Dear Los Angeles driver, Why are you trying to kill us all? No, seriously. I’m having trouble understanding why we even have to take a road rules test if you’re going to flaunt them all constantly, by swerving through lanes like a boomerang, speeding in exit lanes, never using your turn signals, and generally driving… Continue reading Letter to Los Angeles Drivers
You know what? So the title is pompous. It sounds like what Jean Baudrillard would write, or Bernard-Henry-Levy. But whatever, I’m also entitled to think about America, even if I’m not a constructivist or Lacanian! :-) The thing is, you’re bound to have thoughts about “Africa” “America” “Development” “Third World” when you shuttle back and… Continue reading Thoughts on America: Chapter 1
An old Spiderman, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes with a dirty sagging costume, gaping around his spindly legs. Cheap tee-shirts piled onto tables, three-for-eleven-ninety-nine, underneath cardboard cut-outs of Edward from Twilight. An old broken-down black Toyota speeds around the corner, making a right on red, with the entire car singing a disco tune, Diana Ross or Dionne… Continue reading Hollywood
First a ticket, then my car gets hit in the same week and both times it was parked. The person who hit me was honest enough to leave their number, but I’m thinking about the dangers of motionlessness these days. Any number of accidents could have happened throughout the week while I was driving my… Continue reading Impact
In the parking lot of a photo store today, we made an acquaintance. My friend is visiting from Paris, and is following his passion for music. He struck up a friendly conversation with a guy coming out of his car, and we ended up talking, the three of us, for twenty minutes in the parking… Continue reading Meeting people
I want to try and write something every day this month, to resist my hiding instincts. I’m looking for work, planning, thinking and that tends to elicity ostrich behavior in me. This is something I received in my junk mail folder today and thought it was quite beautiful: From: Tazmaniandevil Subject: But ran home The… Continue reading poetic spam
The months that have slowly stretched, like a lazy confused cat, between January and August have been leading to a decision on my part. January is when I was laid off from my job with Disney, and I went from having the title of “Associate International Localization Producer” to a more nondescript status as a… Continue reading authenticity
I live in one of the most industrialized places on earth. A city covered in concrete and six-lane freeways, where people live in their cars. This city is also one of the most nature filled. There are thousands of trees everywhere in Los Angeles, and the city is constantly overshadowed by one of the most… Continue reading the edge of nature and the city
Do people skateboard in other cities? Do they use a skateboard as a primary mode of transportation? I was kind of out of it on my way to school this morning, wayyyy too early for me at 7:30 AM, and I saw all these kids on skateboards going to school, girls, guys. And it hit… Continue reading Skateboarding?
On a whim, I set out to Hearst Castle this past weekend. I may have been a little too spontaneous. My phone died before I reached my hotel, and I had to drive three extra hours to find a hotel that was open and had available rooms. I had originally thought of staying in Solvang… Continue reading Hearst Castle
I love Los Angeles because it’s huge, it’s constantly renewing itself, and there is a regular stream of new-comers. It’s like an etch-a-sketch, the metaphor apt, because you never know when the ground is going to shake from under you. This has been a year of new beginnings for me. Leaving Europe, coming to this… Continue reading New beginnings
I figured out why I like it so much here. It’s a big city, BIG, and the sky is big, and the sun shines on the mountains. I used to go through a cycle in Paris where I’d feel like I was suffocating in my tiny apartment, with a view of other buildings, going in… Continue reading big sky and mountains
I walked and rode. I traveled around the world before I had a license. When I lived in Europe, I went from my flat in the West of Paris to Estonia and back by foot–bus–metro–train–plane–taxi–bus. I learned how to drive when I was 22. My best friend taught me in her Volvo station wagon, Dolores,… Continue reading driving – one year later
So…this is what happened in the last 8 months: January 2008: Nic’s birthday (Hash House in San Diego) December 2007: Rowan Elliot Williamson November 2007: 4 Zein’s (my dad–far left–and uncle ready to go visit Mamie Bahia for her 81st birthday in Oregon) October 2007: It’s all about costumes this month. September 2007: Discovering College… Continue reading May to January
After running about ten errands in an hour–not exaggerating–I went off to find the Earth day event in Altadena, just north of Pasadena. I never found it, but my wanderings brought me all the way to the foot of the San Gabriel mountains, and I marveled that I’d never thought of driving all the way… Continue reading a saturday
Better late than never, here are some photos from New Year’s in my new apartment (me, dressed as French Mafia, my flat’s sound system, and my new street):
So today, breaking all the rules of my health-related diet (no wheat, no red meat and no cheese) Nic and I went on an adventure to 25 degrees, deemed best burger bar in LA by some food critic in an airplane magazine I picked up on my way to the US last month. It’s named… Continue reading 25 degrees
when your even your shampoo is vegan! Pureology is 100% vegan shampoo and hair products…wicked expensive but it’s the only thing that will keep my hair soft with the water here! I thought it was hilarious when the girl told me. I actually asked her “Are you joking?” She looked at me with her perfect… Continue reading you know you’re in California part II…
The Department of Motor Vehicles… Soon after I got to Pasadena, I went to “Wheels” a free play put on at the Humane Society by Encompass. The play was a one-man show about Immigration, Xenophobia, citizenship, and belonging and was centered around one 15 1/2 year old Mexican teen; the actor also played about ten… Continue reading The DMV
Yes…I forgot about that. You know you’re in Southern California when a racoon as big as a five-year old child awaits you in the bushes next to the short wall in front of your gate at one in the morning. At first I was so petrified, I just didn’t know what that animal was. Big,… Continue reading Racoons and Possums
The Three-Legged Duck 