There are just a few more weeks to catch an impossibly cool exhibition at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage. Route 66: The Road and the Romance ends January 4.

“Discover the facts and the fiction surrounding the Mother Road through more than 250 extraordinary artifacts that trace the history of the route and its impact on American popular culture.

“Connecting Chicago to Los Angeles, the 2,400-mile-long highway was a witness to history and a symbol for America on the move. Route 66: The Road and the Romance travels the iconic road from its inception in 1926 through the drama of the Great Depression to its heyday as a travel destination and the route’s eventual displacement by the Interstate Highway System. The exhibition concludes with a contemporary look at the road and the movement for its preservation.

“Route 66 presents historical artifacts from institutions and private collections across the United States, many never before displayed together. See the oldest existing Route 66 shield, an early Jackson Pollock landscape painting, a ten-foot twin visible gas pump, the handwritten page from The Grapes of Wrath manuscript that introduces the “Mother Road,” renowned Dust Bowl–era photographs, Woody Guthrie’s guitar, the original typewritten scroll of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, a classic 1960 Corvette, and countless objects adorned with the Route 66 moniker or acquired along the route.”

The best way to experience a city is on foot or bicycle and this Sunday CicLAvia, the walking/biking event, returns, closes a generous stretch of roads to cars, and opens up another part of our giant city for leisurely exploration. For the first time, the area in question is South L.A. From CicLAvia.org:

“CicLAvia makes its first journey to South L.A. on December 7. The South L.A. route will connect beautiful Leimert Park with historic Central Avenue, traveling along Martin Luther King Boulevard. Participants will be able to enjoy the sights, music, food and culture that makes South L.A. such a vibrant part of Los Angeles.” So whether you hoof it, bike it, run it, scoot it, skate it or [fill in the non-motorized blank] it, the weather is supposed to be pleasant, so enjoy it.

As the L.A. Times and KCRW recently announced, the Skirball Cultural Center has a fascinating new exhibition created with AMPAS called LIGHT & NOIR: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, 1933–1950. Combined with the related exhibitions The Noir Effect and Cafe Vienne, and LACMA’s Haunted Screens: German Cinema in the 1920’s, there has never been a better time to get a robust education in how the brain drain brought about by World War II changed Los Angeles and its signature cultural export, movies. From the Skirball:

The birth of Hollywood is a Jewish and an American story alike. It is a story of immigration and innovation, beginning with the handful of visionary émigrés who founded the American film industry in the early twentieth century. Less widely known are the stories of the German-speaking actors, directors, writers, and composers—many of them Jewish—who fled Nazi persecution in Europe and went on to shape Hollywood’s “Golden Age.” The exhibition Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, 1933–1950 pays tribute to their lives and work, revealing the profound ways that the émigré experience left a mark on American movie-making. Co-presented with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Light & Noir will be on view at the Skirball October 23, 2014–March 1, 2015.

Light & Noir offers an experience at once entertaining and illuminating. Among the many émigrés highlighted are luminary directors Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Fred Zinnemann; Oscar-winning composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Franz Waxman; and acclaimed writers Salka Viertel and Lion Feuchtwanger. Through a never-before-assembled selection of film footage, drawings, props, costumes, posters, photographs, and memorabilia, Light & Noir examines different genres in which the émigrés were especially productive: the exile film, the anti-Nazi film, film noir, and comedy. These include such classics as Ninotchka (1939), Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Casablanca (1942). On view are costumes worn by Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Marlene Dietrich, and Joan Crawford, as well as one of Billy Wilder’s Academy Awards, Ernst Lubitsch’s twenty-five year anniversary album, the Max Factor Scroll of Fame, and furniture from the set of Rick’s Café in Casablanca.

“Light & Noir reveals the brilliant legacy bequeathed by European Jewish filmmakers to Hollywood,” says Robert Kirschner, Skirball Museum Director. “It shows how exiled outsiders became Hollywood insiders, bringing a sensibility to filmmaking at once tragic and comic.”

Concurrently, the Skirball presents two related exhibitions. The Noir Effect explores how the genre of film noir gave rise to major trends in popular culture, art, and media. Visitors will be invited to examine cult neo-noir films like Chinatown (1974) and Brick (2005)—as well as graphic novels, comics, children’s books and games, art, and photography—through the lens of noir. Café Vienne, a site-specific installation by artist Isa Rosenberger, honors the recently rediscovered work of Austrian American Jewish writer Gina Kaus (1894–1985) and the cultural role of the Viennese coffee house.

The suite of exhibitions at the Skirball is complemented by Haunted Screens: German Cinema in the 1920s, organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in collaboration with La Cinémathèque française, Paris. Featuring nearly 150 drawings, as well as set stills, manuscripts, and posters, Haunted Screens investigates the visual hallmarks of German Expressionist cinema, the distinctive style of which was a major influence on film noir. Haunted Screens will be on view at LACMA September 21, 2014–April 26, 2015.

During the run of Light & Noir, The Noir Effect, and Café Vienne, the Skirball will present several related film series, lectures, courses, and a pop-up shop of merchandise influenced by film of the period.

Learn more about the exhibition and buy tickets here.

Our friends at the Los Angeles Conservancy have a neat and unique event set for this Saturday, one perfect for people interested in landscape design, progressive city planning, architecture, L.A. history and/or pleasant strolls in pretty places: a tour devoted to three beautiful and historic garden apartment properties around Los Angeles: Village Green in Baldwin Hills (built in 1941); Chase Knolls in Sherman Oaks (1948); and Lincoln Place in Venice (1951). From the L.A. Conservancy site:

Imagine living in a garden oasis in the middle of America’s second-largest city, lounging on patio furniture sets. Thousands of people do, and it’s a unique and endangered way of life in development-prone L.A. Unfortunately for those who live in this area, there is less garden space as more homes are built. However, some homes may be lucky enough to have a small garden area that a patio or some cheap composite decking could be installed on, giving homeowners a sense of how L.A. used to be. With some outdoor space like that, people can put their own furniture outdoors to enjoy the beautiful weather. If you don’t have this sort of space, here’s a chance to see what life is like in historic garden apartments, “villages in the city” that could never be built today.

If you’re wanting to try and find similar properties that are located within Los Angeles, you have many different options and areas to look at within the city, for example searching online you’re able to find experienced Manhattan Beach realtors as well as estate agents that could find you properties within the heart of the city, it all depends on the property and style of living you’re looking for when moving to LA. Whether it’s garden apartments or inner-city townhouses, there should be no shortage of potential properties that could catch your eye.

Los Angeles has one of the largest collections of garden apartments in the nation, with nearly forty built between the late 1930s and the mid-1950s. Why are these communities so special?

• They put people first, connecting people to each other and to nature
• They are forward-thinking, blending housing needs with innovative architecture, landscape design, and city planning
• They are still great places to live today!

See for yourself why these places are so special at this one-time-only tour of Village Green in Baldwin Hills (1941), Chase Knolls in Sherman Oaks (1948), and Lincoln Place in Venice (1951).

You’ll also learn about our efforts to preserve Wyvernwood in Boyle Heights (1939), L.A.’s first large-scale garden apartment community, which is threatened with demolition.

How the Tour Works

• This tour combines a one-hour opening session with docent-led tours at three garden apartment communities in Baldwin Hills, Venice, and Sherman Oaks.
• The opening session will take place at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre, centrally located between the tour sites.
• The opening session will include a brief overview of garden apartments, the premier of a short film about garden apartments, and a summary of our work to preserve them.
• You’ll drive yourself to each of the tour sites and spend 45-60 minutes at each site. Site tours will include apartment interiors. Not including check-in and the opening session, you’ll have 5.5 hours to visit the three sites.
• You can visit the three tour sites in any order you choose.
• You will be able to pick up some exclusive gardening tips and you might even learn about how the local community manages to care for their gardens thanks to lawn maintenance secrets from online resources like Lawncare.net.
• In scheduling your day, please factor in lunch and drive times between the locations.
• The site tours will end promptly at 4:30 p.m.
• After you buy your tickets, you’ll receive an email confirmation with more details.

Event Timeline (subject to change)

9-10am – Check-in

Check-in at Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 4401 8th Street, Los Angeles, 90005

10-11am – Opening Session

Welcome and Preservation Successes
Linda Dishman, Executive Director, Los Angeles Conservancy

Short film about garden apartments, in collaboration with filmmaker Maya Santos from Form Follows Function Media Studio

Overview: Garden Apartments in Los Angeles
Katie E. Horak, Senior Associate/Architectural Historian, Architectural Resources Group and Steven R. Keylon, Landscape Historian

Overview: Preservation Efforts at Wyvernwood
Adrian Scott Fine, Director of Advocacy, Los Angeles Conservancy
Leonardo Lopez, Wyvernwood resident and member of El Comité de la Esperanza
Jose A. Fernandez, Community Plan Organizer, East Los Angeles Community Corporation

11:30am-4:30pm – Tours

Docent-led tours of The Village Green, Lincoln Place, and Chase Knolls (drive yourself to the sites in any order; tour sites will not open before 11:30am)

Actor-writer-comedian Bob Odenkirk has published a new collection of short comic pieces called A LOAD OF HOOEY and this Tuesday he’ll be at Largo for a book release show. The ticket price includes a copy of said book! From Largo’s post about what should be a very entertaining evening: “Bob Odenkirk started by writing sketches for his junior high school classes. Inspired by Monty Python, Bob and Ray, and The Credibility Gap, he went on to work in Chicago’s sketch comedy scene. Professionally he has written for the TV shows “Saturday Night Live” (where he famously wrote “The Motivational Speaker” sketch, and “The Ben Stiller Show” (where he wrote the infamous “Manson Lassie” sketch), and then Bob went and created (and starred in) “Mr. Show with Bob and David”, which has been called “the American Monty Python,” He’s also had a creative hand in creating “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” and “The Birthday Boys” sketch show on IFC. Since “Mr. Show” finished production he has written, acted in, and directed many films and TV pilots.

“As an actor, Bob has had memorable roles as the agent Stevie Grant on “The Larry Sanders Show,” shady lawyer Saul Goodman “Breaking Bad,” and in director Alexander Payne’s Oscar-nominated film “Nebraska.”

“Through it all, Bob has written comedy scripts and short essays. Some of these have appeared in The New Yorker, VICE magazine, and FILTER magazine, among other publications. A LOAD OF HOOEY is a collection of these short pieces, and Bob considers it the ‘best thing’ he’s ‘ever done.’”