This project, like its name sake, is impossible to grasp.  I am impressed by the sheer scope of it (wanting to photograph all of LA); but I am at a loss to know what to do with it right now in this early stage.  This multimedia web site is a database of photos by Robert Flick and “historical commentary” by Philip Ethington all organized online by Tomo Isoyama.  The focus is, of course, Los Angeles; in particular Pico Blvd and Central Ave.  This very fascinating venture’s use is hard to conceive in this nascent stage.  Right now it seems to be a good source of two things.  First, this site is a wonderful source for pictures of Los Angeles.  Second, this site can be used a way of investigating ethnicity in Los Angeles along Pico and Central.  However, as the project grows it could and will expand into unknown territory.

            As far as the presentation went I was only impressed with Tomo.  Tomo Isoyama’s work and presentation I liked.  I like pop and folk art and his pieces were very intriguing.  Flick was a flop as far as I was concerned.  At the beginning anyway, I thought he was a boring presenter that had little to offer.  However, I thought that during the question and answer period Flick really shined and we really got a glimpse of what he was trying to convey.  Ethington was okay, but it wasn’t ground shaking.  I enjoyed his presentation, in part I guess because of it being history and me being a historian.  He too was good in the question and answer time as well.      

Being a historian Professor Gonzales-Day didn’t exactly shock me with what he had to say in his lecture about lynching.  I have studied lynching and was saddened to find out that it has been around in North America since the whites began settling.  There is an even more disturbing aspect that goes with this; it still happens.  Not with the frequency of the past but it still emerges in isolated cases in America.  Lynching’s heyday was from the 1870s through the 1940s, but it was around before this time frame and afterwards as well.  The South West was very fertile soil for this activity.

            I have to agree with several of my other colleagues and say that I was very disappointed with his presentation; it didn’t come off as well polished at all.  First of all he knew he was talking for a LA lecture series and he mentioned the LA area a few times, and very rarely in more detail than an off handed comment.  He did bring up one case in particular and talked about it, but with him continually mentioning how many lynchings took place here you would think that his lecture could have reflected that.  The thing that bothered me the most was how he didn’t talk about the significance of lynching and how this kind of activity shaped the American mind and society.  This activity left many marks and scars on the American minds of all the races here to witness/experience this activity.

On the positive side, he has done very good job of compiling a great deal of important information to be studied and thought about.  He has greatly contributed to a very arduous, painful and sensitive topic by finding and organizing this data.

With our first two lectures in this series I think that we have definitely gotten a feel for the “mob.”  With Wanda and Ken you can kind of get a feeling for what it has been like for non-whites and poor or “below-average” whites out west.  The LA experience is not all Sunshine and milk and honey.

The title of her "lecture" Lanscape of Soul was spot on, with her readings you saw the birth, struggle and blossoming of her soul.  Her poems and essays swept you away and made you feel and see things from her perspective.  It was remarkable how intimate this reading was.  By the end, you felt you knew her on a personal level.  This was definitley not your typical "lecture."  You came away with the feeling that not only did you learn something about her and LA but you experienced them as well.  You learned about and experienced the a real LA.  You got to visualize the gritty, natural, sexual, violent, hairy, menial, extraodinary, and transcendent aspects of Los Angeles.