Post #390720 by bigbrotiki on Mon, Jun 30, 2008 4:29 PM

This post is not about TIKI apt archeology per se, but about the Art of urban, and specifically apartment archeology in LA....yet it might lead to solving an old Tiki mystery for me:

In her recently published book "The Long Embrace", writer Judith Freeman approaches making a biography about author Raymond Chandler and his wife Cissy's life by visiting every place they ever lived in in Los Angeles...and they moved over 30 times!

By doing so, she paints a wonderful portrait of LA in the 30 and 40s and its comparison to today. Chandler had used LA in his novels, both his characters and his locales were based on his own experiences with real people and real places in this city. In the age-old tradition of archaeological books :) , the book has a handy map in the end pages:

I like maps, but what I really appreciate are her musings about Los Angeles. Here she describes why LA was such a perfect place for the germination of Polynesian pop:

...and also here, about the difference between Los Angelinos and the citizens of other metropolises:

When I lived in Koreatown on Catalina Street in the 80s, I visited the same places as she did: She mentions the closure of the Ambassador Hotel pool (the last operating entity on that huge property), and her changing over to using the Sheraton Townhouse pool (both were run down Wilshire corridor hotels in my neighborhood), and in the following section she nails what is so vexing about this city, and why one has to have been traversing it and exploring it and living in it for years to make it ones own:

I share this sick glee at the confusion of the casual LA tourist, knowing that, as the Sufis say, "the secret protects itself". But then, isn't it just the shadow of a secret, a secret about the loss of a real secret?:

"...buildings that had failed their promise" (shudder) Sounds like the history of Polynesian pop to me folks. And like urban archeology in action:

...and so we mourn the modern malaise, .....but wouldn't we be out of a "job" if it all still would be there? But then there is a limit, and nowadays SO little seems to be left to write home about.

But enough of that philosophical stuff, on to MY Chandler mystery: I am not a Chandler buff, but a film buff, so I only saw the movie with Bogey and Bacall, and did not read the book. So before I have to do that, maybe someone who did can answer this question:

How the heck did a TIKI end up on the cover of the 1954 book club edition of Chandler's "The Long Goodbye"?

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2008-06-30 17:28 ]