This Week in Instagramz

Dear Reader,

You know, sometimes the week gets away from you and then it’s next week already? That’s kind of what happened in the last few weeks. A huge wildfire raged near my hometown (don’t worry, my parents are fine and the fire is far away from where they live), some big job prospects (which I can’t talk about just yet) arose, and I continued working with my design clients and meeting new ones.

Because I have codependent relationships with all of my friends, I tend to make plans to hang out with them almost every night. Last week, I spent the night watching my genius friend Nathan make props for a TV commercial. I was especially fascinated by his glamorscissors shaped like a bird.

This is a street near my apartment called Harper that I’m obsessed with. It’s filled with pretty Spanish style apartment buildings that I want to live in.

I’m also in love with this building near my gym. The zig-zag roof really does a lot for me. I just found out this whole thing used to be a gorgeous Spanish style hotel building until they tore it down to build this strip mall. And now they want to tear down the strip mall to build mixed-use residential.

Below is what the old hotel, The Garden of Allah, which previously occupied the site used to look like. It kind of makes my blood boil that yet again they want to tear down an awesome building and put up something new that they will just tear down and replace in another 30 years. Here is a chance to preserve some history and instead it will probably be replaced with some faux-Mediterranean piece of garbage apartment building. End rant.

In more positive news, they replaced the grass at Wattles Park (where I like to enter when I hike Runyon). It looks like the perfect place to have a film screening. Or the future wedding I’ll never have.

The weather finally got hot this week. And by “hot” I mean “boiling.” And by “boiling” I mean “living in LA turns everyone into a huge baby that can’t handle when the temperature varies more than one degree away from 70.” With all these hot days, our nights have turned into those magical summer nights where the air is warm and the Santa Ana winds, according to Joan Didion (according to Raymond Chandler), make wives want to stab their husbands. The air kind of glows when it’s like this outside, as it was last night on my way to a friend’s birthday party.

I wandered by this building on Melrose yesterday and was informed it was designed by Frank Gehry in 1975. There is a lovely see through wall that lets you see into the staircase.

I wandered inside at a glamourous pool party recently to discover this amazing gold teapot. While everyone else was outside looking like Ken Doll/models, I creeped inside to take pictures of dishes. Typical.

LACMA, perhaps my favorite outdoor space in Los Angeles, hosts Jazz nights on Fridays during the warm months. Even if you don’t care about jazz, it’s a great place to meet up with friends enjoy a picnic amongst the Renzo Piano-designed buildings.

LACMA’S Elevated Mass.

A beautiful dying khaki-colored palm frond in front of a beautiful khaki-colored building provided the perfect color inspiration, desert safari hues on a Friday night.

My genius friend Miguel wearing a genius Elizabeth Taylor shirt. I want one.

I’ll be featuring more images from LACMA next week. Until then, calm down and enjoy your life, staring at everything beautiful thing as long as possible.

Love,
Orlando

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