Reporter Danielle Chiriguayo: 

I’ll admit it, I’ve never been much of a pinball player. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, to a machine with a pocketful of quarters and a dream and almost immediately sunk three balls in quick succession to the world’s fastest game over. It made me think that only through the grace of some celestial being would it be possible to rack up a high score. I gave up my dreams of becoming a pinball wizard and kept the arcade classic at an arm’s length distance. 

That is until I heard rumblings of an entire pinball community that existed in LA. One of my incredible coworkers, Krissy Barker, is a huge pinball player, and I began to keep a watchful eye on the latest competitions. Then, I heard about a 36-hour-long pinball tournament, held just a few weeks ago from 11 a.m. Saturday to 11 p.m. Sunday. I immediately knew I had to cover the event and learn more about this whole pinball thing. 

I invite you to pop on The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” (an incredible song, by the way) and come along with me on a journey of marathon gameplay and an incredible community of dedicated Angelenos.

36 hours, 900 machines, 1 ball: Inside LA’s wild pinball scene

Revenge Of is Glassell Park’s resident comic book shop and pinball parlor, and it recently celebrated its second anniversary with a 36-hour-long pinball marathon.

“I think pinball has become the most inclusive activity that I've come across,” Taylor Wong explains. “I'm used to being part of communities where it's all about who you know, what you know. But pinball has always been like, anybody's cool enough to do it.” 

For those who are particularly serious, the International Flipper Pinball Association hosts local, national, and international competitions where people could win more than $100,000. 

Ryan Gratzer credits the IFPA for shepherding in a new generation of pinball enthusiasts. As he puts it, a decade ago, there was only one spot in LA with more than 10 machines. Now, at least a dozen exist.

‘Last Days’ opera looks at human alienation, magic in the mundane

The film Last Days follows a fresh-out-of-rehab rock musician named Blake —  modeled after Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain — who’s battling a drug addiction and neglecting his family and career. Gus Van Sant’s 2005 movie has been adapted into an opera, in which Agathe Rousselle plays the lead character, that will make its U.S. debut on Feb. 6 with the LA Philharmonic.

Composer Oliver Leith tells KCRW that the movie finds its magic in ordinary life: “We know what happens to the character in the end, so all these everyday, mundane things are reframed, there’s a heaviness and a heightened-ness to them.” 

Matt Copson, the show’s librettist, co-director, and art director, says Blake purposely does not have a voice in the opera. 

“The language of opera that everyone else is singing is super alienating to this character who is on the precipice of death and is as alienated as a human could be,” Copson explains. “That felt like a really exciting development theatrically, to have somebody who everyone is obsessed with … they're not allowed to express in the same way that these super expressive opera singers are.”

He continues, “It's extremely physical and … [an] animalistic approach to performance where somebody really has to express so much with their body because they don't have a voice themselves.”

SoCal think tank is fueling anti-DEI efforts in red states

One influential group of anti-DEI activists is based in Upland, California: The Claremont Institute, which has ties to former President Donald Trump and Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. The group rejects modern-day anti-discrimination rules and regulations, New York Times Reporter Nicholas Confessore tells KCRW. 

“What they would say is: If there are not that many Black doctors, but there are a lot of Black basketball players, that's okay. And that efforts to get rid of those disparities are going to end up changing the country in terrible ways. And then we're trying to figure out how to express these ideas in a way that wins over more people.” 

He continues, “They think America is in great crisis, and so they believe that in order to stop … the modern social justice left as they consider it, they had to go after the schools. Because in their mind, universities and their DEI programs are factories of leftism. And so if they can dismantle these programs, they can dismantle the left.”

Love boysenberries and their jams? Thank Walter and Cordelia Knott

Grocery stores will no longer sell Knott’s Berry Farm jams and jellies, a brand that is owned by Smucker’s.  

Before the theme park, Knott’s Berry Farm was a roadside stand of Walter and Cordelia Knott. Californians were particularly drawn to their boysenberries, a species of fruit that horticulturist Rudolph Boysen created in the 1920s by hybridizing a raspberry, a blackberry, and a loganberry.

“He didn't know how to promote it or sell it, and he just abandoned it,” explains Eric Lynxwiler, co-author of Knott’s Preserved: From Boysenberry to Theme Park, the History of Knott’s Berry Farm. “And then comes along Walter Knott … he tracked down Rudolph Boysen through the Yellow Pages and said, ‘Hey, I want to give this berry a shot.’ So in 1932, Walter Knott cut some clippings off of some wild berry vines that Rudolph let go fallow, and the boysenberry came into existence [in] about 1934 when Walter Knott had a bumper crop of these gigantic, wonderful berries. Walter wound up naming them after Rudolph Boyson. And that's pretty much all he ever gave Rudolph Boysen — was the name.” 

In the 1990s, Walter and Cordelia Knott’s children sold the Knott's Berry Farm brand of jams and jellies to ConAgra Inc., which in 2008 sold it to Smucker’s, who changed the recipe. 

“I'm not all that upset about the loss of the Knott's Berry Farm brand … because that ingredient deck is not quite what it used to be. … I'm really dedicated to what is now the Berry Market brand over the Knott's Berry Farm brand.”

Tell KCRW: How are you surviving financially in LA?

The hustle to make it in LA is nerve-racking. KCRW wants to know how you’re doing, and whether you’re staying afloat. How do you make a living? Are you an employee or your own boss? How do you feel when you get paid — rewarded, relieved, or queasy? We might reach out for an upcoming KCRW story.