This summer I stood amid a constant gust of warm air and screaming neon somewhere near Times Square waiting for my 3am Greyhound. My train to Boston had been delayed indefinitely on account of what the underground loudspeakers described as "ten fallen trees blocking the tracks" as a result of a spontaneous heavy rain. Scanning the streets for a place to eat and drink I had a moment to look up at the buildings as they seemed to topple toward me; impossibly tall. "What will Boston be like?" I hadn't been there in a long time, and certainly not while I could legally drink (as I understood, Boston has a rich and lively bar culture). I felt all at once, the same as I had when I was in New York seven years ago, piggybacking on a meeting my mom needed to travel for--startlingly "temporary". New York has always seemed to me a transitional place: cars rushing all around, thousand, million and billionaires flying constantly, evading taxes, traveling to Tahiti, and a sea of people always looking for a better place to live. I thought then about San Fransisco and how wonderful it is to arrive in, but how slow and warm the creeping feeling of complacency bleeds into everyday life. I've been going back and fourth between San Fransisco and Hawaii where I was born since I was five, and after having lived in L.A. San Fransisco feels increasingly like a womb: comfortable, contained, warm, heavenly, but largely resembling a quarantine--just as Hawaii also does.
After mentally parsing through two cities, fraught with illusion, I thought warmly upon L.A. as a real place: A huge metropolis, admittedly intimidating but ultimately nurturing in the vastness of its colorful cultures, mystery and a curiously illusive solidarity that seems to pop its head above the surface of sprawl at the most unexpected times.
L.A. is the most "real" city (for what "real" is worth) I've ever been to. I am reminded of the idea that the hardest steel is forged in the hottest fire constantly almost as if it is the constituent mantra one must accept to survive the brutal transition from places less fast and vast.
I was really exited about taking this class primarily because of the facet of "social difference" that would be addressed. As a non-native Angeleno-turned-L.A.-lover I'm fascinated by L.A.'s curiously unidentifiable essence. San Fransisco has its Haight-Ashbury and proliferation of warm family owned bakeries and restaurants, New York well.... It's *effing New York City! But what is L.A.? Plastic? American? Media-centric? all or none of the above? I have no idea. But I have heard that Los Feliz is one of the best and only places to simply "walk around" in such a vehicular-saturated city. I've been to Torrence and had some of the best Pho to my little tongues surprise (also I am open to suggestions). I've taken the bus to some of the most terrifying and beautiful slices of downtown offered by any city I've visited, and I have tasted better hamburgers than I believe exist anywhere else in the world.
So bring it on L.A.! I want to traverse your face indefinitely and still not discover any semblance of what I could call an exploratory totality. Bring it on Fairfax! Bring it on Santa Monica! Bring it on all night diners!
I will soon take in all of thee.
