like an old lover

There was ugliness I saw cruising the Los Angeles freeways; a low laying haze fog/smog (what is it really I would continually ask to this day?), concrete block structures line the roads, whizzing cars, far away trees that looked like they needed good watering - this city has a way of wrapping you in it's industrial claws but you wind up loving it nevertheless. Throughout my time spent there, I would term Los Angeles as industrial romantic. I lived in the downtown area and arriving as a visitor last week to see friends and art sparked and renewed memories of when I first moved to the city. I felt the California allure all over again (without having to travel to the Westside) - especially tweaked by seeing Baldessari's Pure Beauty exhibition I fell in love with it's powerful mystic. At night, I would achieve an insomnia persona hearing all the familiar sounds - the hum or the buzz of the freeways, this lingering roar coupled with distant barking dogs, lights would flicker in and of my room by the passing cars on the street. I would remember my loft nights and the trucks barreling down the streets that would thunder through my nerves; it was in Los Angeles that I fell into the artist community and developed additional substance as the creative thinker, (but always with distances to go.....)

I was happy to leave early Sunday morning. When I got back to Anchorage, I looked at the photos of this city and found it looking beautiful and inviting. Los Angeles lives up to it's massive culture laced with eclectic surroundings and people. My girlfriend says that the city has something to offer for everyone. Los Angeles sets up an illusion encased in a Hollywood facade - a fascinating place that holds onto the mystery, the charm and the Peter Pan existence of never having to grow up.