Blood & Dumplings crime bus tour October 23, 2011

WHAT: Esotouric & 1947project offer a weekend of lost Los Angeles lore with a live, historian-narrated tour through the animated 1947 "L.A. Noire" video game city at the free Archives Bazaar (Saturday, October 22) and a wild Blood & Dumplings San Gabriel Valley crime bus tour (Sunday, October 23)
WHEN: Archives Bazaar is Saturday, October 22, 9am-5pm. Blood & Dumplings crime bus tour is Sunday, October 23, 12-4pm.
WHERE: Archives Bazaar is at Doheny Memorial Library, USC University Park Campus, 550 Trousdale Parkway University Park Campus Los Angeles CA 90089-0185. Blood & Dumplings crime bus tour departs from Philippe The Original, 1001 N Alameda, Los Angeles, CA 90012.
COST: Archives Bazaar is free. Bus tour is $63, includes dumplings.
ARCHIVES BAZAAR INFO: http://www.laassubject.org/index.php/archives_bazaar
ESOTOURIC INFO: http://www.esotouric.com or call 323-223-2767
1947project CRITIQUES L.A. NOIRE's ACCURACY (blog post and video link): http://www.1947project.com/47PplaysLANoire
http://lavatransforms.org/lanoiretalk

LOS ANGELES- On Saturday, October 22 and Sunday, October 23, the eclectic bus adventure company Esotouric and the "time travel blog" 1947project present two opportunities to discover the fascinating, lost history of Los Angeles in the company of passionate local historians.

EVENT #1 - ESOTOURIC AT THE ARCHIVES BAZAAR: First up is the 6th-annual Archives Bazaar (Saturday, October 22, 9-5am, free). This gathering of historically-minded Los Angeles organizations is a treat for anyone with a passion for the city's past. At Esotouric's table, come meet architectural historians and "1947project time travel bloggers" Nathan Marsak and Richard Schave, hosts of the recent sold-out walking tour "The Flâneur & The City: Downtown Los Angeles in the age of digital reproduction."

Nathan and Richard will be demonstrating the new video game "L.A. Noire" and taking visitors on a live journey through the downtown cityscape that has been digitally re-created in the game. Using rare vintage photographs, postcards and film stills for comparison, they'll explore how Rockstar/Team Bondi's simulacrum of 1947 downtown Los Angeles holds up, where and how it succeeds and fails -- they failed to build L.A.'s most iconic lost neighborhood, Bunker Hill -- and why you should care. Featured locations include the Spring Arcade, a 1923 reproduction of London’s iconic Burlington Arcade (1819), the Barclay Hotel (whose halls and color palate have been borrowed for various other places within the game), Clifton’s Brookdale, Angels Flight, and various historic sites which no longer remain, but which "live again" in one of the most ambitious video games ever released.

Come check out the criticism that "L.A. Noire's" publisher didn't want you to see. Nathan Marsak's April blog post at 1947project previewing the game by criticizing its architectural accuracy has been viewed by nearly 10,000 people, was widely discussed on game sites and history blogs and resulted in multiple requests from the game's publisher that it be removed from the internet. It remains the top search engine hit for "L.A. Noire accuracy."
http://www.1947project.com/47PplaysLANoire

Also featured at the Esotouric table, a raffle for free tickets for upcoming Esotouric bus adventures and a slide show of newly-discovered color images of Downtown's Main Street and Skid Row from the Union Rescue Mission's 1949 short film "Of Scrap and Steel," which is getting its first screening in fifty years on the roof of the URM on Thursday, October 20, with an introduction by Nathan Marsak and Richard Schave. The screening is free, but reservations are required from LAVA – The Los Angeles Visionaries Association. Link for info: http://lavatransforms.org/scrapsteel

ABOUT THE ARCHIVES BAZAAR: Los Angeles history comes alive at the 6th-annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar. Organized by L.A. as Subject and presented by the USC Libraries, the annual event celebrates the diversity of Southern California’s history. For scholarly researchers, journalists, history buffs, and those simply interested in exploring the stories of Los Angeles, discovery awaits everyone at the Archives Bazaar. This event is free and open to the public. The Archives Bazaar draws its strength from the breadth and variety of its participants’ collections. Large institutions such as the Autry National Center of the American West and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County will be represented at the bazaar along with smaller organizations and private collections whose materials fill the gaps left in the city’s official history. Other participating organizations include the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, the California African American Museum, El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, and the Japanese American National Museum. In all, more than 80 archives are represented.

EVENT #2 - ESOTOURIC'S BLOOD & DUMPLINGS CRIME BUS TOUR: On Sunday, October 23, Esotouric presents its most bizarre true crime and cultural history tour, BLOOD & DUMPLINGS. The tour celebrates a surprising side of Los Angeles history that you won't find anywhere else.

Starting from the premise that the secret heart of Southern California's weirdo pop culture beats strongest in the Eastern San Gabriel Valley, the tour introduces passengers to such fascinating local characters as the costumed Man from Mars Bandit, eccentric record producer and ladykiller Phil Spector, lion farmers Charles and Muriel Gay, and DIY filmmaking icon Timothy Carey, whose notorious "The World's Greatest Sinner" was shot on location in 1960s El Monte.

Heading due East out of downtown, the tour explores several historic communities that reflect the growth and eccentricity that are hallmarks of 20th century Los Angeles. Crime Bus passengers will discover notorious, strange, fascinating and forgotten tales from the past hundred years, each told at the scene of the crime. They'll thrill to the freakish case of the Man from Mars Bandit who stalked area supermarkets for months in 1951 before meeting his match in a police sharpshooter, shock to discover the deadly infighting among El Monte's hippie-era American Nazi Party members, mourn the Case of the Buried Bride dragged beneath her home on her wedding day by her secret lover, gnash teeth at the famous lion farm (home to every MGM lion) that served lion meat BBQ on special occasions, and view scenes of notorious cases including Phil Spector's spooky hilltop castle and James Ellroy's slain mother Geneva (the true-life inspiration for his Black Dahlia novel).
And since no visit to the San Gabriel Valley is complete without a delicious Chinese meal, the Crime Bus will stop at 101 Noodle Express (one of L.A. Weekly critic Jonathan Gold's picks for 99 L.A. restaurants not to be missed) to pick up a dumpling feast, which will be enjoyed picnic-style at Monster Park, a remarkable sea-themed folk art environment recently saved from demolition. There passengers can enjoy their snack in the mouth of a concrete whale, or under a grinning octopus, then pose for photos with the creatures.
All this, plus wild shootouts, dope-dealing druggists, missing Salvador Dali paintings and the original "little girl down a well" 1940s television sensation. Don't miss the Crime Bus tour that guide Kim Cooper calls "My personal favorite of all our tours, packed with more offbeat history, horror, roadside architecture and fabulous Route 66 vistas than any other."
For more info on Esotouric, visit
http://www.esotouric.com
For more on the 1947project time travel blogs and critiques of L.A. Noire, visit
http://www.1947project.com/47PplaysLANoire
http://lavatransforms.org/lanoiretalk
http://www.1947project.com (crime-a-day posts for 1907, 1927 and 1947)
http://www.onbunkerhill.org ("a lost neighborhood found")
http://www.insroland.org ("lost lore of the historic core" currently featuring the Union Rescue Mission archives)

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour and special event schedule
Sat Oct 8 - Gold Diggers & Snake Handlers: Deranged L.A. Crimes From The Notebook of Aggie Underwood (Joan Renner's free lecture, info at lavatransforms.org)
Sat Oct 15 - Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles
Thurs Oct 20 - free rooftop screening of 1949 color downtown film (info at lavatransforms.org)
Sat Oct 22 – Archives Bazaar (info at http://www.laassubject.org/index.php/archives_bazaar)
Sun Oct 23 - Blood & Dumplings crime bus tour
Sun Oct 30 - LAVA's free Sunday Salon (info at lavatransforms.org)
Sat Nov 5 - Weird West Adams
Sat Nov 12 - Charles Bukowski's Los Angeles
Sun Nov 27 - LAVA's free Sunday Salon (info at lavatransforms.org)
Sat Dec 3 – Pasadena Confidential with Crimebo the Clown (weekend pass available)
Sun Dec 4 - Eastside Babylon crime bus tour (weekend pass available)
Sat Dec 10 - Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice crime bus tour

Esotouric's Kim Cooper, Richard Schave and Joan Renner and 1947project blogger / architectural historian Nathan Marsak are proud members of LAVA - The Los Angeles Visionaries Association. http://www.lavatransforms.org

Official Website: http://www.esotouric.com