We had a fascinating weekend, especially if you start counting the weekend on Friday afternoon, when we participated in a fact-finding hearing with the city’s rent stabilization board and our old landlords, which was truly riveting and involved some crazy revelations.

On Saturday morning, we headed to USC for an L.A. Conservancy tour of the campus, which I’m glad we did, as it seems they might be discontinuing the tour for various reasons. The weather was a little dreary, but we saw lots of interesting buildings, learned about the history of the school, and even managed to catch two of the things they’re best known for: their band (which marched by as we were starting out) and film crews shooting on campus (or in our case, a commercial, involving collegiate drummers, which was going on all day)



More photos of the campus tour here.

After the tour was over, we headed up to the Velaslavasay Panorama, one of the more strange and wondrous things we’ve come across in our time in L.A. If “strange and wondrous” sounds like how one might describe The Museum of Jurassic Technology as well, there’s a connection: I found out about the panorama from a business card I picked up the last time we went to the Museum. It’s located in what seems to be the old projection booth area of a theater, the Union, just a few blocks north of USC. It was a fascinating and strange 360? panorama called “Effulgence of the North,” made up of a painted backdrop, three-dimensional icebergs, and a light and sound collage that cycled every 35 minutes.



It seemed pitch black when we got up to the top of the spiral stairs that opened into the panorama, but our eyes eventually adjusted and we sat listening to the sound of creaking ice, dripping water, and possibly whales for a good half an hour. The whole thing was really strange and wonderful, and the nicely letterpressed membership forms and complimentary calendar fit in perfectly.





More photos of the panorama here.