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A dirt trail leading up to the Griffith Park Observatory is alive with sound this afternoon. There’s the steady crunch of sneakers on gravel, the whipping wind in the trees; there’s a toddler’s distant squealing mixed with intermittent trilling from sparrows.
Then there’s the orchestra.
For the record:
4:40 PM, Feb. 22, 2021This post incorrectly refers to the Griffith Observatory as the Griffith Park Observatory.
Composer and
sound artist Ellen Reid has scored this trail carefully, geocoding her original music to exact locations in the park, where visitors can access it on an app.
The soundtrack to this particular spot on the Fern Dell Trail is soothing and gentle, with viola and cello strings leading the way along a shady, forested patch. Farther up, on the East Observatory Trail, a jazzy drum solo kicks in, punctuating each switchback with a thump-ding-and-wire-brush swoosh, heightening anticipation around every corner.
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Good morning. I’m Rachel Schnalzer, the L.A. Times Business section’s audience engagement editor. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many of the ways small businesses interact with customers people are spending less time browsing in stores, for example, while a decrease in foot traffic has made a dent in walk-ins at salons and restaurants.
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But while traditional in-person opportunities for customer interaction decreased over the last year, the internet has enabled small businesses to bridge the gap by pivoting to e-commerce.
Carrie Mae Weems: Speaking of Art (2012).
Weems, who is probably best known as a photographer, initially studied modern dance. She received her first camera in her 20s. In 1978 she began her first photographic project, called
Environmental Profits, which focused on life in Portland, Oregon. That same year she started her first major series,
Family Pictures and Stories, intimate and candid photos of her friends and relatives, which she completed about five years later. In 1981 she graduated with a B.A. from the California Institute of the Arts, and she later obtained an M.F.A. (1984) from the University of California, San Diego, and an M.A. (1987) from the University of California, Berkeley.