All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

Of Reyner Banham and Charlie Mingus

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Day Walker

(We here at All Fried Up in the Big Smoke are doing our damnedest to adhere to a very strict American boycott policy. Since we don’t pay anyone for contributing to this site, technically speaking, we’re not purchasing a U.S. product with today’s post. And besides, our Los Angeles correspondent, Ned Teitelbaum, is one of the good ones. With the subject matter being public transit, a favourite topic of ours, look at it as endeavouring to build a bridge between two beefing allies, no tolls applied.)

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Charles Mingus gave free concerts on the Red Car. Reyner Banham missed it. Continue reading →

Wine (Myth) Making

Posted on August 5, 2016 by Day Walker

(A little change of pace today, for all you oenophiles out there who thought the California wine industry started with Ernest and Julio Gallo. From our Los Angeles correspondent, Ned Teitelbaum, Executive Director of Plant The Vine, an urban landscape history and public memory project intending to create a greater awareness of L.A.’s wine-making past through the establishment of small community vineyards. Viticulture?! Everybody knows L.A. has no culture.)

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I had been researching a public-history project about Los Angeles’ first truly dominant industry, that of winegrowing and winemaking, when I realized that I’d been running across quite a lot of what I can only describe as an open and obvious bias against Los Angeles terroir. Continue reading →