Typical L.A. Sunday

One of the deals with walking is that you have agency. Your goal is at the end of one route, but along the way you look down a side street and decide that if you don't investigate you might miss [something grand]. 

Even though I'd just about had my fill of Obons, I figured it would be tacky to miss the very last one in the area on Aug. 17, the final day of Nisei Week. No time for the train, I drove down. There were a lot of helicopters in the air. Helicopters always make [a guy like me] uneasy. I sallied forth anyway. A few minutes at the festival and it was clear that indeed, I had enough of the Obon season. Worse still, the dancing wasn't going to happen for hours. What about those helicopters?

Looking west on 1st Street, there was definitely some action going on.  Everyone knows about the shooting of [Michael Brown] in Ferguson, MO, and its immediate [aftermath]. Fewer folks know about the police-involved shooting of [Ezell Ford] that happened in Los Angeles two days later. The protest was over that shooting was what all the helicopters were about. I headed west. 

Having had enough of that and mainly not wanting to be in the middle of a volatile situation for too long, I headed back to the festival. You can see from the photos that no one was really all that tense at the protest. Cool heads were the order of the day. The people have the right to protest without being beaten and gassed. That is what happened. Just the same, maybe a bus can't turn on a dime, but what goes on between cops and protesters can. I beat a relaxed, but determined retreat. 

The dancing had started by then, so back to the Obon. That was fine, but if you don't step into the line, it gets a little old after weeks of watching. Something was tugging at my soul, so I stepped east, toward the river. I just walked the pavement, in the course of which I ambled through a movie shoot, passed at least three fashion photo shoots - one of them definitely professional (students are shooting all the friggin' time), encountered a free-ranging dog about a foot high that couldn't decide whether or not to mess with me. I ended up thinking, "What could be more typically downtown L.A. than this?" People who think nothing is happening in the urban center are folks who don't spend any time there.

 [Map]

This is the bell at the Hompa Hongwani Buddhist Temple. Los Angeles has a few bells around town, but nothing like downtown Sapporo, where you are faced by one every time you turn around.

Groups are staging for the Ondo.

The throngs are waiting.

Something else is happening in the city. What is it?

A different throng, with a different purpose. I did not get the sense that there were a lot of people like me, who were going to check out both events.

It was a very mixed crowd.

This is taking place in front of the new police headquarters, across the street from City Hall.

The cops don't seem all that concerned. Don't be fooled, there were a lot of them.

No dancing here...

...dancing here. These two events were on the same street, separated by two short city blocks.

The big girls...

...and the little girls.

The professional photo shoot. 

The movie shoot.

L.A. County General Hospital (where I was born) from its south side. 

Lawd only knows what these folks were up to. 

Another shoot.

L.A.'s the place. 

That huge new [living complex] on Santa Fe.

Bridges. We all know what they are about.