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Thursday, December 1, 2005

L.A. Blogging

Both Franklin Avenue and The Ambassador's Last Stand score mentions in today's L.A. Times article about Los Angeles blogging.

The two sites appear in a hefty blogroll the Times includes with the story, listing most of the usual suspects (LAObserved, Blogging LA, Mayor Sam, Patterico, etc.) Franklin Avenue also gets a paragraph in the story:

On FranklinAvenue.BlogSpot.com, Michael Schneider and Maria Villar recently reported they had left town to spend their wedding anniversary in Las Vegas and posted pictures of their dinner on the one night Maria's sister agreed to watch "Blog Baby," their young son, Evan, so they could celebrate in style at a Thai restaurant. A few days later, they posted photos of a trip to a favorite grocery store, a local Vallarta Supermarket.

Oops -- as regular readers know, Evan's nickname is Blogger Baby. Still, Evan scores his first print mention before turning one... not too bad. He's already ahead of his media whore father -- beyond my birth announcement, I think I was well into grade school before landing another mention in a newspaper.

Meanwhile, the story, by Scott Martelle, advances the notion that L.A. blogs are managing to push beyond the usual SoCal stereotypes:
This is the daily face Los Angeles bloggers present to the world, and it is decidedly different from the image forged by decades of television, movie, newspaper, magazine and literary portrayals of the SoCal lifestyle. In this new etherworld, Hollywood, flowering bougainvillea and beaches are augmented by internal landscapes, closely observed neighborhoods, musings on politics or relationships and behind-the-scenes looks at myriad elements of local life.

At www.HotDogSpot.com a "crack team of dogophiles" posts regular updates on its quest for the city's best hot dog. Contributors to www.PreserveLA.com detail efforts to save historic buildings and sites. The past gets rewound on 1947project.blogspot.com, with news events from 1947 written up as though they had just happened. And www.TheAesthetic.com tracks the South Bay arts world.

Together, such blogs are less intentional guides to places than views of a city refracted through intensely personal lenses, giving readers vicarious tours of nooks and crannies they might otherwise miss. Add in the blogs' visual cousins, Web cams, and you can soak up much of the city's dysfunctional, contradictory glory from your computer, whether it's in the Hollywood Hills, the Valley, the far reaches of Orange County or a remote farm in Iowa.

I had no idea this article was coming out; it was a nice surprise to see the Franklin Avenue mentions. Susan Campbell -- who's sent us some great shots from her office window of the Ambassador Hotel's destruction -- writes more and blogs about a photo shoot for the piece here.

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