Q: It’s the first week of May, but LA has had dark skies for weeks, even months. Is this a SuperJuneGloom?
A: Skies like Doom have indeed loomed like a closing tomb, since before the last three SuperMoons. Fresh mists, i.e, are keeping the SuperBloom in the room! So assume, that the gloom resumes until June; then, boom, go ahead and say we’re having a SuperJuneGloom.
The first night of spring coincided with a full moon. Not just a full moon, but they say it’s a supermoon, the last one of 2019, however these things are reckoned. It also seems to be “the worm moon,” presumably, when the ground is warm and wet enough to send the critters up to the surface.
We had showers this equinox. For a moment after moonrise, the sky was open, the air was crystal, and the white plate of Luna’s orb was clear, framed by front-and-backlit clouds, and posed with palm trees.
Take a second to wipe the lens! Zheesh. Suddenly the brilliant moon was obscured. Instead, I captured this eldritch sprite in the sky, appearing like Katisha, or some deranged, mile-high Mrs. Lovett, come to chastise North Hollywood. Well, we don’t get a cloudy luchtschaap for a moonrise very often: it made a gorgeous show.
Nighttime views, under the full “supermoon,” of the Mission Revival campus of North Hollywood High, “Home of the Huskies.” Kudos to the administration for keeping the campus, mostly, open to the community when school isn’t in session. You can jog, play tennis, or walk your dog through the vast, arboreal grounds (Oregon ash, Cedar of Lebanon, and a splendid avenue of the oldest, fattest, darkest-shading oak trees to be found anywhere outside of Sherwood Forest).
Prominent ex-Huskies include Michael Tilson Thomas, Susan Sonntag, and Cuba Gooding, Jr. My favorite story is of North Hollywood alumnus and founder of a cinema dynasty, Alan Ladd. Ladd came to fame as SHANE, but got his start with a screen-test offered by a scout who saw him capering with a snicker-snee as KoKo in “The Mikado,” the year after graduation. Hollywood greasepaint saved him from North Hollywood grease: Ladd had just opened a burger joint across the street from the school.
FYI: There is still a burger joint across the street from NoHoHi, Big Time Burger, which serves sizzling California-style burgers (lettuce, onions, avocado, tomato) that are fresh, filling and far superior to chain fast-food burgers. Only open at lunchtime, when it is popular with the students, but quite worth a visit.
Walking under the “supermoon” (didn’t we just used to call them “full moons?”) through beautiful Valley Village on the penultimate night of 2017.
The Valley Village View 