From: "mladd" <mladd-AT-gateway.net> Subject: Re: Psychogeography of Berlin Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 08:01:06 -0800 Fontana is in San Bernardino County. -----Original Message----- From: Ann Klefstad <klefkal-AT-cp.duluth.mn.us> To: avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu <avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu> Date: Thursday, November 04, 1999 9:17 PM Subject: Re: Psychogeography of Berlin > >> >> Current reading: The City - Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of >the >> 20th c. Soja and Scott eds. LA both attracts and repells me. I'm >determined >> to understand it. >> >> >The value of Los Angeles to me was that it was a seemingly infinitely >expandable field that one could not "understand"--that there was always a >contradictory aspect turning up. Just when you thought you understood the >flats near the studios in Hollywood, there's Pasadena, then East LA, then >Monterey Park, then City of Industry, then Silverlake, then Gardena, then >Santa Monica (the most paradoxical of all in ways, esp given its proximity >to Venice), then Compton, Fontana, Watts--and the pristine hiking trails in >Griffith Park, where you can camp out, not seeing another human for days, >if you dare, because bodies turn up, but it's so lovely, and in the middle, >between downtown, Hollywood, and the Valley . . . > >The higher you go up the hills, the more colors of green there are, because >green is a commodity in LA and income levels rise with the hills. > >Magic is commonly sold in most neighborhoods (palmists, botanicas, >crystals, high colonics--) > >It's the place where most images seen by the entire nation are produced. >All tv, most film, much other derivative media, etc. And it's absolutely >nothing like the rest of the country. Any of it. What happens when the >primary visual culture of a country is produced in a place utterly >different from it? As if all of Italian film and tv were produced in >Vatican City, by clerics. > >But it's largely populated by people from elsewhere, from Nebraska, New >York, Teheran, Hong Kong, San Salvador, who rapidly assimilate. And that >assimilation is so largely driven by little personal habits--never having >to change your wardrobe; losing the ability to count years because there >are no winters; being insulated from intimate glances from strangers by >one's car; listening to the radio a lot. > >One is struck by the utter insiderness of all relevant information yet the >openness of things, very odd-- > >You could go on listing like this forever, and when you were done, >everything would be completely different again. > >You can describe LA but you can't understand it. Mike Davis (City of >Quartz) sure didn't! > >AK > > > --- from list avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > --- from list avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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