SUPER iam8bit opened last Thursday at the recently renovated iam8bit headquarters in Echo Park. Over 100 artists have reimagined their 80′s gaming fantasies through paintings, sculpture and other interactive media.

The inaugural iam8bit show in 2005, was one of the most popular group art exhibition in Los Angeles. It won accolades from dozens of publications, like LA Weekly’s “Best Art Show” and received media attention from CNN, MSNBC, Playboy, G4 and MTV. The book “iam8bit: Art Inspired by Classic Video Games of the ’80s” highlighted key pieces from the original show and became one of the best-selling video game-themed books of all time.

This year’s show is bigger and bolder than before, and is housed in a 4,500 square foot event space–nearly 5 times the size of the original show. It also includes a new book documenting this year’s event, “SUPER iam8bit: More Art Inspired By Classic Video Games of the ’80s”. Other highlights include: a special tribute to Galaga’s 30th anniversary featuring the world’s largest “arcade cabinet”; the transformation of the entire gallery into an 80′s gaming wonderland by designer decal collective BLIK; an interactive, “retro-fied” Kinect hack from Double Fine super-artist Drew Skillman; and much, much more!

The show runs until September 10, 2011, so check it out. For updates, follow them on twitter @iam8bitshow.

SUPER iam8bit
2147 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Gallery Hours:? Thursday 1-8pm, Friday 1-9pm, ?Saturday 12-9pm, ?Sunday 12-6pm

(Image Source: kotaku)

Shopping at a giant supermarket chain can be pretty bleak. Navigating the parking lot alone can be a crazy-making experience! Heading to the corner store means you can walk, but it might also mean dinner is a 711 hot dog, which is probably not organic…

Green grocer Cookbook in Echo Park is the perfect answer. Owned by Marta Teegan (trained chef, master gardener, and author of Homegrown: A Growing Guide for Creating a Cook’s Garden) and Robert Stelzner, Cookbook sells local, responsibly grown vegetables, meat, cheese, bread, fruit, herbs, coffee, chocolate, and other goodies. Even though the shop is small, they have everything you need to put together a perfect meal, plus some decadent extras.

And for lazy people (me included), there’s fresh pasta, sauce and sandwiches from Heirloom LA, and a daily selection of prepared foods from featured cookbooks, hence the name!

Have you been to Cookbook in Echo Park? If so, let me know your thoughts in the comments section!

Cookbook
1549 Echo Park Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(213) 250-1900
Open daily: 8am – 8pm

(Image Source: The Eastsider, At Home At Home, Eat Drink & Be Merry)

Thursday, June 2nd at 5:30pm, Pasadena Magazine and Podley Properties is hosting a lecture and book signing with the authors of Classic Homes of Los Angeles. The book offers an exclusive look into the classic homes and gardens of legendary neighborhoods in and around LA, such as Hancock Park, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, San Marino, and Malibu. Classic Homes of Los Angeles will be available for purchase with proceeds benefiting The Gamble House. This event will take place at the Pasadena Public Library and is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. To RSVP call (626) 744-0954 x317 or rsvp@pasadenarose.com.

Pasadena Public Library Auditorium
285 East Walnut St.
Pasadena, CA 91101

I’ve been meaning to post about Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles by Charles Fleming for a while. We gave the book, which contains 42 stairway walks in Los Angeles, to a client/avid hiker as part of a closing gift, and ever since I’ve been meaning to pick up a copy for myself and write about it too. I love the hidden stairs tucked around Silver Lake. They seem so magical and Alice in Wonderland-y. I frequently use them on my runs and on walks with our dog Ebbie, since he’s really fond of going “up-up” whenever possible.

Via Secret Stairs-LA:

The staircases lace the hillsides of certain L.A. neighborhoods, and are historical reminders of a time when this was not a city of cars. City planners and developers installed them as direct routes for pedestrians–housewives and children particularly–to get down the hills to school, the supermarket, and transit lines. The city at that time was well served by trolleys, streetcars, buses, and light-rail systems. The staircases were clustered around steep hillside communities near these transit lines, especially steep-streeted communities that developed in the 1920s… The staircase-to-trolley system was so much a part of the landscape that developers in some areas built houses that had no other access to the outside world… The trolleys and streetcars are gone, but the staircases remain. Many of them are forgotten paths, neglected and unused. Many of them are also direct routes into fascinating Los Angeles neighborhoods that many Angelinos have never even seen.

Yesterday I stumbled upon the blog Climbing LA inspired by Secret Stairs. The author Robert Guerrero and partner Charles Thompson (of the sustainable food blog 100 Miles) hiked all 42 walks in Fleming’s book and wrote about it. What a cool concept for a blog! Sadly, the final hike was April 4th, but it is fascinating to go through the archives, read about their hikes, and check out what they saw along the way. It’s also a great source of inspiration for your own Secret Stairs hikes. I was particularly excited to see Walk #25: Swan’s Way, which I do almost every day with Ebbie.

You can purchase Secret Stairs here.

I’m always learning something new about the incredible architectural history in Silver Lake. I had no idea, for example, that Anaïs Nin lived right on Hildalgo Avenue from 1962 until 1977, when she passed away at age 73. Nin was best known for her many published journals, spanning more than 60 years, including Henry and June about her relationship with writer Henry Miller.

Nin lived in Silver Lake with her husband Rupert Pole (she was also married to her first husband at the time) in a home designed by Pole’s half-brother Eric Lloyd Wright, architect and grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright. The home was Wright’s first solo project, completed in 1962 for $22,000.

In 2006, Wright told Los Angeles Times, “My brother and Anaïs were very much involved in designing this house, from the preliminary plans to the working drawings to getting the contractor. I met with them and heard what their dreams were. Rupert felt that she should have a sense of security, a place that was permanent. I got to know them better by doing their house.”

Wright designed the 1,400-square-foot, one-bedroom house with the couple’s requests in mind. From the living room and patio, Nin and Pole wanted views of the pool, the Silver Lake Reservoir, and the sunset. To capture these views, the living room and dining areas have long walls of windows and sliding glass doors.

In her sixth volume of Diary, Nin wrote about her life and home in Los Angeles, describing her Silver Lake home as “one large studio, no separate, small partitions.

“It had the sense of space of Japanese houses; it had the vista of a Japanese screen, all sky, mountains, lake, as if one lived out of doors,” Nin wrote. “Yet the roof, held by its heavy beams, gave a feeling of protection while the big windows which separated the roof from the studio framed the flight of birds, the sailing of clouds.”

The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA)’s new book American Fashion Designers at Home peeks into over 100 homes of members of the CFDA. Readers get a personal look at Donna Karan’s tranquil Turks and Caicos villa, Betsey Johnson’s girly, flower-filled flat, Randolph Duke’s California-cool pad, and more. ShelterPop spoke with author Rima Suqi about some of the homes that stood out to her and why.

Johnson Hartig – “When people can put a lot of pattern together and make it work, that’s a skill,” says Suqi of this room in Libertine‘s ’s home. Suqi notes that Hartig left the base of the room to black and white, pulling together the different styles of the furnishings and acting as a neutral base for the eclectic art collection, including the gigantic Damien Hirst spin art painting.

Randolph Duke - Duke’s architect embraced the incredible view of Los Angeles with 10-foot high retractable glass walls. “The whole thing can open up,” says Suqi. She notes that being open to nature doesn’t mean of a lack of glamor, in fact, the space is reminiscent of Randolph Duke‘s couture evening gowns for Hollywood starlets.

Cynthia Rowley – Suqi says Cynthia Rowley‘s home itself is gorgeous, but the presence of a swimming pool in the backyard of her Greenwich Village townhouse is what really stands out. “There’s always an element of play in both her fashion and her home,” she adds.

You can purchase American Fashion Designers at Home at Assoulin. Price: $65.00.

As I have mentioned on Take Sunset in the past, a key feature of my dream house are built-in bookshelves. I love books and having an attractive place to store them. The bookshelves we have currently are handmade in Oak by my father. They’re beautiful, but I struggle with how best to arrange them. Most of the bookshelf examples I see are painted in stark white, which I like, but it seems like a shame to paint the wood… Above, I like how the books are arranged by color. It gives it a nice sense of order. And I like how the aqua blue and red are picked up in the books and in the painting.

A contrasting color painted on the back wall of a built-in bookshelf adds a nice dimension. I am realizing that to make a good bookshelf arrangement, you need to keep some sort of color story in mind. Like here, the aqua blue of the vase pops with the aqua books, along with the red of the little boy’s jacket and the red books, the off-white of the pear and apple… (Also, this person and I have similar taste in books!)

I love the use of bright color against the white here and how the magazines are stacked with a large pictures in front of them–that’s a good, simple idea.

And speaking of stacks of magazines, a stack of fashion magazines looks chic on a dresser. I so want a super crisp, solid white dresser…

I like the idea of using contrasting patterned wallpaper on the back of your bookshelf, too.

And finally, a stepladder makes for a nice accent piece. You can always get a regular ladder from the hardware store and paint it to match your bookshelf.

After all this, I am still not sure what to do what my wood bookshelves. Maybe I will just play around with rearranging the books and adding a few accessories. Thoughts?

Image Source: Lonny, Elle Decor

At the top of my list of places I still need to go in Los Angeles: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. This 207 acre hilltop estate was home to Henry E. Huntington (1850-1927). The library contains his collection of rare books and art collection with changing art exhibits. But what I’m really dying to check out are the Botanical Gardens. It began in 1903 and now features more than a dozen gardens, including a 100-year-old Rose Garden, a Chinese Garden with traditional open-air houses, an Amazon water lily pond, and a Japanese Garden with a koi-filled stream.

Right now there is something extra exciting going on at the Huntington Botanical Gardens–the gigantic Amorphophallus titanum or Titan Arum (a.k.a. the Corpse Flower) is about to bloom. A Titan in bloom is extremely rare and the bloom can reach more than 6 feet in height, opening to a diameter of 3–4 feet. The plant is most famous–or infamous–for its exceptionally bad odor.  Hence the nickname, Corpse Flower. When it bloomed at Huntington back in 1999, it created international headlines and nearly 76,000 people lined up to get a whiff.

The exact date of the current bloom is unknown, but it’s projected to open sometime between June 5-10. Huntington is keeping track of its progress on the corpse flower page. When it does open, the bloom will not last long–just a few days, so you’ll have to hurry if you want to see (and smell it) in all its glory. If you’re planning a tip, reservations are not necessary and tickets can be purchased at the time of your visit. Check Huntington’s website for more details and hours.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
(626) 405-2100

My heart always and forever belongs to Los Angeles. But if I were a tougher sort, I would love to live in New York for a year. Or maybe six months. What can I say, I need sunshine, beach access, palm trees… I just can’t quit you, LA! But still, New York is a fantastic place for a getaway. And who better to direct you to the best spots in New York than Taschen?

Angelika Taschen knows New York through and through and in the new book, Taschen’s New York, she shares her secret access to the best neighborhood delis, hidden clubs, uptown and downtown hotels, boutiques, and more. It’s neatly arranged with dictionary-style cutout tabs to make it easy to flip through. After studying up, you’ll know how to land the best table at the Waverly Inn, where to rest your head in Chelsea, how to find subMercer in Soho, where to find the best burger near Madison Square Park, and so much more…

Taschen’s New York is available in hardcover at Taschen.com for $39.99.

Photos by Poul Ober

If you’re in the market for a new coffee table book, or if you just love TASCHEN books, one that cannot be missed is the Case Study Houses: The Complete CSH Program, 1945-1966. This book is a retrospective of the 36 postwar prototype homes built in the Los Angeles area by architecture greats, like Richard Neutra, Charles & Ray Eames, and Eero Saarinen.

It contains beautiful photos from by Julius Shulman, detailed floor plans, and comprehensive documentation of all the homes built during this important event in the history of American architecture. It’s available at Taschen.com for $69.99.