Griffith Park Quotes

The Los Angeles parade would begin in Griffith Park, where a large crowd would assemble and the speeches would be given. Every politician of consequence would be there. There was no way they would miss a chance to publicly praise the troops and honor those who had lost their lives in service. Some of the tributes would be sincere and heartfelt, and some less so. But participating in the event, vowing undying support for the U.S. military, was an absolute must to maintain political viability. It was okay to vote to cut funds for veterans' healthcare, but don't dare miss a chance to jump on the Memorial Day bandwagon.

We are the last generation that can experience true wilderness. Already the world has shrunk dramatically. To a Frenchman, the Pyrenees are “wild.” To a kid living in a New York City ghetto, Central Park is “wilderness,” the way Griffith Park in Burbank was to me when I was a kid. Even travelers in Patagonia forget that its giant, wild-looking estancias are really just overgrazed sheep farms. New Zealand and Scotland were once forested and populated with long-forgotten animals. The place in the lower forty-eight states that is farthest away from a road or habitation is at the headwaters of the Snake River in Wyoming, and it’s still only twenty-five miles. So if you define wilderness as a place that is more than a day’s walk from civilization, there is no true wilderness left in North America, except in parts of Alaska and Canada. In a true Earth-radical group, concern for wilderness preservation must be the keystone. The idea of wilderness, after all, is the most radical in human thought—more radical than Paine, than Marx, than Mao. Wilderness says: Human beings are not paramount, Earth is not for Homo sapiens alone, human life is but one life form on the planet and has no right to take exclusive possession. Yes, wilderness for its own sake, without any need to justify it for human benefit. Wilderness for wilderness. For bears and whales and titmice and rattlesnakes and stink bugs. And…wilderness for human beings…. Because it is home. —Dave Foreman, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior We need to protect these areas of unaltered wildness and diversity to have a baseline, so we never forget what the real world is like—in perfect balance, the way nature intended the earth to be. This is the model we need to keep in mind on our way toward sustainability.

coyotes were everywhere. He would see them in the front yard, sunning themselves, languorously eating fallen fruit from the cherimoya and loquat trees. He would see them loping down the streets of Silver Lake and Echo Park, sometimes in couples or in families, sorting through the trash outside the vegan place on Sunset, hiking stoically in Griffith Park, nursing their young. The coyotes felt capable, canny, and strangely anthropomorphized, as if they had been endowed with human features by a team of animators. Their hair seemed artfully disheveled, the haircut of a hot, young actor playing a drug addict in an independent film. The coyotes felt more human than most of the humans Sam encountered, more human than Sam himself felt back then. Their constant presence made the city feel wild and dangerous, as if he weren’t living in a city at all.

magnifying glass. “Thanks,” says Terry. “I needed that.” “Don’t mention it,” I say. “That’s what friends are for. Come on! To the flying fried-egg car!” We jump in and pull the yolk down tightly over the top of us. I press EXTRA SIZZLE on the control panel … and we take off through the concealed flying fried-egg car hatch in the top of the detective agency. We fly through Mr. Big Nose’s window and park next to his bookshelf. Terry takes out the two biggest magnifying glasses and starts looking

Underground parking garages, like the interior of submarines, are malevolent in their ugliness and lack of human comfort, in their machine-oil smell, their lack of natural light, their sense of confinement.

The editor of the journal, Crab Riley, found her story hard to believe, especially because she could not provide evidence of the children disappearing, and he was inclined to dismiss it as fantasy until he researched archives, where mention of the disappearances was indeed found in National Geographic Magazine.   ‘Teachers and school children descended and did not return. Search parties and excavations found no trace. After weeks, they were given up as dead,’ it said.   The article, by archaeologist William Griffith, also made mention of the skeletons found when the caves were first discovered too, although the number was far higher than had been realised by most.   ‘There were human bones to account for thirty thousand people. It was a “restaurant” I rather think, for Atlantean descendants.’   Could underground races of carnivorous species really dwell in the deep substrata below ground, coming up momentarily to snatch and feed off humans?   Interestingly, in some excellent research, Dustin Naef says there are over 700 caves and tunnels in Lava Beds National Park alone, and over 150 in the Marble Mountain area near Mount Shasta, with over thirty miles of tunnels mapped so far.

After making my way through a bowl full of lawn (Sure, Dana had said it was exotic sautéed greens, but it smelled like the grass in Griffith Park to me.), a cold purée of squash soup (Cold. Squash. Two words that should never be thrown together in the same recipe.), and a platter of seared kelp (I'm sorry, anything that washes up onto the beach is not considered food in my world.), I

P-22 just may be the Neil Armstrong of his kind. A quick glance at his route on a map shows he had to be a bit mad to even attempt his journey. To get to his new territory of Griffith Park, he must cross two of the busiest freeways in the United States. Imagine soft, padded paws fitted for bounding over snow and boulders touching the asphalt of the first eight-lane highway, known as one of the worst roads in the country. Even in the middle of the night, the 405 never slows, and the highway thrums with mechanical noise and explodes with the mad dance of headlights. When faced with the living, breathing monster of the 405, most cats do an abrupt about-face, or get mangled by a few tons of moving steel. But P-22, with his tenacity, or luck, or both, somehow manages to cross. There is no way of knowing how he navigates the formidable obstacle of the road, whether he uses an under- or overpass or bolts straight across. All have been attempted by other cats, and many haven’t lived to tell the tale.

The committed federalist leaders—Parkes, Deakin, Griffith, Barton, Inglis Clark and others—were pursuing a sacred ideal of nationhood. They can be thought of as both selfish and pure. Selfish, in that the chief force driving them was the new identity and greater stature they would enjoy—either as colonists or natives—from Australia’s nationhood. Pure, in that the benefit they sought did not depend on the particular form federation took. In a sense any federation would do. They knew of course that interests had to be conciliated and other ideals not outraged; they shared some of these themselves. But they were not mere managers or lobbyists; underneath all the negotiation and campaigning there was an emotional drive.

If it keeps up,” Henry snorted. “When we reopen the park, we’ll have to advertise the lake as the amazing boiling lake. Cook your eggs in it for lunch! Hang your coffee thermos over the edge of your boat’s side, and keep it warm. Jump in the water and take a hot bath!