Gendy Alimurung

Hallowed Kitty

Gendy Alimurung
There are ghosts, they say, at the Ambassador Hotel. Ghosts and cats. Definitely cats. Up until recently, strays wandered the decrepit grounds and empty hallways of the Ambassador. They stalked the Embassy ballroom, where Robert F. Kennedy gave his final, ill-fated California primary victory speech. They haunted the kitchen, where......
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The Girl and The Fury

Gendy Alimurung
The Angry Little Asian Girl is angry about boys. She is also angry about racism, sexism, fitting in, not fitting in, love, her hair, her depressed friend, perfect people, stupid people, blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, the weather, religion, apologies, her dolls and her mother. Born in the winter of a......

Drifting Pretty

Gendy Alimurung
Photos by Tom Johnson The girl racers love each other’s cars. They fantasize about them at odd moments, when brushing their teeth, say, or sleeping, or sitting in class, or at work. Instead of slumber parties or trips to the mall, the girls hook up on Saturday nights to change......

Doctor Goodwrench

Gendy Alimurung
Photo by Tom Johnson The Doctor is infamous. In the street-racing scene, people come to master mechanic Charles Madrid — or “Dr. Charles” — when their cars suffer from a case of terminal slowness. Dr. Charles, currently on staff at Autolink Motorworks deep in the heart of the San Gabriel......
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Little Treasures

Gendy Alimurung
Photos by Larry Hirshowitz Of the thousand odd and wondrous things lurking in Mr. Douglas Little’s modern Victorian workshop, the first thing you notice is fragrance. A languorous apple scent. His is an elegant space that is half apothecary lab and half old-world chocolate shop. Partly the scent comes from......

Hottest Teen Crushes

Gendy Alimurung
Orlando Bloom — Elf. Pirate. God. I could watch you kill Orcs all day. Or bandits, or bugs, or baby seals. Those hobbits have nothing on you. Oh, to be the horse upon which you have swung. Come to my slumber party and we will braid each others’ hair. Arrr!......
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Grim Fairy Tales

Gendy Alimurung
Illustration by Aaron McKinney Revenge, murder, suicide; corpses on the playground; parents burning to death; teenage girls pursued by homicidal old men; and devil-worshipping children who bludgeon their classmates to death. This is what kids are reading about these days — no happy beginnings, no happy endings, and very few......
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The Lovely Beads

Gendy Alimurung
There are little piles of beads on the floor of I. Ronni Kappos’ bedroom. They are fastidiously segregated, by size and color and shape, into grids in clear plastic trays, like a mathematician’s game of infinite ticktacktoe. “I wake up every morning and feel love for these beads,” she says......

The Exterminatrix

Gendy Alimurung
Photo by Jack Gould Josie Trevino is one of the very few women in pest control. A war map of Los Angeles decorates the reception area of her company, Desert Bug Stormers. There are red, white and blue pins tacked at points from Riverside to Corona to the San Fernando......

The Exterminators

Gendy Alimurung
Photos by Jack Gould Rats! They fought the dogs and killed the cats, And bit the babies in the cradles . . . And licked the soup from the cooks’ own ladles . . . And even spoiled the women’s chats, By drowning their speaking With shrieking and squeaking —......