Unskilled and mostly illiterate Italian construction worker Simon Rodia built the towers over 33 years starting in 1921. The tallest of the 17 towers is 100'. He used scrap rebars, bending them using nearby train tracks and wrapping them in wire mesh. The concrete was a "special recipe".
The towers are decorated entirely with found objects: bottles, ceramic tiles, seashells, figurines and much more: green soda bottles, blue milk of magnesia, rejects from a nearby tile factory, and broken pieces of whatever brought by neighborhood kids.
In 1954, Rodia suffered a mild stroke and left LA. Two years later, after his on-site bungalo burned down, the city condemned the property and ordered it to be destroyed. An actor and a film editor bought the property for $2,000 to preserve it.
To prove to the city that the towers wouldn't fall, they proposed a test of attaching a cable to the top of a tower and trying to pull it down. Ten thousand pounds couldn't topple the tower, which is interesting because Rodia sunk the foundations a whole 2 feet deep. His intuitive structural design changed the way similar buildings are built.
And so the papers were full of the amazing towers built by the man who disappeared. In 1961, he was discovered living with his sister in Martinez, CA. He sat in the audience of an art show in Berkeley that featured the towers, in his 80s and broken-toothed. After the show, he stood up--all 4' 10" of him--and tipped his hat to endless applause. He died four years later.
Across the street from the towers, Watts. In LA, when you see the door, windows and yard barred, you trot out the bulletproof vest. The tower grounds are closed for several years for rennovation. You can tour the complex from the outside only.
Sharon, of course, made immediate friends with the lady living across the street, whom she spotted in her yard. You may not know that Watts is largely Mexican now. Once Mexicans started arriving, the remaining black families were driven out by shootings and house burnings by Mexican gangs. Latino advocates tried calling it "racism", but the term has such a specific meaning that they were quickly rebuffed.
Japanese Spider Crabs can grow a leg span of 18'and weigh as much as 42 lb. This must be a baby. I thought they might grow proportional to the tank size, but apparently that's a myth. Fish don't.
To accommodate growth, the crab moults periodically. It takes several weeks to separate itself from the old shell, discarding esophagus, stomach lininig and part of the intestine in the process, to be regenerated later. Until the new shell hardens, the crab is vulnerable to predation, including by its own kind.
Manta rays visit cleaning stations, where fish congregate to have parasites removed. The station may be at a coral reef, a large clump of seaweed, or simply and agreed-upon location. The ray opens its mouth to signal that it wants a cleaning. Cleaner shrimp and fish such as wrasses and gobies (which lack a gas bladder, are not bouyant, and so must remain on the bottom.
Jellyfish in the Medusa phase. This is the breeding phase. Medusas release sperm and eggs from their mouths into the water, where they combine to form ciliated swimming larvae. After a few days, the larvae settle to the sea floor and grow into stalk-like polyps that have a mouth and tentacles, and feed on plankton. The polpys can reproduce asexually by budding, or sexually by turning into a medusa, depending on the species.
The Banded Pipefish (upper right) lives in tropical tide pools and other shallows. It grows to a maximum length of 7". To reproduce, the female lays her eggs into the male's brood pouch. The male later gives birth.
The Leafy Seadragon is the emblem of the state of South Australia. The pods are not used for propulsion; they simply make the fish look like seaweed. It's so unique that it's the only member of its genus, Phycodurus.
Jellies swimming