Tony Mostrom

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L.A.'s Unknown Origin Story Is Violent as Hell

Tony Mostrom
Los Angeles suffers from (or enjoys) a kind of historical amnesia. In the popular mind, there's an almost complete lack of an “origin story” for the city. That isn’t unusual as cities go, of course, but hey, Los Angeles is famous, L.A. has personality, and that implies, you would think,......
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The Time L.A.'s Water Crisis Turned Deadly

Tony Mostrom
It's L.A. lore that the most consequential speech ever given in Southern California was also the shortest. On a cloudless fall morning in 1913, William Mulholland, the head of the Los Angeles Water Company, stood before a crowd of hundreds of Angelenos to reveal the L.A. Aqueduct, a 226-mile "giant......
Author Liz Goldwyn takes a fictionalized look back at L.A.'s Victorian brothels.; Credit: Photo by Keegan Allen

What Sex Acts Were 'Trending' in 1890s L.A.?

Tony Mostrom
For those of us obsessed with L.A.’s past, there are scenes in the mind’s eye that can bring an ache and a deep sigh of longing: the bright, wide-open poppy fields that once blanketed Pasadena underneath the looming San Gabriel mountains; taking a Sunday ride on the “interurban” electric cars......
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On the Boulevard

Tony Mostrom
It’s hard to imagine a time when the intersection of Wilshire and Vermont was the center of town, but Kevin Roderick’s Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles follows, in words and pictures, the westward growth of the boulevard from its barley-field beginnings in 1895 near MacArthur Park. “Build it......
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Extended Organ

Tony Mostrom
Click + - to zoom in/out. Click and drag mouse to move image. SASSAS (Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound) is a charitable organization dedicated to experimental art and sound in Los Angeles. Learn more at sassas.org. L.A. artist & sound connoisseur Tony Mostrom unveils......
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Vaudeville Night at Fais Do-Do

Tony Mostrom
* Speak o' the devil! Those sweet ‘n’ juicy Cherry Tartes, along with Janet Klein & Her Parlor Boys and Fancy Dupree and her magic fire wand (she can really twirl it too, boy...) appear Friday, November 8 and 15, at the Fais Do-Do, 5257 W. Adams Blvd. See L.A......
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Sweet ’n’ Nasty

Tony Mostrom
Illustration by Tony Mostrom IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT AND I'VE JUST ARRIVED AT the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax, that intense, satisfying shrine to the Past, that Mecca and cocoon for those of us in the, ahem, "time-traveling community" whose imaginations tend to dwell in the early decades of the 20th......
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License to Eel

Tony Mostrom
ANYONE FAMILIAR WITH THE EELS WILL UNDERstand the following: One recent night, after listening to the band's newest record, Souljacker (DreamWorks), this writer had two dreams -- the first was a still color image of Eels front man and main brain E (real name Mark Everett) wrapping his arms around......