Lifestyle
A Bastion of Los Angeles Hippie Culture Survived the Flames
In Topanga Canyon on Saturday morning, suspended midair from an electricity line, hung the smoldering top of a utility pole. The pole itself had burned away. Its remaining crosspieces resembled a crucifix on fire. By the time Bob Melet videotaped this eerie scene, firefighters had managed to halt the advance of flaring patches that elsewhere had been whipped into infernos.
Barely 100 yards from the front door of Mr. Melet’s store, Melet Mercantile — a destination for fashion and interior designers who for decades have tracked Mr. Melet’s idiosyncratic tastes — lay the fire line at Camp Wildwood, a disused summer camp established in the 1920s and later turned into a resort and community center by two locals, Julia and Oka Stewart. To its west and along the Pacific Coast Highway, almost everything was torched.
“The canyon is a funnel that comes right past my doorstep,” Mr. Melet said by phone from a friend’s apartment in Corona del Mar, his evacuation point. “If it had reached me, it would have wiped out the entire town.”
The fact that it had not represented the miraculous survival of an ecosystem as fragile and anomalous as it is naturally untamed. An eccentric holdout of a countercultural ethos that once went a long way toward defining the Southern California lifestyle, Topanga lies at the western limit of an extensive system of canyons resembling a series of Cyclopean knife cuts slashed into the Santa Monica mountains.
Others among the 28 canyons — Laurel, Beachwood, Runyon — may be better known beyond the Los Angeles basin, largely for their place in rock ’n’ roll history and lore. While gradually over the decades those places succumbed to the irresistible forces of gentrification, Topanga Canyon has clung to its wildness, its renegade spirit and the durable aura it retains of a one-time redoubt of bootleggers and drug runners. Bisected by a single winding mountain road, Topanga straddles the mountains and links the sprawling suburbs of the San Fernando Valley with the blue vastness of the ocean.
“One of the things we’re proudest of in Topanga is the strength of the community,” said Stefan Ashkenazy, a long time resident of the canyon. By some standards, Mr. Ashkenazy’s exclusive hotel complex, Elsewhere — built on 39 hilltop acres of what was once a vacation ranch for the Howard Johnson family — could be seen as a harbinger of gentrifying forces. That it is not owes to his efforts to keep the hotel’s vibe communitarian and local (he has offered free lodging to the area’s ad hoc firefighting teams that call themselves Heat Hawks), and its imprint light upon the land.
“Believe me, I know how lucky we are to have this holdout,” said Mr. Ashkenazy, who also owns the four-star Petit Ermitage hotel in West Hollywood.
For Emmeline Summerton, a self-taught social historian whose Instagram account, Lost Canyons LA, has become an addictive source of Los Angeles history and lore, the story of Topanga Canyon is one of improbable survival — a thoroughly wild place less than an hour’s drive from the city’s business center.
“I’m not sure how much people outside Los Angeles know about it,” she said, referring both to the canyon itself — populated by coyotes, rattlesnakes, and mountain lions — as well as a community that has long worn its ornery countercultural reputation as a badge of pride.
“There is the local, small community and a very rural feeling,” Ms. Summerton said, one still largely under the influence of the first wave of New Age pioneers. There were free-love naturist hide-outs like Elysium Fields and Sandstone Retreat, she explained, along with Moonfire Ranch, a 60-acre sanctuary established in the late 1950s by Lewis Beach Marvin III, an animal-rights activist and heir to S & H Green Stamps, a once popular grocery store reward system.
“It was very much about people living off the grid, with solar and rainwater collection,” Ms. Summerton said, and about a tolerance for oddballs and eccentrics that hung on long after a succession of real estate booms permanently altered the character of other, less remote canyons. “A lot has changed and there’s a new breed of hippie-type people out there, influencers and wellness entrepreneurs, so, yes, it’s more exclusive and expensive than in the past,” she added. “But it’s still the one canyon where you get a sense of what it has always been.”
By this she meant a refuge for renegades and outsiders, for artists like Neil Young, who wrote his landmark solo album “After the Gold Rush” at his house there; for storied ’60s groups like Canned Heat, whose members once worked as the house band at the Topanga Corral club (which burned down not once but twice); for Linda Ronstadt in the days after she quit Stone Poneys, the folk rock trio, to go solo and make music with musicians who would later form the Eagles; for the American actor Will Geer to create an open air amphitheater set in a hillside and call it the Theatricum Botanicum, a name derived from a 17th century English botanical text.
To this day in Topanga Canyon there remains an itinerant community informally known as the “Creekers,” whose members live off the grid in encampments set along creeks in the hills behind the disused Topanga Ranch Motel; residents who ride horses to do their marketing at the Topanga Creek General Store; and naturists hiking canyon roads clad in little besides sun hats and sneakers.
This, of course, was before the wildfires.
Gone on the first day of the Palisades fire was the Reel Inn, a beloved Malibu fish joint opened in 1986 by Teddy and Andy Leonard at the base of Topanga Canyon. Also gone was Cholada, a bustling Thai restaurant whose takeout was both a staple of coastal dining and the source of catered meals for the art world honchos that regularly decamp to Los Angeles for the annual Frieze art fair. Gone, too, were the Topanga Ranch Motel, a bungalow style motel complex built in 1929 by William Randolph Hearst to house railroad workers, and the Malibu Feed Bin, a holdout from an era when this stretch of the California coast was still largely agrarian.
Entire hillsides and washes were reduced to ashes and, later that same afternoon so, too, was an entire stretch of multimillion dollar homes improbably perched oceanside where the canyons meet the water along Pacific Coast Highway.
“If you’re ever going to use the word surreal,” Mr. Melet said of the devastation, “it was surreal.”
What seemed almost miraculous, given the surrounding destruction, was that the fires failed to reach the Theatricum Botanicum, and left unscathed the Inn of the Seventh Ray, whose dining tables are set on stone terraces by a creek side and whose gift shop is filled with crystals and mystical arcana.
“So far Topanga has mainly been spared,” the actress Wendie Malick said by phone from her ranch set on a ridge above Topanga.
“The winds were in our favor,” she added. “Though we’re not out of the woods yet. Things can change on a dime.”
And, indeed, the cyclonic winds — biblical, raging, like nothing in memory — started up again on Monday.
“The fires didn’t get to us last week,” said Nick Fouquet, a French American designer whose Western-style hats are favored by celebrities including Tom Brady, Rihanna, J. Balvin and LeBron James. When the first alert came last week, Mr. Fouquet raced up the coast from his business’s headquarters in Venice to the geodesic dome in Topanga that he calls home and, aided by a band of locals pumped out his swimming pool to soak his house and its surroundings.
It was a scene being repeated throughout the canyon, Mr. Fouquet said, neighbors on a mission of “house triage,’’ putting out small burns before they could grow. Videos Mr. Fouquet sent this reporter from the early days of the fire showed crimson flames crowning a ridge less than a quarter-mile from his property line. “The wind, the firefighters, a myriad of factors have been on our side,” said Mr. Fouquet.
Among those factors were the triage efforts of a tight knit community that stayed put despite evacuation orders and that banded together — as it has consistently across the decades when the canyon was visited by the wildfires, earthquakes, mudslides and rockfalls that are a fact of life in a seismically unstable coastal desert perched at a continent’s edge.
“Topanga always felt like the ugly stepchild no one cares about,” Mr. Fouquet said, while acknowledging the role in his current reprieve of both firefighters and fate. “We’re used to doing things for ourselves.”
Mara is a single mother of two in Minnesota. She and her family have depended on SNAP benefits to make ends meet.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
Although Mara is unemployed, she is busier than ever.
When she is not taking care of her two children, Mara is at her desk applying for jobs. She is surveying her belongings to see what she can pawn off to buy toiletries. Or she is sifting through bills, calculating which ones can wait and which need to be paid right away.
Soon, Mara, a single mom in Minnesota, may have another task on her busy schedule: figuring out how to afford food for her and her family.
That’s because of new work requirements for people receiving aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.
“It would be so beyond hard” to lose SNAP benefits, Mara said. “Without SNAP, there’s no funds for food.” Mara asked for her last name to be withheld given the stigma tied to receiving government assistance. She is also worried that speaking publicly will affect her chances of getting a job.
Previously, SNAP recipients with children under 18 were exempt from work requirements mandating that recipients work, volunteer or participate in job training at least 80 hours a month. But now, under President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that exemption only applies to those with children under 14 — which is how old Mara’s youngest child turned in December.
“It would be so beyond hard” to lose SNAP benefits, Mara said.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
The Trump administration has argued that the mission of the nation’s largest anti-hunger program has failed.
“SNAP was intended to be temporary help for those who encounter tough times. Now, it’s become so bloated that it is leaving fewer resources for those who truly need help,” the White House said in a statement in June.
But policy experts say the SNAP changes do not fully take into account the unique challenges faced by single parents like Mara or the sluggish job market in many parts of the country. They argue that losing food assistance will only create more barriers for recipients struggling to find work.
The timeline for implementing the new SNAP policy varies based on state and county. In Mara’s home state of Minnesota, recipients who don’t qualify for an exemption or meet work requirements will be at risk of losing assistance as early as April 1. Others may have more months depending on when they next need to certify they are eligible for benefits.
Over 100 job applications
Mara imagined she would have a job by now.
It was August when she was let go from her part-time administrative assistant role due to her workplace restructuring. Since then, Mara estimates that she has applied for over 100 positions. She has also attended job fairs and taken free workshops on resume writing.
She has been working since high school, she said, but “ I’ve never been out of work for more than one month, so it’s very difficult.”
Mara spends time working at the computer at CareerForce, a resource for job seekers in Minnesota, on March 4.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
Although she misses her old job, Mara said it didn’t pay enough to support her and her kids, so she relied on SNAP benefits.
Many recipients are part of the low-wage labor market, where job security is often unpredictable and turnover tends to be high, according to Lauren Bauer, a researcher at the Brookings Institution who has studied SNAP extensively.
“SNAP is supposed to be there to help people smooth that and not let the bottom fall out when they experience job loss,” she said. “And this policy doesn’t account for that at all.”
Mara’s lowest point came in November when the government shutdown led to disruptions in SNAP benefits. Not only was she searching for a new job, but she was constantly figuring out where to get her family’s next meal.
“I might be looking for food stuff during the day when I should have been looking for a job,” she said. “Then, I’m trying to make up that time in the evening after my kids go to bed.”
During the pause, Mara turned to food banks, which revealed other challenges. First, food pantries do not always provide enough for an adult and two growing teenagers, she said. Second, they often lack gluten-free foods, which is essential for her daughter who has celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes digestive problems if gluten is consumed. Gluten-free products tend to be more expensive.
If Mara loses access to SNAP again because of the new work requirements, she fears another stretch of long days spent looking for the right food and enough to feed her family.
“I would be so reliant on looking for food shelves or food banks,” she said. “There would not be time to even live.”
“We’re going to see increases in poverty. We’re going to see increases in food insecurity”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that roughly 2.4 million people will lose food benefits in a typical month over the next decade as a result of the new SNAP requirements — including 300,000 parents like Mara with children 14 or older.
Gina Plata-Nino, the SNAP director at the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center, says many of the affected recipients will be single mothers who make up a majority of single parent households in the U.S. She added that the changes target a group that often lacks or struggles to afford a support system to help care for their children.
“How can they have a full-time job when they need to pick up their children [for] various activities?” she said. “And they are working — just not enough hours because they need to be there present for their children.”
Mara shops for groceries at a local discount grocery store.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
The new law also imposes work requirements on veterans, homeless people, young adults aging out of foster care, and able-bodied adults without dependents from ages 55 to 64.
It also toughened the criteria for waiving work requirements for recipients in areas with high unemployment. Previously, there were multiple ways to determine a weak labor market and secure a waiver. Now, it only applies to places with an unemployment rate above 10%. (Alaska and Hawaii have a different measure.)
For those who fail to meet the work requirement, SNAP provides assistance for up to three months within a three-year span. But Bauer from the Brookings Institution argues that it is not enough and the impact of SNAP changes will be widespread.
“We’re going to see increases in poverty. We’re going to see increases in food insecurity. We’re going to see increasing strain on the charitable food sector,” she said.
Mara holds her favorite anchor ring, which carries the inscription, “God for me provide thee.”
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
As anxiety hangs over her head, Mara tries to put on a brave face for her children. She does not want them to worry, explaining that her recent struggles have reminded her how tough life can get as an adult.
“I remind them it’s not their responsibility and they’re not accountable for me or for what’s happening,” she said. “I say, just know you get to be a kid.”
Dylan Dreyer
Savannah Will Likely Come Back … Just Not Sure When
Published
TMZ.com
Dylan Dreyer is giving a small update on her embattled “Today” co-host, Savannah Guthrie, as the search continues for Savannah’s mom, Nancy — telling TMZ she does believe she’ll likely return to the show at some point.
We caught Dylan leaving NBC Tuesday afternoon, and she said while she thinks Savannah will come back, the timing is totally unclear — adding everyone at the show is simply giving her the space she needs because they care about her so much.
TMZ.com
Dylan also reflected on Savannah’s emotional visit to the “TODAY” studio last Thursday, saying the hug they shared was something they both really needed in that moment.
Catch the full clip — Dylan says the visit was incredibly emotional, adding Savannah clearly wants to get back to some sense of normal life … she just doesn’t quite know how yet.
Still, Savannah managed a few smiles during the brief stop by the studio, doing her best to keep moving forward during an incredibly tough time.
TMZ.com
As we reported, Nancy was taken from her Tucson home in the middle of the night on February 1. She was last seen entering the house just before 10 PM on January 31 after dinner with her daughter Annie and Annie’s husband, Tommaso Cioni.
Kevin Kline plays actor Richard Bean, and Laura Linney is his sister-in-law Kristen, in American Classic.
David Giesbrecht/MGM+
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David Giesbrecht/MGM+
American Classic is a hidden gem, in more ways than one. It’s hidden because it’s on MGM+, a stand-alone streaming service that, let’s face it, most people don’t have. But MGM+ is available without subscription for a seven-day free trial, on its website or through Prime Video and Roku. And you should find and watch American Classic, because it’s an absolutely charming and wonderful TV jewel.
Charming, in the way it brings small towns and ordinary people to life, as in Northern Exposure. Wonderful, in the way it reflects the joys of local theater productions, as in Slings & Arrows, and the American Playhouse production of Kurt Vonnegut’s Who Am I This Time?
The creators of American Classic are Michael Hoffman and Bob Martin. Martin co-wrote and co-created Slings & Arrows, so that comparison comes easily. And back in the early 1980s, Who Am I This Time? was about people who transformed onstage from ordinary citizens into extraordinary performers. It’s a conceit that works only if you have brilliant actors to bring it to life convincingly. That American Playhouse production had two young actors — Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon — so yes, it worked. And American Classic, with its mix of veteran and young actors, does, too.
American Classic begins with Kevin Kline, as Shakespearean actor Richard Bean, confronting a New York Times drama critic about his negative opening-night review of Richard’s King Lear. The next day, Richard’s agent, played by Tony Shalhoub, calls Richard in to tell him his tantrum was captured by cellphone and went viral, and that he has to lay low for a while.
Richard returns home to the small town of Millersburg, Pa., where his parents ran a local theater. Almost everyone we meet is a treasure. His father, who has bouts of dementia, is played by Len Cariou, who starred on Broadway in Sweeney Todd. Richard’s brother, Jon, is played by Jon Tenney of The Closer, and his wife, Kristen, is played by the great Laura Linney, from Ozark and John Adams.
Things get even more complicated because the old theater is now a dinner theater, filling its schedule with performances by touring regional companies. Its survival is at risk, so Richard decides to save the theater by mounting a new production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, casting the local small-town residents to play … local small-town residents.
Miranda, Richard’s college-bound niece, continues the family theatrical tradition — and Nell Verlaque, the young actress who plays her, has a breakout role here. She’s terrific — funny, touching, totally natural. And when she takes the stage as Emily in Our Town, she’s heart-wrenching. Playwright Wilder is served magnificently here — and so is William Shakespeare, whose works and words Kline tackles in more than one inspirational scene in this series.
I don’t want to reveal too much about the conflicts, and surprises, in American Classic, but please trust me: The more episodes you watch, the better it gets. The characters evolve, and go in unexpected directions and pairings. Kline’s Richard starts out thinking about only himself, but ends up just the opposite. And if, as Shakespeare wrote, the play’s the thing, the thing here is, the plays we see, and the soliloquies we hear, are spellbinding.
And there’s plenty of fun to be had outside the classics in American Classic. The table reads are the most delightful since the ones in Only Murders in the Building. The dinner-table arguments are the most explosive since the ones in The Bear. Some scenes are take-your-breath-away dramatic. Others are infectiously silly, as when Richard works with a cast member forced upon him by the angel of this new Our Town production.
Take the effort to find, and watch, American Classic. It’ll remind you why, when it’s this good, it’s easy to love the theater. And television.
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