Lifestyle
On the precipice of turning 40, I sometimes wonder: Where can one find paradise?
In our household, beauty wore different names. This was back in 1995, when we lived on 58th Place, in the upstairs unit of an ash-white triplex in Ladera Heights, many miles south of the glamour and stock beauty of Hollywood Boulevard. The beauty in our home didn’t announce itself like it did in the movies I worshiped during countless weekend family trips to the Marina del Rey theater. There was no pageantry or grand exposition behind its reason for being. In our household, beauty just was.
Lately, I’ve been trying to find my way back to beauty. On the precipice of turning 40, somewhere halfway through this marathon of a life, I want to exhume what I feel I’ve abandoned and lost. I want to recall what’s been washed away by the pull of adulthood, what age and responsibility demand that we compromise, that we let go of. I again want to remember what’s worth finding.
So I reach back as a way forward.
Beauty was the configuration of my mother’s deliberate care. It was love baked into grilled cheeses and currents of laughter that swept through the house during unexpected moments of long quiet. Beauty was also coyly positioned, always in view of my and my brother’s drifting curiosities, like the framed print of “Jammin’ at the Savoy” by Romare Bearden that she hung just outside the kitchen’s entrance that I loved so much, that I sometimes wanted to live inside of, debonair and irreducibly cool like Bearden’s jazz men.
Many years later, in graduate school, when I first read “Sonny’s Blues,” a short story originally published in 1957 by James Baldwin about family and addiction, I would think back to this painting, in this house, and how its beauty halted me in my tracks, how it dared me to pause and consider my place in the wide world. “For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new,” Baldwin wrote, “it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.”
The narrator of Baldwin’s story watches from the audience as his brother, a pianist, plays onstage. He’s moved by what he sees, the beauty of it all. Baldwin understood, as I later would. In a country that has never given Black people very much, beauty was our right. Not physical beauty — though we also had a right to that — but made beauty. Beauty built from and for love.
Personalized. Tender. Yours.
More often than not, beauty appeared in one very specific form. At least once a month, my mother would pull birds of paradise from the downstairs bush, arrange them like so, place them in a vase and position the flowers as a centerpiece in the living room atop our mahogany coffee table. At the time, I was obsessed with Marvel comics and action flicks like “Mortal Kombat” and “Batman Forever.” I didn’t know anything about flowers really, but I knew this one was badass, with its sword-sharp silhouette and inferno-orange coloring. This was how the bird of paradise first made itself known to me.
In most Black homes, the living room is off-limits save for special occasions. Ours was no exception. Through my eyes, this gave the flower a unique significance. I secretly loved how the flower craned skyward, never quick to diminish its presence, what I considered its sharp elegance. It was something to be cherished. In our household, it wasn’t just beautiful, it also gave our beauty meaning.
Today, the bird of paradise is one of the predominant flora across the city. It also wears many names — the African desert banana, the crane lily — but formally, it is known as Strelitzia reginae and is one of five species of Strelitzia. “They were widely planted in the early days of Los Angeles,” Philip Rundel, a UCLA professor emeritus in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology, says of how the plant arrived in California.
Originating in the KwaZulu-Natal provinces of South Africa, on the Eastern Cape, the bird of paradise found its way to the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino sometime before 1932, when the institution’s record-keeping began, explains Kathy Musial, senior curator of living collections. By the next decade, Japanese flower farmers were growing them across the Southland; the species was able to survive on little water and stretched up to five feet tall. In 1952, as L.A. celebrated it 171st year, the bird of paradise was designated the official city flower by Mayor Fletcher Bowron, a Republican with a nasty appreciation for internment camps who would lose a bid for reelection that same year. (While state flowers are common, many cities also appoint a specific flower as a local insignia.)
Often, in spite of its spoiled political terrain, L.A., like the bird of paradise, found a way to sprout. It grows “slowly but steadily,” Rundel tells me.
There it is — occupying manicured lawns in View Park, lining the boulevards of Historic Filipinotown and Little Armenia. At Mahalo Flowers in Culver City and Century Flowers in Inglewood, the multiuse plant is ceremoniously styled in floral arrangements bought by customers. As regional emblems go, only the palm tree seems to rival the bird of paradise in popularity.
“It’s a very charismatic flower. Its form and coloration are quite striking,” Musial says. I ask her what it best personifies about L.A. I want to know what makes it special despite it now being so commonplace. “It can adapt to a range of growing conditions,” she continues. “It is a good symbol for a cosmopolitan city that is home to lots of human transplants — from other parts of the U.S. and around the world.”
Rundel suggests another interpretation. “It’s a beautiful plant,” he says, “sturdy and hard to kill.”
Yes, I think. That’s it. Because isn’t that what beauty is, in all of its prismatic totality — hard to kill, always in bloom?
Everything I’ve learned since those years when we lived on 58th Place has stayed with me. What my mother had accomplished was simple but lasting. The beauty we make establishes a sense of order. It grounds us in who we are, gives our chaos body. At its most brilliant and spectral, beauty helps us hold on.
And because the world, and one’s continued engagement with it, is a repeated litany of small erosions, it is through the practice of beauty that we learn to survive, to soar even. It helps one find newer, better ways of being. Yes, failure will make itself known. It will attempt to convince you that it is your only option. But it is the order we find in the beauty we make, in ourselves and others, just as we do in the things around us, that sustains and comforts.
Like winged creatures of the sky it draws its nickname from, the bird of paradise seems always ready for takeoff, angling itself toward the light of better tomorrows, or at least the possibility of them. It’s what I remind myself of when life gets hard. Because though it was never guaranteed in our household, in those years following the rebellion, in those sometimes unsteady months as a new family of three in the haze of my parents divorce, we held on to the depth of that possibility no matter what came our way.
Now, well into adulthood and everything adulthood urges of the body and mind, I sometimes wonder, where can one find paradise?
It’s all around us, I’ve learned, but it is also inside of us. In the molecules of my memory, I hold on to the punctuated beauty of the flower because I believe in what it can accomplish, in what it returns, in what it allows room for. In the molecules of my memory, it sings, and what it sounds like is home.
It sounds like a kind of paradise.
Jason Parham is a senior writer at Wired and a regular contributor to Image.
Happy new year! I’m Jaclyn Cosgrove, an outdoors reporter at the L.A. Times.
The deluge of rain and snow has paused, and the sun is out in Los Angeles. It’s a beautiful time for a winter hike in L.A. County.
I’d love for you to join me and Times wellness writer Deborah Vankin, alongside our friends at Zócalo Public Square, at 9 a.m. Jan. 31 as we hike through Placerita Canyon Natural Area, an east-west canyon east of Santa Clarita with lush oak woodland, chaparral and a seasonal creek.
We will start our trek with a gentle stroll to the Oak of the Golden Dream, where the first authenticated gold discovery by colonizers took place in California in 1842.
Then Vankin and I will lead 40 hikers along Canyon Trail, which will be 3.6 miles round trip. The hike includes an area where natural “white oil” bubbles up from the earth, which locals reportedly used to collect to fill their Ford Model T fuel tanks.
Parking is free and easy. We will meet in front of the Placerita Canyon Nature Center (19152 Placerita Canyon Road in Newhall).
We will have water bottles and snacks for attendees, but you’re also welcome to bring your own. You must be 18 or older and will be required to sign a waiver prior to attending. (Please consider arriving 15 minutes early to leave time for waiver signing.)
Grab a spot on Tixr.
Note: The hike will be rescheduled if rain is in the forecast.
A winter hike with the Los Angeles Times and Zócalo Public Square
Lee Byung-hun stars in No Other Choice.
NEON
hide caption
toggle caption
NEON
In an old Kids in the Hall comedy sketch called “Crazy Love,” two bros throatily proclaim their “love of all women” and declare their incredulity that anyone could possibly take issue with it:
Bro 1: It is in our very makeup; we cannot change who we are!
Bro 2: No! To change would mean … (beat) … to make an effort.
I thought about that particular exchange a lot, watching Park Chan-wook’s latest movie, a niftily nasty piece of work called No Other Choice. The film isn’t about the toxic lecherousness of boy-men, the way that KITH sketch is. But it is very much about men, and that last bit: the annoyed astonishment of learning that you’re expected to change something about yourself that you consider essential, and the extreme lengths you’ll go to avoid doing that hard work.
Many critics have noted No Other Choice‘s satirical, up-the-minute universality, given that it involves a faceless company screwing over a hardworking, loyal employee. As the film opens, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) has been working at a paper factory for 25 years; he’s got the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect family — you see where this is going, right? (If you don’t, even after the end of the first scene, when Man-su calls his family over for a group hug while sighing, “I’ve got it all,” then I envy your blithe disinterest in how movies work. Never change, you beautiful blissful Pollyanna, you.)
He gets canned, and can’t seem to find another job in his beloved paper industry, despite going on a series of dehumanizing interviews. His resourceful wife Miri (Son Ye-jin) proves a hell of a lot more adaptable than he does, making practical changes to the family’s expenses to weather Man-su’s situation. But when foreclosure threatens, he resolves to eliminate the other candidates (Lee Sung-min, Cha Seung-won) for the job he wants at another paper factory — and, while he’s at it, maybe even the jerk (Park Hee-soon) to whom he’d be reporting.
So yes, No Other Choice is a scathing spoof of corporate culture. But the director’s true satirical eye is trained on the interpersonal — specifically the intractability of the male ego.
Again and again, the women in the film (both Son Ye-jin as Miri and the hilarious Yeom Hye-ran, who plays the wife of one of Man-su’s potential victims) entreat their husbands to think about doing something, anything else with their lives. But these men have come to equate their years of service with a pot-committed core identity as men and breadwinners; they cling to their old lives and seek only to claw their way back into them. Man-su, for example, unthinkingly channels the energy that he could devote to personal and professional growth into planning and executing a series of ludicrously sloppy murders.
It’s all satisfyingly pulpy stuff, loaded with showy, cinematic homages to old-school suspense cinematography and editing — cross-fades, reverse-angles and jump cuts that are deliberately and unapologetically Hitchcockian. That deliberateness turns out to be reassuring and crowd-pleasing; if you’re tired of tidy visual austerity, of films that look like TV, the lushness on display here will have you leaning back in your seat thinking, “This right here is cinema, goddammit.”
Narratively, the film is loaded with winking jokes and callbacks that reward repeat viewing. Count the number of times that various characters attempt to dodge personal responsibility by sprinkling the movie’s title into their dialogue. Wonder why one character invokes the peculiar image of a madwoman screaming in the woods and then, only a few scenes later, finds herself chasing someone through the woods, screaming. Marvel at Man-su’s family home, a beautifully ugly blend of traditional French-style architecture with lumpy Brutalist touches like exposed concrete balconies jutting out from every wall.
There’s a lot that’s charming about No Other Choice, which might seem an odd thing to note about such a blistering anti-capitalist screed. But the director is careful to remind us at all turns where the responsibility truly lies; say what you will about systemic economic pressure, the blood stays resolutely on Man-su’s hands (and face, and shirt, and pants, and shoes). The film repeatedly offers him the ability to opt out of the system, to abandon his resolve that he must return to the life he once knew, exactly as he knew it.
Man-su could do that, but he won’t, because to change would mean to make an effort — and ultimately men would rather embark upon a bloody murder spree than go to therapy.
AUSTIN, Texas – Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will nearly double in size over the next decade.
The airport currently has 34 gates. With the expansion projects, it will increase by another 32 gates.
What they’re saying:
Southwest, Delta, United, American, Alaska, FedEx, and UPS have signed 10-year use-and lease agreements, which outline how they operate at the airport, including with the expansion.
“This provides the financial foundation that will support our day-to-day operations and help us fund the expansion program that will reshape how millions of travelers experience AUS for decades to come,” Ghizlane Badawi, CEO of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, said.
Concourse B, which is in the design phase, will have 26 gates, estimated to open in the 2030s. Southwest Airlines will be the main tenant with 18 gates, United Airlines will have five gates, and three gates will be for common use. There will be a tunnel that connects to Concourse B.
“If you give us the gates, we will bring the planes,” Adam Decaire, senior VP of Network Planning & Network Operations Control at Southwest Airlines said.
“As part of growing the airport, you see that it’s not just us that’s bragging about the success we’re having. It’s the airlines that want to use this airport, and they see advantage in their business model of being part of this airport, and that’s why they’re growing the number of gates they’re using,” Mayor Kirk Watson said.
Dig deeper:
The airport will also redevelop the existing Barbara Jordan Terminal, including the ticket counters, security checkpoints, and baggage claim. Concourse A will be home to Delta Air Lines with 15 gates. American Airlines will have nine gates, and Alaska Airlines will have one gate. There will be eight common-use gates.
“Delta is making a long-term investment in Austin-Bergstrom that will transform travel for years to come,” Holden Shannon, senior VP for Corporate Real Estate at Delta Air Lines said.
The airport will also build Concourse M — six additional gates to increase capacity as early as 2027. There will be a shuttle between that and the Barbara Jordan Terminal. Concourse M will help with capacity during phases of construction.
There will also be a new Arrivals and Departures Hall, with more concessions and amenities. They’re also working to bring rideshare pickup closer to the terminal.
City officials say these projects will bring more jobs.
The expansion is estimated to cost $5 billion — none of which comes from taxpayer dollars. This comes from airport revenue, possible proceeds, and FAA grants.
“We’re seeing airlines really step up to ensure they are sharing in the infrastructure costs at no cost to Austin taxpayers, and so we’re very excited about that as well,” Council Member Vanessa Fuentes (District 2) said.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Angela Shen
Amazfit’s Active 2 tracker and Blu-rays are this week’s best deals
Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’
Trump signs order to protect Venezuela oil revenue held in US accounts
Doctor reveals what 30 days without alcohol does to the brain and body amid Dry January
Falcons hire franchise legend Matt Ryan to major front office role
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Trump signs order to protect Venezuela oil revenue held in US accounts
What Canada, accustomed to extreme winters, can teach Europe
New video shows fatal Minnesota ICE shooting from officer’s perspective
Federal judge blocks Trump from cutting childcare funds to Democratic states over fraud concerns
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,416
-
Detroit, MI7 days ago2 hospitalized after shooting on Lodge Freeway in Detroit
-
Technology4 days agoPower bank feature creep is out of control
-
Dallas, TX5 days agoDefensive coordinator candidates who could improve Cowboys’ brutal secondary in 2026
-
Iowa4 days agoPat McAfee praises Audi Crooks, plays hype song for Iowa State star
-
Dallas, TX2 days agoAnti-ICE protest outside Dallas City Hall follows deadly shooting in Minneapolis
-
Health6 days agoViral New Year reset routine is helping people adopt healthier habits
-
Nebraska3 days agoOregon State LB transfer Dexter Foster commits to Nebraska
-
Delaware1 day agoMERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach