I visited Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers during a visit to Los Angeles in 1994 and was utterly awestruck. Rodia’s sui generis creation is truly one of the greatest examples of American outsider art. This 12-minute documentary from 1957 contains interviews with Rodia, who spoke with a thick Italian accent, as well as excellent footage from the surrounding neighborhood. (It also features a weirdly Twilight Zone-ish score.) I found this on Rick Prelinger’s archive.org a couple of years ago and was planning to upload it to YouTube myself, but I just discovered that it’s there already. Bonus Simon Rodia fact: He appears in the collage on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s.
I re-visited the towers a few months ago, and did not recognize the place. They really ‘paved paradise And put up a parking lot over there’. The towers are now enclosed in a gated, tiny space & everything around them was paved & turned into a parking spot. It’s sad.
Oh, that’s really sad, I didn’t know about this.
Leave a comment:
Warhol, Spielberg chat. Probably high.
Kubrick’s Danube, Muppet-chicken style.
Examples of Modern Alphabets, 1864.
» see all of the magazine covers
best of Panopticist
the magazine covers
Republicans
graphic design
Sarah Palin
John McCain
typography
television
magazines
Clive Thompson
Rob Harrell
Nick Bilton
Maura Johnston
Peter Dizikes
Terri Senft
Tom Igoe
Carrie McLaren
Randall Rothenberg
Chris Allbritton
David Callahan
Rebecca Skloot
Julian Rubinstein
Rob Warner
Daniel Radosh
Mike Daisey
Caleb Crain
Heath Row
Jami Attenberg
Emily Votruba
Chris Millward
David Feige
Emily Gordon
Maud Newton
J. Edward Keyes
Jod Kaftan
Lindsay Robertson
Jen Bekman
Elizabeth Spiers
Lockhart Steele
Jim Romenesko
James Wolcott
Gawker
Eat the Press (Huffington Post)
Media Matters
Dan Kennedy
Veiled Conceit
Bob Somerby
Roger Ailes
FishbowlNY
Digby
Talking Points Memo
Jason Kottke
Gothamist
Curbed
Triple Mint
whatevs.org
Low Culture
pullquote
Old Hag
Kung Fu Monkey
Cool Hunting
Cult of Mac
design*sponge
Apartment Therapy
Rake's Progress
Beatrice
The Elegant Variation
Maccers
MemeFirst
Andrew Krucoff
Catherine's Pita
Cityrag
The Fold Drop
escapegrace
Fimoculous
Death May Be Your Santa Claus
Can't Stop the Bleeding
Encyclopedia Hanasiana
Rick's Cafe Americain
Men's Vogue Daily
Heaneyland!
The PreCogs
Jim Affinito
All the Little Live Things
Language Log
Design Observer
Drawn!
music (for robots)
Donkey Rising
Daily Kos
Atrios
Tapped
Home
About
Five-Word Links
Best Of
Blog Archives
Writing Archives
My Music
RSS
What is a Panopticist? Some insight is here.
video
graphic design
music
typography
magazines
television
technology
politics
film
Republicans
childhood
spoof
1970s
best of Panopticist
books
I’m Andrew Hearst, a New York-based writer, editor, designer, musician, and gadabout. You can learn a bit more about me here.
Email: hearst@nyc.rr.com
This site is powered by Movable Type 4.21 and was lovingly hand-coded in BBEdit.
Search results powered by Mark Carey’s Fast Search plugin.
