MONSTERS OF OLD LOS ANGELES- The Prehistoric Animals of the La Brat Tar Pits BY CHARLES ML MARTIN. Illustrated by Herb Raybum. Contents include: Acknowledgments 7 Foreword 9 1. The Sage of the Ages 13 2. Eat to Live 20 3. Primordial Supremacy 29 4. The Stampede 38 5. A New Home 45 6. Life at La Brea 52 7. Ricky Arrives 58 8. Ricky and Racky 67 9. The Rains Come 74 10. The Miracle of Life 81 11. The Greatest Tragedy 88 12. Six-Ton Mother Love 95 13. Thanksgiving Day at La Brea 103 14. The Land of Plenty 110 15. Go West, Young Man 117 Addenda The La Brea Excavations 125

MONSTERS OF OLD LOS ANGELES The Prehistoric Animals of the La Brat Tar Pits BY CHARLES ML MARTIN Illustrated by Herb Raybum THE VIKING PRESS NEW YORK 1950 To JOHN HERMAN, D. Sc. Whose abundant knowledge and untiring assist ance made this book possible. Charles M. Martin Second printing September 1951 Third printing July 1955 Fourth printing September 1958 Fifth printing October 1961 Copyright 1950 by Charles M. Martin First published by The Viking Press in August 1950 Published on the same day in the Dominion of Canada by The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS Acknowledgments 7 Foreword 9 1. The Sage of the Ages 13 2. Eat to Live 20 3. Primordial Supremacy 29 4. The Stampede 38 5. A New Home 45 6. Life at La Brea 52 7. Ricky Arrives 58 8. Ricky and Racky 67 9. The Rains Come 74 10. The Miracle of Life 81 11. The Greatest Tragedy 88 12. Six-Ton Mother Love 95 13. Thanksgiving Day at La Brea 103 14. The Land of Plenty 110 15. Go West, Young Man 117 Addenda The La Brea Excavations 125 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to make grateful acknowledgment to those scientists who helped me so unselfishly while I was doing the research and writing of this book. To Dr. John Herman, whose encouragement and untiring energy helped so much in gathering the factual material while I was doing the field work, and also at the Los Angeles County Museum. Dr. Herman worked closely with me on the correlating of the prehistoric animals with the forms of similar species which exist today in various parts of the world. He was a bulwark on which to lean for all geographical locations as well, which is far afield from his usual pursuits, in his long and illustrious career as achemist. To Dr. Chester Stock, Senior Curator of Science at the Los Angeles County Museum, who directed much of the more recent exploratory excavation work at La Urea. Dr. Stocks book, Rancho la Brea Science Series No. 11, Paleontology No. 7, furnished much of the factual material To Dr. Hiklcgarde Howard, Curator of Avian Paleontology, for her assistance in ascertaining information regarding the birds and plants of ancient La Brea, Some of the leaves and small seeds were found in the skulls of mice which had been preserved in the tar pits for forty thou sand years, and from such minute evidence Dr. Howard identified many of the farms of plant life of the Pleistocene period. 8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To Dr. John A. Comstock, now retired, but who for years was Senior Curator at the Los Angeles County Museum, for his splendid cooperation and many helpful suggestions. To Doctors Merriam, Miller, and Kerr, who have been credited for their discoveries by Dr. Stock in his Science Series. Also my grateful thanks to the directors of the Los Angeles County Museum, and particularly to Dr. James H. Breasted, Jr. The oppor tunity to study the restorations at the Museum was an in valuables aid, My heartiest thanks to Captain George Allan Hancock, who do nated the acreage containing the La Brea Pits to the Comity of Los Angeles in perpetuity for the public, for his many philanthropic services in making the restorations possible. Captain Hancock donated La Brea to the County in 1913, in memory of his late father, Major Henry Hancock. The explorations in Hancock Park were started by Dr. Merriam and his associates of the University of California in 1913. All the pits are plainly marked to give the student ofthe prehistoric animals of La Brea much priceless information. To Herb Rayburn, talented young artist, who accompanied me on my research work to the fields and museums, and who much 1 many sketches of the material in Hancock Park and in the Hancock room in the County Museum. His gifted talent helped clothe many of the skeletal remains with the flesh of reality for this hook. To these, and to the staff members of the Los Angeles County Museum who gave so graciously of their time and knowledge, 1 wish to express my most sincere appreciation. CHAiUJKS M...

The classic memoir of life as a Crip, written in solitary confinement: “A shockingly raw, frightening portrait of gang life in South Central Los Angeles.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times After pumping eight blasts from a sawed-off shotgun at a group of rival gang members, twelve-year-old Kody Scott was initiated into the L.A. gang the Crips. He quickly matured into one of the most formidable Crip combat soldiers, earning the name “Monster” for committing acts of brutal violence that repulsed even his fellow gang members. When the inevitable jail term confined him to a maximum-security cell, a complete political and personal transformation followed: from Monster to Sanyika Shakur, black nationalist, member of the New Afrikan Independence Movement, and crusader against the causes of gangsterism. In a work that has been compared to The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice, Shakur makes palpable the despair and decay of America’s inner cities and gives eloquent voice to one aspect of the black ghetto experience.

Every city has its urban legends, its tall tales, and even its outright lies, and Hollywood and Los Angeles have enough to fill a book--and Paul Young has done just that. L.A. Exposed includes the facts behind the myths surrounding everything from the tall tales of tinsel town, to the legend and lore of LA landmarks, to rock n' roll rumors, to Southern California's unnatural history, to the city's crime lore, to tales of corruption and conspiracy in the land of sunshine and health; LA Exposed dares to ask the hard questions. Does L.A. really have earthquake weather? Did Alfred Hitchcock ask Grace Kelly to do a strip teast in her front window? Is there treasure buried in the Watts Towers? Are there still opium dens in Chinatown? Was Barbara Streisand ever in a porn film? Young gives readers the lowdown on the city's most enduring myths, exploring their origins, and whether there is an ounce of truth to any of them. L.A. Exposed, inventive, witty, and addictive, is sure to be a hit in L.A. and beyond.

Luis J. Rodriguez writes about race, culture, identity, and belonging and what these all mean and should mean (but often fail to) in the volatile climate of our nation. His passion and wisdom inspire us with the message that we must come together if we are to move forward. As he writes in the preface, “Like millions of Americans, I’m demanding a new vision, a qualitatively different direction, for this country. One for the shared well-being of everyone. One with beauty, healing, poetry, imagination, and truth.” The pieces in From Our Land to Our Land capture that same fantastic energy and wisdom and will spark conversation and inspiration.

Winner of the 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, this intoxicating story of a teenage girl who trades her a middle–class upbringing for a quest for meaning in 1980s Mexico is “a surreal, captivating tale about the power of a youthful imagination, the lure of teenage transgression, and its inevitable disappointments” (Los Angeles Review of Books). One autumn afternoon in Mexico City, seventeen–year–old Luisa does not return home from school. Instead, she boards a bus to the Pacific coast with Tomás, a boy she barely knows. He seems to represent everything her life is lacking―recklessness, impulse, independence. Tomás may also help Luisa fulfill an unusual obsession: she wants to track down a traveling troupe of Ukrainian dwarfs. According to newspaper reports, the dwarfs recently escaped a Soviet circus touring Mexico. The imagined fates of these performers fill Luisa’s surreal dreams as she settles in a beach community in Oaxaca. Surrounded by hippies, nudists, beachcombers, and eccentric storytellers, Luisa searches for someone, anyone, who will “promise, no matter what, to remain a mystery.” It is a quest more easily envisioned than accomplished. As she wanders the shoreline and visits the local bar, Luisa begins to disappear dangerously into the lives of strangers on Zipolite, the “Beach of the Dead.” Meanwhile, her father has set out to find his missing daughter. A mesmeric portrait of transgression and disenchantment unfolds. Set to a pulsing soundtrack of Joy Division, Nick Cave, and Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sea Monsters is a brilliantly playful and supple novel about the moments and mysteries that shape us. "Aridjis is deft at conjuring the teenage swooniness that apprehends meaning below every surface. Like Sebald’s or Cusk’s, her haunted writing patrols its own omissions . . . The figure of the shipwreck looms large for Aridjis. It becomes a useful lens through which to see this book, which is self–contained, inscrutable, and weirdly captivating, like a salvaged object that wants to return to the sea." ―Katy Waldman, The New Yorker