Mulholland Drive
I miss Los Angeles in the way you might miss a former relationship. Vaguely, from a distance, and with the wisdom of knowing you weren’t right for each other. But not everything was wrong. There were hints of goodness. Sparkle, obscured.
I was afraid most of the time. Of traffic. The enormity of lanes zippered together in grotesque widths still insufficient to create adequate flow. I devised ways to avoid (isn’t this the first defense of anxiety?) the claustrophobia of potential back-ups by navigating arterials and side streets. I preferred discursive routes with stop-and-starts to being trapped on all sides. Rationally, I knew the interior of my car remained the same size no matter how fast we were moving, but the air felt scarce and desperate in confinement.
I found alternate ways to get where I was going. I looped down beneath the hills of Griffith Park and took Western Avenue south into the city, avoiding the tangle of highways strung like a cat’s cradle across downtown. When you go out of your way, which really was the way for me, a different metropolis takes shape.
A strange harmony connected the shops along Western Avenue. Old California boxes of concrete or brick, coated in dust and transformed by the forces of time and circumstance. Everything changes. And here, different souls inhabited the persistent structures, changing the feel but not the shape.
In spots along my way, people congregated. Some walking; some sitting. Racks of clothing sagged on sidewalks, their metal bones tired from the loads. These were the same archaic skeletons whose tight circles created the perfect hiding spot for a bored kid in a department store. They listed like the bags scattered around them, contents spilling out. Melancholic, inked squares of neon poster board taped to storefronts announced sales in the predominant language of each distinct community. With the miles, the languages changed. More of the same, but different.
I would go again. To the towns, parks, squares, and “littles” that define place. Here, but “of” there. Where authenticity, longing, and hope collide. We bring something of ourselves to where we are. Flowers can grow from cracks in a sidewalk. And beauty can thrive amidst inhospitable conditions. Muted but sustained appreciation endures, where white-hot glamour cools to a scar.
That’s the thing about Los Angeles. The best things aren’t the “best” things.
There’s a real beneath the pretend. Find this, and it’s magic.
Like the Persian restaurant across the street from my apartment. Koobideh, kabop, barg. Saffron, barberries. Delicious and accessible. Such dining pleasure in an unassuming space. Next to a bank, an apartment complex, and a grocery store.
The other day, at home now in Seattle, I came across a book by the Los Angeles Times food critic Jonathan Gold—Counter Intelligence: Where to Eat in the Real Los Angeles. I skimmed the excerpts and found a clue to my own LA culinary history. He took me back to a chicken place, I frequented (on a recommendation, a whim? I can’t remember) where the rotisserie came with bright purple pickled turnips and this delectable sauce. Bright white with the consistency and spread of school paste, it was garlic, for sure, but what else? The mystery has haunted me over the years as I have tried to recreate it. The closest I came was a riff on a Greek garlic and potato sauce I encountered when my wife and I honeymooned. But the texture and color weren’t a perfect match. This one wasn’t chipped; the formula secret.
I felt a small pang of loss while reading. Knowing that Gold is now gone and that I hadn’t learned of him sooner. Sometimes, arriving too late, there is no party, just hints.
At the studio, where I worked, I was mostly calm except when I wasn’t. My cubicle office was on the fifth floor of the main building, right across from the entrance to the lot. Massive windows absorbed the unrelenting Southern California sunshine and offered unobstructed views of the traffic pooling on the 134. I loved how the locals gave traffic a definite article. Nothing could be more certain.
A predominance of orange imbued the interior space with intensity. The humming fluorescents overhead and an unrelenting glare from outside colluded to create an arresting buzz that was, at times, too much much.
I fled.
Escapes on foot were proximate. I walked across the plaza to the lot, where elaborate constructions rose from nothing. Full facades beyond the sound stages. Replicas of hotels. Places where helicopters could land. All connected to movie franchises. A few permanent installations, used adaptably in across distinct movies, gave breadth to each step. With minimal effort, I traversed place and time, leaving a candy-striped Middle America for the brownstones of Brooklyn.
My favorite on-premises escape was the plaza farthest from my office, where benches caught the shade of blooming jacaranda trees. Delicate trumpets of soft purple fanned the warm air and offered a pleasant place to read and observe. I liked to watch the canopied trolleys go by, filled with enthusiastic visitors ready to see the Friends set while a guide with a radio voice and motion picture ambition pointed out the remarkables.
More distant jaunts required the car and long lunches. LACMA, the county museum of art, enticed me. Without the weekend crowds, I could move quickly through buildings, pavilions, and rooms, settling briefly to contemplate what I liked.
I discovered David Hockney here, on Mulholland Drive, his largest single canvas, more than seven by 20 feet. It depicts his daily drive to his studio across the Santa Monica mountains and Hollywood Hills. I loved the color and expanse. Whimsical, yet with an underlying truth. Peppered with an inimitable geometry. Swimming pools, tennis courts, palms, and cypress. I miss standing in front of it, calm, breathing the conditioned, church-like air.
After LACMA, after Hockney, Los Angeles felt to me like its own canvas. If you looked from the right view, at the right time, it was wondrous. Purple sunsets, the beauty greater with the increasing diminishment in air quality. Or the stripes of green on the field at Dodger Stadium, drawing your eyes to the outfield and the elegant simplicity of its hexagonal signs. Above them, the towering poles of the stadium lights.
Going, going, gone.