It’s no secret around these parts that I’m a big Chris Burden fan. So of course I’ve been breathlessly awaiting the unveiling of his newest sculpture, Metropolis II at LACMA. It opens this Saturday but I got a sneak preview at the press conference, which I wrote about in my review for the LA Weekly. Still photos don’t do it justice, but hopefully my images and words can entice you to go see it in person. Which you must!

It’s gigantic: It takes up an entire room at LACMA. And it’s loud.

1,100 customized Hot Wheels cars move up a conveyor belt and then are released down 18 plastic tracks.

It’s like the 405 + the 101 + the 5 + the 10.

25 skyscrapers are made from everything from Legos to slotted stacking cards like the Eames Office designed.

An operator has to stand at the center to make sure no cars get flipped over or fly off the tracks. That’s also why it can only run for 90 minutes at a time, a few days a week.

Here’s LACMA’s Michael Govan talking to Chris Burden.

And Chris Burden pointing out some of the structural features.

Some parts don’t really look that different from downtown LA.

I fell in love with this little village bookended by two churches.

I was also wondering if these green panels were supposed to be parks.

Among the cars are a dozen electric trains that chug from one end to another. But they go very slow.

There are two Erector Set towers that nod to Burden’s work What My Father Gave Me, which I photographed in New York City.

And these travertine-like walls reminded me of the Getty.

The Eiffel Tower de Los Angeles!

Lincoln Logs give a nice faux-rustic look to what appears to be a very nice condo building.

Some of those Eames stacking cards. I want a real building in LA that looks like this.

Run, don’t walk to see this when it opens. Well, I suppose it would be appropriate to drive to this exhibition. As long as you don’t get stuck in traffic. Hours of operation here.

Read my review in the LA Weekly (there’s also a video there).

More Metropolis II photos.

My friend Jim Rota sent me this video for “The Red Line” by local hardcore/punk/metal band It’s Casual and as you might guess, I’m in love. The video features singer and guitarist Edward Solis riding a bus, a skateboard, and of course THE RED LINE, as he screams out those familiar number combinations—”THE 101! THE 405!”—over shots that prove “the freeways are not so nice.” And if you should have any doubt that this is indeed a pro-public transit song, just read the first two paragraphs of the band’s bio on their MySpace page:

It’s hard to digest the minutiae of society while traveling the freeways of Los Angeles in the comfort of a car at sixty miles per hour. Typically lined on both sides by cinder block walls, the L.A. freeways are mere pipelines of travel, often scurrying residents through neighborhoods of both low and high-income within mere minutes, barely offering a scant glimpse of what happens at the ends of those off-ramps.

But when It’s Casual vocalist/guitarist Edward Solis leaves his eastern Los Angeles-based residence to make his daily hour-long commute to Hollywood, he’s able to form an entirely new perspective. Solis, a rare, unlicensed Angelino, relies solely on public transportation to make his way around. The bus routes and train line on which he rides meander on surface streets, cutting across both decorative and distressed neighborhoods.

The resulting music is probably the most effective pro-transit message I’ve ever seen. It’s not some lovey-dovey ballad on the beauty of moving slowly through LA. It’s pretty much beating you into submission to STOP DRIVING NOW. I’ve often said that some of the fun of taking transit in LA is that it almost feels like a deviant act—like you’re buying into some counterculture, anti-establishment movement that’s protesting the current state of the city. This song fits that sentiment perfectly. It will be my new anthem as I proudly walk to the nearest Metro stop, which is, indeed “THE RED LINE!”

My friend Gregory just tagged me in one of those chain letter-type posts where if you don’t answer 11 questions about yourself and forward it along to 11 more people someone close to you will be severely maimed in a freak photography accident. Oh, wait, it’s not one of those? Okay, well, I’m still going to answer the questions. Better to start the year off on the right foot.

RULES:

• You must post these rules.
• Each person must post 11 things about themselves on their blog.
• Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
• You have to choose 11 people to tag and link them on the post.
• Go to their page and tell them you have linked him or her.
• No tag backs.
• No stuff in the tagging section about ‘you are tagged if you are reading this.’ You legitimately have to tag 11 people.

Seems easy enough. Here are the answers to the questions that Gregory asked me. I just took some NyQuil so this should be extra good.

1.  What is your favorite piece of artwork and why? highly prized by Sister Mary Corita, a serigraph we have hanging in our living room. I wrote an essay about why I love it for the book I Heart Design: Remarkable Graphic Design Selected by Designers, Illustrators, and Critics.

2.  Can you remember the name of your first crush? Scott Fudemberg, kindergarten, Mason Ridge Elementary. Funnily enough, his wedding was featured in a “Vows” column in the New York Times a few years ago. Oh great, now he’s going to think I’m stalking him. My mom sent it to me, Scott! Tell your wife not to worry!

3.  Given the opportunity for super powers, would you like the ability to fly or be invisible? Fly. I can already make myself invisible when I want to be.

4. Where is your dream destination for 2012? Standing on the top of a mountain in Crested Butte, Colorado, getting married to my fiancé Keith Scharwath. And after that, embarking upon a tour di gelati in Italy.

5.  If you could make people see the truth about one thing, what would that truth be? Driving sucks. Riding the bus is fun. Walking is like taking a brief, beautiful vacation in the middle of your day. Okay, that’s three things. But it’s essentially the same truth.

6.  When cleaning, are you someone who cleans and organizes the big things first, or focuses on the details? If it was up to me, I’d focus exclusively on the organizing and someone else could handle the cleaning. Wait, maybe it is up to me.

7.  How many icons are on your desktop at this moment? Counting my toolbar? 29 icons and 10 folders.

8.  Let’s pretend you’re in the witness protection program. You’ve been asked to give yourself a new name. What’s your new identity? Walker Texas Ranger. (They would never suspect I’d use part of my name in the new name, right?)

9.  Shoes on or off inside your home? On. Shoes are a big part of my life.

10.  What’s the longest you’ve gone without saying a word, talking to anyone? That’s a tough one. I guess when I lived by myself and was on deadline that I might have gone a full 24 hours without talking to anyone. But I probably had 15 iChat windows open and sent a dozen text messages during the same period.

11.  What’s your favourite object in your home right now? And please share a photo of it. I love my home and there are too many favorite things in it to list. But each morning I wake up to the view of my closet, which makes me happy every single day. I guess if you aren’t having fun getting dressed then what’s the point really of getting out of bed in the morning. This is a photo of it taken by Justin Sullivan for an awesome interview with me over at LA, I’m Yours.

My 11 questions for 11 people are as follows:

1. What’s the strangest or most surprising thing on your desk right now? (You can take a photo if you want, unless it’s too embarrassing.)
2. What is your earliest memory?
3. How did you come to live in the city where you currently live?
4. What was the last meal you cooked for yourself?
5. Where do you fantasize about visiting?
6. When was the last time you drank too much?
7. Do you feel as if the way you currently earn money is your true calling?
8. What song do you sing to yourself when you need to psych yourself up?
9. How do you manage your to-do list(s)?
10. What new skill would you most like to learn in 2012?
11. What is the view out the nearest window? Take a photo, please.

And I’m tagging these 11 people: Steve Portigal, Marissa Gluck, Colleen Wainwright, Sonja Rasula, Jessi Arrington, Beth Walker, Jen Walker, Mike Nugent, Souris Hong-Poretta, Chris Pouy and Nathan Davidson (and if you don’t have a blog, yes you can answer on your Facebook page using “Notes” function that can be found on your page).

Happy 2012.

“It’s not a city, it’s an endless urban sprawl. Carpet store, lamp store, plumbing store, carpet store, plumbing store… on and on for as far as the eye can see.

Backing up that urban sprawl are suburbs that either have character but are old and shabby, or are little cookie cutter boxes made of ticky-tack, or are obscenely expensive, masturbatory dwellings for the over-privileged.

Things are so spread out that the idea of walking anywhere is laughable, so to get around from one plumbing store to another you sit in seemingly endless gridlock. No matter where you’re going it takes at least a half hour to get to. The highways aren’t much better than the surface streets.” —Ian Peters-Campbell

1. “The people who live there don’t seem to realize how dirty it is. Even the nice parts look like they could use a thorough cleaning and a good coat of paint.
2. It takes a minimum of 45 minutes to get to anywhere from anywhere within LA county, no matter where the start and endpoint are, and how you get there.
3. For the most part Angelinos have all the warmth of moon rocks. Reminds me too much of DC.
4. For such a huge, populous city they have a serious lack of culture. Anyone expecting entertainment opportunities like you would get in NY, SF or even DC will be sorely disappointed.
5. Most parts of the city don’t feel safe. And this from someone who is from DC.
6. It’s super expensive, but you don’t feel like you get anything for your money, like you might in New York.” —Eric Ruck

“Traffic is the complaint I hear from friends who visit there.” —Tom Worth

1. “The fact that it’s an ugly city with few areas of spectacular beauty to its credit.
2. You HAVE to own a car to live there successfully.
3. It takes a lengthy period of time to get anywhere around there.
4. It’s an expensive place to live.
5. The ever-present air pollution.” —Jan Mixon

“The biggest misconception is that LA people are ‘too Hollywood.’ For one, LA is a massive city with a very diverse economy. You can go many days without running into a ‘Hollywood type’—unless you are in the entertainment industry.” —Steve Raymond

• “Cars (smog and pollution)
• Traffic (smog and annoyance)
• Materialism (Hollywood)
• False hope and shattered dreams (Hollywood)
• Lack of appealing cultural hub/identity
• Urban sprawl
• Cars
• Traffic” —Josh Siegel

“Apart from the Hollywood sign, the beaches and boardwalks along the Western edges, and the grimey abandoned-downtown-from-every-zombie-movie-you’ve-ever-seen, it’s all very plain-looking, and repetitive. Accomodating. Flexible. Mutable. Ever-adapting. You always feel just a bit that LA is live-editing itself to appear as relatively inoffensive to you as possible.

Layer on the pollution, the weird movie scene, and the low-income areas, and as an outsider or occasional visitor, it’s really hard to imagine ever living there, or ever having a good reason to do so, barring being discovered in one way or another.” —Dean Blackburn

1. “For most of the 20th C, New York had a monopoly on TV networks, magazines, books, newspapers, and public opinion. The hatred of LA really got going with the Brooklyn Dodgers moving to LA. A special venom was saved for defectors, like Jay Leno,and others who moved to the promised land. Now that Bloomberg has rescued New York and LA is getting worse, there is a feeling of ‘I told you so.’
2. For San Franciscans it is genetic, part of the culture, but no overtones of envy.San Franciscans know they have the best and that LA is not even second best. If you paid a New Yorker, he might move to LA, people from SF and the Bay Area would not. At one time SF was worried about the increasing financial power of LA and then came Silicon Valley. Game over.
3. Crime movies are filmed in LA.
4. One of the best arguments against LA is Bobby Fisher. At any other time in his life he is world famous, he performs at the top of his game. He moves to LA and is not heard of for 20 years and nobody lifts a finger to help him out of his eccentricities. This is a one-industry town and there is no community to help you.
5. There are oil derricks visible from the beach, as well as homeless people. Ipanema or Cannes it is not.
6. Your choice is city view or ocean view, you can’t have both. So who planned this place?” —Fred Landis

Answers taken from Quora question “Why is Los Angeles disliked by so many people?” Comments have not been edited for spelling and grammar errors. See also: “Why do some people hate Los Angeles?”

Last year on this day I posted my own version of a year-in-review with my 13 favorite stories of the year. (Why 13, everyone wanted to know? Was I superstitious? Unlucky? Honestly, it just worked out that way.) This year, I couldn’t help but do it again, but with a twist: I picked my favorites, but I’m also handing out specific awards in different categories (yes, giving prizes to myself—all in all, it was a pretty boring awards ceremony). So while you’re out this weekend drunk walking or choosing a parking spot or curing a hangover with a prairie oyster, please enjoy some of the best, worst, funniest, weirdest, most popular and least popular stories I wrote in 2011. Happy new year!

Most Fun to Research
Nike’s 23-Year Journey To Make McFly’s Shoes Real, Co.Design
When I got the assignment to cover the release party for Nike’s Air MAG shoes, inspired by the ones from Back to the Future, I think I traveled all the way to the Montalban Theater in a montage set to “Power of Love.” Here’s a franchise that was so beloved to me growing up—I even did a dance to the “Back in Time” song at the neighborhood talent show one year—and I got to attend this detail-perfect themed event to celebrate the films. But talking to Nike’s Tinker Hatfield unfolded another incredible story almost as unbelievable as time travel in a De Lorean, as Nike worked on the concepts for the original film and then spent the next two decades making the shoes a reality. AND—this was the kicker—all to benefit Michael J. Fox’s foundation to battle Parkinson’s disease. Now that’s the power of love. Here are some more photos from the party.

Least Fun to Research
How My iPhone Was Stolen on the Train, Gelatobaby
Um, yeah. But on the bright side, I imagine that I saved dozens of phones from similar “apple picking” incidents this holiday season. You’re welcome.

Best Anniversary Party
My LAX series of 10 stories celebrating 10 years in LA, Gelatobaby
If I had one piece of advice to writers—or any creatives for that fact—it’s to celebrate specific milestones in your own life. When I was on my vacation this summer (ah, my sweet, sweet vacation) I came up with the idea to somehow commemorate my ten years in LA, and by the time I was back home I had started writing the pieces. It was an assignment no one would have given me, and it gave me a fantastic reason to examine the place I lived and how it affected my work. I covered everything from weather to secret staircases but my very favorite piece is on how I gave up my car.

Favorite LA Thing to Write About
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year: Why We’re Pro-Carmageddon, GOOD
Besides the fact that I finally learned to spell “armageddon,” I had the absolute best time writing about the apocalyptic closing of the 405 freeway as a positive event for car-bound Angelenos. After I wrote this story I was asked to appear on the WYNC show The Takeaway, and—when people did, indeed stay off the streets for the weekend—I followed up with six more “-ageddons” I’d like to see.

Best Continuing Education
The Insider’s Guide to Art in Los Angeles, Details
The best kinds of stories are when you have to actually learn a whole bunch of stuff that you’ve always wanted to know, just to write the story. When I was assigned one of my first stories for Details on Pacific Standard Time, I was thrilled to jump in and try to make sense of this sprawling art-stravaganza about to descend upon LA. In the process, I got a seriously intense Los Angeles contemporary art education, thanks to some awesome interviews with the Getty’s Andrew Perchuk. This week I was on the KUSC show “Arts Alive” talking about my story and how PST has affected LA.

Best Per-Word Rate
GOOD Design is Growing: Announcing GOOD Ideas for Cities, GOOD
Not for the article itself, of course, but because I was writing about receiving an incredible $85,000 grant from ArtPlace for the GOOD Ideas for Cities program I co-founded three years ago. I can’t wait to take the event series to five cities, including my hometown of St. Louis, in 2012.

Best Stumbled-Upon Story
A Hidden Oasis Grows on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, GOOD
A perfect example of keeping your eyes open and your camera on, even when you’re out for a walk. I discovered this community garden on Hollywood Boulevard several years ago but it was only during a late-night, post-club visit that I realized it was a story just begging to be told. More on how I found it here, including photos I’ve taken of the garden throughout the years (before I even knew what it was). Street Journalism in action!

Best Stumbling
Enduring Spirit, Gelatobaby
Yes, I ran a marathon this year. Yes, I tweeted photos at every mile. Did I mention it rained the ENTIRE TIME? Did I mention that for the most part, I didn’t train AT ALL? Well, I hope you enjoy the story as I RISKED MY LIFE FOR IT.

Most Uplifting Subjects (I Believe the Children Are Our Future Award)
Middle School Students Tell LAUSD: No More Styrofoam!, GOOD
If you are ever feeling sorry for the state of the world, go visit the sixth graders at Thomas Starr King Middle School who not only got their school to stop using styrofoam trays at lunch, they raised money to buy reusable trays for every student who wanted one. After my story, the kids were featured on the local news, made dozens of videos, and worked with 826 LA to write about their experiences. Absolutely amazing.

Most Overwhelming Response
The Top 5 Things That Bother Me About This Headline, GOOD
When I pitched this little essay to GOOD for their Data Issue, it was mostly to vent about my own frustrations when writing “for the internet” compared to writing for print. But in the hands of guest editor Starlee Kine, it became a highly personal examination of my own transformation as a writer in the age of data—someone who, I realized, is almost addicted to page views and retweets. Ironically, the story was a traffic smash, and I’m still getting weekly emails and seeing it pop upon Twitter about it over six months later. Mostly, people thanking me for being honest about how hard it is to do what writers do.

Most Underwhelming Response
How Weeds Became a Marketing High For MIT’s Bike Wheel, Co.Design
After I noticed the Copenhagen Wheel in a recurring cameo role on Weeds, I jumped on this story, interviewing both the Wheel’s design team and the Weeds showrunner. I thought the incredible, slightly racy tale of how Weeds chose to include and work with the creators of this environmentally progressive bike concept would be a sure hit for cyclists and potheads everywhere. The story didn’t do that well, which I guess illustrates that data doesn’t always win. Or that potheads are an unreliable audience.

Most Beautiful Thing I Wrote About
An Almost Life-Sized Version of L.A. Made Entirely from Cardboard, Co.Design
Gosh, maybe one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, period.

Most Delicious Thing I Wrote About
Don’t Call it a Pop-Up: Felix Barron’s KTCHN 105, KCET Food
Best brunch in Los Angeles, with a unique experience that matches the food.

Best Service Journalism
The Best Way to See the Hollywood Sign, Gelatobaby
After a group of Beachwood Canyon residents decided they didn’t want tourists prowling their streets in search of the elusive Hollywood Sign, I wrote this story outlining several alternate routes that actually produce better views than if you’d parked in some snobby asshole’s driveway. A big part of what I hope to do with my writing is to help people navigate and understand LA better, and if I can do that at the expense of wealthy, closed-minded Angelenos, even better.

Proof that You Can Make Money Riding Buses
“Mass Transit”: A Dance Performance Inspired by Riding L.A.’s Buses, GOOD
What Happens When You Put a Coffee Table at a Bus Stop?, GOOD
Is LA’s Public Transit a Joke? This Comedian Sure Hopes So, GOOD
Take that, cars!

Most Hate Mail
Do You Double Space After Periods?, GOOD
I had no idea that taking a stand (along with many other writers) against double spacing after periods would net me the most emails I’ve ever received for a single story. The emails that I received also happened to contain the poorest grammar and spelling I’ve ever seen. And every email was dutifully double spaced, of course.

Happy new year!

One of the best things about riding a bike around LA is the ability to shoot down the little side streets that you’d otherwise never consider taking. Earlier this year, I discovered the glory of Kingsley as a scenic north-south route with cute Craftsmans and wide tree-lined asphalt. And as I snapped my head to the right, I noticed this little shrine tucked between two houses. I was so enamored with it, I couldn’t help but stop and take a photo of my discovery.

It’s funny how landmarks change when you switch your mode of transportation. When I rode through the area this morning, I was sure to take a detour down the street to pay the shrine a visit. (And sure enough, it was adorably twisted up in tinsel for the holidays.) I figure I’ve stopped by this shrine a dozen or so times since I found it—sometimes I actually reroute my rides so I can go by it. Now there are places like this all over the city for me: A hidden Victorian that I always visit when I’m nearby, a secret tunnel I love taking under the 101, or a particular street I’ll ride in May when I know it’s covered in jacaranda confetti. There really is no such thing as a direct route anymore when there’s so much to see along the way.

More shots from my ride this morning.

It’s not often you’re delivered two life-changing experiences in the course of a year. In 2010 I was selected for the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship, an honor that irrevocably changed the course of my writing career. And less than 12 months later, I was thrilled to be selected for Engine29.org, where 28 fellows from the past decade were invited back to work on projects related to arts journalism. We gathered together in early November for our immersion period. And I’m excited to announce that our final projects have been officially launched.

My project, Moving Experience, with team members Joshua Samuel Brown and Michele Siegel, started with a premise: We would not use cars during the immersion period. We wanted to examine if, indeed, the way you arrived at a story changed the way that you reported it. Or, perhaps, if getting there was the story.

We rented bikes, we bought Metro passes. We took video from our helmets and lugged radio equipment on the bus. We tweeted constantly and we never put away our cameras. What I’m most proud of is a massive Google map that we created documenting the distance that each of us traveled that week and the method of transportation we took. We also embedded some of our tweets onto the map, which served as a compendium of our in-the-field realizations.

Each morning, I took long short walks through downtown. What do I mean by that? I’d walk for a long time, but I didn’t cover a lot of ground, walking only a few blocks in the course of an hour. I was practicing my noticing. I looked at anything that grabbed my attention. I took a lot of photos. I was trying to slow down as much as possible, to read the sidewalks, to talk to people, to find stories underfoot.

My team members also documented their processes. Michele, a producer on the great public radio show Studio 360, produced these beautiful audio slideshows featuring people we interviewed. Joshua, an incredible travel writer, wrote these epic travelogues interspersed with short films (and in a quite ironic twist, even managed to get a jaywalking ticket).

We quickly realized a series of five truths when it came to covering culture, especially in Los Angeles. Big stories were getting overlooked. Transportation was a huge issue. The word “art” meant different things in different neighborhoods. All of the truths pointed to one reality: Instead of reporting faster, we needed to report slower:

Could we take a page from the Slow Food movement and propose a type of “Slow Journalism” that would be embraced worldwide: an experiential, contextual approach to covering art? A return to the idea of covering a beat—by walking, riding or busing—in order to unearth the cultural stories that are more relevant and valuable to our audiences.

And so our team’s final project calls for a different methodology for reporting—a new way of working. A movement, if you will. We call it Street Journalism. And here is our manifesto:

We will cover a beat—a physical neighborhood, a cultural community, a single city block.

We will walk, bike or take public transit as we report. We will limit our trips in cars.

We will keep our eyes open, our cameras focused, and our Twitter streams active.

We will be flexible. We realize that getting there is half the story.

We will meet the locals. We will ask them what we should be covering in their neighborhoods.

We will remember that the best story leads come from people, not computers.

We will report stories which acknowledge that art is about place, and culture is about context.

If you’re a journalist, we’re hoping you can join the movement. You can read more about the Moving Experience project to get even more insight into our process. Then I hope you’ll get out there and try it yourself. Use the hashtag #streetjourno to tag your stories, your quotes, or just your realizations. Show us what you learn when you hit the streets, slow down and pay attention. Even though I thought I was writing this way, I see now that I was still moving too fast to discover the stories all around me. I know I’ll never think of my work the same way again.

A huge thanks to everyone who met with us to talk about our project. All their names and organizations are listed on the right hand side of the Moving Experience page.

All my photos from this year’s fellowship.

During our de LaB bike ride in Long Beach Sunday—long before my iPhone was snatched on the train—I couldn’t help but admire the festive beach cruiser belonging to April Economides. Who knew that Christmas lights could double as safety lights! As the sun went down, she was definitely the most visible rider on the streets.

More biking in Long Beach.

This is what I was doing. In fact, this is what I’m always doing when I’m riding buses or trains. But tonight, as I was riding the Blue Line home from a fantastic day riding bikes in Long Beach, someone plucked my iPhone right out of my hand and sprinted off into the night. Just like that.

My friend Molly and I had spent plenty of time choosing our seats for the ride home. Since we had our bikes, we picked seats at the center of the car, so we could stick our bikes in that funny accordion-like space, and sit right in front of them. Funnily enough, earlier in the day we had figured out we were both reading the same OMG SO GOOD book, The Marriage Plot, Molly in hardback, me on—what else?—my iPhone. We had agreed that because the book was OMG SO GOOD, and because the ride back to LA was so long, we were both going to read all the way home.

At the Grand station, just one stop away from where we were getting off, and just when I was getting to a really, really good part in my book, a single black knit glove plunged across the page and gently took the phone from my hand.

It took me a moment to figure out what happened. I remember reflecting on what a brief, graceful gesture it was.

And then I looked up to see a man swiftly exiting the train with my phone in hand.

I ran after him—and I was fully prepared to break into marathon-mode and chase his ass all the way to Santa Monica—but I paused at the door as it closed, realizing that my bike and my purse were still on the train. Would I have ran after him if I didn’t have my bike on the train? I think I might have, which may have been even stupider.

According to a San Francisco Chronicle article (via Daring Fireball), iPhones have become more lucrative than wallets, and more thieves are resorting to violence to get them: “It’s the modern day purse snatch—with better odds,” says one officer. So I thought it was a good time to review a few basics when it comes to your phone and riding transit. Maybe you know this stuff. But it’s always good to get a reminder, so here goes.

Hold your valuables responsibly. Duh, right? I thought I was good at being aware of my belongings. But look at how I was sitting tonight. I held my phone up in the air, at eye-level, in the aisle seat, a glowing, tantalizing treat. I didn’t even have my purse over my shoulder, which he very easily could have grabbed as well. I could have moved to the window seat and cradled my phone in my lap, which might have made my phone less appealing—or at least less visible.

Pay attention. Phone suck us in and force us to tune out the rest of the world, which makes us very easy targets. I was so enthralled with my book—because this book is awesome, you guys—that I was completely oblivious to anything around me. Headphones make the situation even worse; I actually never wear them in public for this reason. But maybe on those long, late train rides it’s better to put everything away and just focus on what’s happening around you.

Yell something like “That man in the black hat stole my iPhone.” As the guy took off down the platform, here’s what this eloquent, articulate professional writer screamed: “FUCK YOU!” To everyone around us, it probably looked like we were having some kind of relationship drama. I should have been more specific about why exactly I was chasing this guy, and then maybe someone on the platform would have at least seen what was happening and helped slow him down.

Ask everyone around you for details about what just happened. The reason why you have to ask them is because you probably won’t remember a thing. Luckily my fellow riders were supremely helpful in this department. The people behind us explained what they saw (unfortunately, not much). About five minutes late—but better late than never!—I suddenly something clicked in my head and I snapped into journalist mode, gathering information. I remembered to take note of the number of the car we were in and some basic details about what the guy was wearing.

File a police report. I wouldn’t have thought it would make any difference, but just before we got off the train, a guy encouraged me to find a Metro policeman and file a report. When I stepped off the train, I saw two LA County Sheriff officers and told them what happened. They were very helpful (and, thankfully, very funny). They said they actually have some luck finding iPhones with the Find My iPhone app, and they took me out to their truck where they had a computer I could use to trace it. And that reminds me…

If you have an iPhone, enable the Find My iPhone app. Find My iPhone is a GPS-enabled device that can not only locate your phone on a map, it can lock the phone and wipe your data remotely. But did you know that the Find My iPhone app now comes standard with your MobileMe/iCloud/whatever-Apple-is-calling-it-today account? Okay, I did. But what I did not know is that you actually have to register your device, so my phone couldn’t be found this way. It only takes a few minutes, and it’s totally worth it. Do it. In fact, do it right now. I’ll wait.

I’m still pretty pissed off about the whole thing, but on the way home I realized if I could pass at least one piece of advice along to someone out there who rides transit, then at least I could look at this situation as a learning experience. And I’m very lucky: I didn’t get hurt, I was never in danger and I’m glad I had Molly for support (thank you, Molly!). Honestly, mostly I’m just mad that I can’t read my book tonight. (I’m telling you, IT’S A REALLY GOOD BOOK.)

But on the bright side: Siri, tell me who’s getting a new iPhone tomorrow?

Update: One more tip! I purchased a new iPhone from AT&T and they now have phone insurance. For just $9/month you’re protected against physical damage or loss. This is a new feature that I didn’t know about, so if you purchased your phone more than four months ago, call AT&T and see if you can add it. With the way my phones have behaved this year (dude, I went through FOUR PHONES!) it seems worth it to me!

As you may remember around this time last year, I packed my bags and moved downtown for a spell as part of an intense immersive experience for the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship. Last year, I and my fellow fellows were carted all over LA, dipping our toes to the “distinct cultural cauldron” that is Los Angeles:  spinning teacups, hiding in Ed Moses paintings, playing Julius Shulman and eating scorpions.