Enjoying life at 98: Dick Van Dyke
Dec
19
2023
I cannot say more, or in a truer fashion, about the jaunty 98-year-old than did the man who took these photos of Dick Van Dyke, and then wrote about him in Los Angeles Magazine. Chris Nichols, a friend of artsmeme (F.O.A.M.) took these candid shots in conjunction with Moments in Time, an exhibit photographic portraiture ...
Jeff Beck: Death of a great guitarist. Maiming of his marquee by Orpheum Theatre
nov 6 2022 marquee photo courtesy jeff mantor ed. note: The heartbreaking and unwelcome news of the death of legendary rock guitarist, Jeff Beck, sent us careening to an earlier time and place. But for a theater full of his Los Angeles fans, that time and place was the Orpheum Theatre just two months ago, ...
‘Expo’-nentially ‘Googie’
Nov
7
2022
poster by shag ed. note: We recently heard from Friend of Arts Meme (FOAM), Chris Nichols, fresh off his annual Halloween ‘Spooky Tour,’ now rarin’ to go with a massive, global-scaled, and far-reaching event, GOOGIE WORLD EXPO, on a Sunday afternoon. It all happens in GOOGIE world headquarters (for a day) in Van Nuys, CA. ...
Staying safe at the movies with Chris Nichols, in 2021
Jan
15
2022
you have my avid attention — for an entire year! Some people spent 2021 doom-scrolling on their phones. Others, like my friend Chris, spent it watching movies. When Chris idly let drop that he saw 86 movies last year, I had to ask for the basis of that claim. Said Chris (he is also known ...
Debunked! Bunker Hill, unblemished, in new book
Oct
16
2020
By day, it wasn’t an ‘urban underbelly.’ It was Anytown USA, a hustle-bustle neighborhood of oversized Victorian homes with porticoes and porch swings; corner grocery stores, playgrounds and bus stops. It was the terminus of the charming funicular, Angel’s Flight, that shuttled workers to and from their downtown Los Angeles jobs. By day, the flattish ...
How Cali staves off COVID: by reviving the drive-in 2
Jul
13
2020
photo by danny nero Dateline: Downey, California July 11 2020 There is a certain group of go-go people in Los Angeles that even COVID-19 cannot keep down. They are F.O.C.s, also known as “Friends of Chris.” The man of the evening (he hosted the event), Chris Nichols, is a modern-day town crier, a staff journalist ...
The many moods of Engelbert
Our man in Las Vegas, Chris Nichols, reports back to artsmeme World Headquarters with this photo essay of a recent club performance by Engelbert Humperdinck (born Arnold George Dorsey, 2 May 1936).Nichols attended the 83-year-old crooner’s Dec 1, 2019 show at the Orleans Showroom in Vegas. Accompanying his photo essay, Nichols reduced the show to ...
Tarantino’s dream: the Pussycat meets the Bookshop 2
Women around the world are beside themselves with joy to see movie director Quentin Tarantino bring back the sleaze old days of the late sixties, when XXX-rated porn movies spooled at the bygone Pussycat Theatre. Admittedly, even I miss rolling by this colorful (ahem, it was the color purple) ediface of screaming architecture on the ...
‘Googie World Expo’ slated to blast off at Corky’s
Mar
28
2017
If you think Obamacare is gonna ‘explode’ (or is it ‘implode’? … it keeps changing), watch out for the Googie World Expo. Wow! Heap-big explosion! The first of a two-day celebration of futuristic mid-century modern architecture and design is queued up for Sunday April 9. Its organizer is arts·meme‘s good friend Chris Nichols, the maven ...
Let’s go bowling with Chris Nichols
Apr
16
2014
These evocative photos speak reams to arts·meme friend Chris Nichols, a mid-century-modern architecture/culture expert and founder of the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Modern Committee, the infamous “Modcom.” So much so that Chris has organized an entire museum exhibit to celebrate the design universe of bowling alleys … the show just opened at the A + D ...