Los Angeles

September 16, 2010, 12:39 pm
Filed under: Travel pieces | Tags: Los Angeles, Olvera St, Pacific Ocean, Sunset Boulevard, travel article

A sense of liberty, beauty, light and sordidness. Dusty hills. Pine trees. Palm trees that one never tires looking at because they’re usually on a beach and yet here they are in a functioning city. The smell of skunk. Stucco houses. Craftsman houses. Pseudo-Roman-pillared mansions. Yellow, pink, white, turquoise colors. Art deco buildings. Signs for Scientology, help and salvation. Murals. Steeples in East LA. Olvera Street and churros. Strip malls. Lounges. Cinemas. Museums. Outdoor Ampitheaters.The sweep of the ocean as one descends on Pico Boulevard. Parks and picnicking Mexican families. Turquoise-colored pools. Broad roads. Super highways and super traffic with Oleander growing profusely, and without encouragement. Helicopters overhead at all hours. Hanging flowers in pink, white and red abound. Cactus, succulents. Coyotes. Street cafes with folks hanging around with notebooks and pens and laptops writing their magnum opus. Great bookstores, upmarket diners in every neighborhood from Los Feliz to Larchmont to Santa Monica and Venice. Sunset Boulevard’s music stores and drinking joints. Headshots, six-minute conversations. Hummers, Range Rovers and BMW’s. Desolate, spacious and clean underground system. Sparkling buildings downtown. A gorgeous main train station that conjures up the Silver Screen Era. Dirty, crazy, hippie, colourful, violent Venice Beach bordering more upscale Santa Monica and its pristinely clean sidewalks. The arid canyons, coastline and Tahitian vegetation of Malibu. Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Rumania. The best Mexican from fine dining to under tents in parking lots, seated at benches. Warm nights. Valet parking. Manicure and pedicure shops everywhere.