Malcom Gladwell- What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

* Awesome, Awesome speech on diversity and happiness

The Experience Gallery X Los Anjealous

If you live in Los Angeles, or don’t live in Los Angeles, and love music you should definitely check out Los Anjealous.com

They provide a great service to the Los Angeles community. They regularly update new concerts in town ranging from the very independent to the very well known, but all good music. They also feature many stories about the happenings in and around Los Angeles. They are a community building site and you should definitely check in.

The Experience Gallery is collaborating with Los Anjealous for an ongoing series of interviews with musicians playing in Los Angeles. Also ranging from the very obscure to the very popular, getting an inside look at how they work and what inspires them.

Check out the first one with Matt from the band Matt and Kim here.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,

 And there the grass grows soft and white, 

And there the sun burns crimson bright,

And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.

Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know

The place where the sidewalk ends.

Pictures by marija strajnic

Out of the Ordinary

www.TheExperienceGallery.com

David Foster Wallace Commencement Speech (2005)

 A great commencement speech by a great writer. Wallace speaks of what he believes the reality of education and educating yourself really means. 

Wallace committed suicide in 2008 after years of depression and to me knowing this adds another layer of complexity to the speech. 

Make your own impression of the speech and the ideas he presents. The speech is below in its entirety and may not be here long. So read while you can… 

Sans Soleil (1983)

I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering,

 which is not the opposite of forgetting,

 but rather its lining.

We do not remember.

We rewrite memory much as history is rewritten.

How can one remember thirst?

 Photos by Anders Linden

Words from Sans Soleil

Behind the Scenes of an Interview – Pigeon John

 I arranged for the interview with John through is manager and when he told me that he was going to be in North  Hills (the valley if people aren’t familiar with Los Angeles) I was a bit taken back.

When you think of a rapper you usually think of urban surroundings. The city, highrises… not the valley. We had planned to get a beer at a local bar off the 101 freeway at 11 in the morning, but the bar was closed so we ended going to a Starbucks next door. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, I had never talked to a rapper in my life but I knew I really liked his music and what he was trying to do with it.

John is immediately warm and welcoming, one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. I think you automatically sense that he has a great sense of humor and has so many interesting stories to tell. He reminded me of what a Jazz musician would be like, very cool, collected, and at ease with his surroundings. He is really an entertainer at heart and wants to involve you in his stories. He has amazing stories too, like going to the Good Life Cafe and rapping with big names from the Pharcyde, Jurrasic 5, Will.i.am. It was really interesting getting his take on rap today and how the industry has changed for the better or worse.

You sometimes go into these interviews with a lot of perceptions and expectations of what these people will be like and it never fails that every person I have interviewed has been completly different than what you expect. Maybe you go in expecting a rapper to live a certain lifestyle and have certain interests and you find out John loves playing with his little daughter, going to the mall with his wife, and reads Charles Bukowski.

To get a better idea what John’s offbeat personality is like here is a poem by Charles Bukowski, someone he was influenced by in his youth:

Love & Fame & Death

it sits outside my window now
like and old woman going to market;
it sits and watches me,
it sweats nevously
through wire and fog and dog-bark
until suddenly
I slam the screen with a newspaper
like slapping at a fly
and you could hear the scream
over this plain city,
and then it left.

the way to end a poem
like this
is to become suddenly
quiet.

Read the full interview with John here.

10 Graphic Novels that you should read

This list is in no particular order but here are 10 amazing comic books that everyone should read. Deep, thoughtful, and amazingly good reads. Check out our interview with The Secret Headquarters Comic Book Store Here.

1. Black Hole- Charles Burns

About 1970s Seatle Teens and a mysterious outbreak that seems to be effecting all the teenagers in the area. Very haunting and dark read. It will create a black hole in you! I promise that.

2. Optic Nerve or anything Adrian Tomine really

Tomine really touches you with his meloncholy tales of the city. Great to read on a park bench under a tree.

3. Asterios Polyp – David Mazzucchelli

Hard to explain why this is so good. Visually it is amazing, and the writing is great.

4. AKIRA- Katushiro Otomo

There are a lot of great Manga series out there but as a self contained book Akira is one of the most densely packed. Action, excitement, and post apoloclyptic philosophy… and motorcycle gangs!

A Field Guide to Los Angeles Hip Hop

1989- Los Angeles. Rap and Hip Hop were being defined on the East Coast in places like Brooklyn, The Bronx, and Queens. 

Gangster rap was flourishing on the West Coast, NWA were the hottest thing in town and was set to define the genre of West Coast rap for years to come…

 Except there were others doing things differently. At a health food center in South Central Los Angeles in Leimert Park, The Good Life Café, something else was brewing. Started by B.Hall and her son R. Kain Blaze, the Good Life Café hosted an open mic workshop on Thursday nights where MC’s and musicians could find refuge and hone their craft. Musicians could perform written songs or freestyle. Gangster rap at the time was marked with harsh drug tales and explicit profanity. The Good Life Café instead had a no profanity policy.  B.Hall in an interview explained “The no-cussing policy wasn’t about us being uptight church people, it was about wanting the atmosphere of a serious arts workshop.”   

The workshop drew diverse artists from all over Los Angeles. Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, The Pharcyde, Fat Joe, Kurupt, Bone Thugs n Harmony, and emerging young artists like Pigeon John, Will.I.am, members of yet to be formed Jurrasic 5, Freestyle Fellowship. Cut- Chemist was the DJ at the time. It brought in people from very diverse backgrounds from those interested in Gangster Rap to those experimenting with Jazz Riffs. 

The influences and reach of what happened on those Thursdays were widespread and started a chain reaction which helped shaped what hip-hop is today.

For more on the Los Angeles Hip hop, stay tuned for the next issue of The Experience Gallery where we talk to a former Good Lifer about his career and hip hop in Los Angeles at The Experience Gallery.

History of the Luchadore Mask

MASKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lucha Libre or “Free wrestling” is a term used in Mexico to describe this sport of Passion, Mystery, and Masked Wrestlers. The mask has always been a prominent piece of Lucha Libre since the beginning. Some say it goes all the way back to Aztec influence. Early masks were very simple and were just meant to hide the wrestler’s identity. Slowly though the designs became more complex to symbolize animals, gods, villains, and heroes.

In fact the mask helps divide Lucha Libre into two camps. The Tecnicos (good guys) and the Rudos (bad guys) are dueling forces in Lucha Libre and often use the mask to make this serious distinction.

Sometimes the stakes are raised when wrestlers agree to put their identity on the line for a Mask fight. The loser of the fight has to remove their mask and reveal their identity. How serious is that you ask? Very Serious! Taking off a mask is a big deal and often wrestlers can never wear a mask in the ring again. If you think about the fact that wrestlers often don’t take off their masks even in public and El Santo, one of the original wrestlers was buried with his mask on you see just how important that piece of cloth is.

Check out our interview with Mexican Wrestling Twins at The Experience Gallery this month here.

Drawing by Grzegorz Kowalczyk via BOOOOOOOM!