Category: Kim Cooper

1947project seeks historic crime blogger

3/28/2007: The deadline below has passed, but we’re still open to considering suitable additions to the 1947project team. If interested in being part of the site, please feel free to go through the steps below and send the answers our way.

1947project, a Los Angeles based time travel blog dedicated to unearthing forgotten crime stories and peculiar happenings from the city’s past, is seeking between one and three extraordinary contributors to research and write a blog entry once or twice weekly for one year.

On March 23, following the previous night’s 1907 Centennial Celebration party in downtown LA, 1947project will announce the secret year to next be blogged on the site. The selected new contributors will get a sneak peak at the year in question, to give them a little time to bone up on the period.

Potential contributors should be witty, concise writers and skilled researchers, with a passion for Los Angeles history and an interest in true crime. We also welcome contributors who can write knowledgably on such subjects as architecture, city planning, entertainment, transportation, business, fringe religion and other topics that have been featured in past 1947project blog entries.

To get an idea of what we do, please visit:
www.1947project.com (current site, blogging the year 1907)
1947project.blogspot.com (archive site, blogging the year 1947, with visits to the scenes)

There is no pay, but the successful applicant will have the opportunity to plug their other work in a URL at the bottom of their entries, be mentioned in press releases, and have a central spot on a website that has become a must-read for fans of L.A.’s offbeat past and has been widely covered by the local print, radio and television media.

To apply for a spot on 1947project, please do the following by March 20:

1) ensure that you can access the ProQuest archives of the historical Los Angeles Times, either through the LA Public Library website (you will need a library card), by using the LAPL in-library computers, or from another source. You can call your local public or university librarian for help. Note that ProQuest access is essential for this project.

2) pasted into the body an email (no attachments), please submit the following application materials:
a) a writing sample of 300-700 words, in which you take the basic facts of Thelma Todd’s suspicious 1935 death (Google it) and turn it into a 1947project-style blog entry. Imagine you are telling the story to a neighbor who hasn’t yet heard what’s happened, writing it up in a letter home, or submitting a story to a scandal magazine—whatever tone feels right to you. Feel free to use snappy period slang, make allegations about possibly guilty parties, and place the crime and its victim in context.
b) your resume
c) an explanation of why you are interested in being a 1947project blogger and what you feel you will bring to the project.
d) how often can you contribute, one or two posts a week?

We look forward to hearing from you!

Kim Cooper, editrix
1947project

Blood & Dumplings Crime Bus Tour (March 17, 1pm-6pm)

If there’s one thing we at 1947project love even more than uncovering
evidence of an incredibly weird forgotten crime, it’s Chinese
food–especially dumplings! Whether fried or boiled, stuffed with
shrimp, pork, pumpkin, fish, scallions or sometimes a little dollop of
soup, nothing is more comforting and delicious.

With Blood & Dumplings, we’re combining our favorite things to bring
you the first new Crime Bus tour of 2007, a a grim and gleeful descent
into the criminal history of the San Gabriel Valley, including the battling Nazis of El Monte, the chilling (and probably incestuous) Case of the Buried Bride, missing Salvador Dali paintings, the dark history of the Lions Club’s lion meat BBQs held in eye- and nose-range of hundreds of the lovely beasts, the Man from Mars Bandit (his mystery revealed!), plus Phil Spector, neglected Manson victim Steve Parent, Geneva Ellroy and a peculiar East L.A. link to the JFK assassination, concealed Black Panthers and the coolest trailer parks in the Southland.

Included in the $55 ticket price is a special stop for Chinese comfort food at one of the best dumpling joints in Monterey Park  and an afternoon picnic surrounded by real sea monsters.

Click here to buy your ticket by paypal, or email to reserve a seat that you will purchase with a money order or check.

We hope to see YOU on the Crime Bus!

your hosts,
Kim Cooper & Richard Schave

1907 Centennial Celebration Line Up

The proposals for the 1907 Centennial Celebration are in, and what wonderful performances they’ll be! We are so very pleased to host some of our favorite folks in a night dedicated to remembering the Los Angeles of one hundred years past.

When you join us at Bedlam on Thursday night, March 22, this is what you’ll being thrilling to, in order of appearance:

The invocation of Zuckerman the Potato King (Kim Cooper and Kelly Kuvo)
The strange tale of  A. Victor Segno, Mentalist with Beautiful Hair (Larry Harnisch)
A description of life in 1907 L.A. (George Garrigues)
The song stylings of Miss Figueroa Daguerre
Witty period readings from George Ade’s "Fables In Slang" (Brooke Alberts)
J. Stuart Blackton’s comic short film "The Starving Artist, or: Realism in Art" (American Vitagraph Company, 1907, live accompaniment by Laura Steenberge, presented by Ross Lipman)
Fortunes told in Madame Pamita‘s Parlor of Wonders
And the lovely Miss Janet Klein accompanied by Tom Marion revealing the next secret year to be blogged at 1947project, in song and patter.
 
The fun starts at 9pm sharp, and we anticipate about one hour for the show, with a potluck party to follow. Please bring an old fashioned recipe to share, dress in period duds if you’ve got ’em, and join us as we bid a centennial adieu to this great and endlessly surprising year of 1907 and welcome in the next year which we’re certain will prove every bit as worthy of obsession. Will it be 1967? 1887? Shhhh… you just have to come to Bedlam to find out!

Where: Bedlam Arts, 1275 E. Sixth Street, downtown L.A. 90021
When: Thursday, March 22, show starts at 9pm sharp
Cost: Free, but it would be neat if you brought an old timey potluck dish to share (recipe links are here)

See you then!
Kim & the 1947project gang 

Celebrate 1907’s Centennial in March

Reminder, you have until February 5 to submit your proposals for the 1907 Centennial celebration. We’ve already received some fascinating submissions–including one for the first public appearance in more than a decade of a legendary L.A. postpunk band, presenting a live score to a Melies Brothers short — and would love to have you be a part of it. So send over your ideas, half-baked or cooked straight through, and join us on March 22 at Bedlam.

1907 Centennial – open call for performers

For the past year, the bloggers at 1947project.com have been immersed in the weird old L.A. of 1907, a city of open sewers and Mexican revolutionaries, 15mph hot rodders and prankster firemen, holy rollers and hollow earthers. As the calendar strikes March and the conclusion of twelve months of 1907 research, we’re hosting a special centennial celebration, and we’d like YOU to be a part of it.

Writers, musicians, actors, artists, comics, storytellers, vaudevillians, curators, filmmakers, historians, poets and others are invited to propose a 3-10 minute presentation on a theme inspired by 1907-era Los Angeles (or the wider world). Your piece can be original or an adaptation of something you’ve read on 1947project.com or elsewhere. All media are welcome (we can provide amplification and video projection). The only requirements are that it be entertaining and respectful to any crime victims involved.

Prospective presenters should provide the following:
1) A one paragraph creative bio, 200 words or less, suitable for publication
2) A description of what you propose to do at the 1907 Centennial event, noting any source material that you have been inspired by
3) Length of proposed performance
4) Contact info
5) Your website or other helpful links

Event curators Kim Cooper, Larry Harnisch, Lucinda Michele Knapp and Nathan Marsak will be collecting proposals through February 5 and announcing the line up shortly afterwards. The ’07 celebration will be held on Thursday, March 22 at Bedlam Art downtown, and will culminate in the festive revelation by a very special musical guest of which historic year will next get the archival treatment from 1947project. The event will be free, with refreshments and libations on hand. Vintage recipes will be provided for those who enjoy cooking to contribute pot luck offerings to share.

Need more info to stoke the fires of your creativity? Visit www.1947project.com/1907 for some helpful historic resources.

Please submit your proposal for The 1907 Centennial by February 5 to Kim by email or mail to PO Box 31227, Los Angeles CA 90031.

We Saved the 76 Ball!

The following is a message from the future, 2007 to be precise.

Y’know that little oil company Unocal out Santa Paula way? Welp, round about 1962 they’re going to send an ad executive up to the World’s Fair in Seattle (of all godforsaken backwaters) and he’ll create a sign that the whole world will fall in love with. He’ll call it the 76 Ball, and that’s all it is, a big orange ball with "76" across its belly, but not for 1776, but for some nutty thing to do with octanes.

Anyhoo, the 76 Ball will be a sweet old thing and everyone will love it, especially little kids, and folks’ll even wear little ones on their cars as decoration. Come 2003 and a big Texas company called ConocoPhillips is gonna eat up the little Californnia company and start knocking those friendly balls off their poles and replacing them with red Texas belt buckles. That’s when your time traveling pals at 1947project get involved, with a website and a petition. And would you believe, those Texans listen?

We pretty much just saved the 76 Ball — for museum collections and in a new, red and blue interpretation, and we’re feeling pretty good about it.

This concludes your message from the future. We now return you to your previously scheduled Lemon Fiend.

yrs, Kim
(and Nathan)
(and the rest of the 76 Ball geeks)

Lost Weekend Last Evening in Pictures

And so after nearly a week of extraordinary events, last night’s cocktail party, screening, gallery tour and crime scene tour spelled the end of the Lost Weekend. We were very fortunate to have photographer Meeno Peluce and his assistant Adam on hand to document the glamorous celebrants and festivities at the Biltmore, Laemmle Grand, Regent Galleries and aboard the Crime Bus.

Many thanks to all who turned out to be a part of these happenings, to remember Elizabeth Short and reflect upon why her story continues to resonate so strongly and so widely.  

Below you will find a smattering of images from Meeno’s January 16th gallery, with many more to be seen here. Bye-bye, Dahlia, until next year…

huckster

eleganza

flanking gents

beaming

cheers

shame

 

Kim and Nathan on the radio Friday, candlelit vigil Thursday night

Early risers can hear 1947project’s Kim Cooper and Nathan Marsak talking about the 60th anniversary of the Black Dahlia case on Joe Escalante’s show around 7am Friday on Indie 103.1-FM. That’s on your radio dial in old Los Angeles, or on the interwebs at https://www.indie1031.fm/

And don’t forget, tonight at 9pm, we lead a candlelit vigil in memory of Elizabeth Short. It begins at the Regent Galleries at 446-450 S. Main, where the "Her Name Was Elizabeth" exhibition is opening, continuing on to the Biltmore Hotel. Along the way we’ll provide information about the crime and its connection with the downtown L.A. neighborhood, sort of a mini, walking Crime Bus tour as a preview to the Real Black Dahlia tours this weekend and Tuesday. Seats are still available for all three tours, so please click over/
to reserve if interested.

Lost Weekend – Full Schedule

Simplified Schedule….Printable…Don’t Miss A Minute!

Thurs. Jan. 11, 2pm, "Her Name Was Elizabeth" art exhibition opens at 446-450 S. Main Street. Crime Bus and VIP tickets available in gallery.
6pm-9pm, Opening art reception at 446-450 S. Main Street.
9pm, candlelight vigil to the Biltmore hosted by Kim and Nathan of 1947project departs 446-450 S. Main Street.
10:30pm-midnight, free (donations gladly accepted) screening of Ramzi Abed’s "Black Dahlia Movie" at 446-450 S. Main Street.

Fri, Jan. 12, 7am, Kim and Nathan of 1947project are interviewed on Joe Escalante’s show on Indie 103.1-FM.
6-9pm, "Have You Seen this Girl?" – a woman dressed as the Black Dahlia will glide eerily along Hollywood Boulevard between Argyle and Cherokee, the old stomping grounds of Elizabeth Short. Perhaps she will be found in the Frolic Room or Pig and Whistle, or just cruising the boulevard. This spectral figure carries a basket of flowers, and will give one to anyone who calls her by her true name, Elizabeth. One of these lucky flowers is valid as one free ticket on the Sunday morning January 14 Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour, or for half off one seat on the VIP midnight tour and film premiere on Tuesday January 16.

Sat. Jan. 13, 11am-4pm, Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour, click to buy.
7pm, John Gilmore author of "Severed" will read from his book and offer a Q&A about his experiences and investigation of The Black Dahlia Murder at 446-450 S. Main Street.
10pm, $5 screening of "Black Dahlia Movie" (popcorn and soda included in the price of admission) at 446-450 S. Main Street. Sunday Crime Bus and VIP tickets available in gallery.

Sun. Jan. 14, 11am-4pm, Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour, click to buy.
Noon, gallery is open at 446-450 S. Main Street and VIP tickets are available.
6pm, screening of "Black Dahlia Movie" at 446-450 S. Main Street.

Mon. Jan. 15, 9pm, "Requiem For A Dahlia" live music from "Black Dahlia Movie" featuring David J, Ego Plum, Dame Darcy and Death By Doll, Bella Beretta, Courtney Cruz, Eliza Bane, The Great Merlini, Scarlett Letter, Lulu Lunaris, Vixen Magdalene and more, doors open at 9pm, show starts at 10pm.

Tues. Jan. 16, 6pm, Cocktails at the Biltmore Hotel, 5th/Olive
VIPs enjoy their first cocktail on US! For more info or to purchase VIP tickets, click here.
8pm, black carpet processional at Laemmle Grand 4-Plex, 345 S. Figueroa St. World premiere of "Black Dahlia Movie" begins 8:30pm. VIPs enjoy priority seating among luminaries.
10:30pm, Once in a lifetime 60th Anniversary Midnight Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour begins after the screening, with stars and creators of "Black Dahlia Movie"! Tickets for just the late evening events, starting with the bus tour, are $100, available by clicking here before Tuesday at 5pm, or just bring cash or check to 345 S. Figueroa at 10:30pm, and if there are seats left you may buy one.

Find The Dahlia, Win A Crime Bus Ticket

The 60th Anniversary Lost Weekend of the Black Dahlia is nearly upon us, and we have two new events to announce.

On Friday, January 12, from 6-9pm, a woman dressed as the Black Dahlia will glide eerily along Hollywood Boulevard between Argyle and Cherokee, the old stomping grounds of Elizabeth Short. Perhaps she will be found in the Frolic Room or Pig and Whistle, or just cruising the boulevard. This spectral figure carries a basket of flowers, and will give one to anyone who calls her by her true name, Elizabeth. One of these lucky flowers is valid as one free ticket on the Sunday morning January 14 Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour, or for half off one seat on the VIP midnight tour and film premiere on Tuesday January 16.

And on Thursday, January 11 at 9pm, a candlelit vigil will leave Regent Galleries, 446-450 South Main Street downtown, site of the Black Dahlia-inspired art exhibition "Her Name Was Elizabeth." Those wishing to show their respect for Elizabeth Short and other souls lost to violence will walk from Main Street to the Biltmore Hotel, the last place she was seen alive, then continue south for a few blocks along the route that police believe she took before being abducted. The vigil will be led by Kim Cooper and Nathan Marsak, hosts of 1947project’s Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour, and true facts and myths of the case will be shared along the way. The group
will then return to Regent Galleries for a 10:30pm screening of Ramzi Abed’s "Black Dahlia Movie."

The Lost Weekend is six days of art exhibitions, readings, film screenings, live cabaret and Crime Bus tours celebrating the life, myth and legend of Elizabeth Short, The Black Dahlia. For a full schedule, visit https://myspace.com/thelostweekendlosangeles

We have some openings on the Saturday 1/13 Real Black Dahlia tour. To reserve your seat on Saturday, Sunday 1/14 or the Tuesday 1/16 VIP night, please visit https://www.dumplinglab.com/crimebus