Los Angeles [antikvár]

John GottbergJohn was working as news and graphics editor for the Los Angeles Times travel section when he and LP publisher Tony Wheeler first discussed this book. Previously, he had earned BA degrees from the universities of Oregon and Washington, spent a year in Hawaii on an Asian studies fellowship, and worked his way around the world as a musician in New Zealand, a chef in Australia, a ski instructor in France, a bartender in Amsterdam, and a carpenter in Sweden. During meanderings through Asia in the mid-1970s, he used the first edition of Tony's Southeast Asia on a Shoestring. In the 1980s, John was managing editor for Apa Publications' Insight Guides in Singapore. He now lives in Boise, Idaho, and is a contributing editor to International Living magazine.From the AuthorThanks to the convention and visitors bureaus of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Orange County, and Long Beach; to the public relations firms Blaze Company, Burks Hamner, Victoria King, Murphy/O'Brien, and Steve Valentine; and especially to fellow writer-photographers Jeff Fellenzer, Bret Lundberg, Dave and Andrea Peevers, and Michael Stinson for their continued assistance and support.IntroductionNo other city on Earth is so talked about, yet so misunderstood, as Los Angeles.Feared for its natural disasters, dreaded for its crime and violence, disparaged for its jammed freeways and poor air quality, scorned for what some call a plastic personality, LA is yet a place that no world traveler would omit from his or her "must see" list.This is a city, after all, that has given the world Mickey Mouse and Marilyn Monroe, OJ Simpson and J Paul Getty, Bayicatch and The Beverly Hillbillies. Rare is the visitor of any age who is not awed by the movieland aura, enchanted by Disneyland and other theme parks, delighted by the sandy beaches and sunny climate. And no one can fail to acknowledge the role of the City of Angels as an international trend-setter.Los Angeles has always existed "on the edge," from its humble beginnings as a Spanish mission settlement in a sparsely inhabited desert to its status today as one of the world's great metropolises. Like no city before it and perhaps like none again, LA is a survivor. It seems to be always at the mercy of nature's whims (from devastating earthquakes and drought to almost-annual mudslides and brush fires) and society's vagaries (from race riots to crimes of passion that make soap operas look maudlin). Yet it continues to grow and flourish, attracting a United Nations of immigrants from Latin America, the Pacific Rim and countries around the globe.Life on the edge has bred a passion for life not found in many other places. To some, the big houses, fast cars, fancy clothes, elegant restaurants and, yes, designer drugs, of which LA has more than its share, may be the aggrandizement of "the American dream"; to many others, they are a statement that Los Angeles may be gone tomorrow, so we're going to live our lives as fully as possible today.It has often been said that if art imitates life, life also imitates art. In Southern California, where cinema is the ultimate art form, and "The Industry" (as motion-picture production is known) willingly shields its public from the "real world," it's sometimes hard to separate fact from fiction. After all, what is Disneyland but a fantasy world in which to spend days at a time? And certainly "real" places like Beverly Hills and Venice Beach are fantasy worlds of their own.