Headphones, Metro, Laundry
Month: November 2013
Black Friday
Posted outside the Panorama Mall.
The line starts here
Holding up deal coupons, Target, Van Nuys. Thanksgiving Day. Discounted flat screens, Playstations and other temptations which would cause one to forgo dinner with family, await.
Back in the break room, employees prepare to face the horde.
Wal-Mart, Panorama City. Taking no chances with civil unrest.
All the way around the building, four hours until doors open on Black Thursday, formerly known as Thanksgiving.
Three scenes of Thanksgiving Eve
Queueing up for ham, Toluca Lake.
Abandoned shopping carts, Target, Burbank.
Stray dog, Sherman Oaks. I followed him for miles, across busy boulevards and between cars until he disappeared through a hole in the chain link fence at the Fashion Square parking lot and down into the shrubbery along the 101 freeway. This is as close as I got to him. He reminded me of a dog I once loved.
Faceplant Santa
Not quite ready for Black Friday at Dollarama.
Pan’s Labyrinth
Just off the Chandler bike path, through an unattended gate at the end of an alley, behind a bougainvillea hedge and an ornate wooden door …. the neo-classical meets the Spanish colonial in a harem tent.
Sunday afternoon, with the ringer off
The sweet spot in the weekend, after cleaning the floors and before yoga … and the weekly phone call to mother, and the 65 parent-teacher conferences awaiting on Monday.
Lockout at Ringside Liquor
Saturday night and the lights are on, but the gate inexplicably closed, to the consternation of these two.
November Rain
The Pumpkin Spice Latte time of year.
The Vanguard of Sherman Oaks
There are moments, driving down a residential street (avoiding traffic, of course) the light will illuminate the trees just so…. and the natural world moves to the foreground and the suburban bric-a-brac recedes, and the radio goes quiet and for a space in time you are no longer in Los Angeles, or even in the year 2013. This particular grace has a way of sneaking up on you on the angriest of afternoons. You are glad all over again to live here. The Valley, its cluttered tackiness and brutal commutes, it’s upside-down mortgages across the darkling plain….makes sense! Flush with patriotic sentiment, you fumble in the glove compartment for a camera to commemorate the……wait a sec, are those…dogs…hanging from that tree? Dogs? Cats? How long have they been there? Why isn’t anyone doing anything? Has the Shining Path established a fresh redoubt in some Panorama City apartment? Has a new Dictatorship of the Proletariat been declared? Are teams of insurrectionists descending into Sherman Oaks (well, POSO-ville) to proclaim the second coming of El Presidente Ezekiel?
Oh, wait. Apparently someone hasn’t taken their Halloween decorations down. After 23 days. Ah, The Valley. We’re comfortable with ourselves.
In case you had no idea what I was free-associating about, this was Peru, for 20 years in the grip of Maoist fanatics. That would be an un-ironic stick of dynamite in the dog’s mouth. Their calling card. There was a truly sublime film made about this: The Dancer Upstairs, starring Javier Bardem. Also, a great novel: Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett.