After coming down from one of the most life-transforming journalism experiences I’ve ever encountered (more on that later!), I was honored to learn this week that I have been chosen as one of seven USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellows, a program that brings writers, editors, and producers to LA to study the city’s art, architecture and urban culture. In November, along with Joerg Haentzschel, Jennifer Hsu, Ryan Pearson, Gillian Rennie, Wei Wei Wong, and Douglas Wolk, I will embark on an intensive investigation of, according to the program description, “the distinct cultural cauldron of Los Angeles.” (I love that.)

Of course, as you know, I’m already quite enamored with my local cultural cauldron, so you might wonder why I’d want to immerse myself in the place I already live. I anticipated that the program’s directors would want to know the same thing, so that is what I tried to address in my statement of purpose that I wrote to include with my application. With their permission, I wanted to share it with you. I couldn’t be more thrilled about this amazing opportunity. Stay tuned!

To truly examine the future of arts journalism, we must look at L.A.’s 704 Metro Rapid bus.

A hot-rod red bullet with accordion-like folds at its middle snakes down the length of Los Angeles’s Santa Monica Boulevard, from Union Station to the Pacific Ocean. To me, it is perhaps L.A.’s most progressive work of public art:  A convergence of industrial design and craft, wayfinding and graphics, urban planning and infrastructural architecture, accessible and available to every community across the city. But not many people who live in Los Angeles have the ability to appreciate it. They’re too busy cursing at it from behind the wheel of their car.

My job is to get people on that bus. To tell the story of those sexy-flexy curves, why it’s L.A.’s best chance at a sustainable city, and how an ongoing collaboration between artists, designers, engineers, politicians, drivers and riders keeps it rolling through the streets. But penning a series of inflammatory diatribes on transit advocacy would make people more inclined to throw themselves under that bus than ride it. Instead, I make riding a bus irresistible. I tell the story from every angle:  From bus-riding updates on Twitter, to blog posts where I snap photos of bus stops, to interviews with Metro creatives, to videos about the commuter experience, to criticism of the latest transit line, to essays about what it’s like not to have a car in Los Angeles (both the good and the bad).

As a person who writes about creative problem solving, my job goes far beyond simply reporting a story. It’s my responsibility to make that story so undeniably entertaining that my audience feels an emotional connection to a designer, or an object, or their city—and more importantly, they’re inspired to take creative action themselves.

When I started my career, design and architecture was spiraling towards irrelevance at cataclysmic rate. When I blogged daily for UnBeige, which is like a Gawker for designers, I made light of the situation by skewering the bloated blobularity of a $60,000 Zaha Hadid sofa. As our culture was humbled by economic and environmental disasters, the industry paradigm flipped: The designers and architects creating a positive impact in society became the celebrities. Suddenly I could write passionately about parks! And people cared!

Almost overnight my job changed: Where once my writing was a snarky tool for eviscerating inflated architect egos, now it could be used to champion the causes of the good guys. From writing case studies on sustainability for the business community at Fast Company, to debating affordable housing projects in Dwell, to reviewing David Byrne’s book on biking for the public radio program DnA: Design and Architecture, I’m able to promote the causes I believe in by sharing the stories of artists and designers who are making them happen.

This new model becomes most apparent in my role at GOOD, where my work has gone far beyond writing a weekly column—now I’m organizing events and curating challenges to bring the work of these creatives to life. One such initiative we launched two years ago is GOOD Design, where designers present solutions to urban problems proposed by city leaders, at fun, fast-paced events across the country. These events form incredible partnerships between designers and civic leaders and help spark lively discussions about cities and change that can’t happen in the magazine. This is the kind of work that I strive to do as a writer.

And that’s why I’m lucky to live in L.A—it’s the world’s largest artists’ district, and a city that’s undergoing dramatic change. So you may be curious as to why I want to apply for this program, seeing as I’m already sold on LA’s unique creative community. For the past year I’ve been working on a series of essays that tell my story of this evolving L.A. through the eclectic work of artists, designers and architects I have encountered in Los Angeles. An intense focus on this topic would provide an invaluable immersion experience for my stories, which I hope to develop into both a book and event series.

L.A. is experiencing a rare moment when these creatives are poised to influence urban culture on a global scale, working together to make an improved city that inspires and engages its citizens on a daily basis. Los Angeles represents unprecedented possibility for creatives and cities working together everywhere. I feel so strongly about participating in this program because I believe we need more writers—and filmmakers, and radio producers, and photographers—to help tell this new L.A. narrative to the world.

Starting with the part where even the most auto-dependent Angelenos might try riding that bus.

Come on in! The studio—as well as the house—that Keith and I share is featured as a Studio Insider piece over at the wonderful blog Felt & Wire. We even let you peek inside the garage. Also today, there’s a nice interview with me over at the blog of new SVA D-Crit student Cheryl Yau. Enjoy!

It’s going to be 96 degrees in downtown today. Probably the hottest day of the year so far.

As I was stumbling around downtown the other day on my way to a meeting for the Moving Beyond Cars event, I walked through the Music Center plaza and its witty, wet centerpiece. It was hot—not as hot as it will be today—but hot enough that I huddled in close to catch the mist from its choreographed splashes. And there was not a single person around to enjoy it with me.

Except that guy.

In two years, this fountain will sit like a crown on a ribbon of green that reaches from here to City Hall, the white building you can see in the distance. There will be a real public park for downtown LA. And a new museum with great architecture sure to make it a worthy foil to Disney Hall. Which means—and we hope—thousands of people will be crawling these blocks at all hours of the day and night.

That means you’ve got two years to enjoy the silent canyons of Grand Avenue. Two years to experience the vacant plazas, the empty benches, the quiet sidewalks. Especially on this scorcher of an afternoon, I highly recommend paying a visit to these lonely urban geysers for one of their last private performances.

Yesterday, I received word that my fellow design writer, sidewalk devotee and Los Angeles advocate John Chase died early Friday morning. It was sudden, and shocking, and immediately obvious just how large of a hole his absence would tear in LA’s urban fabric. John was a tremendously outspoken voice in planning and politics, a larger-than-life fixture at architecture events, and honorary cheerleader for an entire generation of young writers and designers. At his day job, as West Hollywood’s urban designer, John was responsible for the design of some of Los Angeles’s most colorful and exuberant public spaces. But it was his colorful and exuberant parading through that public space—and his winking, knowing performances in the public eye—which made him an unforgettable Los Angeles presence. John, in so very many ways, was out there.

“Is West Hollywood urban designer John Chase the most flamboyant practitioner of California architecture?” I once asked breathlessly in my gossip column for The Architect’s Newspaper (a column, mind you, for which John would routinely slip me salacious tidbits, as well as links to other extremely NSFW information for my own “entertainment”). But John was also one of architecture’s most impassioned practitioners, fighting for world-class cutting-edge buildings with the same gusto that he carved out much-needed pocket parks. And he was an equal-opportunity rabble-rouser. Once he professed to me his outrage at his own city after a dismal Parking Day, when West Hollywood had ousted some activist groups converting parking spots into temporary parks. I wrote a piece on the debacle and the moment it was published John proudly sent word that he had used it as ammunition:  He copied and distributed it to his office with a flourish in the hopes it would change their policies (it did).

John, photographed by his husband Jonathan on his front porch, just before the first City Listening. John sent me this photo the day after the event.

In addition to his duties in WeHo—a job from which he was about to retire—John wrote a series of books and many articles celebrating LA’s unique brand of urbanism. But I was always amazed at the rate at which he seemed to read, comment on and forward everyone else’s work as well. As I look through the hundreds (and hundreds) of emails John sent to me over the years, it reads like one long, running urban commentary. Some are sweet notes in response to something I wrote, dashed off like little love haikus. [Update: As Tim Culvahouse just reminded me via email, "In most of the emails I received from him, the message was all in the Subject line; he tweeted before there was Twitter." So true!] Some are joyous invitations to his many (many) speaking appearances, cced to 125 of the city’s biggest architectural names. Many are ranty diatribes on city planning decisions or otherwise unfortunate events, all chunky paragraphs, often angry, ALL CAPS, lots of exclamation marks!!! and One. Word. Sentences. All of it, every word, infused with the same urgency that was John’s insistent message to the local writing community:  We can use our words to make LA a better place. And we will.

But it was not until the first City Listening event held at GOOD that I realized the power of John’s public persona. John strolled in wearing a pimp-tastic purple suit, orange shirt, and matching tie, topped off with an orange—orange!—fedora. All that was missing was a jewel-encrusted chalice—in fact, for the sake of this story, let’s say he had a jewel-encrusted chalice. A few sentences into his story “Sleeping with the Homeless”—a version of which can reportedly be read in his book Glitter Stucco and Dumpster Diving—the crowd had collapsed into the aisles, roaring with each detail of his racy (again, NSFW!) urban encounter. Like all of John’s stunts, he hooked the crowd with ribald humor, but there was a lesson here. “That’s why I love this story, it’s about public space!” He screeched over the laughter. “It’s about public space and having an interaction with people on the street!” And he was right, I thought, tears streaming down my cheeks. He was totally right.

At his double wedding celebration, with best friend Frances Anderton, John expressed his love to husband Jonathan Cowan (they called themselves The JCs) who was also dressed in a seersucker suit with matching Converse sneakers.

At an event that same year which was, I think, ostensibly about museums purchasing midcentury houses or something, I’m not even sure John was a panelist, but he delivered the night’s most rousing speech. Talking like he wrote, in those one-word sentence emails, with lots of exclamation marks!!!, John begged the crowd to produce braver LA design critics. “Where are they?” he cried. “Where are the passionate voices in architecture and design who can help make changes in this city?”  As his words washed over me I was suddenly so energized I felt like leaping out of my chair and charging out into the street, going on a Reyner Banham rampage through the darkness of Culver City’s downtown. I told him this later, and that I thought I could do it, that I could be one of those passionate voices. “But Alissa,” he said to me with that knowing grin, lately framed with those woolly sideburns. “You already are.” That one comment alone was enough to fuel my freelance career for the next six months.

John was a very unique mentor in that he encouraged me just as much in my walking as he did in my writing. He walked to work most days, and we’d often compare stories about crosswalk etiquette or commiserate about which bus route needed to fix its potholes. He instructed me to create a pen name (A. Walker) and to write about my LA walking and public transit experiences, annotating them with photos. And so I did. I remember silently passing him once while both in our preferred modes of navigating LA, me on the 2 bus high above the street, he below, walking down Sunset Boulevard. He was impeccably dressed in a sharp suit on a swelteringly sunny day—and that hat, always that hat—looking more like he was headed for the Santa Anita horsetrack. In 1952. I remember thinking that he was a walking advertisement for his most famous book. As he wrote, as in practice, The Everyday Urbanist.

This past spring, at the grand opening of the A+D Museum, where John espoused spring, summer and the entire collection of Lilly Pulitzer in a single outfit.

From the moment a group of us started co-hosting small events called de LaB to connect the design community, John was also incredibly supportive—and outrageously excited—about what we were doing, freely offering advice and contacts. Many people probably saw John for the last time a few weeks ago in one of his most triumphant performances, where in a single day he appeared on two panels at the Dwell conference and then delivered the stirring finale at our City Listening II event, with the entirety of his facial hair dyed royal blue. But what most people don’t know is that John graciously purchased VIP tickets to our event for himself and his lovely husband, Jonathan Cowan (even after we told him these tickets were comped), then went on to purchase four more tickets for friends, and donated a private tour of West Hollywood to our silent auction. He was as generous with his wit and wisdom as he was with his time.

The last time I saw John was only last Friday, just one week ago. We drank wine together on the lawn of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House, a place I saw him regularly these last two summers. It was, in many ways, John’s most ideal environment:  glasses of fine rosé, held by civic-minded folk, in the glow of the city’s greatest architecture, and yes, in what is probably the very best use of LA’s public space. For some reason, after he came over to our blanket to say hi, I watched him for a long time as he walked away, his summery blue button-down fluttering in a cool evening wind as he bounced into conversations and bumped into old friends, soaking up every bit of energy in one of Los Angeles’ finest moments.

Other writers and architects claim to design for public space or understand street life or see their work within a larger urban context. John simply lived it. He epitomized it. Good luck naming a bench or a park in his honor, since he was responsible for so many of them already. Might I suggest this more worthy dedication: The John Leighton Chase Memorial City of West Hollywood.

We will miss you so much, John. I’ll never be able to fill your dapper, eternally-shined shoes. But I will do my very best to follow in your footsteps.

If you’ve written a story about John, please post the link in the comments or drop me an email (alissa AT gelatobaby.com).  Update: Thanks to everyone for your comments and links. I’ve posted many stories about John over at the DnA website, where Frances Anderton devoted most of today’s show to honoring his legacy. A memorial is scheduled for Tuesday, August 24 from 4pm to 7pm at Fiesta Hall in Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood. The invitation suggests to “dress as if John picked out your outfit.” Hope I gave you at least a few tips!

So! Borrow a bike! Try taking the bus for the first time! Race a friend on horseback from across town! Just get to the event in a way that shows LA is moving beyond cars. Besides the fun of everyone reporting how they got there, we’ll also have a few special activities. We’ll have James Rojas leading his interactive city planning workshops (which I’ve written about for GOOD before), and the folks from CicLAvia will be on-hand to tell us about their plan to create car-free streets one day this fall (10/10/10!). Plus! Prizes will be awarded to whoever arrives in the most unique, “beyond car” way.

All information here, and you can RSVP and share the information over at Facebook. Hope to see you there!

Half a year ago, I tapped you all for help with a massive project. I was asked to curate the product design section of the California Design Biennial, a hefty task that sometimes felt like I was sifting through every single design blog post written in the last three years.

Fast forward to six months later and the show is opening this weekend! I don’t want to give away the surprise of what’s actually featured in the exhibition, but I do want to give a shout out to all the amazing designers whose work will be found in the product design section. These designers are doing amazing work and, to me, epitomize California’s unique convergence of high-tech wizardry and crafty activism. I couldn’t be prouder to live in this state with them.

Stefan G. Bucher/344 Design
Office
NewDealDesign
RKS Design
Stuart Karten Design
Heath Ceramics
Robert Brunner/Ammunition
Semigood
Google
Zhanna Shamis/Twitter
Whipsaw
Synn Labs
Yves Béhar/fuseproject
Andrew Riiska
Tanya Aguiñiga
Method Home
Project H Design and the Downtown Women’s Shelter
Bluelounge
TBWA Chiat Day and Artecnica
Astro Studios, Inc.
RL Leaders

The 2010 California Design Biennial, Action/Reaction opens this Saturday night at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, and runs until late October. The opening is 7-10pm and admission is $5. However, there’s another great opportunity to see the show and the people behind it:  On August 1, at 3pm, there will be a panel discussion at the museum featuring all the curators: myself, Frances Anderton, Louise Sandhaus, Rose Apodaca and Stewart Reed. I’m also planning another talk in September with some of the most inspiring product designers. Hope to see you there!

It was one of those nights that started—as many summer nights do—by drinking wine on top of a hill as the sun went down.

And eventually covered four neighborhoods, four staircases and two buses—all on your own two feet.

It was one of those nights where popcorn was made just for you by a man named Ruben.

Which is, incidentally, the best dinner in Hollywood.

It was one of those nights where you somehow end up in a carpeted, stained-glass cathedral to debauchery, its interior swirling with smoke. A little slice of Vegas on Temple Street.

Where the band played a song that you had dialed into the jukebox at the last bar, and for a moment it felt like the whole world was tuned in to one cosmic playlist.

Yeah, it was one of those nights. (If this is you, I’m sorry. Really sorry.)

It was one of those nights where you ran into your oldest friends completely accidentally and realized that LA is indeed very small.

So small, in fact, that when you step out of that carpeted, stained-glass room, you realize you’re closer to where you started than you thought. Close enough to walk home, down your favorite street of Victorians, up some more staircases, past still-sizzling taco trucks.

So you do.

I’m still buzzing from the amazing response to last weekend’s City Listening II (and the success of the Dwell on Design conference, and the fun of emceeing the LABC’s Los Angeles Architectural Awards…I’m telling you, it was quite a week!). We’ll have a full recap of the evening, including photos, very soon, until then, you can read this review by Mike Neal at Architizer.

But before all that, I just wanted to show you this beautiful photo by Monica Orozco, which was taken at the very end of the night, and take a quick moment to thank my two lovely co-hosts—or as you can see from this photo, maybe three lovely co-hosts—Marissa Gluck and Haily Zaki. These ladies are two of the smartest, hardest-working, most creative forces of nature in this city. Over the last two years they have organized and strategized and materialized dozens of events with huge smiles on their faces and strong cocktails in their hands (except, you know, when Haily got knocked up). And in the process, they’ve also become two of my dearest friends. I can’t wait to see what the future will bring! And on that note, here’s what I read at the event to open it up:  Our de LaB manifesto, in rhyme, of course.

The de LaB Manifesto

We were tired of PowerPoints and panels and pretense
Sick of working the room at lame-ass design events
Tired of the stodginess that came with such happenings
We wanted to know what our neighbors were making

La Brea was picked as an arbitrary line,
But we knew wherever we drew it someone would mind
We welcome the Westsiders, they’re not ostracized
As long as they don’t lie about not crossing the 405

What began as a drinking club quickly turned civic
Our visions for the city became more optimistic
Don’t get me wrong, we still like the drinking
Alcohol is liquid innovation to fuel design thinking

de Lab gets people out of cars and into their city
Introduces neighbors and promotes collaborativity
I know that’s not a word, I invented it myself
de LaB is DIY: We do it ourselves

For design in LA we will walk and ride bikes
We take buses and trains and take LA River hikes
We’re a committed gang of creators who can make a difference
We’re raising a new generation of Los Angeles urbanists

Your support has been amazing for the events we’ve had before
There’s a whole LA out there we haven’t begun to explore
All we need is your support…
…actually, no, we really need your money

By drawing a line through the city, divided
We ended up making it feel more united
We love LA so much it makes us feel giddy
Now sit back, have a drink (that part is important!) and listen to your city

Thanks to everyone for coming and for supporting de LaB!

Update: In all the fabulosity of Saturday night, I screwed up and neglected to post the winning raffle tickets for our eight door prizes. If you were at City Listening and had a raffle ticket, check here to see if you won and email us if you did!

It’s going to be a big, fat, designy weekend here in LA and I hope that you can join me for as much of it as you can muster! First up, Friday, Saturday and Sunday is Dwell on Design, the West Coast’s largest design show and one of my favorite conferences of all time.

For the last few weeks I’ve been writing over at Dwell about all the highlights, including a beautiful tile collaboration between Heath Ceramics and Dwell, a free design clinic hosted by my friends at Architizer, Project H’s GreenAid seed bomb vending machines, David Thompson’s lovely Larchmont Village house, the announcement of a new Cleantech Corridor competition for LA, and an exciting collaboration between Dwell and Arkitip on 10 prints of 10 Dwell houses by 10 artists, including this piece by Andrew Holder (who I was thrilled to interview!). Plus, I got to go to Ed Begley, Jr.’s supergreen house—he’s talking Sunday—and we chatted about riding the bus. He does it!

If all that wasn’t a reason to come out, I’ll be speaking there, too, and I hope you can come by and say hi! Saturday at 12:30pm on the Sustainability stage I’m moderating a panel called Improvising and Improving LA Transit, showcasing how three Angelenos have taken a DIY approach to making the city’s transportation better. On my panel are three of my transit heroes: Dan Koeppel, founder of the 35-mile stairwalk named THE BIG PARADE, which I just wrote about here; Richard Ankrom, the artist who took it upon himself to improve an Los Angeles freeway sign (which I wrote about over at GOOD); and Joseph Prichard, a graphic designer who is improving bike signage, and whose Better Bikeways series I edit at GOOD.

And then at 5pm, same day, same stage, I’m moderating another panel, Watts House Project: Architecture, Art, and Sustainability, about one of the most exciting public art projects in the country, the Watts House Project, featuring Edgar Arceneaux, John Umbanhowar and Frank Escher.

And because I love you so much for reading this blog, I’d like to offer you a special discount on the Dwell conference. You’ll receive $15 off the Dwell Exhibition Plus Ticket (50% off the two-day Weekend Pass) if you purchase tickets online before Friday with the code: DWELL8B

But wait, there’s more! Saturday night, after my last panel at Dwell on Design, I’ll be scurrying up Spring Street to the Spring Arts Tower for our very first de LaB fundraiser: City Listening II.

We’ve got a killer lineup of design writers who are all going to be reading stories about LA, including Frances Anderton on “Living With Gehry,” John Chase ruminating about fun-size Twix bars, Sam Lubell reading bible verses, Tibby Rothman with an amazing (and true) art world story, Nick Adams on LA’s “subway,” Chris Nichols from Los Angeles Magazine, LA Creek Freak Joe Linton, LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, Rico Gagliano from the PRI show The Dinner Party Download, Brooke Hodge, Adrian Glick Kudler, Tom Marble, Marissa Gluck, and letters to LA from 826LA students. And yes, I’ll be reading my annual poem about design in LA. Plus, anyone who arrives by bike or transit receives a very special walking-themed door prize!

We couldn’t have done any of this without our amazing de LaB community. The event decor is currently being laser-etched by Crimson Collective (the same designers who built that giant bird nesting in the center of this year’s Coachella festival), and we’ll have a silent auction featuring items ranging from beautiful custom-built “barchitecture” by Jason King of Somewhere Something, to a walking tour of West Hollywood’s art and urban design with John Chase, to an amazing airplant sculpture by Kara Bartlet’s toHOLD. Plus, I can’t forget the tireless work of our most valuable de LaB community member: Derrick Schultz, who built our website and designed all the beautiful graphics.

We’ll also have delectable Asian-French eats by Flying Pig courtesy of The Architect’s Newspaper, vegan truffles by Nicobella, our well-named de LaB cocktails, and wine courtesy of FORM. And yes, there will be gelato, well, ice cream—did you really think I could throw a party without it? My good friends at Coolhaus will be serving up mini ice cream sandwiches with a very east-of-La Brea flavor: Horchata!

And because if you’ve read this far I really love you, I want to offer you a discount on City Listening tickets as well, if you purchase online before Saturday. Just use delab to get $5 off regular tickets, which include drinks, food and admission to the show; or delabVIP to get $10 off de LaB Groupie Tickets, which include drinks, food and show plus a guerrilla gardening kit from GreenAid, a very good chance at winning great door prizes, and an after party at the Crocker Club, conveniently located below the venue.

Bonus: If you make it to the after party, you just might get to see me collapse after this overload of awesomeness. Hope to see you there!

One week ago today I woke up in a public park in the heart of Los Angeles to the sound of a jogger’s frenzied footsteps. I emerged from my tent, pitched near the same reservoir I, too, had run around a hundred times. But now everything was different. I had walked to this place from downtown, 16 miles, a few of those miles spent walking up the public stairways that lace through the hilly neighborhoods of LA. I, along with dozens of other people, were now at the halfway mark of the BIG PARADE, a two-day, now-annual, join-when-you-can urban hike.

I looked at the guy chugging down the path and two things suddenly struck me as funny: 1) The thought of running, not walking, and 2) The fact that he was by himself.

You may remember that I had written about last year’s BIG PARADE for GOOD, and about the perceived novelty of walking in LA. But I didn’t finish the walk last year. A dull pain in my left knee had transformed into a quite undull pain by the second day, and at mile 30 I had to quit, missing the final push to the Hollywood sign.

Leaving the walk last year was one of the most depressing choices I have ever made (a choice made slightly better by the self-administration of a very strong painkiller). I saw my role on the walk as that of the militant advocate, the Walker who would show them that yes, people do walk in LA, thankyouverymuch! I would reach that Hollywood sign in a defiant tongue-out to all those sorry drivers who will never know the thrill of spotting a secret staircase in their neighborhood.

But this year I was a little nervous. Of course I still felt that same urgency to walk, but in addition to my severe public hobbling, I had seriously wrenched my ankle on a really big hike a few weeks ago. All I knew is that I really, really wanted to finish. But it was with some trepidation, and not very much training, that I embarked upon this year’s parade.

Beginning at 8am Saturday morning, we departed from Angels Flight and walked 12 hours through the skyscrapers of downtown, through the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and Disney Hall, into Vista Hermosa Park and Historic Filipinotown, and through a tunnel under the 101.

We went past the Victorians of Angelino Heights into Echo Park, way up into Elysian Heights where we hit a 750-foot summit in Elysian Park, then headed down into the dirt-and-stone stair streets of Fellowship Park, and landed in Silver Lake. You can see all the maps and destinations on the BIG PARADE website.

There we slept in our grassy, completely city-permitted campsite at the Silver Lake Rec Center (which was peaceful and pleasant except for when the clubbers came squawking out of Spaceland at 2am).

The next morning we spent another 12 hours making a loop around the hills of the Silver Lake Reservoir, along the route of a former streetcar, then headed into Franklin Hills and Los Feliz.

In Los Feliz Heights we walked past mansion after mansion into Griffith Park, past the Observatory, through Bronson Canyon, through Beachwood Canyon. And finally, the bonus section: By evening we planned to walk around the Hollywood sign for a final, sunset summit of a legitimate mountain, Mt. Lee.

This year everything was bigger and better. The route was streamlined and improved to encompass some pretty cool landmarks, where people would meet us to talk about LA history like the former Corralitas Red Car streetcar route or building of the Hollywood sign. Live music was waiting for us at two locations as we rested. More people in general knew we were coming, and surprised us with amazing little stands set up with water and fruit and home-baked cookies along the way.

The walk was earlier this year, too, meaning we had the small comfort of June Gloom keeping temperatures cooler and skies cloudier. And there was even a prologue walk, a Friday stroll through the Mt. Washington neighborhood east of downtown.

One of the biggest signs that the word had gotten out came in Echo Park, where we were approached by a cameraman and a reporter from KTLA. Yes, our little band of stairmasters made the local news! You can see Parade founder Dan Koeppel explaining the theory and route, then me, being interviewed by Cheryl Getuiza about what I was most looking forward to during the walk. I even managed to work in a little architectural history to my answer. And I managed to walk, talk and smile without tripping or falling. (This is big for me. For someone with “walk” in her name, you’d really think I’d be better at it.)

By the time we reached the point where I’d had to quit last year, I was feeling good. So good, in fact, I was able to stop for gelato at Gelato Bar on Hillhurst. Let’s be honest, though, I would have stopped there even if I was feeling bad.

But the emotional moment came for me right here, as we entered Griffith Park and started walking into Hollywood, with Griffith Observatory hanging like a planet in the sky. We were now walking into my old neighborhood, with all the trails and streets that I had explored during my first years in LA. I remember spending unemployed afternoons here, finding new staircases and paths, always thinking—like I heard many other stair enthusiasts say—I had discovered them all by myself.

As we dipped briefly back into my old neighborhood, Bronson Canyon, then up the beautiful stone stairs of Beachwood Canyon, it started to get dark. (You can watch this part, as well as the entire two days unfold, backwards, by reading my dutiful Twittering over at @BIGPARADELA)

We hit the road that wraps around the Hollywood sign like a long, wide ramp to the top. You can see the letters sideways mid-photo. The sun was starting to set and the wind was cool and damp.

But as we reached the saddle and walked onto the Burbank side, different air welled up from the Valley, warm and dry, creating an incredible temperature inversion that, unbelievably, lasted all the way to the peak.

Finally, we rounded the last bend. This is always a dramatic moment; you’re above the Hollywood sign, with those iconic letters reversed-out below you. But tonight the entire LA Basin was socked in with cloud cover, and we were quite literally floating above it.

Up here the sky was completely clear, the air was warm and dry and the only sound was the remarkably discernible performance happening at the Hollywood Bowl, a few miles and a freeway away. We posed for a group photo and people started to head back down, descending into the clouds that were streaming over gaps in the hills like waterfalls. Soon it was completely dark except for the flashlights bobbing light onto other people’s backs in the distance. I didn’t want to leave, hanging back until the very end to get my own moment on top of Los Angeles, the final notes of the Playboy Jazz Festival drifting into the sky.

The question that people ask me most about last weekend is an obvious one:  How did you feel the next day? The answer is absolutely great. I was sore, of course, and for two days I had a little trouble walking down the stairs in my own house. But any physical pain was anathesized by a pure, emotional buzz. Sure, I’ve done harder physical things. I’ve climbed bigger mountains. But the high from last weekend was unmatched. And then I realized why.

Last year this staircase scramble was just a finish line drawn above the Hollywood sign, an endurance contest, a chance to chalk up miles. It was something to prove, the same way I’d cranked through too many half-marathons or a truly insane mid-August 25K in the hills of Malibu. (It was really fun. But still. Kinda dumb for someone with ankles made from chewing gum.) I was out there killing myself thanks to some weird agenda.

This time I was just…walking.

And talking. This time, I actually met some new friends. Instead of being so focused on my mission to make it, I got to know the people I fell into step with, matching conversation topics to their sneakers to remember them for later. I gave people encouragement when they were feeling apprehensive, and, when they called it quits, gave directions to help people get back home on the bus. It wasn’t about who made it how far, it was about who joined us along the way. It wasn’t about steps at all, but the people—and dogs, there were lots of dogs!—who use them.

For the past week my brain has been buzzing with thoughts that all begin the same way: “Next year.” But instead of setting my own personal goals, I’m setting goals for the group. Next year we’ll set a new record of 100 people walking at one time. Next year we’ll have 20 tents in the campsite. Next year we’ll have even more people who give us bananas or brownies or water along the way. Next year we’re putting together a walking and step-themed soundtrack for pure motivation. Next year we’ll find someone to let us jump in their pool, dammit! Next year we could link the official walk and the prologue into an amazing, three-day Mt. Washington-to-Mt. Lee trek.

Next year…well, let’s just say I really can’t wait for next year. And I hope you’ll be there, too. It wouldn’t be the same without you.

Big Parade creator Dan Koeppel will be on a panel that I’m moderating at this weekend’s Dwell on Design conference named Improvising and Improving L.A. Transit. Here’s more information and a discount code.

You can see all my photos as well as the photos of all Big Paraders.