The L.A. Art Walk and a LHS alumus connection.

If you will please check the L.A. Times' Sunday edition, that's today's newspaper for those of you having a tough weekend- or maybe a pretty good weekend, depending on your point of view. You will find there's a photo in the Arts and Culture section representing a different kind of entertainment. This is one of a series of ten photos taken during the event, described in the L.A. Times story, the "Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk draws gallery hoppers."
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-artwalk8-2009feb08,0,3711576.story

That certain one in that series of photographs appearing in the print and the online editions has some special importance to a certain fellow alum.

This particular photo is of special interest to one member of our alumni, Mike "the dad" Ibarra, the semi-official alumni event photographer for Lincoln High's Alumni Association for a couple of reasons- first, because it's a nice photo of "the son of Mike," with his sax in hand, and second, it's one photo that Mike did not take himself among the hundreds that we've seen at alumni functions.

Mike's son also plays as a member of a trio, but he's here at the Art Walk, as a member of the band, "Killsonic," an avant-garde jazz marching band. They play in and around L.A., and the gigs include subway venues. They have played in New York and in- yes- N.Y. subways, too. The band is looking forward to going to N.Y. for some scheduled performances in April. Killsonic's MySpace page is http://www.myspace.com/killsonic and features an eclectic mix of their performances, as well as numerous photos of the band at work.

The trio mentioned is called El-Haru Kuroi, whose music features lots of Mexican and Portuguese songs. You can hear some samples at their MySpace page, www.myspace.com/harukuroi.

The story today gives you some information about the Art Walk event that happens on the second Thursday each month. If you are from the old school, you may think downtown is pretty much a place to avoid, if possible, especially at night. If you are from the VERY old school, you can remember when downtown was the place to go for shopping and for movies. It was actually vibrant and you could enjoy a visit downtown back then among the classic stores for shopping in the pre-shopping mall days.

Since the addition of the Staples Center, area is continuing to change with lots of living spaces in the downtown area increasing, both from building converssions and new construction. The upscale type changes were especially noticeable around the Staples Center area as more of the old business and housing areas were demolished. Since the real estate market went flat, many of the "For Sale" invitations have changed to "For Lease."

Not all is good with downtown or with those politicians in City Hall but the Art Walk event is an interesting part, showing one of the better of the many faces that downtown has to show us, and the photos present us with some interesting views of the people at this event.