The Alphabet Disciple greets me with open arms in the lobby at the train station. “Welcome stranger,” he says, “to the City of Angels.” He’s wearing faded jeans and an L.A. Kings T-shirt. It’s 8:00 a.m. on a Tuesday and I’ve just arrived from my hometown. I’ve got an...
Photo: Emelissamn / Shutterstock.com Another day of pruning, another fake-out rain. Never halfway to average here in L.A.Donner Pass is snowed in again. Screen door open to the risk of traffic on the Five.If the dog doesn’t chase that dove, the cold might scrub...
It was the before-times,as we like to say.Before the return of the drought.Before losspiled on lossafter loss. The late afternoon shone goldenthrough my dusty windshield.My teeth vibratedwith the boomof someone else’s musicas I waited for the lightto change. And then ...
On Saturday morning there was a man on the Balboa Island promenade painting a copy of The Raft of the Medusa. He stood on the sand on the other side of the sea-wall. Aaron and I stopped our walk to watch him. Aaron told him it was a cool painting and that he had just...
Photo: Sheila Fitzgerald / Shutterstock.com There is water here, somewhere, but not at the end of this street, or the next one, each finding only a barrier of evergreens. And so I walk ever further into this maze of houses, each reclaimed from history, yards...
1. In the boat’s wake:a range of mountains,arching spine of peaks and valleys molded into the pliant sea. The path forward: littered with driftwood. 2. The earth’s anxiety in the liminal spaces: maelstrom of birds, the wind’s long howl, arrhythmic ocean swelling and...
