It was five years ago today that beloved LA reporter Cathy Seipp lost her battle with cancer. On Twitter, those who knew her best are sharing old links and heartfelt memories using the hashtag #MissSeipp.

Two of Seipp’s closest friends, Reason magazine editor-in-chief Matt Welch and his freelance journalist wife Emmanuelle Richard, are now east coasters (D.C., and soon, Brooklyn). A couple of their thoughts:

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For the brand new Zócalo Square feature “Where I Go”, recent USC masters in writing grad Meghan Lewit decided to write up her gym.

This is no Pilates or yoga haven. Rather, it’s a 24-Hour Fitness in a Koreatown office building that has reviewers on Yelp reaching for the negative slams. Lewit shows a comical flair for description, dubbing the fitness room as being like the set of “an Olivia Newton John video” and sharing the humiliation of “being pitied by a fellow member of a [higher ranked LA area] 24-Hour Fitness.” But there’s a silver lining:

My gym brings together a genuine cross-section of the city. There are lots of Asians, many Latinos, a handful of blacks, a few whites, some Indians, and even the occasional Borat-like patron of mysterious origin. You might even say that my gym is the city of Los Angeles.

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UPDATE

The resourceful Richard found the original interview, and translated the best part. From the August 5, 2003 issue interview of Beck by Sandra Cesarale

What about [your debut] movie?

It will be full of energy and full of characters: some kind of Alice in Wonderland set in the 70s. It still doesn’t have a title. The director is a friend of mine and it will be her directorial debut. But I trust her. We will begin shooting in the Fall.

Now, deals fall apart and Hollywood friends aren’t. But why did Beck go to such lengths to deny the whole thing to Vanity Fair?

More Duncan/Blake drama. Beck denied ever discussing acting in Theresa Duncan’s film, Alice Underground in Vanity Fair, but long ago, and far away, he mentioned a project that sounds a whole lot like it in an interview with Corriere Della Sera

Beck allegedly told Italien newspaper Corriere Della Sera (the story is not on the paper’s terrible site and CDS is not indexed by Lexis Nexis) that he’s going to play in a movie this fall, “a kind of Alice in Wonderland” taking place in the 70s. The director a female friend of his and it’s her first film.

Small world or creepy coincidence: the Italian interview is cited by Emmanuelle Richard, who’s a friend of FBLA. Turns out, she was the first journalist (or one of the first) to get Beck to admit to belonging to the church of L. Ron.

E.R: Are you Jewish? AND scientologist?

B.: Well, my grandfather was a Presbytherian [sic] minister. My mother was Jewish and she raised us Jewish as well, but during the summer, I used to go stay with my grandparents and I’d go to Church. My parents were scientologists probably from the 60s… so I grew up around that too. I had a lot of influences.

Did Beck’s auditors wipe out too many memories?

Earlier:
Jeremy Blake’s Unfinished Work in Corcoran Show
Jeremy Blake Show Reviewed in NY Sun
Wit’s Autopost: Theresa Duncan Blog Lives On
Jeremy Blake Show Opens at Corcoran Gallery
Theresa Duncan, Jeremy Blake Screenplay Offered
Malcom McLaren: Jeremy Blake Was Gay
Newsweek On Theresa Duncan/Jeremy Blake
The Independent Obit of Jeremy Blake
Scientologist Leader Says Theresa Duncan Had Bizarre Delusions
Theresa Duncan Blog Remembered in LA Times, Again
How I Got That Story: Chris Lee, Kate Coe on Theresa Duncan
LA Times on Jeremy Blake, Theresa Duncan
Theresa Duncan on Journos: “I Talked Rings Around Them”
FBLA’s Kate Coe Lays Theresa Duncan Myths To Rest
Update: Theresa Duncan’s Death Confirmed
Theresa Duncan, Filmmaker, Reported Dead
If Los Angeles Was a Perfume…..

Slate V, the video branch of the online mag, threw a party at the cavernous Avalon last night, complete with open bar, roving waiters, and a big buffet. Infiniti provided the decoration, in the form of a car. No raffle, and the back seat wasn’t big enough for any Tommy Lee action.

Editor Jacob Weisberg looked a little too comfortable with that mic.

Virginia Postrel’s back in town, working on a new book, with her tall, dark, and handsome UCLA professorial husband, Steve Postrel.

People were talking about Iraq, the heat, why no one is watching the debates, the heat.

Mickey Kaus, temporarily blonde-less, Allen Mayer (dreamy, etc.), Slate EP Bill Smee, were all holding court in various power centers.

Investigative types asked us what rewards we’d reaped from the mediabistro.com sale. Perplexed as to how to respond, we looked for Dear Prudence.

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Foreign correspondent, Emmanuelle Richard contributes to French daily Liberation,Swiss public radio and French Vogue. She blogs, she’s clever, and has that effortless French chic but a wicked sense of humor about the world, show biz and Los Angeles. We’re overjoyed she answered our questions.(And a word to all future 20 Questioners–she sent us all the URLs, saving us hours of valuable time.)

1. What newspapers do you read?

The New York Post, first thing in the morning since they started delivering in L.A. a few years ago. I wish I could say the L.A. Times (where her husband works) but I love too much starting the day laughing out loud or shouting: “Good Lord!” You have a sense that the people there have a blast hunting for stories, producing the pages and coming up with insane headlines. And you grow so fond of the gallery of characters, apart from the many unpleasant anti-European columnists. Then I grab the L.A. Times, starting with the Opinion section. I also check the website of the national daily paper I work for in France, the left-leaning Liberation.

2. Which ones do you move your lips to while reading? You mean, when you silently mutter WTF? More often than not, the LAT, especially when they feel the need to rephrase a paragraph three times in one story that could easily be 30% shorter. To be fair, my hometown paper also induces a lot of silent “WOW”s, and I often end up defending it in conversations in L.A. where trashing the LAT seems like a requisite sport. Coming from France where investigative journalism is as foreign as tofu, I feel very lucky to have the LAT.

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