Lascher at Large » Images

Spring Interlude

Bill — Thu, 10 May 2012 05:59:20 +0000

I posted about tulips last year.

Perhaps I’ll take a break.

From writing about Melville.

To share a few more tulips.

A few thousand words on the road

Bill — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 02:36:07 +0000

I’ve been driving and fighting off a cold while traveling to the 2010 Society of Environmental Journalists Conference. Now I’m here and diving right into the event. For now here are a few thousand words — in the form of a few dozen photos — describing what I saw. Be sure to click past the jump for more.

Sights seen while not writing

Bill — Wed, 12 May 2010 04:46:57 +0000

As I noted last week, I don’t just write:

I don’t just write

Bill — Wed, 05 May 2010 06:52:27 +0000

Seen This Week Short and Sweet

Bill — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:23:13 +0000

Images from the second phase of my recent travels. I’ll let them speak for themselves.

Seen This Week Gets PDX’ed.

Bill — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:19:46 +0000

While I put off thinking of a snappier title for my weekly collections of images seen out and about, I thought I’d post a few images from quite a distance out (at least compared to my day to day around L.A.). I’ve been in Portland (the Oregon edition) since March 13 for what could easily be the last Spring Break of my life (and for some personal business). So I have a handful of shots I took from here and there around and above Portland (actually, my aerial photography took place a bit south of Portland). Still, they certainly represent a little slice of what I’ve seen on this journey. In addition to the view from an Alaskan Airlines flight from LAX to PDX, I’ve also included shots of an off-season rose garden and a glance at the wicked cool interior of my hotel room at the Kennedy School.

More reflections on my new encounters with this lovely burg are likely soon.

Now, here are the photos!

Seen This Week: Feb. 23 – Mar 2

Bill — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:31:43 +0000

It has been a bit of one of those weekends for me — not to complain to strangers, though — I’ll let the images speak for themselves. Highlights include an afternoon on campus at USC, to a Saturday afternoon visit to the Bicycle district at Heliotrope and Melrose, and a quick jaunt up the coast to the Red Brick Gallery for Fashion Week Ventura, an event benefitting AIDS Project Ventura.

Seen This Week: Paradise for $5

Bill — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:08:47 +0000

Most mornings, I stand near the corner of 3rd Street and Vermont with a crowd of strangers in front of a planter between a McDonald’s and a discount store. There, in the northern extremities of Koreatown, we wait for the Metro Rapid 754 (some riders are waiting for the DASH Wilshire Center/Koreatown instead). I’m often struck by the contrast of a row of bright storefronts with what lately has tended to be a gray sky. Today I noticed another contrast, albeit one that makes more sense than I think I’d like to believe it does. Above two signs from a check cashing business and a barber shop promising “no waiting” and “8 barbers on duty,” stands an ad for the Morongo Resort and Casino out in the desert on the way to Palm Springs.

But I love this stop. In the evenings there’s often a man hawking nuts and produce on the sidewalk and sometimes a woman selling fresh made pastries. Across the street the tchotchke vendors set up shop. When I’m lucky there’s a bacon-wrapped hotdog vendor (if I’m really craving I know one can be found with near certainty at Wilshire and Vermont). Just west on 3rd there’s a taco truck, although one I’ve admittedly never tried because I’m fairly loyal to “El Flamin’ Taco” down at 5th and Vermont. And just a bit further sits California Donuts, a 24-hour palace of carbohydrated delectability well worth the guilt, not to mention untold numbers of other eateries representing cultures around the globe. Some early evenings there’s even some sort of vendor down an alley between the barber shop and the check-casher, but the unidentified liquid I always see running down the alley discourages me from satisfying my curiosity about what he sells.

Mornings don’t bring quite the lively bustle as early evenings, when bus riders transferring between the 754, the DASH, the 204, the 16 or the 316 stop in the neighborhood to finish their daily errands on their way home. Instead, mornings bring a certain mix of dread and enthusiasm. Lots of people dressed up to go to work, a few students studying between quick glances up the street anticipating the red and gray form of the approaching bus. Mothers watch their children as they play around a pay-telephone. Sometimes a sad-looking man sells gum and other inexpensive treats from a metal rack he’s set up next to the phone. Cars turn suddenly into the McDonald’s parking lot, impatiently pursuing their Egg McMuffins and scalding coffee.

I got up early today so I missed most of that, but I can’t help wondering, come Friday, how many people will cash their checks and head to the one armed bandits, how many will get a new coif, how many mangos, peanuts and bananas will be sold from the corner, and just how much paradise $5 will buy.