WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2011
Volume 11 Issue 22
Santa Monica Daily Press
PETS ON THE GO SEE PAGE 13
We have you covered
THE NEVER FORGET ISSUE
WWII veterans look back on Pearl Harbor
Cirque’s costume designer re-imagines the wild bug world BY ASHLEY ARCHIBALD
The day that would live in infamy was never forgotten
Daily Press Staff Writer
OCEAN AVENUE Cirque du Soleil’s “Ovo” will swarm Santa Monica in January, unleashing the hidden world of insects underneath the troupe’s iconic blue-and-gold big top, a scene brought together by the show’s insightful designer and first female director. Liz Vandal, a freelance designer, spent a year of her life conceptualizing and creating costumes that can manifest the repulsiveness of the cockroach, the playfulness of the flea and the sensuousness of the spider, all without encumbering artists tasked with nearimpossible acrobatic feats. That means convincing an audience that they’re looking at a creature, even if it doesn’t have the requisite number of legs to qualify as an insect or arachnid. “It’s not imitation, it’s evocation. You have to get into a mood, a feeling,” Vandal said. In her hands was the head piece worn by the acrobat that plays one of 10 grasshoppers, a bright green polyester that stretches its permanent pleats to reveal a core of yellow underneath. It wasn’t a method that she’d tried before the show, but that’s what Cirque du Soleil does to you, Vandal said. “They squeeze you like a lemon, until every ounce of creativity comes out,” Vandal said. Absent the ability to recreate the physical structure of the creatures, Vandal relied on texture and color to build the image of each bug, often forced to create new methods of f a b r i c manipulation to achieve the effect she sought. Her imagination became more important than the realistic structure of the SEE OVO PAGE 9
BY ASHLEY ARCHIBALD Daily Press Staff Writer
HAWAII, 1941 In the course of a person’s
Ross Furukawa news@smdp.com
LOOKING: Santa Monica police search the area of Pacific and Sixth streets Tuesday after a shooting left one person injured. Police are asking for the public’s help in finding the suspects.
SM police searching for shooting suspects BY DANIEL ARCHULETA Managing Editor
PUBLIC SAFETY FACILITY Santa Monica police are searching for a pair of suspects in a shooting that took place Tuesday at approximately 3:30 p.m. on Pacific Street. SMPD spokesman Sgt. Richard Lewis said that details are scarce, but did reveal that a male Latino Santa Monica High School student was shot in the chest and later transported to a local hospital. He is in stable condition. Police say that two male Latinos exited a dark-colored sports utility vehicle and approached the victim on foot before firing shots. A resident said that he heard up to four shots fired.
Gary Limjap
Police aren’t sure at this point if it is gang-related. The suspects, described as being in their 20s, ran back to their vehicle and fled southbound on either Fourth or Fifth streets after the shooting, Lewis said. The SMPD contacted the Los Angeles Police Department’s Pacific Division, notifying them to look out for a vehicle fitting the description. The LAPD also assigned a helicopter to search from the air. The escape vehicle may have a bike or some kind of rack on the roof and has a bumper sticker affixed just above the license plate. Anyone with information should contact the SMPD at (310) 458-8495. daniela@smdp.com
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life, there occur events on which the course of history pivots, like the fulcrum of the lever of human experience. On Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese fighter planes descended upon the American Air and Naval bases at and around Pearl Harbor, killing and injuring over 3,500 American service men. Emil Wroblicky, a former football coach at St. Monica’s, was walking out of a matinee showing of a Frank Sinatra film in Chicago when he heard what had happened. “It occurred to me, ‘Where the hell is Pearl Harbor?’” Wroblicky said. He would find out. The military deferred Wroblicky’s service until he finished high school, but in 1942, he and several high school friends reported to the draft office and signed up for the Marine Corps. Wroblicky completed boot camp in San Diego with the likes of Glen Ford and Tyrone Power in August 1942, and boarded a ship that zig zagged its way to Hawaii, trying to dodge Japanese submarines. Nearly a year and a half after the attack, Wroblicky and the other marines docked at a Pearl Harbor still ravaged from the Japanese onslaught. “It looked like devastation,” Wroblicky said. “I remember seeing the (USS) Arizona. It was an oil slick, very much devastated with the other ships. the Nevada, the Enterprise. A lot of the carriers and battleships were still beached.” Before Pearl Harbor, Wroblicky didn’t know about the whispers of war that filled the American press, despite his position at the Chicago Tribune delivering papers for $4.32 a week. The United States had refused to formally enter the conflict, contenting itself to antagonize the Germans by engaging in a lend-lease program to provide war machines to the British government and escorting British supply ships to Iceland. SEE PEARL HARBOR PAGE 11
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