward to seeing the terror in the eyes of the littlest kids, the confidence of the older kids and the proud arrogance of the teenagers who still want to be Halloweenies. I really love that it is a kinda-really-based-on-a-religious–churchy-idea-but-really-pagan-kind-of-silly-all-American-holiday. Really a Pan-American thing, because of all the wonderful Dia de los Muertos traditions we have here in our corner of the world. But…

A young friend of mine in his late 20s--for me someone in their early 30s is young--told me how he was standing in front of a Highland Park art gallery one evening, in clothes he didn’t feel were anything other than standard guy clothes, when someone in a passing car yelled, "F--k you hipster!" A younger friend defined the word hipster as a person obsessed with not being left out of whatever is new. Another young friend said, “A hipster is someone who spends all their non-working time thinking of and searching out the latest fashions in music and clothes.” Nimby Pimp, a frequent commenter on …

I like cold days. Los Angeles cold days aren’t even near cold enough for me. And I’m not just saying this because today is so hot. Cold days wake you up. They give you a reason to do even the most mundane things. Another reason I like very cold days is because it feels so good to warm up. Entering a warm house from a cold outside is one of the great pleasures of life. Entering a cool place from a warm outside is only nice. Only a relief. It may be because heat is often made from burning something, wood, gas, oil. Like the tall green guy said, “Fire good.” But air conditioning feels artificial…

Even before I opened my eyes this morning, I was very aware of waking up in a house with a mama and a papa, but with no more children Mrs. O’Roscoe and I returned late last night from delivering our youngest to college. I’m overcome with these two feelings. I don’t feel that I had been able to finish my part of the process. There were many more books to recommend, more movies to share, more music to play, more wisdom that was given to me to pass on to her. And then more selfishly, I can see that after 30 years of raising children, this part of my life, maybe the most important thing I have …

This Saturday night, August 13, will be NELA Second Saturday, the night we can take to the streets and visit our neighborhood art galleries and maybe a food truck or a local eatery. At Future Studio Gallery, home of Chicken Boy, we’ll find Nudibranchs and Other Creatures: Crochet, Polymer Clay & Gourd Sculptures, by Carolyn Potter. In her artist's statement, Potter said “Nudibranchs/sea slugs have taken over my life. These bizarre, colorful sea creatures that live on reefs in the ocean are my obsession. What color. What form. What fun.” Future Studio is at 5558 N. Figueroa Street. Make sure …

Last Saturday, Mrs. O’Roscoe and I found ourselves overbooked with too many social engagements to attend. (This happens only rarely and makes us feel so special.)  We didn’t want to miss NELA Art's Second Saturday Gallery Night completely, so we went to a spot were we could park once and see a few galleries  The gods of social engagements provided us with good parking at Avenue 50 and York Boulevard on a Saturday at 7:00 p.m..  I was surprised how even in the summer evening daylight, the street was already filled with hipsters, in front of the York, and in Café de Leche. Our first stop was …

I was walking down my street the other day, and I met one of those    neighbors. You know the type? The kind you always wave to from the car, but to whom you never speak. He’s always seemed like a nice guy, but then I discovered he didn’t even know about Second Saturday Gallery Night in Northeast Los Angeles.  I think I’ve also noticed he always takes up two parking spaces on the street. Well, I hope you know about Second Saturday, when the galleries in our neck of the artistic woods open their doors and let us enjoy and explore. This Saturday, and every second Saturday of the month, from 6 …

You may already have made plans for Lummis Day, scheduled for Sunday, June 5, or you’ve seen the posters and signs. For lifelong residents of Highland Park and Mount Washington, Charles Fletcher Lummis is a household name--a mythical figure comprising equal parts Davy Crockett, Paul Bunyan and Mark Twain. Recent transplants to the area, though, might not be so familiar with the so-called "grandfather of Arroyo Culture." Others may find themselves asking what, exactly, is Lummis Day? In case you don’t know about Lummis, or have forgotten, here is my very brief biography.  There are many …

Easter is called the most important holiday in Christianity, but's also an fine day to celebrate the Springtime, no matter what your religious denomination.  There are ample opportunities to celebrate in the Highland Park area. Here is an easy way to find places to Easter right here on Patch. First, go to Directory tab near the top of this page, then click on “Community Resources”, then “Religious Institutions” and you will find a list of places that might be interesting to you this Sunday. One place that I always find interesting is  the Holy Virgin Mary Coptic Orthodox Church, which is …

I hope you know about  Second Saturday, when the galleries  in our neck of the artistic woods open their doors and let us enjoy and explore. Go to the  Second Saturday site, print out a map, and appreciate. Join me here every month and we will look around a bit and see what there is to see in our so-called "burgeoning art scene." Last month we looked at Future Studio and the famous Chicken Boy. Currently on display at Future Studio you’ll find the “Unfolded Things" exhibition by Tim Quinn, a purveyor of paper manipulation gone wild. This time around we are going to visit MorYork Gallery. …

There are those that eat to live and others who live to eat.                           The former can live just about anywhere.  To the latter, Highland Park can be a paradise.  No too far away you can find a couple of Gelson’s, A Bristol Farms, and a handful of Trader Joe's locations. (By the way, did you know there was an early Trader Joes on Ave 64?  There is still evidence of it,  if you look for it.) There's also the wonderful Nicole’s in South Pasadena.   But you don’t have to travel very even that far to answer your foodie needs. Here in Highland Park we have the lovely Figueroa …