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I last wrote in October, in New Mexico. Since then it has been the crossing of Arizona, nights in truck stops, nights in the quiet of a pull off on a dirt road in the lightless desert, some passing friends and a few naked plunges in the Colorado at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Some crying at the wheel, and screaming. Reminiscences of my time on the Pacific Crest Trail as I coddled my transmission through Cajon Pass. Stopping to crush some sagebrush in my hands and rub it on my body. Thinking about The Grapes of Wrath and unironically blasting “California” by Phantom Planet two times in a row as I made my way down to the greener pastures of coastal Southern California. |
A train crossing the Colorado at the border between Arizona and California
The past 6 months, somehow, have been Los Angeles. The joy of discovery, mania, perplexity, and then malaise. An impossibility of capturing, or locating, the place, other than perhaps in the occasional picturesque diner or donut shop, the shadow of a palm tree, the streetlights of Western Ave stretching ad infinitum to the sunset-scorched horizon as viewed from up on high at Griffith Observatory.
A fog of hot days and job applications and nowhere to be. Sweating by a weedy patch of the LA river writing bad songs on guitar leaning on the hood of my van. Drinking far too much, too often alone. Also some ups; great live music and the hint of a future community, discovering the unironic joy of the very nerdy sport of disc golf with my friend Mike, some writing for the LA special issue from the New York Review of Architecture. Then a new apartment (a room in a large artist loft space within a former Pabst brewery and only accessible by not one, but two ladders) and finally, spurred by being nearly completely broke, a new job (construction manager). Mediocre dates, some better ones. Nice solemn walks scented by jasmine. Eavesdropping on conversations in Spanish, not understanding, but appreciating the cadence, the texture, of a new language. Nice, quiet beer over a book at one or the other of the two pseudo-European hip cafes I like. (In America, we use European as adjective for the rare bar where there's actually good, affordable wine and you can sit outside. As we all know a shockingly high bar). Smoking more cigarettes to fuel nights spent attempting to make friends in this new place. At some point, Death Valley.
A family wandering in the “Devil’s Golf Course” of Death Valley
Joseph and Charlie smelling the chaparral ( Larrea tridentata, aka creosote bush) in Grapevine Canyon in southern Nevada
And sweet friendsgiving Thanksgiving in Nevada with my college windsurfing buddies ft. my first wobbly attempt at windsurfing in like 7 years. A Christmas drive across country (2500 miles in two nights, an audiobook of Whithering Heights, three red bulls). One Taco Bell after another.
Back West for the rest of winter, fiddling with my keyboard, my banjo, my guitar, “I’m going to really try to make music.” etc etc. A couple weeks where I was trying to write short stories. Then I bought sign-painting brushes. Too many commitments I will fail to uphold, and a real reckoning with my own failures. An astonishing amount of TV as neural numbing agent. A week where almost all I listened to was “These Days” by Nico (and written by Jackson Browne) on repeat.
These days I'll sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them
My new home visible across from the neighboring railyard, the smokestack acting as landmark for the former brewery complex turned artist live-work space dubbed "The Brewery" |
| An shot of the factory floor in its heyday, shown to me by my roommate Jacob. We can see our loft in it, that tile floor is our floor, the distinctive light fixtures our light fixtures. No remnant smell of the ghost of beer, though, and probably for the best. |
my current home, my room being the one at the top of the tower of rooms built by Jacob.
More of too, too many beers alone. The beers had the company of nostalgic TV programs (X Files). Anything to not be myself for a while. The undoing of my mind, undersleeping, then oversleeping, all fluctuations within the base chemical cycling of alcohol to coffee with nicotine as bridge. I blame it on the 9-5, or this excessive drinking, my mind coming apart. But it's really something more fundamental and damning. It came on slow, then ramped up. My thoughts were erratic, strange, and alarming. The prolonged self-induced numbing turned into a fracturing, a disintegration. It ended with me checking myself into the ER, convinced I was losing my mind. I was told I was fine, with a 500 dollar bill to show for it. Not that this really calmed me.
Desperate, I quit drinking, quit cigarettes, quit coffee, quit Instagram, quit everything, basically. I left my phone in a drawer and drove to the desert.
The arm of your friendly neighborhood hypochondriac as he awaited a complete and permanent mental dissociation which never fully arrived.
In Joshua Tree, getting baked by the sun, filming the light on the rocks and myself moving around, jumping, yelping. Eadweard Muybridge’s “The Human Figure in Motion” (1887). Or something like Bruce Nauman, simple existence as creation. Reading The Goodby People by Gavin Lambert (second I’ve read of his about various characters of LA, the first, Slide Area, set in the 50s and this second one, in the early 70s, both great, and part of my self-made series of reading fiction set in my new home of Los Angeles) in one sitting, on a large, sandpapery-yet-comfortable rock. Slowly, a returning to a more stable condition thanks to the sun locating me. It and the rock, my anchors.
Stomping around the desert
A sunset walk, reading an information plaque about deep time and the evolution of desert flora somehow making me uncontrollably weep. This was followed by an unbelievable feeling of peace, of acceptance, and of love for everyone I saw, a deep empathy for the world. No way to write about this without sounding "woo woo" but it was real. I've been slowly improving since this intense awakening. I’ve been trying to hold onto it as long as I can.
I've been doing this, i.e. holding onto reality, by avoiding my phone. I am seeing that though alcohol certainly played a large role in my unease, the damn phone is probably just as bad. When not looking at my phone or the internet, I've:
- Read Speedboat by Renata Adler and liked it. It didn't move me, perse, but was well written and had some real hitters in terms of interpretations of interpersonal relationships in the modern age. Also, just a fascinating capsule of the life of a (tired) extremely cosmopolitan New Yorker in a different age and specifically capturing a sort of removed mental state achieved through a sort of cynical gaze from ones' own life which may feel familiar to some of us.
- Spent time in the sauna. The things which have most helped me, been most relieving and life affirming, are physical ties back to the body; laying in the sun, stretching, meditative body scans (I’ve been listening to this one a lot.) The sauna particularly has been my savior. It is simultaneously social and reverent, quiet and intense, profoundly of the body and yet brings about a sharp mental alertness. It also makes me feel my humanity in a deep time sort of way, soaking in heat being such a time-honored social practice: badstu, onsen, banya, sweat lodge, temascal.
- Gone to the movies alone (a really wholesome, lovely and treasured activity for me which is a perfect blend of nostalgic childish joy and bygone ripened bachelorism. Think The Moviegoer). Most recently, Civil War. I thought Ex Machina was an extremely well crafted, thought provoking, and entertaining movie. I distinctly remember being excited to see what else the director would do. Somehow I’ve missed two of Alex Garland’s since then (but by the reviews, might not have missed much). I finally saw Civil War last night, and I’d describe it exactly the same. Just a really good movie, the first I’ve seen in theaters in maybe a year that's really delivered.
- Listened to, and attempted to write, music. This week I've really been loving Colour Green by Sibylle Baier. A collection of bare, haunting songs, discovered by the son of an unknown 1970s folk singer, which were burned to CD by him as gifts to family members. According to Wikipedia lore, he gave one to J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. who encouraged the Orange Twin record label to release it, which they did thankfully. The first track, "Tonight," is particularly great.
Apologies for this fairly monotonous listing, but it has been helpful rambling away here as a reminder of good things to be had off the screen. Its pull is strong. I've been playing online chess on my phone which I justify as a less toxic activity than doomscrolling but which still fuels the insidious power of the device. Just the object of the phone, checking it, holding it, has a sort of addictive magnetism which disturbs me.
Right now, though, I am feeling light and hopeful. I just got back from Galco's Old World Grocery in Highland Park. An old, linoleum-floored store full of special sodas and bygone candy bars, I come here for a feeling of wholesome comfort. The check out girl carries kind eyes in a humble, self-possessed sort of way, and the last time I was in the older gentleman who probably owns the place talked to me about red peach jam, and how the red peaches are grown in France with grapes intertwined into the trees because they are a late season fruit and can be harvested at the same time. But they don’t keep well, which is why they are made into jam. All of this with Danny and the Juniors' "At the Hop" (1958) playing from the crinkly loudspeakers. What’s a better cure for depression than chatting with the kindly and idiosyncratic elderly? Plus, you can try fun treats like the “Idaho Spud.”
!!READER PARTICIPATION!! A COLLABORATIVE LIST POEM
In wrapping up this ramble, I thought it’d be fun to ask you, my dear reader(s), to participate in fieldnotes. I’ve been making list poems every day of notable events, memories, feelings, of the day. I thought it might be fun to make a collaborative one! If you feel so moved, email me a single line (could even be a single word) of something notable in your recent flow of experience. For example, a few days ago I woke up to an absurdly loud crowd of parrots. So I might write:
The screeching din of parrots on a cool Altadena morning
These various moments will be strung together as a list. For example:
pine needles, the drone of a nearby lawnmower, the smell of a vaguely familiar perfume, sun spots beneath closed lids, a turmeric-stained wooden spoon,
Please feel encouraged to submit multiple entries to the list, if you feel so moved! And send along if you’d like me to include your first name, initials, or retain anonymity in the byline.
Speaking of collaboration, for those of you in the Los Angeles area, I am contemplating putting together a little rambling club for those of us who love nothing better than ambling about aimlessly exploring. Like the rambling clubs of 20th century Britian, I'd imagine it to be of a socialist bent, perhaps as a semi-curated platform to discuss the politics of space. In short Book Club + Walking Group + Art Project. Would you join the L.A. County Ramblers? Space Walks? The Space Walkers? More soon!
SOME PHOTOS OF LOS ANGELES AND SURROUNDS
In the past I've really felt color photography was far superior to grayscale, but I am coming back to it as you can see. I've been feeling so over-saturated lately, is part of it I think. I think it is also because I read Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald and was really taken by it and its sparing use of low-quality photos from his long fugue-like walk through European history.
I usually end these emails with an apology for, yet again, rambling in a diaristic and self-indulgent way about nothing in particular vs. presenting a few interesting tidbits I've come across with brevity (and levity) which I think is my ultimate goal. But I think this is just what my fieldnotes are, typically, if I am being honest. Why am I subjecting others to them? Exhibitionism? A sounding board? Juvenile ego-fueled self-aggrandizement? I think, primarily, accountability...To try to write a bit, such that eventually these might not be embarrassing anymore because they actually WILL have a clear structure. And to risk the embarrassment of candid over-sharing as an in-road to real connection with others. And that I might have some external record of time passing for myself, which feels extra important in the timeless summer here in LA.
Anyway, I will part ways with a poorly curated smattering of photos I made on recent walks around LA. Until next time, my friend! ◬
MAY THE SUN SMILE UPON YOU!