Overdue

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Introduction

South Los Angeles

Hollywood / Sliver / Echo Park

The San Fernando Valley

Conclusion

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12-29

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66-71

Contents

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This is a collection of books that I need to return to their rightful owners. I want to thank all of those individuals whom let me bor-row books regularly in good faith that I will return them. Unlike the library who, although NO ONE GOES TO IT, charges me an arm and a leg for overdue book fees. This I have learned about myself in the process of making this collection. I don’t care about late fees. I never have and I never will… I will probably be late filing my bankruptcy documents.

This collection is meant to show you a theme from start to finish, from one late library book to another. It contains with in it three parts of Los Angeles that each reflect a different cast of charac-ters. I titled the collection “Overdue.” Primarily because this collection starts in the summer of 2011 with a library book that I checked out from Otis College. It is currently week 5 of the fall semester and I still have the book sitting next to me while I type this paragraph.* I also realized that with the amount of books that I borrow, coupled with the time required to read them during leisure, that I realistically read more then speak to the characters in this book.

Which brings me back to being overdue. I suppose that each per-son would desire their books back, but I also imagine that they may simply wish to see me… At this point I could be wrong and all the bridges have been burnt down.

Right now has been overdue for quite some time. There are people questioning their moral codes, their government, their sexual orientations, their landlords and their friends. They are quitting school, starting workshops, quitting work and protesting in the streets. Just like my long overdue meetings with collabora-tors and fellow book nerds, possibly these actions of NOW can be paid in ways other then fees.

So with no permission we each can traverse this landscape and find a way to feel free. Often I do not think that fee and free go along with each other, yet here is an example. A free publication for all of you to share, thank you for giving it a go. No library fees. Just free.

*Refer back to 1st paragraph

IntroductionOVERDUE

Introduction

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OVERDUEIntroduction

Harrison Gray Otis

10 11Where is South Los Angeles? It seems that every person who enters into this part of town gets lost and sucked into a vortex. At least it seems that way when friends come down to visit. I moved to South LA almost two years ago. Some friends that live in other parts of town never dare visit this strange location in the city.

Why is it strange? Every one tells of horror stories form the Los Angeles Riots and the Rodney King beating. My uncle tells me he used to carry a pistol with him when he would travel. This was the 1980’s and it sounds like the fucking wild west. He tells me that a gangster knocked on his telephone booth with a knife (even the idea of a telephone booth seems foreign). My uncle with out breaking a beat in conversation, pulled his .45 out an went ahead and knocked back

I suppose a great deal of this tension still exists. A few of us moved into the neighborhood and spent a great amount of time and energy engaging with the community. I met Jerry, the self appointed mayor of the block. He is in his 60’s, and older black man, who claims to remember when white folks where living in the neighborhood. If the Rollin 60’s, which is our local crips gang, gave me a hard time, just let the Rabbit know

South Los Angeles

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South Los Angeles

Jesse Dotson

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16 17He believes deep down that my landlord is “racial.”I assume he means racist and I disagree. My landlord is absent minded, forgetful and accusatory. When you are so bold to raise a Texas flag in the middle of a black neighborhood in Los Angeles, and you have these types of qualities, I can see how the mayor would come to the assumption of a racism.

South Los Angeles is an amazing environment. It has a raw honesty to it. Where nothing is hidden from each other. Everyone seems to have a common enemy…the police. Their the mutha fuckas you got to hide from. Other wise people are on the streets, slanging drugs, getting in domestic arguments, helping each other out of tuff times, or just down right being neighborly.

Hey white Boy, watcha doing on this side of Town?A certain type of paranoia settles in on so many who move into a neighborhood that is not their own. I never felt that fear but a lot of my room mates have. In riding their bikes around or even rid-ing the public transportation. Once it got dark out I would carry a knife, just for ease of mind.

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South Los Angeles

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Jack Rabbitt Perez

22 23As an environment is concerned I do not wish South Los Angels to go the way of Echo Park. It is not a place to be gentrified. The place wont go that route. There is still too much fear of the area. Its an interesting study, when comparing north and south, even with in a city’s demographic.

What part of the city will you be living in the next few years.? Does the location fit your current dreams and desires? Los Angeles , like an amoeba, full of constantly changing towns, Is currently pulsing with creative energy. The notion of the Apocalypse runs heavy through the south, full of occult and Religious ideologies. Has the apocalypse already occurred, and We are living in that post apocalyptic wonderland?

Is the present really the way to structure reality? We are creatures informed by the past living in the present, dreaming about the future. This all seems fine until you think about the adjacent Possibilities that are ever present if you choose to direct yourPresent toward some type of a proposed future. Either way in-formed or uninformed, dreams are the things of life not of sleep.

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South Los Angeles

South Los Angeles

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Cameron Rath

28 29This entire environment has always amazed me. Some might call it the east side of Los Angeles, yet even that representation never seems fitting. This is Los Angeles. This is film. This place is fucked up. I’m not sure if it is the environment or just the culture that has shaped the people into the eccentric characters that they are. If you wish to live your life as though it was a film script...This is where you should be. I have a love/ hate with the place

This is the part of town that has a constant buzz. It truly does pulse with a type of energy unexplainable. And so, everyone flocks to the place like moths toward the light. Any type of person you can find it. Do you want Friday night hipsters, local film buffs, quite dive bars, rowdy night clubs, discos, gay discos, independent theaters, good food, secluded hillside homes, music, or Saturday night transvestites.

All anyone knows when they get to this part of town, is that they are a part of something greater then they are. The streets are alive with beautiful people, moving about in style, seemingly with out a care of finance or job. It is a mystery economy fueled by creativity, which seems to always tie back in with sex.

Hollywood / Silverlake / Echo Park

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ollywood / Silverlake / Echo Park

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ood / Silverlake / Echo ParkOVERDUE

Burke Roberts

34 35I am a concerned citizen of the earth. It seems that the reason for all this talk about revolution is that maybe we are all coming to grips with the fact that the internet connects me with new York. With Europe, Palestine and Egypt. It connects me with japan and with Korea. You and I are connect right now.

All we do is practice. It often does seem difficult. Even a small group of people have difficultly agreeing on a name or a title. Being with out a recognizable signature is a challenge. It seems that so many want to be recognized. I did this. They did that. If we are to believe that small changes can and will occur around us. These changes will occur at an alarming rate. Help keep up with it. Or just slow everything else around you down.

This place is the hot bed for cultural production, it is no fault of its own that it carries with it a hint of vanity. I over hear the wishers from the fleeting crowd. “What the fuck are these people doing with their live?” These are the individuals that I find most fascinating. We cannot become automatic. The current trend in our “environment” seems to enable citizens in the metropolis to become slaves to the system. We have all put our selves on auto pilot. The rat race has never been so apparent.

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Alyse Woodsworth

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Have we all been blind for the last century. Let us all try some-thing new. I have found that as I meet more individual critical thinkers over the age of sixty that thirty years old is the new twenty and that sixty years old is the new thirty. This being said every human mind has the opportunity to remain as youthful as they wish for as long as they wish. There are no more James Deans, at least we are not idolizing them. This is really new. In this type of ratonality we can all be children again.

Revolution is a childish expression, as so many intellectuals have stated in the past. I would like to think that we are all children until the day we die. Design is something that is in constant practice. Life is in constant practice. Culture changes rapidly, especially it seems in the current period. Why sell short, blow all your energy in the moment? Because it is only the moment that is left. No longer is there planning for the future. Only living in the now. Nietzsche may have had something right in how humanity then still seems to be rapped around right now. You want to live forever/ then start living

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Hollyw


Wesley Baker

46 47We know find ourselves on the outskirts of the metropolis. The San Fernando Valley. The poor part of the city that gets little to no recognition or respect from the dwellers of the city center. This too is a very childish perspective. The valley is where I grew up. It will always remain my idea of home.

It has a feeling of being cut off from the energy, on the fringe, and its hot as fuck. What amazes me most are the individuals who I still have books from that are also from the valley. They are all women. Each have in one way or another helped to shape where I currently am in my perspective pursuit of life.

With in the Valley collection is my ex-girlfriend, who I dated for a period of time while serving in the military. An old friend, who I grew up with, which seems as of late, her and I have become quite fond of each other. Lastly my mom, who I will always cher-ish through the muck and the mud of new ideas and new begin-nings. She remains constant.

OVERDUEThe San Fernando Valley

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Alexandra Nordskog

52 53Back to new modes of thinking and new ways of working. It could be that in the outskirts or in the fringe that the greatest ideas formulate. Out somewhere between here and no where. It seems fitting that Alex would leave behind a book that shows the excess of the Louis XIV. And so a revolution occurred, so must one always occur now.

We must rethink how we make things. We must rethink how we operate. Nothing in this current time is constant. All is left to be tinkered with. To be edited. Where I leave us is at the edge. That last stop before crossing over the wasteland and into oblivion.

This is the place where individuals and collectives must gather up their last bit of energy and formulate a solution. A solution is necessary, and I suppose if we keep tinkering we will simply stumped upon the answer. This has always been the way. Intu-ition will solve our dilemma.


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Nicole Dreyfuss

58 59When Intuitive thinking meets creative expression, a designer is sure to be near. This is not the workplace of the fine artist or the poet. This is the place of applied thinking and problem solving. This is where solutions are born.

By leaving and returning, by closing ones eyes and dreaming, by seeing a new path rather then by knowing a new answer. Can we simply create our way out of disaster? Maybe the disaster was all just a first world problem? Meaning that there was no problem in the first place.

Design and design thinking. Critical thinking is present upon the mass awaking of individuals. Every person wants answers, they want solutions. Does the solution exist in the abstractions of de-sign? In the simplification of life? In the pursuit of a reality less controlled and more free.


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Anne Uphoff

64 65Double check that next movement forward. Change the entire face of an ideology. We can only interpret information which we access regularly. Frequent visual processes letting in light. I don’t see a point in forcing a title onto some things. Once a name is established the once counter culture is dead. Knowing which piece to move next is another art form. Is the future always three to five moves ahead?

To be an ever changing board, metamorphosing with new hands. New games, new forms. All with out a name. The leisure revolu-tion will continue, I will continue, moving two steps forward, and one step back. Growth in this respect is inevitable. The con-cerned citizens of the earth must embody that change. We have been philosophizing from our living room couches, mesmerized by the television for far too long.

There is no middle class. There has never been a middle class. It has always been an illusion. We cut off the head of an empire and it sprouted eight more. The Hydra of a capitalist ideology. Now we seek the sword of Heracles to slay the monster to set us free.

Conclusion

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Conclusion

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Conclusion

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Los Angeles Occupy

Documents

Overdue