Dear Los Angeles

by Dear Los Angeles- The City in Diaries

Life is a pit into which we are dropping and we shall be not-knowing before we reach bottom, so why try to scratch the sides of the walls as we go down?…

  I am now an authority on torture. I have been railroaded into this magnificent office now more than three months. I have undergone the humiliation of not even being considered or given anything to do….

  Why, why, why, did they do this? Why have they brought me here to pay me fat money for sitting here?…

  Last night the bankers came out here. The studio threw a big luncheon. Stepin Fetchit and Bill Robinson (Negroes both) tap-danced for the bankers.

  ERIC KNIGHT, to a friend

  1937

  Today edward makes a sitting of a poetess, helene mullins, who is deaf and eyes bad and large scar from recent auto accident—she was run into—which fractured her skull.

  CHARIS WILSON

  DECEMBER 6

  1942

  I watched a friend last night who had invited me to his home for supper, stop at seven grocery stores to find butter and found none. The street lamps are hooded from above here, wardens patrol the streets for cracks in window shades, etc. There are barrage balloons along the coast, and searchlights (and of course, A.A. [anti-aircraft], hidden) in all sorts of unexpected places throughout the city: in all the canyons, and now and then on the playgrounds of schools. They expect a bombing here. But nobody is afraid of it….

  There is something here for an anthropologist’s notebook. This is one of the richest towns in the country. As it exists today, its economy and geography was fixed and invented by the automobile. Therefore, the automobile invented it. The automobile (for a time, anyway) is as dead as the mastodon. Therefore the town which the automobile created, is dying. I think that a detached and impartial spectator could watch here what some superman in a superheated diving-bell could have watched at the beginning of the ice age, say: a doomed way of life and its seething inhabitants all saying: Why, Jack Frost simply cant do this to us. It’s not so. That’s not ice we see; that’s not cold we feel. We’ve got to be warm. We cant live otherwise.

  WILLIAM FAULKNER, to his stepson

  1967

  It is a marvelous day, brilliantly sunny and warm although the San Bernardino Mountains glitter like Kilimanjaro with new snow. But my leave-taking is the hardest I have ever had to go through. It will only be a few days, I tell [Stravinsky].

  ROBERT CRAFT

  DECEMBER 7

  1860

  In Camp at Los Angeles, December 7.

  Well, we are in camp. It is a cold rainy night, but I can hardly realize the fact that you at home are blowing your fingers in the cold, and possibly sleighing, while I am sitting here in a tent, without fire, and sleeping on the ground in blankets, in this month. We are camped on a hill near the town, perhaps a mile distance, a pretty place….

  The houses are but one story, mostly built of adobe or sun-burnt brick, with very thick walls and flat roofs. They are so low because of earthquakes, and the style is Mexican. The inhabitants are a mixture of old Spanish, Indian, American, and German Jews; the last two have come in lately. The language of the natives is Spanish, and I have commenced learning it. The only thing they appear to excel in is riding, and certainly I have never seen such riders.

  Here is a great plain, or rather a gentle slope, from the Pacific to the mountains. We are on this plain about twenty miles from the sea and fifteen from the mountains, a most lovely locality; all that is wanted naturally to make it a paradise is water, more water. Apples, pears, plums, figs, olives, lemons, oranges, and “the finest grapes in the world,” so the books say, pears of two and a half pounds each, and such things in proportion. The weather is soft and balmy—no winter, but a perpetual spring and summer. Such is Los Angeles, a place where “every prospect pleases and only man is vile.”

  As we stand on a hill over the town, which lies at our feet, one of the loveliest views I ever saw is spread out. Over the level plain to the southwest lies the Pacific, blue in the distance; to the north are the mountains of the Sierra Santa Monica; to the south, beneath us, lies the picturesque town with its flat roofs, the fertile plain and vineyards stretching away to a great distance; to the east, in the distance, are some mountains without name, their sides abrupt and broken, while still above them stand the snow covered peaks of San Bernardino. The effect of the pepper, fig, olive, and palm trees in the foreground, with the snow in the distance, is very unusual.

  WILLIAM H. BREWER

  1941

  (Japan Time: December 8, Sixteenth Year of Showa)

  A bolt out of the blue sky, like water in one’s sleeping ear, unimaginably fearful, cruel this reality—indescribably waves of strong shock and fear over my entire body; if I try to stop it, it becomes even stronger and overcomes me!

  “At present, Japanese airplanes are bombing Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor!”

  I heard those words from a young waiter at the Chinese restaurant, Sankohro, in Los Angeles. Unimaginable that it was winter; it was a warm Sunday, around eleven o’clock….

  My chest is pounding! The waves from the stone of uncertainty that had been thrown into my chest, while half believing, get bigger. Ordinarily delicious dishes of food are all bitter and tasteless. I taste strange saliva in my mouth.

  My two daughters, Yoko, age twelve, and Sachiko, age ten, ate so fast it was difficult to see where they swallowed it and hurriedly went out to buy a special edition of newspapers being announced on sale in the street.

  Looking at the newspaper they brought back, in large bold letters that appeared two inches square, “WAR…,” I involuntarily gasped! I had been completely mentally unprepared and felt as though I had been hit with a sledge hammer. Blood rushed to my face, and breathing became difficult, and in inverse proportion, my feet inside my shoes, starting from the toes, started to get cold as ice. I looked down, covering both cheeks, and tried to organize my confused mind. My husband, with a sunken voice, said, “This is something we cannot do anything about, so let us all remain calm and do our best.”

  Mrs. Michinoue said, “Tomorrow tomorrow’s wind will blow. Let us go with whatever happens.”…

  On the way home, Japanese we met all had worried faces drained of blood. What should we do? Dragged around by upsetting emotions, the afternoon hours passed….

  Cold sweat broke out on my face; in front of my eyes, I saw endless ash-colored waves.

  AOKI HISA

  1955

  I have started shooting the picture and all is confusion. The actors now want to know what the lines mean. At that rate we’ll never finish.

  NUNNALLY JOHNSON, to two friends

  DECEMBER 8

  1847

  I was at Mrs Stearns a few nights ago and had a little quarrel with my sweetheart. She asked me to sit down in a chair by her, but I told her that I was afraid of Capt Smith, who I made out to be very jealous of as he had been paying some attention to her she seemed much hurt at my refuseing to sit down along side of her and told me if I was afraid to take the seat, that I ought to have my shoulder straps cut off and my mustaches. I then took the seat and told her it was an insult to an officer to tell him his straps should be cut off. She said not as great an insult as to plague me about a married man. I made up with her before I left that evening. We have been friends ever since. She has been very sick. Dr Griffin has been trying to cure her eyes that a quack has nearly put out. I went to see her last evening and was sitting at the window when her mother came in. She did not seem to like my being their talking to her daughter poor girl.

  LIEUTENANT JOHN MCHENRY HOLLINGSWORTH

  1887

  Last night there was a celebration with [cannons] because of the news that the Government had chosen San Vicente as the place to establish the Veterans home. Clear day.

  DON JUAN BAUTISTA BANDINI

  1935

  Los ANGELES
is more than a city; it is a major controversy…An irate Hearst editor who departed the town in high indignation because we were unable to get excited over a little lost child, said in poison farewell from the back platform of the train: “This isn’t a city; it’s a goddamn conspiracy.”…

  What these literary hat-check boys—giggling over the discovery of cat’s fur masquerading as sable—have not realized is that they are missing a great drama…Los Angeles was a mile-post of destiny. It happened because it could not help itself…Mañana es la flor de sus ayeres—tomorrow is the flower of its yesterdays.

  HARRY CARR

  DECEMBER 9

  1847

  I went to bed and was awakened from a sound sleep by a loud explosion I was soon dressed and then heard the drum beating the alarm—I slept in the same house with Captn S—Lieut M and one Soldier—

  We heard horses moving around the house and the first impression was that we were surrounded but as we were well armed we passed out at the back door into the yard and I opened the gate supposing we should have to fight our way through them but no enemy was in sight and we hurried to the barracks—There we learnt that a musket had been fired at the out posts and the guard had run in—the magazine had been opened to man the battery when a spark from a post fire fell in it and the explosion took place A number of men were hurt and some killed—some lost their eyes—The officier of the guard had a narrow escape, he was knocked down but soon recovered—But a small portion of the guard house was left standing—The Californians are much delighted at our misfortune—We buried our poor fellows a few days ago—

  LIEUTENANT JOHN MCHENRY HOLLINGSWORTH

  1873

  I believe I promised, before leaving Tennessee, that I would occasionally write a letter for your readers….

  …In the Middle States, at this season, winter holds all nature in its icy thrall. The winds shriek their sad dirges through leafless boughs; the fallen leaves whirl in eddies before the blast; the cattle, shivering with cold, hug closely the southern side of the barn, and the people, with closed doors, talk of their supply of coal or wood, and speculate as to the probable length of the winter. This is a faint picture of winter, even in Tennessee….

  Here is a glimpse of our winter in Los Angeles: The winter rains have begun. Sitting at my window, two beautiful pictures are spread out before my sight. In an open yard before me, fuchsias swing their graceful pendants in the air, geraniums and heliotropes, roses and verbenas, and hundreds of other delicate flowers, mingle their perfumes….

  As I raise my eyes from this tropical picture, and gaze toward the north, how the brow of the Sierra Madre glimmers and glitters in its robe of snow! The mountain sides, up to a certain height, are clothed with green grass, and the robe of snow, now sparkling in the sunlight, seems like the bridal veil which winter has hung on the blushing brow of this soft, sunny land. Here summer and winter stand face to face….

  The country for miles around this city will, in a few years, be a tropical orchard…vegetables of all kinds grow to almost fabulous sizes. I saw a sweet potato, a few days ago, which weighed ten pounds, and an onion weighing two and three fourths pounds.

  The future wealth of this country will be its tropical fruits. An orange, lemon, lime, or walnut orchard, is better than a gold mine.

  JOHN SHIRLEY WARD

  DECEMBER 10

  1826

  There was five Inds. brought to the mission by two other Inds, who act as constables, or overseers, and sentenced to be whiped for not going to work when ordered.

  Each received from 12 to 14 lashes on their bare posteriors; they were all old men, say from 50 to 60 years of age, the commandant standing by with his sword to see that the Ind. who flogged them done his duty. Things in other respects similar to the last sabbath.

  HARRISON ROGERS

  1941

  Max [Horkheimer] has been appointed an air warden!

  THEODOR ADORNO, to his parents

  DECEMBER 11

  1906

  A queer little rather interesting woman from Whittier came in—looks like a school girl on stilts, and a country school girl at that but has good ideas and is having a fight for them single handed against a lot of women of wealthier breeding and circumstances but less feeling—her mission being to preserve the old Gov. Pico residence near Whittier. I had no fight with her except to pull the purse strings of the Landmarks Club a little tight and tell her that we would help what we could but that the community must chase itself and do the major part of the main money raising, while we would be perfectly willing to tell them exactly how they must do the work and perhaps give them an overseer to see that they did it right….

  I put my new invention into effect this morning and the two Library Guides went to work. They stand by the elevator and pick up the lost patrons that come in and don’t know what they want nor where to find it and tell them both things.

  CHARLES LUMMIS

  1930

  We climbed up to John Barrymore’s eyrie today—nearly a thousand feet above Beverly Hills. He has two separate houses on this hilltop, one a curious little bungalow with a grass-grown tiled courtyard, and a handsome type of Spanish two-story house just beyond with a pool and fountain between. From the moment we entered the gate we were surrounded by “trophies” and “treasures.” Both of the houses are museums with old furniture, old books, primitive weapons, paintings, drawings, prints, models of ships and all kinds of other queerities of no value to anyone else.

  Below, on the hillside, he has an aviary with some sixty varieties of rare birds fluttering and chirping there. In another lower room were crocodiles—stuffed—trophies of his shooting. He told us with pride that his wife killed one of them, and also caught a fish nearly ten feet long. She, a blonde young girl, took us about carrying her baby on her arm. She did not seem at all the moving picture actress as she did this. She was very maternal and spoke with charm and intelligence. I do not wonder that my daughters like her.

  After we had seen the house under her care, she took us up to see John who was convalescing from a tropical fever. He was not far from my concept of him but appeared more interested in art and literature than I had anticipated. There is something exotic in him, however, something not quite real. I think he felt in me and in [Garland’s sister-in-law] Lorado something equally alien….

  He has a handsome head and good profile and speaks well but not noticeably well. He was respectful in tone.

  HAMLIN GARLAND

  DECEMBER 12

  1903

  Spent the day at home. Elisa, a maid took the children to Los Angeles to see the toys adorning the shops for Christmas. Today the Examiner appeared for the first time property of W. R. Hearst owner of various other Democratic papers.

  DON JUAN BAUTISTA BANDINI

  1938

  Saturday night I was greatly exhilarated by the Fire Sequence. It was one of the biggest thrills I have had out of making pictures—first, because of the scene itself, and second, because of the frightening but exciting knowledge that Gone With the Wind was finally in work. Myron rolled in just exactly too late, arriving about a minute and a half after the last building had fallen and burned and after the shots were completed. With him were Larry Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Shhhhh: she’s the Scarlett dark horse, and looks damned good. (Not for anybody’s ears but your own: it’s narrowed down to Paulette, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett, and Vivien Leigh. We’re making final tests this week, and I do frantically hope that you’ll be home in time to sit in on the final decision….At least when I am lynched I want you to be able to shout sincerely that I did the best I could.)

  DAVID O. SELZNICK, to his wife

  1939

  Capra (whom I could get you in touch with, if you like, through Ronald Colman, who is a very decent fellow) is very well meaning, but a bit stupid outside his specialty. His “Mr. Smith” struck me as very pat
hetic—all the more so as it was one of the few “idealistic” efforts made by the movies. All it amounted to was the sentiment that, if everybody were nice, how nice everybody would be! No smallest effort to explain why everybody was nice, nor how they could be persuaded to be a bit nicer….

  Meanwhile I hope you realize what distances in this town are. Disney, for example, is about 20 miles from here; Pasadena about 30 odd; Warner about 17; Universal about 20. You will probably be about six hours of each day in a car.

  ALDOUS HUXLEY, to his brother

  1969

  And so perhaps this marks the end of an era. The gravestone—a face straight from central casting, long hair, wild hypnotically staring eyes, the king of “love” called Jesus and Satan and God. And what can we say, we look at that picture, we read the pathetic details of the murder, the senseless, useless, misdirected antagonism toward a world that they know, somehow, has cheated them of reason. Or My Lai, and Life magazine with pictures of the dead and the about to die, the eyes again, terror, despair, I want to cry….

  I am sick, made sick, sickened, nauseated, helpless, and almost without hope. Yesterday while shopping for a gift I glanced at the bare arm of the saleslady who was wrapping it for me. On her arm was a tattooed number. I am sick, we are all sick.