The campaign to save Bukowski's De Longpre bungalow (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter esotouric
- Start date
Rekrab
Usually wrong.
Right. Well put. That's how it works in my newly designated "historic district." I live in a 1905 house that's mostly original because I and all the owners before me have been too damned broke to do any "improvements". Turns out that was a good thing in retrospect. One of my doors is not original -- it's a cheap piece of crap plywood slab from maybe the 1960s. I can leave it there, do nothing, and still be historic, or I can replace it with a door in the style and material of the original structure, i.e., a 1905 door, and keep my historic status. But I can't replace it with a nice expensive 2008 style door -- that would not be allowed. Actually, the rules haven't gone into effect here yet and won't for about a year, so I could do anything I want now, but that's how it'll be eventually. And after the rules are in effect, I will need a special permit and a panel review to make any changes to the exterior of the house. What I should do now is go buy a nice used old door at a reclamation place for $10 or $20 and put that up with no permit, no review, before the rules change. Then I'll be more original with no hassle. Curiously, I can change anything I want inside the house -- it's all about how the outside looks. No energy efficient double glazed vinyl framed windows, no vinyl siding. Now I have the perfect excuse to give those guys who go door to door selling windows and siding -- historic preservation! I gotta keep this place old.
Glad to hear they are doing it correctly at the DeLongpre apartment.
I drove by there today and the whole place is under complete renovation, including the front buk unit.
they've added a new big window to the street and i just walked inside and took a few pics....the court is a nice size but they've changed the layout a bit...it has been definitely been saved and will probably be rentable within a month or so.
looks like they are doing a nice renovation and someone is going to get an expensive rental unit (with horrendous street parking on delongpre)...
they've added a new big window to the street and i just walked inside and took a few pics....the court is a nice size but they've changed the layout a bit...it has been definitely been saved and will probably be rentable within a month or so.
looks like they are doing a nice renovation and someone is going to get an expensive rental unit (with horrendous street parking on delongpre)...
Gerard K H Love
Appreciate your friends
Do you know how to attach the photos? It would be nice to see how the work has progressed.
Thanks and welcome to the forum.
Thanks and welcome to the forum.
i used film today... will go back with a digital and post pics.
Are you aware, that this might be the Most Constructive FIRST post ever?
Thanks a lot!
Gerard K H Love
Appreciate your friends
Thank you grrrowdy nice of you to go out of your way for us. Did you go through the fence?
That was a very good first post but if you would've asked I would have taken a couple of pictures for you. I'm sure you wanted to be there as did many of us.
That was a very good first post but if you would've asked I would have taken a couple of pictures for you. I'm sure you wanted to be there as did many of us.
thanks roni and gerard! yep, i had to go and see for myself, just to be on the same street that bukowski would have walked up and down. i was coming back from los feliz in a cab and got the driver to go by de longpre. jumped out and took a very quick pic - there was an older guy next door shouting a lot and i wasn't too sure if maybe it was the owner getting pissed off at weirdos turning up to take photos, so i didn't hang around to soak up the atmosphere unfortunately. but to have actually been out the front of the home bukowski lived in while writing post office... what a feeling. 25 years ago and thousands of miles away in another country, i read post office and it changed my life. it's pretty cool i finally got to see where, for me, it all began.
Father Luke
Founding member
doesn't look like there's anything alive in that log.
Gerard K H Love
Appreciate your friends
The tree will grow back. They just pruned it all of the way back. Now they may be trying to kill it if there is a problem with roots in the pipes. The yard was dug up and they had all of the water lines exposed- a few months ago.
I know someone who has some leaves from that tree.;)
thanks for that, and the inspiration for my profile pic. (edit: which didn't work).
the guy shouting really was like that!
rekrab, is your 1982 pic posted? would love to see how it looked then.
Gerard K H Love
Appreciate your friends
Put the address 5124 DeLongpre into Google and hit search then hit Images.
Here is one-newer I think. Hell, there's a picture of Oprah that comes up in that search.
mjp
Founding member
That is on the other side of DeLongpre...
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But not everyone was thrilled to see the home landmarked. The poet's widow, Linda Lee Bukowski, said she did not think her husband would have appreciated seeing a fuss made over the house he rented.
"He was not the kind of person whose ego needed a large edifice in his memorium," she said.
Bukowski said she was sickened by earlier proposals that the house serve as a residence for writers and artists.
"That would be repulsive to Hank," she said, using the writer's nickname.
"It would be against all his natural human ways to have little writers and poets in bungalows together, little Bukowskis running around."
http://news.therecord.com/Wire/Entertainment_Wire/article/315110
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As Linda says it, "Hank" would have laughed at the "historical home" designation.
"The De Longpre address was but one of many that Hank rented and wrote in during his years in L.A. Indeed the novel `Post Office' was written there, but so many more books were written at (another) address ... After that, the rest of his work was written in San Pedro, in the home where he lived until his last precious breath, and where I still reside with nine cats."
But as has been noted, you aren't going to sell many literary tour bus tickets to San Pedro.
http://www.presstelegram.com/ci_7636769
Extremely cool; TX :D
Gerard K H Love
Appreciate your friends
Seriously, you new guys need to look around at the wealth of information that exists right here at the tips of your fingers in this web site. Please do not take it for granted. I sometimes forget how lucky I am to have access to this.;)
It's a good thing.
It's a good thing.
authorial intent counts for nothing
with all due respect to linda lee, and to bukowski himself more importantly, their opinion is noted but not relevant. a published author loses control of his work the minute it is out there in the public domain. he's sold it, it's gone. people buy it, they live it, they breathe it. it becomes theirs. no-one can tell me not to travel thousands of miles to look at a house one of my favourite authors lived in just because the author would not have liked it.
for example, leonard cohen realised when he heard vietnam servicemen singing "suzanne" that he no longer 'owned' the song.
like it or not, you can't keep artistic expression (and associated ephemera and locations) precious if it is out there and means something to the audience for which it was most certainly intended.
with all due respect to linda lee, and to bukowski himself more importantly, their opinion is noted but not relevant. a published author loses control of his work the minute it is out there in the public domain. he's sold it, it's gone. people buy it, they live it, they breathe it. it becomes theirs. no-one can tell me not to travel thousands of miles to look at a house one of my favourite authors lived in just because the author would not have liked it.
for example, leonard cohen realised when he heard vietnam servicemen singing "suzanne" that he no longer 'owned' the song.
like it or not, you can't keep artistic expression (and associated ephemera and locations) precious if it is out there and means something to the audience for which it was most certainly intended.
Johannes
Founding member
with all due respect to linda lee, and to bukowski himself more importantly, their opinion is noted but not relevant. a published author loses control of his work the minute it is out there in the public domain. he's sold it, it's gone. people buy it, they live it, they breathe it. it becomes theirs. no-one can tell me not to travel thousands of miles to look at a house one of my favourite authors lived in just because the author would not have liked it.
for example, leonard cohen realised when he heard vietnam servicemen singing "suzanne" that he no longer 'owned' the song.
like it or not, you can't keep artistic expression (and associated ephemera and locations) precious if it is out there and means something to the audience for which it was most certainly intended.[/QUOTE]That's true, but it's not about keeping anything precious at all, and, by the way, artistic expression or works of art and the house the woman or guy lived in while producing said stuff are two completely different things, at least to me. While it's perfectly understandable why somebody would like to have a look on B.'s bungalow (I'd like to have one myself) it's also perfectly understandable that somebody is or might not be too comfortable with that idea, especially B. himself (maybe) or his widow or family.
But all that, as we see, matters little anyway. There are "Bukowski tours" and the delongpre bungalow is rather famous now.
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mjp
Founding member
You left out the relevant part of that quote:
Bukowski said she was sickened by earlier proposals that the house serve as a residence for writers and artists. "That would be repulsive to Hank," she said, using the writer's nickname. "It would be against all his natural human ways to have little writers and poets in bungalows together, little Bukowskis running around."
I think that was more to the point of her statement.
Does anybody know where was he living by the time he died in 1994? I mean, the address?? I don't know if ther's any post saying that, but I'd be really grateful if someone can tell me that. Thanks
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