• Signs and Wonders | 1

• Union Station

• A Single Man

“My God, you sound like some dreary French intellectual who’s just set foot in New York for the first time! That’s exactly the way they talk! Unreal! American motels are unreal! My good girl – you know and I know that our motels are deliberately designed to be unreal, if you must  use that idiotic jargon, for the very simple reason that an American motel room isn’t a room in an hotel, it’s the room, definitely, period. There is only one: The Room. And it’s a symbol – a advertisement in three dimensions, if you like – for our way of life. And what’s our way of life? A building code which demands certain measurements, certain utilities and the use of certain apt materials; no more and no less. Everything else you’ve got to supply for yourself. But just try telling that to the Europeans! It scares them to death. The truth is, our way of life is far too austere for them. We’ve reduced the things of the material plane to mere symbolic convenience. And why? Because that’s the essential first step. Until the material plane has been defined and relegated to its proper place, the mind can’t ever be truly free. One would think that was obvious. The stupidest American seems to understand it intuitively. But the Europeans call us inhuman – or they prefer to say immature, which sounds ruder – because we’ve renounced their world of individual differences and the romantic inefficiency and objects-for-the-sake-of-objects. All that dead old cult of cathedrals and first editions and Paris models and vintage wines. Naturally, they never give up, they keep trying to subvert us, every moment, with their loathsome cult-propaganda. If they ever succeed, we’ll be done for. That’s< the kind of subversion the Un-American Activities Committee ought to be investigating. The Europeans hate us because we’ve retired to live inside our advertisements, like hermits going into caves to contemplate. We sleep in symbolic bedrooms, eat symbolic meals, are symbolically entertained – and that terrifies them, that fills them with fury and loathing because they can never understand it. They keep yelling out, ‘These people are zombies!’ They’ve got to make themselves believe that, because the alternative is to break down and admit that Americans are able to live like this because, actually, they’re a far, far more advanced culture – five hundred, maybe a thousand years ahead of Europe, or anyone else on earth, for that matter. Essentially we’re creatures of spirit. Our life is all in the mind. That’s why we’re completely at home with symbols like the American motel room. Whereas the European has a horror of symbols because he’s such a groveling little materialist…”

« Mon Dieu, vous parlez comme un de ces lugubres intellectuels français qui viennent de poser le pied à New York pour la première fois ! C'est exactement la façon dont ils parlent ! Irréels !  Les motels américains sont irréels ! Ma chère enfant – vous et moi savons que nos motels sont délibérément conçus pour être irréels, si vous devez utiliser ce jargon idiot, pour la très simple raison qu'une chambre de motel américain n'est pas une chambre dans un hôtel, c'est la chambre, sans aucun doute, point final. Il n'y en a qu'une : La Chambre. Et c'est un symbole – une publicité en trois dimensions, si vous préférez – pour notre mode de vie. Et quel est-il, ce mode de vie ? Un code de construction qui exige certaines mesures, une certaine viabilité et l'usage de matériaux appropriés, ni plus ni moins. Tout le reste, il vous faut l’obtenir. Mais allez dire cela aux Européens! Cela les fait mourir de peur. La vérité, c'est que notre mode de vie est beaucoup trop austère pour eux. Nous avons réduit le plan matériel à sa plus simple expression symbolique. Et pourquoi ? Parce que c'est la première étape essentielle. Jusqu'à ce que le plan matériel a été défini et relégué à sa juste place, l'esprit ne peut jamais être vraiment et entièrement libre. Cela paraît évident. Le plus stupide des Américains le comprend intuitivement. Mais les Européens nous considèrent inhumains – ils préfèrent dire immatures, ce qui est plus méchant encore – parce que nous avons renoncé à leur monde de différences individuelles, d’inefficacité romantique et d’objets qui ne sont là que par amour d’eux-mêmes. Tout ce culte mortifère pour les cathédrales, les éditions originales, les mannequins parisiens et les vins millésimés. Naturellement, ils n'abandonnent jamais, ils continuent à essayer de nous renverser à tout moment avec leur propagande répugnante et sectaire. Si jamais ils réussissent, nous seront faits. La Commission sur les activités anti-américaines ferait bien d’enquêter sur ce genre de subversion. Les Européens nous haïssent parce que nous nous sommes retirés pour vivre à l’intérieur même de nos publicités, comme des ermites qui entrent en contemplation dans leurs grottes. Nous dormons dans des chambres symbolique, prenons des repas symboliques, somment symboliquement divertis – et c’est ce qui les effraie, ce qui les remplit de fureur et de dégoût, car ils ne pourront jamais comprendre. Ils ne peuvent s’empêcher de crier : « Ces gens sont des zombies ! » Ils font semblant d’y croire car l’alternative serait de céder et d’admettre que les Américains sont capables de vivre ainsi car leur culture est effectivement infiniment plus avancée – cinq cents, peut-être mille ans d'avance sur l'Europe, ou d’ailleurs toute autre personne sur terre. Nous sommes essentiellement des créatures de l'esprit. Notre vie est dans notre esprit. C'est pourquoi nous sommes complètement à l’aise avec des symboles tels que la chambre de motel américain. Alors que l’Européen, ce petit matérialiste rampant, a les symboles en horreur… ».

Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man, 1964

• The Los Angeles River | Riverside Drive

• Homer Street

• Griffith Park | 1

• So long, Jack

Kiefer Sutherland Announces the End of "24"

The Insider, 3/26/10

Kiefer Sutherland's hit FOX series "24" is calling it a day after this season - but will Jack Bauer live to fight again on the big screen?
The joint decision to wrap up "24" was made by Sutherland, exec producer and showrunner Howard Gordon, Twentieth Century Fox Television, Imagine Entertainment and Fox Broadcasting Company.
"This has been the role of a lifetime, and I will never be able to fully express my appreciation to everyone who made it possible," Sutherland said. "While the end of the series is bittersweet, we always wanted '24' to finish on a high note, so the decision to make the eighth season our last was one we all agreed upon."
However, the star revealed that there are still big plans in store for his action hero alter-ego Jack Bauer.
"Looking ahead to the future, Howard Gordon and I are excited about the opportunity to create the feature film version of '24,'" he said.
The two-hour series finale of "24" airs Monday, May 24 2010 on FOX.

• Beverly Blvd

• LA Mass Transit

L.A. mass transit agencies make only a token effort to get people onboard

Too little is done to make the region's public transportation network a convenient and practical alternative to driving.

By David Lazarus

Los Angeles Time, March 23, 2010

Los Angeles marked Transportation Freedom Day last week. What's that? It's the day when the typical median-income family has earned enough money to cover transportation costs for the entire year.

Your basic middle-class L.A. household spends about $8,600 a year on gas, insurance, parking and vehicle maintenance, according to the California Public Interest Research Group, a watchdog organization.

That compares with about $8,000 for the average U.S. family and represents more than 20% of most people's annual expenditures.

"It's an eye-opener how burdensome transportation is for most families," said Erin Steva, transportation advocate for CalPIRG. "People are spending more for this than they do for food, clothing and healthcare."

Yet what are we doing to make public transportation a more convenient and practical alternative for people?

Not enough.

My car was in the shop last week, and I rode public transit around town. I don't mind going by bus or rail -- it's a nice change from playing road warrior. In fact, I'd willingly ride public transportation every day if the system were more user-friendly.

But it's not. And it's almost as if the dozens of entities that constitute the region's public-transit network are conspiring to make the system as unwelcoming as possible.

For example, transfers. Switching from one transit provider to another is often a necessity in an area this vast. Some, such as Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus, make it relatively easy. Others do not.

The L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the leading provider of bus and rail service in Southern California, charges $1.25 per trip (it'll go up to $1.50 in July). You can pay an extra 30 cents to transfer to another provider.

But you can't get a transfer to switch from one Metro route to another, or from a bus to a subway. Switching from a Metro rapid bus line, say, to a Metro local line will require you to pay the full fare twice.

You can buy a daily Metro pass for $5 or a weekly pass for $17, but that won't let you switch providers. Nor will you be allowed to use the Commuter Express buses that are often the quickest way to get across town during rush hour.

An EZ Pass will allow you to switch providers and use Commuter Express lines, but they're only sold on a monthly basis for $70. You can't buy a daily or weekly EZ Pass.

Moreover, depending on the length of your commute, riding Commuter Express lines with an EZ Pass can entail an additional charge of $18 or more per month.

"It can all be a little confusing," acknowledged Dave Sotero, an MTA spokesman.

You think?

I'm guessing that more than a few Angelenos would be willing to give public transportation a try for a week or so here and there, if it were convenient and cost-effective. So why aren't EZ Passes sold on a weekly basis for, I don't know, about $25?

"That's a good idea," Sotero said. "We should look at the pros and cons of that."

The pros are obvious. What are the cons?

"I don't have that information," Sotero replied.

[...]

• Santa Monica

• Chinatown

Robert Mallary
The Box, February 6th, 2010 - April 3rd, 2010