The Eviction Puppet Show of Silver Lake, Los Angeles

The sun sets over Sunset Boulevard; the palm trees silhouette. In the front garden of a big house off the main drag, the puppet show begins.

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This is an audio-first story. For the full story, including the puppet show, listen to the podcast episode.

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This is an audio-first story. For the full story, including the puppet show, listen to the podcast episode. •

The name of the house is Ag lago

Ag lago

“Ag lago.”

And it's in Silver Lake on Sunset Junction. 

Sometimes I call it a punk house. Sometimes I just, I call it a collective house. 
Um, but... It's my home.

Things go up on the property, but they don't often come down. So there's like literally decades of stories and projects and abandoned projects and ideas and evolutions that have just kind of built up over the years. 

The basement is full of things that, of people who don't live here anymore, who lived here years ago. But besides that, there's a lot of like just things built into the house that were from people past, from cultures past.

I didn't move in until 2008, so. Uh, by the time I moved in, it had a name, but when I first started coming here it didn't have a name yet, but, but that was pretty, pretty quick. It's pretty soon it got a name.

Ag lago

Ag lago.

•

Photo by Blake Wagner

 
 

We were in conversation with the landlord about getting our plumbing fixed. And so the last we had heard somebody was supposed to be out that week to fix our plumbing, and then …there was a demolition notice on the house.

When we decided we're going to stay and fight this eviction because we believed that we were being wrongfully evicted one of the things that I did was I started the GoFundMe for our legal expenses.

“Food Not Bombs is a mutual aid group that it's an autonomous group so anyone can start a Food Not Bombs chapter.”

It happens every Sunday,

And we cook a big meal and then just share it in downtown, yeah. At Skid Row.

but the cooking has been happening for the LA chapter at Ag lago for like 20 years.

In the summer of 2023, the house held a puppet show.

The show told the story of a community house facing an eviction, and the puppets’ schemes to raise $15 million to purchase the house.

The schemes do not go according to plan.

I can confidently say if Ag Lago was was having a party…Other places in town, maybe like… shouldn't.

We always have a really weird theme and I feel like over the years the themes have just been getting more and more ridiculous.

It's really fun, like the whole space transforms.

Future disco, bikini beach party from outer space.

They start late, they go late.

Librarians versus barbarians. 

A lot of the parties are actually really blurry for me. Ummm. Let's see…

God versus science fair.

Our Vegas party was a lot of fun.

Viva Log Vegas.

Our house, it usually is really well known for it's New Year's parties. 

There was one year where we had no New Year's Party and a person or two still showed up because they just expected an Ag Lago New Year's Eve to happen.

It's the place to be on New Year's

The fall of the holy ramen empire

Can you explain what the theme, what that one was?

Um, well,… that one was just like Holy Roman Empire, but Ramen. It's in the name. I dunno what else you want me to say.

To me, it seems like they knew that this building was an RSO and part of their strategy for dealing with this building and the tenants in it was to never acknowledge the fact that it was under the rent stabilization ordinance. Like that was part of their strategy.

Our house for years was registered as a boarding house, and so we assumed that we would be protected under the RSO 'cause that protects multi-family residences. And we learned that they pulled a sneaky trick on our last lease and snuck the language single family in there. So it kind of roped us out of a lot of our rights to be evicted individually and receive separate payouts to leave. 

That's kind of where the first initial investigation was, which is are we protected under the rent stabilization ordinance or not? And if they somehow stripped us of that protection, can we prove that they did that?

We dug through pieces of microfiche dating back to 1974.

And so we looked it up and use code 008* is a boarding house. And so like in the library we got super excited and high fived and you know, we're like, we found the information that we needed, which was exhilarating. *(correction: boarding house use code: 0800, single family home 0100)

We ultimately find that the courts are not that clear cut and that still requires a lot of argumentation.

Well, six people are represented by one lawyer. I'm represented by another lawyer, and three people are self-represented. 

The first time we went to court under the advice of the tenants union, we had like a number of our friends join us in red t-shirts to show support.

We asked friends and community to come and so many people showed up that the clerk…kicked everyone out of the courtroom

This is my first time seeing housing court play out and like, I guess I didn't have a ton of hope…

So you're just literally seeing just a lot of people get evicted every day.

Every time we go to court, the theater and the tragedy and the rigamarole of every day in that court system is so sad and so depressing, and I just kind of try and imagine like how as the species that we are and the rareness of this time that we have, that we've gotten to this place where eviction court is a large part of many people's lives… It's so stupid.

Draft letter for approval, Silver Lake Neighborhood Council (Pg 1)

Draft letter for approval, Silver Lake Neighborhood Council (Pg 2)

“Not only is it one of the rare, affordable housing spaces in this whole neighborhood and city, but it's this beautiful textured community of people that will disperse after this, separate from each other—forever. And I think it also will mark a real end of an era of, you know, the rapid gentrification of cities and the rising rent prices and the aging of houses like this that aren't built anymore. It feels like the end of an era in a bigger way than just this house — ”

This is an audio-first story. For the full story, including the puppet show, make sure to listen to the podcast episode.

This is an audio-first story. For the full story, including the puppet show, make sure to listen to the podcast episode.

Thanks:

Revé, Jeremy, Vita, Josh, Donnie, Storai, Theo, Arden, Sarah and Eleanor.

+ Emily, Spoorthi, Greyson

+ the countless folks that were part of the Ag Lago community.

Chapter markers by Cal Bannerman of the podcast Stories from The Hearth.

• Music • Timex - pAS dOO • Deville - Yclept Insan • Auld Lang Syne • Marionette •

Tags, Topics and Mentions: Ag Lago, Silver Lake, Los Angeles, New Years, New Years Party, LA, Sunset Boulevard, Sunset Junction, Santa Monica and Sunset, Eviction, Demolition, Puppet Show, Eviction Puppet Show, A Different Light, Housing Court, RSO, Food Not Bombs, LA Tenants Union, Silver Lake Neighborhood Council, What to do when you see a demolition notice on your house, punk house, community house, bicycles

Organist Edward Torres at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater

Up the freeway a few miles from Downtown Los Angeles, the streetlights flicker on as I approach the warm glow of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. Inside, I meet organist Edward Torres.

What was once a silent movie house, long ago, now buzzes with the sound of children, their parents, and a handful of chatty 20 somethings who are neither.

This is the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, and through the swinging doors from the lobby, a bright red carpet unfurls down a gentle slope, all the way to the bright red stage curtain.

To the left of the stage, still a few minutes from showtime, another red curtain has been pulled to the ceiling, and in a raised alcove, the back of an ornate jacket faces the audience, light glints off the shining sequence.

The person wearing this jacket is almost entirely enveloped by a cockpit of levers, foot pedals, buttons and 4 rows of piano keys. His fingers glide across all of these options with amazing fluidity.

This is Edward Torres, the organist at the puppet theater, and he weaves through a medley of arrangements like a driver dipping seamlessly from lane to lane, each song a passing exit or town.

“At an early age I discovered that I could play my emotions through my fingers... performing on this particular instrument for me, is an extremely personal zen, if you will.” - Edward Torres

Bob Baker Marionette Theater does puppet shows in cabaret style, which means the puppeteers are fully visible during the performance. For most of the shows they wear a striking all-red outfit which blends into the theater’s backdrop but you can see them the whole time on the strings. The stage is lower than the seats, on a gentle slope, and the puppeteers don’t act or provide vocal accompaniment. Instead, a prerecorded track of layered audio plays through the house speakers featuring voice actors, sound effects and vintage show tunes, to which the puppets sing along and perform intricate choreographies. It’s hard to describe the form, but the effect is an arresting cascade of expressive, blinking works of hand-crafted art. The audio tracks are a work of art too, many assembled by Bob Baker himself, splicing together physical tape from a deep archive reaching well into broadway and hollywood history.

“…it’s getting back to basic human interaction. And the overall feeling of being a part of something. Truly. It's beautiful, I think. But anyways, I just play the organ, I don't know!” -Edward Torres

The Bob Baker Marionette Theater was founded in 1963 — Bob Baker had been creating puppets since childhood, and he founded a physical theater on the edge of Downtown los Angeles, which ran shows and enchanted children for 50 years in that location. After Baker’s passing in 2014, the theater fell on tenuous times, and they were pushed out of the building that the organization, and it’s collection of thousands of puppets had called home for decades. The building was slated for redevelopment, but still sits vacant. They were able to find this building, what was once the York Theater, a silent movie house in highland park, and had been a whole string of things including a church in the mean time. It transformed into a dreamy, whimsical space, complete with a theater organ.

The move to this new space was in 2019, and just 4 months after it opened, the pandemic hit, again threatening the theater’s survival. But, they pulled through, and returned post-pandemic with a show called Reopening Revelry.

The Bob Baker Marionette Theater, interior.

An oil derrick and mountain lion puppet hang dormant backstage after the show.

“…in terms of theater organs, I think that they will survive and thrive in the new world setting not just as being a solo instrument, but as being a part of something else. I think that's their best bet to survive in this world.” -Edward Torres

“Audio is not a technology, but a process that employs technology to construct temporary social architecture made of air.” - Micah Silver, Figures in Air

Tags, Topics and Mentions: Edward Torres, Ed Torres, Bob Baker Marionette Theater, Theater Organ, Organist, Puppets, Puppetry, Puppet Theater, Puppet Theater Los Angeles, LA, California, Figures in Air, The Wind, Organ, Silent Movies, Silent Movie Theater LA, Highland Park, York blvd, Freeway, Western Tanager, Mockingbird Car Alarm, Historic Theater, Organs, Historic Organs, Edward Torres Organist

Henry Real Bird at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering

Off the train in Elko, Nevada we meet cowboy poet Henry Real Bird, former Montana Poet Laureate, teacher and bronc rider from the banks of the Little Bighorn.

Cowboy poetry is often very structured. The good poets play with that structure and surprise you with twists or a pauses, jokes, word play. Henry’s poems do somethin’ else entirely. They feel like suddenly you’re walking down a path and you don’t know where it’s goin’, or if it’s goin’ anywhere, but it usually does and then you’re somewhere a little different and he says thanks and puts his hat back on and sits down in a chair at the back the stage.

Portrait at the Gathering by Kevin Martini-Fuller

“Where am I from? Yeah, I'm from Garryowen, Montana, and that's the Crow Indian Reservation. And that's on the Little Bighorn. And I grew up there pretty much speaking Crow Indian until I was maybe five, six years old. …I grew up, strong, and, now, now that I'm writing more about my life, I see how lucky I am. I was a strong person. I rode bucking horses and then taught and put together a ranch and stuff like that against the odds. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What else?’’

The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering started in 1985, becoming an annual roundup of cowboys, ranchers, poets, artists and the many combinations therein, hailing from all parts the American west and sometimes beyond. Hosted by the Western Folklife Center, the gathering is always held in January/February when folks’ ranches are dormant. Elko’s oft-snowy streets are then marked by the soles of boots, mostly of the cowboy variety, some rounded, some pointed, and most of them pointing into the Western Folklife Center’s Pioneer Saloon, or up the front steps of the Elko Convention Center.

Featuring:

Henry Real Bird | Library of Congress Recording

The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering | Western Folklife Center

Mentioned in the interview: Andy Hedges’ podcast interview with Henry on Cowboy Crossroads. This is a great podcast if you’d like to dig deeper into cowboy poetry.

All year, the words come up from the land itself

and the poets bring them to town.

we all feast

and we leave warm and full, or cold and spent or some combination and the snow falls starting at dusk and then on through the night

Then the wheels rumble beneath us, “tomorrow is only a horizon

It’s the line wavering under my feet” -[M Jiang]

and behind, Elko as a tiny speck,

buzzes away

over the horizon.

Tags, Topics and Mentions: Henry Real Bird, National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Western Folklife Center, Elko Nevada, Garryowen Montana, Crow Indian Reservation, Little Bighorn, Cowboy Poetry, lullabies, poetry, western poetry, Thought by henry real bird, cowboy crossroads podcast, the wind podcast, rural art, rural poetry, american west

Echo from Deep Valley with Ho Lan

A song bounces from slope to slope, emerging from the valley as an echo. Just out of earshot from Spokane Falls we meet star Taiwanese yodeler, Ho Lan.

Fil Corbitt: The yodel is kind of this thing that ties people to wild places in some way. Do you agree with that? 
Ho Lan: Yeah, maybe connected… connected to everything.

White Cloudy Valley with its gracefully winding brook.

I wish to store the great love in my heart, deep within its bosom.

Ah! I call out, with hope that you can hear and understand.

May the valley echo my love to the far corners of the earth.

 
  
Tags, Topics and Mentions: Ho Lan, Echo from Deep Valley, Yodeling, Yodel, Taiwanese Yodel, Puli, Spokane, Washington, Spokane River, Spokane Falls, Expo '74, Manito Park, Yodeling cowboys, Hawaiian yodel, Mike Hanapi, Vicente Fernandez, Josaya Hadebe, Bulawayo Blue Yodel, yodeling in nature, waterfalls, birdsong, Hsia-jung Chang, the wind, eastern washington, high desert, silent night

Jazmine (JT) Green in Brooklyn, New York

The word “transit” comes from the Latin “transitus”, meaning to pass across or through. Off the subway in Brooklyn, down the stairs into the busy green room of On Air Fest, we meet Jazmine (JT) Green.

|| Ephemera, change, sound. ||

Before “As A” night of pleasure • album release party in Brooklyn, New York. 2024

Transformation through Repetition (feat. Jemma Rose Brown) - aired on Jazmine’s experimental audio podcast U+1F60C

Jazmine (JT) Green: ...Sometimes transitioning feels like dying in a video game. And then when you're dead, the “continue” icon appears and the countdown appears. And you have ten seconds to say Yes or No. And then you say “yes”, and then you spawn back to that position prior.
And not only in that metaphorical sense... I've had two near death experiences with pulmonary embolisms that, I was physically dead for a brief period of time and then revived.
And it's one of those things when you're on your third shot at life, then you have another metaphorical death. You really begin to look at every single decision in your life, down to the time you spend, and, you're like, every minute, every second is a gift.
[speaking about the album cover of "As A..."]
Jazmine (JT) Green: So the idea of the dead pixel. This is especially prevalent in modern display technology, because things are being made at scale, super fast. A lot of times LCD panels are not perfect. And it's usually noticeable if the screen displays full white.
There may be a single black pixel that is present. And what is present in there is the fact that like one of the panels is not illuminating properly, which looks zoomed out like a single spot on a perfectly spotless image, right? With the cover of the album...the album takes place from the perspective of the girl's smartphone. It's a gridded red, green, blue pattern. It evokes RGB light, the basic color panels that then make up an LCD screen. Like if you've ever spilled water on your smartphone and you've seen it magnified, you may see bits of these red, green, and blue squares pop up.
What I was curious about was utilizing the metaphor of the dead pixel as, like, a metaphor for the girl in the album. Which in turn, since it is an auto-fiction, you know, I would be lying and saying that some of my life experiences are not reflected in the narrative of the record. And thinking about the girl's life as a pristine LCD panel previously, but then having this one imperfection that sort of infiltrates the facade.
And if you zoom in on I made it super high res for a reason. So if you find the 3000 by 3000 pixel version, if you zoom in very closely at the dead pixel, it actually reveals an image. And on that image, it's a portrait that was taken of me by my partner at a concert around this time last year, where I first went out in gender affirming clothing.
And it was a moment where I felt like there was a part of this new self that was punching through the LCD facade that I built until the point that eventually all the pixels will be dead and then will need to be rebirthed into a new panel in a way.

• // •

Featuring:

Jazmine (JT) Green | music • website • Molten Heart

Jemma Rose Brown | website

Thanks to: Eleanor Qull, Jemma Rose Brown, Ray Pang, all the folks at On Air Fest.