Swaying palm trees, cool evening breezes, night-blooming jasmine, ruby red and purple bougainvillea, golden sun at twilight: these are some of the cliches that describe Los Angeles -- and they're true. But here's another version of LA's reality, from the famous French sociologist, philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard: "There is nothing to match flying over Los Angeles by night. A sort of luminous, geometric, incandescent immensity, stretching as far as the eye can see, bursting out from the cracks of the clouds. Only Hieronymus Bosch's hell can match this inferno effect. The muted fluorescent of all the diagonals: Wilshire, Lincoln, Sunset, Santa Monica. Already, flying over San Fernando Valley, you come upon the horizontal infinite in every direction. But, once you are beyond the mountain, a city ten times larger hits you. You will never have encountered anything that stretches as far as this before. Even the sea cannot match it, since it is not divided up geometrically ... Mulholland Drive by night is an extraterrestrials vantage point on earth, or conversely, an earth dweller's vantage point on the galactic metropolis" (from America, 1989). LA is unique, yes. But in one respect, LA is still just like every other major American city -- riddled with corruption. LA's past has had its share of robber barons and cheats and thieves and politicians on the take -- from the Huntingtons and Chandlers and Dohenys through William Mulholland and Mark Taper. LA's past has been riddled with police and city council corruption -- just pick up a copy of "L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City" by John Buntin for a litany of LA scandals.
Letter From LA: Gods and Monsters
Letter From LA: Gods and Monsters
Letter From LA: Gods and Monsters
Swaying palm trees, cool evening breezes, night-blooming jasmine, ruby red and purple bougainvillea, golden sun at twilight: these are some of the cliches that describe Los Angeles -- and they're true. But here's another version of LA's reality, from the famous French sociologist, philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard: "There is nothing to match flying over Los Angeles by night. A sort of luminous, geometric, incandescent immensity, stretching as far as the eye can see, bursting out from the cracks of the clouds. Only Hieronymus Bosch's hell can match this inferno effect. The muted fluorescent of all the diagonals: Wilshire, Lincoln, Sunset, Santa Monica. Already, flying over San Fernando Valley, you come upon the horizontal infinite in every direction. But, once you are beyond the mountain, a city ten times larger hits you. You will never have encountered anything that stretches as far as this before. Even the sea cannot match it, since it is not divided up geometrically ... Mulholland Drive by night is an extraterrestrials vantage point on earth, or conversely, an earth dweller's vantage point on the galactic metropolis" (from America, 1989). LA is unique, yes. But in one respect, LA is still just like every other major American city -- riddled with corruption. LA's past has had its share of robber barons and cheats and thieves and politicians on the take -- from the Huntingtons and Chandlers and Dohenys through William Mulholland and Mark Taper. LA's past has been riddled with police and city council corruption -- just pick up a copy of "L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City" by John Buntin for a litany of LA scandals.