They don’t make them like they used to. It’s a phrase used often enough that it’s become a saying. But in Los Angeles, you can’t say it about milkshakes, malts, sodas, and… well, medications, oddly enough. At least not while Fair Oaks Pharmacy is still opening its doors to the South Pasadena community. Its neon […]
Featured image credit: Dr. Paul Koudounaris For being a literal wasteland, the deserts of California have a lot of unusual sites in them. We’ve covered a few of them on this very blog. Remember the rust-colored steel sculptures of Galleta Meadows in Anza Borrego? What about the Invisible House and the Mirage House? Or the […]
Featured image credit: Bryan Hong In-N-Out Burger has become so synonymous with California’s fast food culture that it’s hard to remember we launched the mother of all fast food chains. That’s right. The first-ever McDonald’s restaurant started right in the city of San Bernardino. But this isn’t a blog about the first McDonald’s. It’s about […]
Featured image credit: Mwf95 Decades before 2019’s “raid” on Area 51, 2017’s Fyre Festival, 2015’s dress color debate, and let’s not forget this magic moment, one of the first internet phenomena caught the world’s attention with a resounding ring. It posed the question: “If a phone rings in the desert and no one is around […]
In 1934, a strange publication started making the rounds in esoteric circles, casting beams of hope across Great Depression-era California where there had only been shadow. It was called (deep breath) Mankind United: A Challenge to “Mad Ambition” and “The Money-Changers” Accompanied by an Invitation to the World’s “Sane” Men and Women. Try fitting that […]
Featured image credit: Living in Monrovia In the moments when you first lay eyes on the Aztec Hotel in Monrovia, you’ll find it hard to believe that this was a compromised version of architect Robert Stacy-Judd’s original design. He had envisioned what he called a “pre-Columbian cliff dwelling”; a hotel that seemed to be chiseled […]
As a city steeped in occult history, Los Angeles isn’t unique. Yet, LA’s occult history seems much more a part of its character than New York’s, Chicago’s, or San Francisco’s. Maybe it’s the Hollywood dream machine, holding up a magnifying lens to anything that even remotely interests us. Maybe it’s California’s reputation as a harbor […]
By most accounts, Los Angeles is a pretty liberal city. We’re just not the most progressive city when it comes to nudity. Don’t want tan lines? Then you’ll need a private pool, a tanning salon membership, or a lot of boldness and luck. Because it’s been decades since there was a nude beach Los Angeles […]
Featured image credit: Matsujima At first glance, most people would agree that LA has nothing on San Francisco’s hilly streets. In parts of San Francisco, the streets can feel a half-step removed from a roller coaster. While you may think you’re plunging down the steepest street in the world as you hurtle down Frisco’s 22nd […]
Cult leadership tends to be a male-dominated field. But in the 1920s, one woman turned that expectation on its head… not that that’s necessarily a point of pride. May Otis Blackburn and, as history remembers them, the Blackburn Cult believed in a post-apocalyptic future ruled by 11 queens. And this cult, run by Blackburn and […]
