Maybe Not the Best Time to Fly Back

Here: Thu 67 | 46 Fri 66 | 45 Sat 67 | 43 Sun 71 | 45 There: Thu 31 | 12 Fri 36 | 15 Sat 29 | 11 Sun 34 | 15 We have tickets. But flights from LA/Ontario to Denver International Airport are delayed. Possibly for days. Because DIA looks like this:

Nikki Finke Wants Them to Have - Or Have Not

It doesn't matter if reality-show contestants are rich or poor. As long as all of them are rich or poor. So sayeth the bumblebee behind Nikki Finke's money-obsessed Deadline Hollywood Daily.

On the next season of The Apprentice: "Most disgusting is that each week's winning team will luxe it up in a Beverly Hills mansion, while the losers are in hell sleeping in two tents in the backyard without hot showers.... I'm nauseous thinking about it."

On the next season of Survivor: "While one team will live the life of luxury, the other team is left with virtually nothing. Uh, doesn't that defeat the whole point of the show... This high concept doesn't make any sense."

I'm not sure how much Nikki travels, but believe me, there are worse places to camp than Beverly Hills.

OK, back to Atwater Village cheerleading.

Apologies for the diversion.

Obligatory Canele Mention of the Week

From a Los Angeles Times piece about what restaurant workers do when restaurants are closed:

Corina Weibel, chef at Canele in Atwater Village [3219 Glendale Blvd.], is planning a holiday party for her crew at Lucky Strike, the bowling alley and eatery at Hollywood & Highland.

Previously: Bistro Gets One Last Flan Job, Canele Love December 2006

[Image from Shes-crafty.]

At Valleybrink and Sunnynook

FOX11 Learns Where LA Ends, Glendale Begins

This morning on FOX11's journalistically iffy Good Day LA, ace reporter slash community activist Rick Lozano got schooled in Los Angeles geography. From the mayor, no less.

Lozano's holiday charity "Toys for Tots" segment began at a Toys R Us location in, the TV caption said, Glendale. Problem is, Glendale doesn't have a Toys R Us. The store is at 2901 Los Feliz Blvd., in Atwater Village, in the city of Los Angeles.

Banter between Rick and the mental zeroes back in the studio posited that this remote locale might actually be "on the border" of LA and Glendale but, no matter, there were needy ethnic kids to exploit.

After a flurry of speculation over the future of Donald Trump's misbehaving Miss USA, another Toys for Tots segment started.

Again, it had the Glendale caption. But this time it had a special guest who was certainly not from Glendale.

Lozano spilled the beans. We've been debating, he told Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, what city we're actually in, that we might be on the border of Los Angeles and Glendale.

No, said the major of LA, this is "most definitely" LA.

By the end of the segment, no more than 30 seconds later, the caption across the bottom of FOX11's broadcast had changed from Glendale to Los Angeles.

No Fair Using US Bank Tower As Hint

Match the downtown skyline with snowy mountain backdrop money shot to the correct photo credit.

1.

2.

Does the image belong to...

A. The Los Angeles Times front page, photo by Stephen Osman, published today, Dec. 19, 2006, to illustrate a freak smog-clearing cold snap, or...

B. The Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau photo library.

At Least the Psychic Saw It Coming

The Atwater Village Pedestrian Oriented District [PDF here] has been a subject lately on the AV forum [here] and Friends of AV blog [here].

What is it? The POD represents "communal" portions of Los Feliz Blvd. and Glendale Blvd. as they pass through Atwater Village to "encourage people in the surrounding neighborhoods to walk and shop along these streets." Click map on right to see larger vision of how the POD is "orientated."

What kind of businesses discourage walking and shopping? These apparent ne'er-do-wells, from the list of Prohibited Uses [PDF pages 3 & 4]:

• Adult Entertainment
• Auditorium
• Automotive Painting
• Automotive Repair and Service
• Automotive Sales, used
• Automotive Storage Area
• Automotive Storage Garage
• Automotive Upholstering
• Bail Bond Broker
• Baseball Batting Range
• Body Piercing Establishment
• Bowling Alley
• Cable Television Broadcasting
• Car Wash
• Day Labor Site
• Fortune Telling, Psychic
• Gasoline Stations
• Helicopter Landings
• Hospital (contagious, mental, drug and alcohol)
• Miniature Golf
• Night Club
• Open Storage Area
• Pawnshop
• Pool Halls
• Public Storage Facility
• Recycling Business
• Rescue Mission
• Restaurant, drive through
• Roller Skating Rink
• Shooting Gallery
• Skateboard Track
• Skating Rink
• Sports Arena or Stadium
• Tattoo Studio
• Tow Truck Dispatching

A finer NIMBY wishlist has hardly been produced. My favorite: "Automotive Sales, used," as if "Automotive Sales, new" is so much more pedestrian friendly. And let the NFL know Atwater Village will not be bidding for LA's new pro football stadium.

So how did existing gas stations, psychics and car washes get there? According to a Los Angeles Independent article [PDF here], they must have beat the 2001 ordinance: "Those businesses that appear on the list but already exist in the area would be exempt."

That's one way to keep the competition down.

Unneighborly Neighborhood Councils

The LA Times reports on where 86 neighborhood councils have taken the city so far:

Seven years after a network of neighborhood councils was created to give Los Angeles residents a greater voice in city politics, the groups' effectiveness remains blunted by infighting, poor community outreach and a lack of influence with key city departments...

Infighting? Surely not in our banana-shaped haven, where neighborhood elections were delayed three times. No, not here. We're too busy procuring pencils:

Jeff Gardner of the Atwater Village council said his group provided supplies to two local elementary schools, including a new library for one.

Neighborhood Bistro Gets One Last Flan Job

Seriously, for 2006, can this be the last heap of love piled on Canele? I think the column inches dedicated to this tiny Atwater Village bistro have surpassed its ability to seat customers.

Update to the update on the LA mediasphere's drooling affair with 3219 Glendale Blvd., from Los Angeles Magazine's first annual (and not yet available online) restaurant awards.

Finest Flan - A great dessert is an exclamation point. It continues the atmosphere imparted by a meal while bringing the experience to a close. The flan at Canele might not seem like much, yet it is everything. The caramel is nut brown and a powerful contrast with the custard - and what a custard. It's been poached slowly in a water bath at such a low temperature, not a single bubble has formed. As the flan is unmolded - the ribbon of pooling caramel supplying the sauce - we are reminded of what a lot of care can accomplish with sugar, milk and eggs.

The LA Times also flaunted the flan:

The kitchen also produces a superlative flan, again in a classic style, with a fine silken texture, napped with irresistible burnt caramel. And built to share.

Previously: Canele Love: December 2006 Edition

Atwater Chatter

Land Here, Spaceships: Ben High's post captures the mysterious Glenfeliz Blvd. tire circles. They were made just one block from an elementary school. Nice.

Porn Talk at Bigfoot Lodge: Gram Ponante's page is most definitely completely entirely not safe for work; this page took out the dirtier pictures.

In Defense of Glendale: This Denver Post article, by a writer from my old hometown, appreciates our neighboring LA suburb like I do.

Next It's Paris Hilton at Canele: These pictures show Britney Spears across the freeway at the LA Zoo. This 911 call has Nicole Richie's back-ass driving maneuvers starting somewhere around the "Los Felix exit."

Rent Check: $925, $1,350, $1,950, $3,150.

What Will These Developers Think of Next

A 90-unit housing development around the corner from a new campus for Los Angeles City College? How... convenient. From an Atwater Village Neighborhood Council committee meeting:

Architect, and professor of architecture, Marcello Spina presented a futuristic designed loft style housing development proposed for 3234 Casitas Ave.

The renderings showed a sloped design that looked more like a pyramid than a box. The design will not tower over any adjacent property.

The proposal includes eighty to ninety units ranging from five hundred to several thousand square feet and will conform to the existing forty five foot height limit.

Units will be designed for artists and professionals, but would accommodate families.

The neighborhood has at least two similarly-sized developments (one on Perlita Ave., another on Los Feliz Blvd.) but if the Casitas Ave. project is anything like Spina's other works, it will look like little else in Atwater Village. I've asked to see the designs. These are some of his others:



[Images from the hyper-hyphenated firm P-a-t-t-e-r-n-s]