thought bubble.

So I've had an idea for a newspaper piece in my head since last week. Two pieces actually.

I wanted to do a sort of Los Angeles "neighborhoods guide" to thrift stores and unique (and affordable!) boutiques in the various areas of the city. I was thinking of this as an amazing self-funded project that I would be researching for the rest of the year (and pretty much putting my heart and soul into). I would probably write the series during the summer for publication as soon as school starts next fall.

So what inspired this? I was thinking of my first year in Los Angeles, when I came expecting to find shopping everywhere and still thinking that Melrose was the place to be. Not so quickly, I found out that, in order to not get ripped the fuck off in L.A., you have to know all the tiny little places and go out of your way to find unique stuff that you can't find at Urban Outfitters down the street (not that I find anything inherently wrong with UO). Basically, I want to share the information I'll be learning with people like me: without cars, without a lot of money, and with a lot of fashion-oriented creativity.

In order to get my information, I'd want to do various stop and chats with fashionable people, research online resources, pull information from guidebooks, and do a hell of a lot of traveling.

I was thinking I would format it in a 4-week series (or longer, who knows), complete with amazing maps and photographs and reviews that the Daily Bruin design team would hate me for requesting.

My second idea was a guide just like this, but for little coffee shops in Los Angeles. None of that Coffee Bean/Starbucks bullshit. The only thing is, this would probably take a lot more anticlimactic research (i.e. I wouldn't be receiving any good outfits from it). I'd be willing to do either or both really.

Anyway, that's all. I just needed to get that out there. It's been floating in my head for a while, and I'll be needing to pitch the idea to the Arts & Entertainment section soon.