Annoyance, Gratitude and My City
Aug. 3rd, 2006 03:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowFirst of all, I'd like to give a gigantic thank you and we shall light candles at your shrine to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shrift. A few weeks ago, Leviathan got hacked and Shrift has worked tirelessly to fix everything. This was no small undertaking, and I'm pretty sure, she's gotta tackle the other archives as well. A few stories were unrecoverable, but in the midst of all the stories that the archive holds, that's pretty amazing. shrift you are so owed beer, cabana boys and porn!
Unfortunately, "Blue Eyes" was one of the stories that didn't survive. Bangs head on desk. Mostly, the damned thing is just so long that it's daunting to think of uploading it again (because I'm such a moron and I always get things wrong and now I've got a chance to do yet another edit and try to get the coding right, and I think I should probably take advantage of the opportunity.) But still, I'd so like to kick the ass of whoever had so much time on their hands they decided to hack a bunch of archives. People are morons.
So, if you've got stories up at Leviathan, go thank Shrift. If you ever go to Leviathan, go thank Shrift!
On entirely unrelated note, someone oncofax7's flist was looking for good non-fiction on Los Angeles and while I think there probably is some, it mostly made me think of how I look at and think of and exist in my city. Because it's an intensely personal city for all of it's sparkly, sunshiney glory, someplace where you can be utterly alone in a crowd, for good and for bad. And my city really is not the city of fiction, although it's more Raymond Chandler than James Ellroy. It is not Joan Didion's Los Angeles, nor is it Nathaniel West's. I think, if anything, it's closest to Steve Martin's LA because I see the absurdity and the fairy taleness of it even as I see the loneliness. The city itself is a big self-engendered myth, created in a desert, a false paradise sucking up water from a community to the northeast, full of palm trees that don't belong, and people that don't belong, and these thriving communities of people who keep their identity while taking from the collective coffers and largesse that the city offers. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I think immigration is what keeps this city vibrant, because how could we possibly comment on international immigration when national migration to Los Angeles is practically a rite of passage?
No, my LA is found somewhere in between the lush hilltop houses with their sliding doors and loamy vegetation and views. It's somewhere west of the porch and windowbar communtities of south central and east LA, less plush than Beverly Hills and Brentwood, less sweaty than the valley. My LA is a small corner of Hollywood that looks beautiful and sounds like a trainwreck with the gun of engines punctuated by the occasional skitter of wildlife.
My LA is up the street from the pretty boys of West Hollywood and the hipsters of Silverlake and the yuppies at the Bowl. Mostly, my LA is a place to be viewed, and place that's on the tangible edge of my perceptions. I spend a lot of my time in the city by myself, have sat in classrooms, have interviewed politicians and teachers, pilates instructors and actors, botox providers and animal trainers, the gamut of professions, and they all sort of flit and falter and flounder and find their way. I think it's what I love most about this place, all these people finding their way, and every story has it's own theme, even when we inevitably find a commonality that instead of binding us, just allows us to check off that question in the ticky box.
My LA definitely exists in that sweltering place between air conditioning and drywall, fingers cracking from too much freon exposure at work and the dust dry heat of my house with it's thin walls and crappy plumbing.
My LA has legs, has leafy ficus trees, thick and oily and rubbery, and coyotes that eye my cats for an afternoon snack and too many cars and these bright, overcommitted kids that grow sideways, grow up too fast.
My LA has Thai Chicken on Fire and the grocery delivery guy and everyone's personal pot delivery guy or girl and the evil Target on Highland. It's got dirt, and grit, and skid row, and too many homeless people and not enough resources and a hell of a lot of hope to mingle with the tension and the divides along every barrier you can think of.
My LA has a hell of a press agent, and the chops to back up the hype. It has too much sushi and too few dive bars and no smoking inside and oxygen bars and places where you can bring your pets to dye them pink. And yourself pink. And your neighbor pink. It's got places where you can wax your ass and pierce your more delicate bits and titty bars where you can't touch, but you can get breakfast. It's got Coffee Bean, and In and Out, and Trader Joe's and if it weren't for that last one, I would have starved because they've got almonds in these tiny little packs and lots of $2.00 wine. It's got a marathon, and the Chinese theater, and lots and lots and lots of Yoga, and it has two stellar academic institutions and superior junior colleges and state sponsored education and it's also got the Hollywood sign and Mullholland drive and the crazy people in front of the CHinese who dress up as movie characters and take pictures with the Chinese and Japanese and Ohioan tourists for a dollar.
My Los Angeles has a mayor who's proof of the immigrant dream, a man shrewd enough to become governor. It's got savvy politicians, movie stars who live in trees,a horrifying class system and a weirdly egalitarian free for all and the Rite Aid from hell.
And more than anything, my Los Angeles has this great tag line, this prevailing idea that it's still a place where you can come, transitory or not, and find yourself. Sometimes finding yourself means watching your dreams breakdown into so much dryer lint, and sometimes it means community theater and sometimes it means going to all of the restaurants on Pico because how can you not want to try Oki dog? (BUt dude, avoid Pink's because it's overrated). You never know what you're going to find out about yourself here, what sort of wild expectations will be dashed and which new ones will rise up, but like the city itself, you can grow your own palm trees in the desert and take a hot shower from water in another county, and see the stars on a really good day.
shrift. A few weeks ago, Leviathan got hacked and Shrift has worked tirelessly to fix everything. This was no small undertaking, and I'm pretty sure, she's gotta tackle the other archives as well. A few stories were unrecoverable, but in the midst of all the stories that the archive holds, that's pretty amazing. shrift you are so owed beer, cabana boys and porn!Unfortunately, "Blue Eyes" was one of the stories that didn't survive. Bangs head on desk. Mostly, the damned thing is just so long that it's daunting to think of uploading it again (because I'm such a moron and I always get things wrong and now I've got a chance to do yet another edit and try to get the coding right, and I think I should probably take advantage of the opportunity.) But still, I'd so like to kick the ass of whoever had so much time on their hands they decided to hack a bunch of archives. People are morons.
So, if you've got stories up at Leviathan, go thank Shrift. If you ever go to Leviathan, go thank Shrift!
On entirely unrelated note, someone on
cofax7's flist was looking for good non-fiction on Los Angeles and while I think there probably is some, it mostly made me think of how I look at and think of and exist in my city. Because it's an intensely personal city for all of it's sparkly, sunshiney glory, someplace where you can be utterly alone in a crowd, for good and for bad. And my city really is not the city of fiction, although it's more Raymond Chandler than James Ellroy. It is not Joan Didion's Los Angeles, nor is it Nathaniel West's. I think, if anything, it's closest to Steve Martin's LA because I see the absurdity and the fairy taleness of it even as I see the loneliness. The city itself is a big self-engendered myth, created in a desert, a false paradise sucking up water from a community to the northeast, full of palm trees that don't belong, and people that don't belong, and these thriving communities of people who keep their identity while taking from the collective coffers and largesse that the city offers. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I think immigration is what keeps this city vibrant, because how could we possibly comment on international immigration when national migration to Los Angeles is practically a rite of passage?No, my LA is found somewhere in between the lush hilltop houses with their sliding doors and loamy vegetation and views. It's somewhere west of the porch and windowbar communtities of south central and east LA, less plush than Beverly Hills and Brentwood, less sweaty than the valley. My LA is a small corner of Hollywood that looks beautiful and sounds like a trainwreck with the gun of engines punctuated by the occasional skitter of wildlife.
My LA is up the street from the pretty boys of West Hollywood and the hipsters of Silverlake and the yuppies at the Bowl. Mostly, my LA is a place to be viewed, and place that's on the tangible edge of my perceptions. I spend a lot of my time in the city by myself, have sat in classrooms, have interviewed politicians and teachers, pilates instructors and actors, botox providers and animal trainers, the gamut of professions, and they all sort of flit and falter and flounder and find their way. I think it's what I love most about this place, all these people finding their way, and every story has it's own theme, even when we inevitably find a commonality that instead of binding us, just allows us to check off that question in the ticky box.
My LA definitely exists in that sweltering place between air conditioning and drywall, fingers cracking from too much freon exposure at work and the dust dry heat of my house with it's thin walls and crappy plumbing.
My LA has legs, has leafy ficus trees, thick and oily and rubbery, and coyotes that eye my cats for an afternoon snack and too many cars and these bright, overcommitted kids that grow sideways, grow up too fast.
My LA has Thai Chicken on Fire and the grocery delivery guy and everyone's personal pot delivery guy or girl and the evil Target on Highland. It's got dirt, and grit, and skid row, and too many homeless people and not enough resources and a hell of a lot of hope to mingle with the tension and the divides along every barrier you can think of.
My LA has a hell of a press agent, and the chops to back up the hype. It has too much sushi and too few dive bars and no smoking inside and oxygen bars and places where you can bring your pets to dye them pink. And yourself pink. And your neighbor pink. It's got places where you can wax your ass and pierce your more delicate bits and titty bars where you can't touch, but you can get breakfast. It's got Coffee Bean, and In and Out, and Trader Joe's and if it weren't for that last one, I would have starved because they've got almonds in these tiny little packs and lots of $2.00 wine. It's got a marathon, and the Chinese theater, and lots and lots and lots of Yoga, and it has two stellar academic institutions and superior junior colleges and state sponsored education and it's also got the Hollywood sign and Mullholland drive and the crazy people in front of the CHinese who dress up as movie characters and take pictures with the Chinese and Japanese and Ohioan tourists for a dollar.
My Los Angeles has a mayor who's proof of the immigrant dream, a man shrewd enough to become governor. It's got savvy politicians, movie stars who live in trees,a horrifying class system and a weirdly egalitarian free for all and the Rite Aid from hell.
And more than anything, my Los Angeles has this great tag line, this prevailing idea that it's still a place where you can come, transitory or not, and find yourself. Sometimes finding yourself means watching your dreams breakdown into so much dryer lint, and sometimes it means community theater and sometimes it means going to all of the restaurants on Pico because how can you not want to try Oki dog? (BUt dude, avoid Pink's because it's overrated). You never know what you're going to find out about yourself here, what sort of wild expectations will be dashed and which new ones will rise up, but like the city itself, you can grow your own palm trees in the desert and take a hot shower from water in another county, and see the stars on a really good day.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 11:47 pm (UTC)I actually think it is really cool that you love it so!!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 11:41 pm (UTC)And this is a marvelous description of LA.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 11:55 pm (UTC)I actually reread it a few weeks ago; it's one of my favorite FS fics. And I got all sniffly at the end, again. I'm hopeless. *g*
no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 01:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 06:20 am (UTC)with a crazy shopping cart mover
escalator. And it can only be accessed from
a 4 level parking deck. It is always swarmed with people.
But I still find myself there once a week.
So, evil.
Suenix
no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 07:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 06:42 am (UTC)I just checked my "to print when you have time to read" folder and, lo, I saved Blue Eyes from Leviathan, so I have a complete HTML file if you want it. I can't read novel-length stories on a screen.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 07:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-19 10:06 pm (UTC)Thank you!!!!!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 05:38 pm (UTC)And though there is hellish traffic everywhere you go in LA, I still love it.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-04 08:46 pm (UTC)and thank you for this lovely post about LA. good point about steve martin's perspective.