John Rabe

Off-Ramp host John Rabe shares his thoughts on arts, culture, and life in L.A.

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Latest Entries
Still looking for Thanksgiving Dinner Ideas? John Rabe asks the best chefs in LA.

Nov. 18, 2009|John Rabe|1 comment

I’ve begun an Off-Ramp web page featuring interviews with foodies like Providence owner/chef Michael Cimarusti and LA Times food editor Russ Parsons. They give us some great Thanksgiving food ideas, and reminisce about their best and worst Thanksgivings. Dinner Party Download also weighs in with memories and mischief.

I've also added a recipe for Pigtails and Sauerkraut, which is apparently big in Baltimore.

Check it out and add your own Thanksgiving thoughts, recipes, and memories.

Check out John's weekly show Off-Ramp!

There's Something About Mary (Poppins)

Nov. 17, 2009|John Rabe|0 comments


Team KPCC had a great time at “Mary Poppins” at the Ahmanson Theatre Sunday night. It’s the national tour production of the classic film.

I brought my recorder along, spoke with co-director and choreographer Matthew Bourne and some of the cast members, and hung out at the after-party long enough to hear the songwriters, new and old, gather around the piano for an English music hall-type rendition of "Jolly Holiday" and "Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious.”

That’s all in this Off-Ramp web-only special, which includes a lot of stuff there just won’t be room for on the air.

KPCC’s Steve Julian interviewed Ashley Brown, who plays Mary, and he tells me that q+a will probably air on this Friday’s Morning Edition.

Check out John's weekly show Off-Ramp!

(Photo: Ashley Brown as Mary Poppins. Credit: Disney/CML/JOAN MARCUS.)

Rabe Movie: Geffen Contemporary Tour

Nov. 16, 2009|John Rabe|0 comments

Christopher Knight of the LA Times writes about the exhibits at MOCA on Grand and at the Geffen Contemporary.

Check out John's weekly show Off-Ramp!

Tickets still available for “Los Angeles: Portrait of a City” Taschen book party/LA Conservancy benefit

Nov. 16, 2009|John Rabe|0 comments


This photo, taken in 1940, shows an insanely detailed model of downtown Los Angeles, a WPA project that was displayed at the Museum of Natural History. The photo is one of hundreds in a new Taschen book called “Los Angeles: Portrait of a City,” which local historian Chris Nichols calls “without a doubt the most comprehensive visual history of L.A. ever attempted."

There are so many photos, picked with such care, that FOO (Friend of Off-Ramp) Gary Leonard was ecstatic to have just one of his photos chosen for the book.

The photo is also symbolic of the work the LA Conservancy does for the city, hence, the gala fundraiser Thursday for the Conservancy that’s serving as the book’s coming out party. Tickets are still available, and it’ll be worth cramming yourself into your tux and/or gownless evening strap. Diane Keaton, Benedikt Taschen, Gary Leonard (will he wear a bow tie with his photog’s vest?), and I will be there. Why not you?

From Taschen:
Rise and Sprawl: How Los Angeles Came To Be

A pictorial history of the City of Angels

From the first known photograph taken in Los Angeles to its most recent sweeping vistas, this photographic tribute to the City of Angels provides a fascinating journey through the city's cultural, political, industrial, and sociological history. It traces the city's development from the 1880s' real estate boom, through the early days of Hollywood and the urban sprawl of the late 20th century, right up to the present day. With over 500 images, L.A. is shown emerging from a desert wasteland to become a vast palm-studded urban metropolis.

Events that made world news—including two Olympics, Bobby Kennedy's assassination, and the Rodney King riots—reveal a city of many dimensions. The entertainment capital of the world, Hollywood, and its celebrities are showcased along with many other notable residents, personalities, architects, artists, and musicians. The city's pop cultural movements, its music, surfing, health food fads, gangs, and hot rods are included, as are its notorious crimes and criminals. This book depicts Los Angeles in all its glory and grit, via hundreds of freshly discovered images including those of Julius Shulman, Garry Winogrand, William Claxton and many other superb photographers, culled from major historical archives, museums, private collectors, and universities. These are given context and resonance through essays by renowned California historian Kevin Starr and Los Angeles literature expert David L. Ulin.

About the editor:
Cultural anthropologist and graphic design historian Jim Heimann is Executive Editor for TASCHEN America, and author of numerous books on architecture, pop culture, and the history of the West Coast, Los Angeles, and Hollywood. His unrivaled private collection of ephemera has been featured in museum exhibitions around the world and dozens of books.

About the contributing authors:
Kevin Starr holds a PhD from Harvard University and is Professor of History at the University of Southern California. His many articles and books have won him a Guggenheim Fellowship, Gold and Silver Medals of the Commonwealth Club, the Centennial Medal from Harvard, and the Humanities Medal from the National Endowment of the Humanities.

David L. Ulin is the books editor of the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of "The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith," and the editor of "Another City: Writing from Los Angeles" and "Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology." He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, and The New York Times Book Review.

Check out John's weekly show Off-Ramp!

Before (1953) and After (2003) at Taylor Yard

Nov. 15, 2009|John Rabe|5 comments

Yesterday, we played one of one of my favorite LA History games. Feed a random word into the LA Public Library photo archive website.

The word was “romance,” and I came up with a lovely old shot from Taylor Yards, evoking the romance of steam trains.


Photograph caption dated April 18, 1953 reads, "This is the Southern Pacific's old roundhouse near the Los Angeles River. It's a far cry from Dieselville, which is a sprawling yard. In the roundhouse, locomotives are stacked in stalls like silver stallions. On the turntable is the Dinky, a snub-nosed beetle on an engine which pushes the "biggies” hither and yon. “There still is romance in steam,” said one veteran railroader." (Herald-Examiner/LAPL)

So, what’s happened to the roundhouse?

Back in 2003, I was shooting pictures by the LA River and went on to the railroad property and found the answer. Look carefully and you can see many of the same elements in the photos I took almost exactly fifty years after the “Herald-Examiner” shot now archived in the public library.





From what I saw on a recent recent bike ride, I think all the superstructure is gone. (For scrap?) But the hole is still there.

Find some “before” shots yourself at the LAPL site, then take some “after” shots and let us know about it in the comments section below.

Check out John's weekly show Off-Ramp!