Culture in Concrete

Culture in Concrete: Art and the Re-Imagination of the Los Angeles River as Civic Space is John Arroyo's Masters Thesis in City Planing written in May of 2010 at MIT. LA Yellow Box was included in this 241 page exploration. Here is an online link for the thesis:
http://issuu.com/arroyoxjc/docs/arroyojc_thesis_final_email

Congratulations John!

Bag It - Just Say No, This is Your Brain on Plastic

On Sunday August 22, 2010 from 4-7pm The UCLA Institute of Environmental Studies hosted a screening of the film "Bag It!" by Suzan Beraza and a short film called "Plastic Bag" by Ramin Bahrani. There also was panel discussion with Heal The Bay, Plastic Pollution Coalition and The Daily Ocean along with a talk by Assembly member Julia Brownley regarding plastic pollution and bill AB 1998 (authored by Brownley) which will ban the use of single use plastic bags in the state of California. AB 1998 has already been voted in favor by the state assembly and is being voted on in the California State Senate in this week. Please do your part by supporting this bill, links will be provided below where you can take action!

Assembly Julia Brownley discussing AB 1998

Still from Brownley's presentation, an ad campaign by the American Chemistry Council which is lobbying against AB 1998.

This is Suzan Beraza, Director of Bag It! This documentary was awesome, clever, thoughtful and full of information! It is a fantastic film and a great way to get ANYBODY thinking about how our use of plastic is detrimental to the well being of the planet and all life on it. It shows with candor and humor the environmental and health problems we are facing with use of disposable plastic while providing solutions. It is a must see for EVERYBODY. Thank you Suzan Bereza for making this important film, I am grateful for the likes of you!

http://www.bagitmovie.com/about_issues.html

Still from Ramin Bahrani's 18 minute short film "Plastic Bag". This touching short shows the personal story of a plastic bag as it finds a home and searches for love and acceptance until it finds it's place of comfort with other plastic bags living in the ocean.

Another still from Bahrani's "Plastic Bag".
Panelists including speakers from Heal The Bay, The Daily Ocean and Plastic Pollution Coalition in support of AB 1998. Sara Bayles (in white shirt) lives in Santa Monica and collects trash on the ocean everyday for twenty minutes. She is documenting the trash....here is her blog: http://www.thedailyocean.blogspot.com/

This was a great afternoon. I consider myself in the know of issues surrounding plastic, but even I found myself with a gaping mouth and shaking my head from time to time with some of the statistics I learned about. I have posted about AB 1998 earlier along with the Los Angeles River riddled with plastic bags after the rains. It is horrifying when you see the amount of plastic in the River, especially if you participate in FoLAR's river clean up's. FoLAR has been an incredible organization advocating for the Los Angeles River and the environment.

AB1998 has already received California State Assembly support and is being voted on by the California State Senate this week! It is imperative that this bill passes. Please contact your Senator immediately to support this bill which can reduce plastic waste by one third, simply by taking a bag with you to the store. We can greatly change things sometimes by not doing something...and that means not relying on disposable plastic! Here is a link to take action:
http://www.healthebay.org/actionalerts/ab1998/default.asp

More Notes From The Past - Collected Dec. 2008-February 2009

Here are some more notes collected by people who spend time along the Los Angeles River. These notes inspired the direction of LA Yellow Box along with my own sense of connection to
the River, which brings me a sense of peace, along with being a physical metaphor for my own personal life experience.

LA Beyond Cars and High Speed Rail

On July 29, 2010 LA Beyond Cars opened at the Jewel Box Theater in Downtown Los Angeles. The exhibition is a multi media presentation offering ideas and concepts behind High Speed rail and how it will be integrated into Los Angeles along with proposed urban landscapes of the future. Here is the link for the exhibit running through August: http://railla.org/2184

The exhibit drew enthusiasts from all walks of life interested in one thing: how do we plan to move about in this congested metropolis and what are the proposals, visions and solutions being offered? This exhibit is sponsored by Rail LA so it is focusing on High Speed Rail which California will be given $2.25 billion dollars in funding by the Federal Government. Want to get from Downtown to San Francisco in 2 hours and 38 mins? Check out the website for High Speed Rail from Maps to News: http://cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/ More on this topic later. For now, check out some pics from the opening night and take a trip to see what your city can look like in the near future.

LA Beyond Cars Exhibit - Jewel Box Theater - 525 S. Flower Street. Los Angeles, CA




City of the Future - Los Angeles circa 2106 , Eric Owen Moss Architects





Presentation by Park 101. How about green space floating above the 101 so you can bask in the sunlight and create community space?



Interactive landscape of Los Angeles by James Rojas.











Film loop still on what a High Speed Rail station will look like. (Alex Thompson's and my head not included).

Piggy Back Yard

AB1998 - Bye Bye Single Use Plastic Bags!

Main Entry: ¹plas·tic

Pronunciation: \ˈplas-tik\

Function: adjective

Etymology: Latin plasticus of molding, from Greek plastikos, from plassein to mold, form

Date: 1632

From the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Can we mold or form our habits to NOT use plastic bags because of our addiction to convenience? Research indicates that plastic has at least the same shelf life as a Twinkie and possibly a longer half-life than uranium. The truth is nobody knows how long it takes for plastic to completely biodegrade, nobody has been around long enough to witness it. Either way, you should get the picture, it is not a good thing. (Please do not tell me about the jobs it creates...i have already lost my voice screaming and may have to resort to exaggerated twitching which can get very ugly). Even partially starch based biodegradable plastic will have done the damage to marine life by the time it breaks down in five months.

So what the heck is a person to do? For starters, just take a reusable bag with you to the store. Always. Have one with you at all times, whether you are on bike, bus, foot, train, taxi, car or airplane....just like a tampon, they can be small and tucked away. (Yes, tampons without a plastic insertion thingamajigee).

Are you completely devastated by the BP oil spill and find yourself posting about it on Social Networking sites, wishing you could stuff Wall Street Bankers, BP CEO's or Sarah Palin down the pipe? Well, plastic bags need petroleum to be produced. Enough said.

Keep yourself up to date on AB1998 - A bill started by Assembly Member Julia Brownley of Santa Monica.

Check out the below to take action and educate yourself more:

http://www.cawrecycles.org/issues/current_legislation/ab1998_10

Earth Hour 2009

On March 29, 2009 LA Yellow Box organized a bike ride to meet on the 6th Street Bridge to celebrate, participate, and capture Earth Hour 2009 which was a global initiative to address the environmental impact of unsustainable living and the effects of global warming. Downtown looked so beautiful and you can see the before and after shots of as the lights were turned off. One other person met me on the bridge, he was nineteen years old and was pursuing photography at LACC. This year Earth Hour will take place on March 27, 2010. Lights off! 

https://www.myearthhour.org/home