Healin’ Illin Macs in Pasadena

Dual triptychs: In Old Pasadena, at the Armory Center for the Arts, upgrading a network of sad, sickly iMacs.

They’re already building freeways in the sky…

For a long, long time, engineers have planned and built long sections of roadway in Orange County’s atmosphere; blueprints that place tons of asphalt in the sky, atop rebar-reinforced concrete columns; overpasses conjured from nothing.

And now, the Orange County Transportation Authority begins a six-month study to look at improving traffic in central Orange County. One thing to be considered: extending the Orange (57) Freeway along the Santa Ana River riverbed to the San Diego (I-405) Freeway.

Because water can only be channeled and not stopped, the river will still be allowed to serve as a drainage channel, and the freeway — if it comes to that — will be closed the few days a year when the water level rises, as water sometimes tends to do.

Neal and Jack, signed.

This poster is a reproduction of a picture of Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac that was taken by Carolyn Cassady in San Francisco in 1952.

This is the same picture on the cover of Neal Cassady’s unfinished biography, “The First Third.”

It’s also one of the few pictures of the two of them together.

“No more, no more, no more, no more…”

Legendary record producer Jerry Wexler, who oversaw the recording of Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say,” said he has worked with only three geniuses in the music business: Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Charles.

Charles’ rendition of “Georgia on My Mind” is probably his most famous song.  Other notables: “Hit the Road, Jack,” and “Lonely Avenue.” His duet with Betty Carter on “Baby, it’s Cold Outside” is perfect.

His video for his cover of Leon Russell’s “A Song For You” was filmed inside Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House in Los Angeles.

Ennis House

Ennis House is the largest of four textile-block homes Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Los Angeles. (Although originally and currently known as Ennis House, it was known as the Ennis-Brown House from 1980 until August 2005.)

The nearly 10,000-square-foot house is made of more than 24,000 patterned, perforated and smooth concrete blocks that were created by hand and contain decomposed granite extracted from the site.

As designed by Wright, the concrete blocks would have weathered the elements, but Charles and Mabel Ennis opted not to coat the interior of the blocks with tar pitch. Bad idea.

Soon after construction of the house began in the early 1920s, Wright’s vision began to collide with his clients’ lack of taste. The Ennises wanted marble floors throughout the house. Wright wanted shale. On and on it went like that, until Wright walked away from the project.

Eventually, Wright’s son took over the project. Eventually, Wright’s son walked, too.

Through the years, the 16-inch-by-16-inch blocks and the steel rods that hold them together have been damaged by water. During the 1960s, an owner made things worse by allowing Sears, Roebuck & Co. to apply a thick sealant to the entire structure that made it difficult for water to escape, further weakening the house’s steel skeleton and its blocks.

In 1994, the Northridge earthquake left a southern retaining wall riddled with big, yawning holes, exposed rebar and damaged blocks. The house is now pierced by a steel beam that’s supposed to stabilize it while it is being rehabilitated.

Visitors to the house enter a rather cozy foyer, then ascend a set of stairs that opens into a vast expanse with twenty-five foot high teak ceilings. (Wright didn’t want teak. The Ennises did.)

Ennis House has been used quite a few movies. It was the haunted house in the original version of “House on Haunted Hill,” and its living and dining rooms served as Deckard’s home in “Blade Runner.”

Located in Los Feliz, at 2655 Glendower Avenue, the Ennis house has been closed for tours since 2007.

Brenda Lee Comin’ On Strong?

Jamboree Boulevard in Tustin, the section of it that’s bookended by The Market Place. No such thing as a chrome bumper anymore…lots of red tail lights, though, from about 5-7 p.m.

And all apologies to Golden Earring because this surely isn’t what they meant…

“No more speed, I’m almost there…
“Gotta keep cool now, gotta take care…
“Last car to pass, here I go…
“And the line of cars drove down real slow…”