Boston ferns and birds of paradise
As a somber Mayor of Los Angeles delivered his State of the City address this afternoon, the set dressing said as much as the speech. Los Angeles is a place flagging as much from failure of imagination as from a monetary crisis. Fluffing out the rim of the podium were a mix of Boston ferns and birds of paradise. Behind the Mayor were crumpled-looking American flags.
This is not the stage set worthy of our Mayor, our city or our region. There is no reason for gratuitous greenery when announcing painful budget cuts, or any other occasion. Better no plants than the wrong ones. Better no flags than rumpled ones.
But, if we must decorate, then let’s decorate with our best asset, our natural beauty. Let’s fly our city flag for State of the City addresses. When our Mayor speaks of stalwartness, let’s surround him with rugged agaves instead of …
Unqualified? You’re hired
UPDATE WEDNESDAY APRIL 21, 2010: New interim LADWP general manager Austin Beutner will guest on KCRW’s “Which Way LA?” tonight at 7.27pm. Click here for details.
For those who missed today’s article in the Los Angeles Times about the appointment of First Deputy Mayor Austin Beutner as interim head of the Department of Water and Power, here’s the best line. “With this appointment, Beutner becomes the DWP’s ninth general manager in the last 10 years.”
Whatever one thought of Beutner’s two predecessors, H. David Nahai, or S. David Freeman, both men knew water and Freeman also understood power.
Beutner, described by a local public radio affiliate as a former Wall Street trader, knows neither, prompting the blog Griffith Park Wayist to ask, “Will he look at the safety of the City’s water supply as a risk-v.-return proposition?” LA Observed business columnist Mark Lacter put it this way: “While Beutner has …
Rain likely
…Since you asked
Interviewing Richard Schulhof should have been simple, a rote exercise of announcing that the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden has a new Chief Executive Officer, imparting a few quotes as to his plans, then wrapping it up with a time-will-tell remark. That’s the approach that I took six years ago, when the last CEO arrived.
It was about as successful as the last CEO, who in 2008 left the place much as he found it — an Arcadia picnic ground full of exotic plants and free-ranging peafowl.
The recent decision to interview the Titanic’s, excuse me, the Arboretum’s new CEO was a reluctant one. In fact, it was made only after Schulhof gamely responded to a dismissive reference on this site to the effect that the Arboretum’s 127 acres are a monument to the gardenesque philosophy that is draining our water supply.
“I thank you for throwing …
Dirty glow
The ash storm over Europe caused by the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull Volcano has brought the kind of hot sunsets long familiar in smoggy Los Angeles. Click on this image of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh by Scottish photographer Murdo MacLeod to be taken to a photo gallery in the Guardian newspaper of ashen sunsets over the United Kingdom and Ireland.
North American Native Plant Societies
After the lawn
Garden blogs
