Hollywoodland Boulevard

An epic vision of the new-old
Hollywoodland Boulevard in
the past-future with all
the landmarks of Hollywood
united into one supreme
twin clown-appointed
Hollywoodland thoroughfare
of history, whimsy and epic ambition.
I had a vision of a Hollywood
Boulevard in which the big sign -
that originally spelled out
Hollywoodland
to promote the real estate development
up in the hills over this hamlet
was moved to a central location
and many of L.A's most famous
and surreal landmarks-
such as the whimsical
Ballerina Clown created by
Borosfsky (now on Main Street
in Venice), the immense
Randy's Doughnut Doughnut by LAX
and the Clown Liquor clown
from Noho
were all installed over
Hollywoodland Boulevard.
Those elephants were originally
from the DW Griffith silent flick
"Intolerance" which he filmed on
the streets of Hollywood, and so remained
in place over Sunset Boulevard for
decades of decay and are now echoed
in identical elephants on columns over
the sprawling Hollywood-Highland complex,
a surreal symbology I assume is lost
on almost everyone who sees it
daily but which remains one
of the best visual examples
of Hollywood's unique
fusion of the fantastic with the
ordinary. Chaplin is there as is
Keaton, both of whom made their
classic comedies on these streets
and in studios within this little town.
There are dinosaur bones, not unlike
prehistoric bones preserved from the nearby
La Brea tarpits, and in the center,
the Kress Building, as it once was
for the old department store - a building
that became purple and the home of
Frederick's and is now the Hollywood Toy Store.
There's Capitol Records, which is on Vine
and the Roosevelt Hotel and the
El Capitan movie theater
and, yeah, that about does it.
With Marilyn in the center of it
all, her iconic image so representative
of the sexuality, glamour, history,
abstraction and tragedy
at the heart of this little
town
under the big sign.