Dear Los Angeles

by Dear Los Angeles- The City in Diaries

  SERGEI BERTENSSON

  1991

  I think that people who keep notebooks and jot down their thoughts are jerk-offs. I am only doing this because somebody suggested I do it, so you see, I’m not even an original jerk-off. But this somehow makes it easier. I just let it roll. Like a hot turd down a hill.

  I don’t know what to do about the racetrack. I think it’s burning out for me. I was standing around at Hollywood Park today, inter-track betting, 13 races from Fairplex Park. After the 7th race I am $72 ahead. So? Will it take some of those white hairs out of my eyebrows? Will it make an opera singer out of me?

  CHARLES BUKOWSKI

  SEPTEMBER 26

  1925

  Do you remember when Thomas Ince suddenly died on a yacht party? Well, Marion Davies, Hearst, Charlie Chaplin and a number of others were on that party and according to the wild rumors around the lots, it is said that Hearst became very much incensed over the attention Charlie was paying Marion—after a few drinks, they got quarreling about it and Hearst either shot at or threw something at Charlie. Charlie ducked and Ince got the blow and died a few hours after.

  I don’t know how true this tale is—but I’ve heard it from a number of people and they all seem to believe it. I can’t really say that I believe it because I know how ready people are to talk and I usually give anyone the benefit of the doubt until I’m positive….

  Am going to a beach party tonight—we are going to build a big fire on the beach and have supper there. This seems to be quite a popular diversion for the “younger set” in Hollywood. I’ve never been to one before so I’m looking forward to having a good time.

  Sunday morning Nancy and I are going on a hike with the Sierra Hiking Club. We leave at six in the morning and there will be about 100 in the party and we will ride in busses to the mountains and then hike.

  VALERIA BELLETTI, to a childhood friend

  1943

  Very comfortably propped upon an arrangement of pillows, I lie on my bed after the usual effort to write has ended with the revision of 1 page. A shuddering glance at the play had convinced me not to touch that today.

  The room is full of California’s gay sunlight and noise of voice on the walks and traffic.

  I am about to smoke and read Jung.

  Tomorrow if I get my check I will take a trip somewhere….

  I have accepted sex as a way of life and found it empty, empty, knuckles on a hollow drum.

  TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

  SEPTEMBER 27

  1927

  San Diego can rightfully claim a great credit in the flight. But you can’t beat Los Angeles. They had to get in on it somehow. They claim they raised the pigs that the ham sandwiches were made from that Lindy took to Paris. The pig was raised on Hellman’s ranch….

  P.S.—In five years this town will have grown till it reaches Tijuana, Mexico. Then it can rightfully be known as the best city in America.

  EDMUND WILSON

  2007

  Las montañas San Gabriel. A la izquierda, chaparral still slightly charred from the wildfires hace ya cuatro años.

  SUSANA CHÁVEZ-SILVERMAN

  SEPTEMBER 28

  1938

  On Sunday Mummy and I went sailing—to Catalina Island on an enormous boat. The masts were much taller than our house, and when the sailor was putting the sails up he climbed the highest mast like a monkey—but coming down he didn’t bother with the mast at all; he just slid down the rope.

  When we got far out on the ocean the captain got out a fishing line with a big hook on the end. He tied the other end to the rail, and we all waited to see what would happen. Nothing did happen for so long that we forgot all about it. Suddenly the line gave a jerk and we all ran to pull it in. There was something very heavy at the other end. We pulled and pulled, and pretty soon we saw an enormous fish. He was so heavy that we could hardly pull him into the boat. It was three feet long and weighed about thirty pounds, and had big goggle eyes. A sailor cut him up and gave us a piece to take home, which José cooked for our dinner the next night; it was delicious. The name of that fish was an albacore.

  We anchored off Catalina, and after supper we flashed a light on the water, and hundreds of flying fish began to fly. They really did, and they were beautiful. They were about eighteen inches long, and you see them swimming like all the other fish. But they have two fins just like a bird’s wings, and when they get excited, or when some big hungry fish is chasing them, they spread them out and rise out of the water and skim through the air very fast. Mr. Mankiewicz, who owns the boat, gave me a long stick with three barbed points on the end and asked me to try to spear one. I did try, and I did spear one, much to everyone’s surprise. But I was sorry after I had done it, because flying fish are not good to eat, and I don’t like to kill anything uselessly.

  OGDEN NASH, to his children

  1960

  I have a large, elegant, two room office, first time in my life I’ve had my name in brass letters on a door and where a good gal who was secretary to Norman Corwin, Francesca Price Solo, answers the phone in a soft voice, “Carl Sandburg’s office”: it’s worth a nickel to hear.

  CARL SANDBURG, to his wife

  2016

  Walking down Bunker Hill steps at night. Sound of a conch? Echoing out of the parking garage. A strange figure: a young Japanese man in baggy white pants, sandals, backpack carrying an enormous horn of some animal, five feet long. Not a shofar, not a ram’s horn, he says when I ask, but the horn of an antelope from Yemen. He wants to talk to me about the Second Coming, about the man that “you call Jesus.” He tells me how “we are distracted by the things of this world,” and I concur, nodding gravely, “Yes, we are,” and bid him good night.

  Drive home down Beaudry Street. There’s my one-legged friend, the ghost with no language, no teeth, no clothes, no home, no bed, no friends. He is there day after day.

  He curls himself up on the bus bench despite the struts designed to prevent homeless people from lying down; he’s so slight, so diminished, that he fits under the curve of the cold metal. His blanket is blackened with dirt.

  I pull over, get out to talk to him. He babbles. I don’t know the language. Maybe Vietnamese? Friendly/angry? I have no idea. I hold up water he nods yes, I point to my mouth, does he need food. He shakes his head. For weeks after the first encounter, I stop en route home to leave a bottle of water beside him, as if he is some roadside shrine. He is usually under the blanket, asleep. I fear he’ll die out there in the sun, half-naked, staring into the void. What does he eat? I call County Homeless services and miraculously, a human answers. They’ll send a team.

  LOUISE STEINMAN

  SEPTEMBER 29

  1858

  Before sunrise of the 29th he was lying in the bushes at San Francisco, in front of the Congress frigate, waiting for the early market boat to come on shore, and he delivered my dispatches to Commodore Stockton before 7 o’clock.

  ARCHIBALD GILLESPIE,

  on courier Juan Flaco’s fifty-two-hour Los Angeles–to–San Francisco ride

  1929

  We are travelling across the Californian desert in Mr. Schwab’s [railway] car, & we have stopped for 2 hours at this oasis. We have left the train for a bath in the hotel, & as it is so nice & cool I will write you a few of the things it is wiser not to dictate.

  Hearst was most interesting to meet, & I got to like him—a grave simple child, with no doubt a nasty temper—playing with the most costly toys. A vast income always overspent: Ceaseless building and collecting & not vy discriminatingly works of art: two magnificent establishments, two charming wives; complete indifference to public opinion, a strong liberal & democratic outlook, a 15 million daily circulation, oriental hospitalities, extreme personal courtesy (to us at any rate)….

  At Los Angeles (hard g) we passed into the domain of Ma
rion Davies; & all were charmed by her. She is not strikingly beautiful nor impressive in any way. But her personality is most attractive; naïve childlike, bon enfant. She works all day at her films & retires to her palace on the ocean to bathe & entertain in the evenings. She asked us to use her house as if it was our own. But we tasted its comforts & luxuries only sparingly, spending two nights there after enormous dinner parties in our honour. We lunched frequently at her bungalow in the film works—a little Italian chapel sort of building vy elegant where Hearst spends the day directing his newspapers on the telephone, & wrestling with his private [Chancellor of the Exchequer]—a harassed functionary who is constantly compelled to find money & threatens resignation daily.

  We made gt friends with Charlie Chaplin. You cd not help liking him. The boys were fascinated by him. He is a marvelous comedian—bolshy in politics—delightful in conversation. He acted his new film for us in a wonderful way. It is to be his gt attempt to prove that the silent drama or pantomime is superior to the new talkies. Certainly if pathos & wit still count for anything it ought to win an easy victory….

  We went on Sunday in a yacht to Catalina Island 25 miles away. We had only one hour there. People go there for weeks and months without catching a swordfish—so they all said it was quite useless my going out in the fishing boat wh had been provided. However I went out & of course I caught a monster in 20 minutes!

  WINSTON CHURCHILL

  1932

  I have just been listening to Cesar Franck’s Symphony in D Minor.

  I turned out all the lights and danced to it—then to Saint-Saens’ bacchanal in Samson and Delilah, until everything whirred.

  I had some terrific experiences in the wilderness since I wrote you last—overpowering, overwhelming. But then I am always being overwhelmed. I require it to sustain life.

  …I feel I must return sometime to the Grand Canyon.

  But I turned my back to the solitudes and one chill, foggy dawn, I arrived in Los Angeles, where I discarded my sombrero and boots for city garb. For a week I worked intensively in black and white. Also I’ve been reading, and now, of course, I’m attending UCLA. I got in by rather a fluke. My chemistry grades were low, as you remember, but, in transferring credits from Indiana a D in advanced algebra was magically changed to an A, which balanced the chemistry deficit….

  Haven’t you met Mr. Weston? If not, do it by all means or you are making a mistake. I think he is by far the most interesting and genuine person in Carmel. Tell him that you are a friend of mine.

  If you plan to come back, I think you are foolish to pay bus fare. Send your bulky belongings by freight or parcel post, forget your timidity, and rely on the public. There are always exceptions to the general inhospitable type, if you have the fortitude to wait for them….

  EVERETT RUESS, to a friend

  SEPTEMBER 30

  1912

  The old town don’t look the same. By the old town we mean Los Angeles. But not looking the same is a habit with this little pueblo….It’s got so that a person can’t reasonably spend a two weeks vacation and come back here without the aid of guide book.

  GEORGE HERRIMAN

  1935

  O the juse the juse/ they don’t amews.

  E. E. CUMMINGS, to a friend

  1974

  I drove to U.C.L.A. today in my carpool….I was showing off and I wouldn’t listen to Jeff’s advice. On Beverly Glen I was just hauling ass. Jeff said they used radar but I didn’t believe him. But lo and behold I was pulled over by a police car. With radar I was clocked at 50 in a 25 mph zone. They radio to a car waiting at a side street and then I was nailed. I was nervous, then that passed, then came a feeling of frustration. Why didn’t I listen? Did I have to be such a show off? I was upset. I knew that this would be just another stupid expense to add to Dad’s financial situation. I have definitely learned my lesson (I hope). I am going to make a determined effort to stop speeding. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone or myself. I’m really in no hurry. Patience—mellow out.

  AARON PALEY

  OCTOBER 1

  1926

  We watched the new Douglas Fairbanks film The Black Pirate. The whole film is made up of Fairbanks’ favorite tricks and has nothing in it with regard to content.

  The scenes, taking place on a big sailing ship, are staged quite well. The ship itself, the sea—all those look very beautiful and real. You can imagine my surprise when in the yard of the studio I saw that very ship and its real size standing in a very large pool without water? It turned out that the pool would be filled with water, and it would replace the sea.

  SERGEI BERTENSSON

  1961

  From the steep mountains on the east side of the lake, one could look west at endless rows of purple mountains around the Griffith Park Observatory. One behind another. They looked like a Japanese screen….Every color shone like a jewel for a moment and then dissolved; and even the gray clouds, the smoky scarves, were iridescent. For a few instants, all the sunsets of the world, Nordic, tropical, exotic, condensed over Silver Lake, displaying their sumptuous spectacle.

  There was a house being built on the side of a mountain facing the sunset and the lake….There was a desert rose terrace, a garden being planted, a place carved in the garden for a pool overlooking the lake. There was a magnificent fireplace like that of a castle.

  I discovered the architect was Eric Wright, the son of Lloyd Wright and grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright.

  ANAÏS NIN

  OCTOBER 2

  1934

  I’m trying to like California. I wish I could put on paper what it’s like. The countryside, dusty pepper trees, rolling hills, serrated mountains, is all curiously divided into planes. I couldn’t see why at first, but I suddenly solved it the other night. It’s the lack of rains. It’s so dry here all is dust. The dust lies at the end of the day hovering over the land. The light hits the dust clouds, and gives that curious hazy separation to the planes of distance….

  I try to rationalize this whole country, and excuse it. If the people are nuts, it is because after the flat middle lands this is Heaven to them. If they strew the place with the ostentatious vulgarity of palm trees, it’s because they still can’t believe in the miracle of landing in a land where palms will grow. If their houses are cheap-jack, it is because they’re afraid of earthquakes which crumble brick and stone buildings. If they dress like fools, it’s because this is the tropics in a way, and anyhow our own sane clothes are about as foolish as could be conceived for such living conditions. So the women wear pants and shorts, and everyone lives in a sort of cheap-jack fugitiveness as if all this would vanish suddenly and they’d have to live back on earth again. A temporary feeling everywhere—waiting for what? Earthquakes, some sectarian Domesday, the collapse of the motion picture industry, the millennium? I don’t know. I only know that I believe in film, and must stick to that as long as I can.

  ERIC KNIGHT, to a friend

  1934

  The carcase is almost what the medical books call ambulant, and I’ve said good bye to Paramount, so I feel very much better. It’s not exactly anything to be unhappy about (except when you find all the money going to pay back debts) but it’s nothing to feel very good about either—it’s like endorsing absorbine junior or Beauty Rest mattresses—Working in the movies as part of the technical staff would be more interesting but it’s a life. I’ve been in bed ever since I got here talking to the studios over the phone and listening to Epic, Angelus Temple and the Christian Hebrew Synagogue on the air—California’s a great place right now. You can look out the window and watch the profit system crumble.

  JOHN DOS PASSOS, to a critic

  OCTOBER 3

  1933

  Today was very hot. It reminded me a little of the days off Guatemala last year, when my bones felt gone from the flesh, leaving a limp yawning emptiness.
But today I felt sleepy, and all afternoon fought against drowsing by changing my position often and violently as I lay on the chaise longue….

  Upstairs I can hear Dave taking a shower. He is growing used to football practice again. For two weeks or so after it started, he was so tired that he was far from civil—and he still expresses disapproval or grouchiness by a discarding of all politeness. He is a fine boy and a charming one, but when he is sullen there are few humans more unattractive.

  M.F.K. FISHER

  1939

  PLEASE ANSWER ABOUT TUITION MONEY STOP YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH A HUNDRED DOLLARS MEANS NOW

  F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, to his agent