Good things about Los Angeles

The La Brea Tar Pits. The County Museum used to have a free or almost free film showing of great old films in the summers (one summer I watched all Jean Harlow’s movies there). The United Teachers of Los Angeles, whose Vice President is a mensch. Bob Brenner at UCLA. The home of Justice of Janitor’s first really high profile campaign (Century City 1990). Vegetarian, myself, but people obsess about InNOut Burger.

I was just back East so I’m full of nostalgia for it, and it’s true that one does not live an exciting, public life here as one does on the streets of the great cities. And it is terrible about the bookstores. But I will point out two positive things :

1. As mentioned, the produce. It seems like a small thing, but eating is something we do virtually every day, and to have Meyer lemons (which I box carefully and mail to my sister in Albany), or thin-skinned oranges, or the grapes…it would be hard to go back to February in Brooklyn. Plus pistachios.

2. LA seems a lot less finished than other big cities. We’re still digging our subways, for example; our cathedral isn’t even a decade old. It’s fascinating to watch. (Of course, we don’t have a proper newspaper to chronicle it, but I’m trying to be positive.)

Or this from David Hockney (from Lawrence Weschler’s piece on the light in L.A., well worth tracking down): “…one of the things I noticed right away, long before I could even articulate it exactly, was how Stan and Ollie, bundled in their winter overcoats, were casting these wonderfully strong, crisp shadows. We never got shadows of any sort in winter. And already I knew that someday I wanted to settle in a place with winter shadows like that.”

Confidential to harry b: LACMA film stuff found here.

Or this essay from Geoff Manaugh. Money quote:

In L.A. you can grow Fabio hair and go to the Arclight and not be embarrassed by yourself. Every mode of living is appropriate for L.A. You can do what you want. And I don’t just mean that Los Angeles is some friendly bastion of cultural diversity and so we should celebrate it on that level and be done with it; I mean that Los Angeles is the confrontation with the void. It is the void…It’s a confrontation with the oceanic; with anonymity; with desert time; with endless parking lots.

The best thing about L.A. is of course the weather.

This statement is probably the most decisive reason why I’ll never like LA. I hate the weather.

I live in Minneapolis where right now the heat of the summer is settling into a cool early autumn. Every night the air smells like campfire and the biking trails have started to get a dusting of crispy dried leaves. If this year is typical, we’ll have another surge of80’s-90’s in mid September and there’ll be a corresponding surge of beachgoers and walks to ice cream shops.

Around October the air will start to get crisper and hot drinks and bonfires will become more welcome. Long brisk walks through forrests of fading foliage won’t break you a sweat. The cooler, darker days will alternate between cozy and moody, depending on the daily cloud cover. Later in the year there will be the magic of the first snow and the silencing blanket of the first snow storm. The winter will be too long. But then will come spring with its long thaw, its snow-melt puddles, its gradual greening, and then another summer with thunderstorms that shake the windows and hot muggy days that abhor clothing.

You don’t actually have weather. If I want to appreciate the best part of LA, I can just visit the Mall of America, and much like the real thing, I’ll be itching to leave in a matter of minutes.

i lived in san fran and NYC and used to be really snobby about those two places in comparision to LA which i visited when my now spouse was living in santa monica. So, things to like about LA: what about Mulholland Drive at night?- the drive on PCH up to the beginning of Mulholland at Leo Carillo State Park with stops on the way at all of what we referred to as the “El” beaches north of malibu? – on the way to San Diego, turn left and go to Anza Boreago: fabulous state park; Venice Beach and its boardwalk, particularly on Sunday; the Santa Monica Pier; the fact that you can run/walk/rollerblade/bike for miles and miles and miles on the beach path [at least from malibu to LAX, if my memory serves me correctly]; Big Bear; Lake Arrowhead; the MoCA; when i first moved to CA, i was just amazed at the quality of the fruits and vegetables [and now that i live in NYC again, I really miss the inexpensive high quality fruits and vegetables available in CA]; and, yes, the weather – i think you just need to lose the attitude and be more open minded – the driving is a pain [when i was first going out with my wife i refused to go with her to a party in Palos Verdes because it required driving on the 405] but once you get out of the city proper, there is a lot to see, particularly the deserts [mojave, joshua tree, death valley] – it’s not perfect but it’s better than you think it is if you’ll allow yourself to enjoy it

I just moved to LA from Chicago and yeah, it’s different – but I like it. It has hills, and trees, and the ocean, and good weather (don’t listen to Matthew, he’s just trying to convince himself ;)) with no need for either A/C or heating, it has a high rate of unionization, it’s much less arrogant and self-involved than Boston or New York. It used to have one of the better papers in the US, before Tribune finished it off. No place is perfect. (Especially not DC, by the way.)

Matthew is right about the weather here in the old NW . . . up to a point. I live in MI rather than MN, but it’s much the same. Spring and fall are wonderful. Summer is a lot of fun, except for the relatively few days we get in the 90’s. Winter is fun, too, for a few days. Late January, or early February, though, with everything dark and dreary, the temperature in the teens, and dirty snow piled up everywhere–that’s pure misery. I know a number of people up here who suffer from seasonal affect disorder . . .

it’s silly to hate on a relatively decent place like L.A. I agree. There are worse places to be dragged to by your job. It’s several months since I felt a true twinge of jealousy of a friend whose work took her to Astana for a few years

Sasha Baron-Cohen can get away with saying this sort of thing deadpan-straight (in character, at least). You, not so much. Remember–comedy is hard…

I mean that Los Angeles is the confrontation with the void. It is the void.

Nietzsche, prophet of Los Angeles:

We can no longer conceal from ourselves what is expressed by all that willing which has taken its direction from the ascetic ideal: this hatred of the human, and even more of the animal, and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this longing to get away from all appearance, change, becoming, death, wishing, from longing itself — all this means — let us dare to grasp it — a will to nothingness, an aversion to life, a rebellion against the most fundamental presuppositions of life; but it is and remains a will! . . . And, to repeat in conclusion what I said at the beginning: man would rather will nothingness than not will. —

Not that one would superficially think that L.A. was motivated by a hatred of sensuality … but if you consider the contempt imposed by saturation, I think that L.A. begins to look a lot like the conclusion of the Genealogy of Morals.

The art museums are great — better than SF (but second-rate compared to NY and Chicago). The Getty and LACMA are pretty solid institutions. The symphony is better than SF (and also not as good as Chicago and NY).

By far the best thing about Los Angeles is the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes.

http://www.mjt.org/

The commenters seem to be relatively young, live on the Westside and have limited vision. I have very mixed views of LA, having lived here for twenty-four years (I still miss rain) but to be fair, you must consider:
1) if you are not afraid of none-white people with limited English the food in LA is the best in the country with partial concessions to NYC. Contact me for restaurant recommendations, but you are going to have to go east of La Cienega. Ethnic correction – outstanding Italian, Armenian, Hungarian and Greek food here as well.
2) This is a capital of the Pacific Rim. You have to look for the signs of it, but you won’t find any in Westwood. If you have some understanding of slow change this place is fascinating. The amount of Chinese “flight capital” not to mention immigration staggers the mind. I will take you around if you want.
3) The spontaneous unplanned cultural mixing, borrowing and matching is unbelievable here and arguably historically unprecedented but you have to go east of La Cienega or south of the 10 to see it.
4) There is serious theater, literature and art here, but you have to know where to look for it. The LA Times is dead but doesn’t know it yet.
5) Go surfing and reflect on your statements.

Re: 2 – I’m also a vegetarian, but I like In’n’Out too. Although the menu doesn’t list anything vegetarian other than fries and shakes, you can order a “grilled cheese sandwich”, which is their cheeseburger without any meat. Still got the cheese, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, and whatever their special sauce is. And from what I hear their ingredients are actually rather fresh and good, unlike other fast food.

Thanks for this post, since I’ll be moving to LA in January and want to know what some more good things about it are. But as someone said, so far it seems Santa Monica/Westwood-centered, whereas I’m probably hoping to live closer to downtown or silverlake.

One thing people haven’t mentioned which I found interesting when visiting my parents down in Orange County at some point is that if you go a bit south (perhaps the town is actually Artesia rather than LA proper?) at Pioneer Blvd and about 186th st, there’s all of a sudden about five blocks with excellent Indian food, clothing, music, and other stores in a neighborhood that seems to be otherwise largely Korean. I had a very nice dinner at one of the chaat places there just before heading to the airport a few weeks ago.

Dan Simon, it’s not comedy. I really would have preferred Astana to Los Angeles, at least for the first few months.

I came out there several years ago for work (academia) and left after two years because I hated it so badly, for all the predictable reasons. But I did find some things that I really have missed. Hollywood Farmer’s Market on Sunday mornings is fantastic. Restaurants in general are very good, and the good ones are great. The beach south of the Ballona Canal/Marina del Rey is nice and underused, and the Ballona Canal bike path is wonderful. Topanga State Park is surprisingly close and isolated, and Joshua Tree is of course a highlight. Amoeba Records is huge and has good in-store performances. LACMA and the tar pits; Larchmont on a weekend morning; the downtown library. There’s a little area near Olympic and Wilshire, Vermont and Western where Oaxaca meets Seoul and Fujian–just a crazy place with a genuine street life. East of downtown is interesting as well, in the old Chicano East L.A. markets. And the best dim sum in the world is just east of the city in Monterey Park and Alhambra, where you can go before hitting the track at Santa Anita.

Excerpt from Ask Oxford:
What is the origin of the word ‘posh’?
The story goes that the more well-to-do passengers travelling to and from India used to have POSH written against their bookings, standing for ‘Port Out, Starboard Home’ (indicating the more
desirable cabins, on the shady side of the ship). Unfortunately, this story did not make its appearance until the 1930s, when the term had been in use for some twenty years, and the word does not appear to have been recorded in the form ‘P.O.S.H.’, which would be expected if it had originated as an abbreviation. Despite exhaustive enquiries by the late Mr George Chowdharay-Best, researcher for the OED, including interviews with former travellers and inspection of shipping company documents, no supporting evidence has been found.
[end excerpt]

I lived in the Boston area seven years, the Chicago area twenty-eight years, and So Cal (San Diego) the last eighteen — So Cal has my vote for being the POSH place: Porsche out, starlet home. If you get this far, be sure to visit Cabrillo National Monument, the La Jolla Cove, and the Hotel Del Coronado. The famed zoo, the Wild Animal Park (better than the zoo), and Sea World are for kids, as is Legoland up in Carlsbad.
—
Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~~ San Diego

Anyone mentioned easy access to sex and drugs and rock and roll?