The Edison Downtown and Beetlejuice ... Outside!

Deep into the darkness peering,

long I stood there,

wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever

dared to dream before.

~Edgar Allen Poe

the Raven

Upon arrival there were masked ghouls in the alley, walking on stilts, like something out of the Venice Carnival. Then entering, a couple tap dancing, chandeliers and jazz coming up the stairs from below ...

The Edison 

Higgins Building, 1910

Historic Downtown Los Angeles

Lauren and I had never been downtown to the Edison. I'd heard about the place for years. "It has the feel of an old speakeasy ... people have to dress up!" etc. Sounded exactly like my kind of establishment! 

Well, we went Friday night for the Halloween celebration, so people were dressed in a bit of everything. Normally I guess there are a lot of people wearing clothes befitting the 20s and 30s. You don't have to wear those, but you have to be dressed nice ... old school.

Lauren was the Goddess Athena and I was a fairy ... 

La Nuit du Diable

October 30th at the Edison

After signing in, you descend the stairs ... to the club underground in the sub-basement. At one time it was some kind of a power plant. The band was warming up and you can see the "priest" D.J.ing on the right side of the photo.

On big screens, old silent horror films like the Boris Karloff version of Frankenstein (1931) and Nosferatu (below) which I saw last year at the Disney Hall with the big live pipe organ.

Here's the D.J.!

Lots of exposed brick and things that were obviously from its days as a power plant ...

Upstairs there was a smoking room ... 

We don't smoke but it was a little brighter for pictures and there was a place to sit!!

Lauren, the perfect Goddess Athena ...

The band  "Urban Renewal Project" was great! Kind of retro, but funky big band, jazzy stuff with a bit of a hip hop.

Had to get in a photo with Elvis and one of the "devils" who work at the club.

My costume is one I'd put together years ago for a Midsummer Night's Dream party. The chiffon overlay was actually from a beautiful handmade design, that I bought on Melrose 20 years ago!

Here are close ups of the underdress. There was a bit of appliqué and the lace when I bought it, but I added the the silk flowers, made the rosette, beaded the lace, and attached the hand dyed silk ribbon I found at a little shop near the Design Center. Like I said, it was for a big party years ago. Not sure I am that patient anymore! Glad I could wear it again!

When I ordered the wings (years ago) they were already purple with subtile little sparkles and I added all the flowers and feathers.

This is what my makeup looked like at the end of the night. I added the little Indian "bindis" this time, and the false eyelashes had glitter!  Most of the face and hair glitter was gone by then but you get the idea!

After getting all the makeup off, with copious amounts of coconut oil, I couldn't believe I was going to cake it all again the next night! This time, however, I was planning to go as a vampire Geisha.

On Halloween, I drove a roundabout way to get to Pasadena so I could take the metro back into Hollywood. You don't want to get stuck with a quarter of a million other folks trying to get to Santa Monica Blvd! (Even though that's not where we were headed!)

Karen, Anne and I heading to Hollywood Blvd. on the Metrolink ...

The best stop that I know of, on the Metrolink route, is Hollywood and Vine and that's where we were headed! See the movie reels on the ceiling?

Karen, looking fabulous as the Mad Hatter!

Coming out of the metro, you are on the Hollywood Walk of Fame ...

And across from the Pantages Theater ...

Then just around the corner on Vine is the Montalbãn Theater. Yes, as in Ricardo!

And that was our destination! The Rooftop Film Club for an outdoor screening of Beetlejuice! What a great idea to show Beetlejuice for Halloween! I hadn't see it in years! If you haven't seen it, let's just say it's about a Haunted House ... or ghosts that are really trying to haunt their old house in order to get the new owners out of it!

Roof of the Montalban ...

Rooftop Film Club

They pass out blankets and comfy headphones ... and this (below) was before the show and the crowd. Tickets had sold out online ahead of time.

As you can see, I didn't make it into my vampire fangs. You have to melt this putty and mold it to your teeth before putting the fangs on. If you do it wrong? A trip to the dentist to have them removed. Um, no. 

I was running late and didn't want to have to go to work in fangs if things went array so alas ... no vampire teeth.

Hache LA Burger was there BBQing, and there was wine and beer available (the burger would have been difficult in fangs anyway!) along with popcorn and other treats.

Love the touch of the old movie reel canisters, on the tables!

'Tis now the very witching time of night, 

When churchyards yawn

and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world.

~William Shakespeare

Hamlet

So fun! I love Beetlejuice! All the creative weirdness you'd expect from a Tim Burton film. It came out in 1988, which I cannot believe, except that Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin look like babies and Winona Rider is a kid in it.

Michael Keaton, super crazy, weird, freaky and funny as Beetlejuice ...

Spoiler Alert! You might want to rent it if you haven't seen it, and not watch the clips I show in this post!!

I love Catherine O'Hara, who's also in it.  She's in all the Christopher Guest movies I love, like Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman.

Here we are in our headphones, which block out sounds from the street, horns honking, helicopters and other sounds that remind you of your close proximity to Hollywood Blvd.

Winona Rider, Tim Burton's muse of the 80s ...

No idea who this guy was below, but I appreciated the Beetlejuice makeup!

As you've seen from my fairy costume, I think what makes a costume, are the little details ...

And fake eyelashes!

Yes, there is red and black on my eyebrows, as well. Saw that on photos of Geishas on Pinterest. I had big plans to also make my face very white, until I had an allergy attack and had to blow my nose. White face, red nose? Not a good combo.

Anyway, I loved the red metallic lashes! Not authentic Geisha obviously but so fun! I did my own thing, thinking I was going the vampire route. There was also red glitter gel involved.

If you haven't seen Beetlejuice, you might not want to watch this video of the end of the movie! I love it! Had the music in my head for the next 2 days!

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been keeping myself very busy and though I spent decades not doing anything for Halloween, I think this year and last year, I might have made up for it.

The Edison website is pretty cool, and they have a "virtual tour."

You might also want to check out the Rooftop Film Club!

Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,

Voices whisper in the trees, 

"Tonight is Halloween!"

~Dexter Kozen

Hope you had a Happy Halloween and if not? There is always next year! ;)

blessing and light!

October's End ~ Nosferatu, Halloween and Olvera Street's Dia de Los Muertos

All Hallows Weekend

Where there is no imagination

there is no horror.

~Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr.

Nosferatu at the Walt Disney Concert Hall

O.K. so first I want to show off the amazing sky we had last Thursday ... 

This was what I saw before walking into work!

And when I came out, after work, it looked like the sky was on fire! My little iPhone could quite capture it.

Anyway, a few of days before Halloween, I called my friend Karen to see if she was interested in going to happy hour, on Halloween. Turns out she and her two neighbors had a plan, and I was invited along!

They were going to the Disney Hall, to see the old 1922 silent film, Nosferatu, by German filmmaker F.W. Murnau! It was the first Dracula movie ever made. 

I decided to be a "Devil in a Red Dress," for Halloween.

Clothes make a statement.

Costumes tell a story.

~Mason Cooley

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror

1922

You can see the organ, on the left facing the movie screen. All hour and a half of the film, the score was played by organist Clark Wilson. Below, you can see the wild set of organ pipes. It really did sound amazing!

This is the whole remastered movie but if you want to watch the end segment, go to 1:25:35

After getting our creepy Halloween on, at Nosferatu, Karen and exited the Disney Hall out into a  shiny and wet downtown. It finally rained in LA!!! We decided to walk over to the big Music Center across the street to walk around and hopefully find a cozy warm drink, which we did! Otto's Grill is now a place a French Brasserie called Kendall's, and they have really good fries!

On my way home in the car I ripped off my annoying false eyelashes. I took this following photo in the mirror, before washing off my Devil makeup (which took forever, to get off! To say that the black liquid eyeliner was waterproof, was a bit of an understatement.) 

Anyway, the photo struck me as strangely looking like a German expressionist portrait ... a weird sychronicity because, as it turns out, the film, Nosferatu was considered a German expressionist film. 

Google German Expressionist portraits, and you will see what I mean.

On Saturday Evening, Nov 1st, it was Dia de los Muertos, and I headed downtown with my friend Shea and her family to Olvera Street. We used to go to Hollywood Forever Cemetery but it's so packed full of people these days, that we now look for alternatives.

Dia de Los Muertos

Olvera Street, Los Angeles

He who has gone,

so we but cherish his memory,

abides with us,

more potent, nay,

more present than the living man.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Procession

If the people we love are stolen from us,

the way to have them live on,

is to never stop loving them.

~James O'Barr, David J.Schow, and John Shirley

The Crow, 1994

 

Pardon the blurriness, but without a flash, and considering that it was dark out, it was the best I could manage!

Of course, being down at Olvera Street, we had Mexican food and margaritas. Well, the adults had margaritas!

My friends daughter, checking out some trinkets ...

Doesn't this next girl, look like Norah Jones?

I ended up getting this little pink clay cross, as a keepsake. I love it.

It's always moving to see the altars and offerings to someone's ancestors, and others that have passed.

It had been rather windy and had rained again earlier, which I guess is why the candles weren't lit. I love the photographs and marigolds ...

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. 

~George Eliot

The Aztec dancers were there, as well as musicians, in the main square. (I've mentioned my family connection to this place, before. My great, great grandparents had their wedding reception here.)

After a margarita, I had no problem asking people if I could take their picture!

 

Another fun group of musicians!

It finally started to clear out, toward the far end of the street.

Found this video, on Youtube. It was uploaded in 2009. It was filmed and edited by Amos Clark with a Canon 5D Mk2. He did a really great job, with the filming, and it was apparently edited with Final Cut Pro.

Before we left for Olvera Street. I had originally wanted to do the skull makeup, but after having to scrub off my devil expressionist visage, I decided I would save it for next year.

For my colorful past daytime posts of Olvera Street, click here and here.

For my Olvera Street Dia de los Muertos post from 2009, click here.

Blessings and light!

And here's to a beautiful November!