The line starts here

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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.

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Back in the break room, employees prepare to face the horde.

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Wal-Mart, Panorama City. Taking no chances with civil unrest.

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All the way around the building, four hours until doors open on Black Thursday, formerly known as Thanksgiving.

Three scenes of Thanksgiving Eve

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Queueing up for ham, Toluca Lake.

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Abandoned shopping carts, Target, Burbank.

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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.

The Vanguard of Sherman Oaks

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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? 

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Oh, wait.  Apparently someone hasn’t taken their Halloween decorations down.  After 23 days.    Ah, The Valley. We’re comfortable with ourselves.

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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.