Saturday, March 24, 2007

Hollywood or Bust


So here I am in West Hollywood, land of towering Washingtonia palms and eternal 72-degree sunshine. I have not seen any movie stars. At least, none that I've recognized.

I landed yesterday at Long Beach airport shortly after noon, walked outside the terminal and promptly witnessed a car accident. Fortunately it was minor - a fender bender that did more damage to driver egos than anything else. But then, after my friend Christopher picked me up, we saw two more minor accidents and a car fire on the freeway. Christopher assures me L.A. is always like this.

I decided I needed some location-appropriate reading material on this trip, so I brought Joan Didion's "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," a collection of essays at least partly about California's mysterious allure. The essays are 40 years old, so needless to say things have changed a bit, but it was pretty amazing to be sitting at The Coffee Bean on Sunset Boulevard yesterday afternoon and reading about Howard Hughes' house not far away. Joan Didion is an amazing writer.

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