This past weekend, my good friend Susie (and fellow blogger of Design Plus You) ventured down to the fashion district to look for fabric. The store Im most familiar with in the industry is Michael Levine, so we headed there. As you know I’ve been redoing my barrel chair and I came to a standstill when I realized I needed a special type of padding. Surely Michael Levine would have it.
Michael Levine is so inspiring! Two warehouses full of ideas! This felt above made me think of the kids room pennants I make… so many colors to choose from! Susie highly recommended HeatnBond as a great no-sew hemming tool.
After buying our fabric (I found what I needed with the help of a knowledgeable staff member for $2.50!), we decided to head somewhere for breakfast. The Egg Slut Truck had been recommended to me, so we yelped it and headed that way.
The Egg Slut Truck happened to be parked in front of Handsome Coffee Roasters.
See the crowd? It’s located downtown just past Skid Row amongst warehouses, so not exactly a prominent spot but it’s well known through word of mouth. It’s also close to Sci-ARC, where I imagine architecture students and nearby artist loft owners come to get their caffeine fix (the crowd was very artsy).
Doesn’t the look amazing? It tasted soooo good. The coffee is a latte, and just a note to coffee lovers, Handsome Coffee Roasters is a purest. They only have organic whole milk and no sweeteners. As for the Egg Slut Truck, I got the scrambled eggs with avacado. They have several options and all of them looked amazing. This place makes me look forward to another Michael Levine/Egg Slut Truck/Handsome Coffee Roasters Saturday morning Adventure.
Since I brought up Skid Row above, I feel like I must tell you about to excellent documentaries I’ve seen recently about Skid Row. The first is called Skid Row and documents Praswell (Pras, a member of the Fugees) as he lives for 9 days on Skid Row without his true identity being revealed and begins with just $9 and a tent. The goal was for Pras to get to know the people behind Skid Row, how the got where they did, and are they choosing to be there or is it a reaction to a cause? He is mentored by the local Mission leaders and filmed from a very far distance. I think it’s easy to dismiss the homeless and this movie is so humanizing and shed’s light on serious issues plaguing this city.
The second film I saw was Lost Angels: Skid Row is My Home, which was made be several of the people who worked on The Soloist. In fact most of the homeless people followed in the film were extras in The Soloist. This film focuses on San Julien Place, a street near several missions which has homeless housing and where many people take refuge. This film focuses on mental illness and how the termination of mental institutions forced these people out onto the streets. It also shows a larger problem: When missions are full at night (as well as low income housing being very hard to get) and people have nowhere to go to sleep, they are forced to lay on the ground where they then get ticketed for the crime of laying on the ground. If people can’t afford a place to lay, how can they pay the ticket? Not paying the tickets leads to jail time, which uses up lots of tax dollars. What if those tax dollars were invested in more of these low income apartments, which currently have waiting lists because they are so maxed out? The people followed are fascinating humans who you really care about in the film. I highly recommend both films.
