Dear Los Angeles

by Dear Los Angeles- The City in Diaries

  STEPHEN CLARK FOSTER

  1921

  I have much work to do—I told you in my last letter, which apparently you did not receive, that I have to supervise for Wright the construction of 19 houses and a commercial building with 40 shops—a $400,000 development. I am still not at home here yet and I have to get used to everything slowly. Later I will try to open my own office. There is enough building here.

  RUDOLF SCHINDLER, to Richard Neutra

  1929

  This is a desert; they have irrigated it physically, but it has never had any intellectual irrigation….

  I seriously believe that one thing the matter with the movies is that they are made here. The native fruits have little flavor; the flowers are very self-assertive but not odorous; women who have been here a few years get so dry you would just as soon fuck a wrinkle in the bed-sheet. It is a great place for superficial religious cults, not only the pseudo-Christian, but the pseudo-Buddhist, new-thoughtist, and all the Blah stuff. The beef is stringy, the chickens are tasteless and tough, the fish is bad, the houses are flimsy, the hills are ugly, there is little oxygen in the air, the natives and old residents are all cheap childish crooks with no finish to them, bad crude uninteresting liars; there is neither passion nor reality in this trashy civilization—except, possibly, among the Mexicans, Hawaiians, Japs, Chinese….

  P.S. You ought to see my rectum! They are looking into it with tubes and mirrors. I have colitis, neuritis and several other things, besides the heart business. A night nurse and a day nurse to give me suppositories, enemas, and pat my ass. I get a thrill out of it—an old man’s senile sexually reminiscent thrill.

  P.P.S. There’s nothing in tits out here, either. I felt a couple of pairs. No snap.

  P.P.P.S. Did you ever get black coffee through your rectum? Great! When I have a sinking spell they jazz up my heart with an enema of black coffee—God damn it, I’m still pretty sick, no heart, no guts, no balls. Don’t tell anyone I’m still sick—business reasons.

  DON MARQUIS, to his oldest friend

  1953

  Dear Ernest:

  …You continually speak of abuses. What are these abuses? Let’s be specific. What has any producer done to create a situation that calls for unionism among the ranks of creative talent? You admit, in your letter, that if all producers were like me there would be no cause for complaint. It is also quite obvious, despite your denials in your letter to me, that your article definitely promises the screenwriters that eventually they will be able to control the screen destinies of the stories they work on. I can imagine nothing that would kill this business any quicker.

  DARRYL ZANUCK, to a screenwriter

  1974

  Dear Pam,

  I apologize for being so rude and thank you for not hitting me.

  P.S. Harry Nilsson feels the same way.

  JOHN LENNON, to Pam Grier

  MARCH 13

  1852

  The country is beautiful, but I suppose there is no comparison between it now and twenty years ago. The gentleman we visited has been here 22 years. He lives only a mile and a half from the Mission of San Gabriel. This Mission is almost in ruins. The large Church is yet in good repair, but most of the other buildings have fallen down. Twenty years ago, says Mr. White, it was in a flourishing condition, the country all around in cultivation, with several mills and fine orchards of all kinds of fruit. There were about a thousand Indians kept employed, and all happy, the Padres being like fathers to them. Beside the farm, mills, orchards, and vineyards, all kinds of manufactures were carried on immediately at the Mission.

  We rode over to it, and it made me sad to see it, after hearing what it had been only a few years since. We visited the orange orchard, a remnant of what it was, yet a pleasant sight, large trees hanging full of fruit, others just blooming and the air filled with the fragrance of the bloom. There are now only about fifty trees; a few years ago there were about five hundred.

  EMILY HAYES

  1941

  Los Angeles will be the largest city in the world within 25 years if it provides adequate transportation facilities to help fulfill its destiny.

  JACK FRYE

  1985

  The opening is at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. There are searchlights and what appear to be a troop of Horse Guards on duty. Close inspection reveals that none of the troops is under sixty. A few passers-by watch the arrival of the celebrities, of which there seem to be only two, Michael York and Michael Caine (who later slags off the film). The audience is not star-studded either and heavily sprinkled with those freaks, autograph-hunters and emotional cripples who haunt the stage doors of American theatres. The British Ambassador now stands up to introduce the evening, but his microphone doesn’t work and the audience starts barracking. The producer Mark Shivas, Malcolm Mowbray and myself are sitting in different parts of the cinema, and we are to be introduced to the audience. Mark is introduced first, the spotlight locates him, and there is scattered applause; then Malcolm similarly. When my turn comes I stand up, but since I am standing further back than the others the spotlight doesn’t locate me. “What’s this guy playing at?” says someone behind. “Sit down, you jerk.” So I do. The film begins.

  ALAN BENNETT

  MARCH 14

  1919

  The range into which Tarzana runs is very wild. It stretches south of us to the Pacific. We have already seen coyote and deer on the place and the foreman trapped a bob-cat a few weeks ago. Things come down and carry the kids out of the corral in broad daylight. Deeper in there are mountain lion….

  I bought a couple of .22 cal. rifles for Hulbert and myself beside my .25 Remington and automatics, so we are going to do some hunting. Jack has an air rifle with which he expects to hunt kangaroo-rats and lions and I am going to get them each a pony.

  …There is plenty of room for a golf course and a mighty sporty one too. Also expect to put in a swimming pool and tennis court.

  EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS

  1920

  A nice, clear day but windy. Helen & I start for Pasadena to see the big hotels—Raymond, Green, Maryland, etc. On my advice we go via Eagle Rock Car to Eagle Rock Park & look for a bus. There is a bus line, but we miss one. Helen becomes pettish & we fight. I call her a “god damned sour dough.” She gets nervous after a time & attempts to make up. Along this road which is beautiful we see the Annandale Country Club, a handsome thing. Soon enter Pasadena via a wondrous viaduct.

  Then to a restaurant, then to the Hotel Green which is a huge barn, badly furnished. From there we go to the Hotel Maryland, a very different place—almost as good as El Mirasol at Santa Barbara. The hat shop. The Italian & his monkey. I give up 10 cents. We stay till 7 p.m. Then to Renee’s in the Hotel Green where we dine. I see a stunning girl there & attract her attention. Helen becomes conscious of it, but says nothing. We walked to the So. Pasadena car & then home. Helen dances naked & in the small tight chemisette which ends in the usual way.

  THEODORE DREISER

  1942

  I did not sleep a wink, and daybreak came. It is raining. It is a spiteful chilling rain, and around ten, even the wind joined in. I went to the California bank to change my husband’s savings account over to the children’s account. In the afternoon, my younger sister came with her child to express her condolences. I received a chicken last night from one of the callers, so we fried that and we had dinner together. In a disappointed voice, Sachiko said, “Father’s not here.”

  AOKI HISA

  1955

  I have been a professional writer for twenty years. That is the way I earn my living. My wife and I feed and house and clothe ourselves and our three children out of money derived from the sale of my writings. I have a place in which I work for which I pay rent. I have money tied up in an electric typewriter which wears out infinitesimally with every word it hammers out. I
have capital invested in a desk for the typewriter, and in a chair to sit on. I pay for the heat and light in my workroom. In order to have something to write on, I purchase paper and carbon paper and envelopes, and when I mail a project I purchase the stamps for its transmission. I also pay for and consume, pencils, erasers, ink and other articles in the course of writing, whether I write for nothing or for money.

  DALTON TRUMBO, to a late-paying editor

  1957

  Slept late and satisfied and woke to play a little tennis, but no dailies. The main setup tonight was the damndest shot I’ve ever seen, and that includes our first day’s work. After Joe Cotten had finished his cameo scene, we started working on the opening shot of the film: a complicated setup with the Chapman boom moving three blocks, angling down over buildings to inserts, through two pages of dialogue to a car blowing up as I kiss Janet. The sun came up at six and wrapped our night, but I think we got it. To bed at seven, feeling great.

  CHARLTON HESTON

  MARCH 15

  1943

  I’m getting on pretty well, but a damn dull life though. I spent Saturday at a friends in the country, on a tremendous big roan Tennessee walking gelding, and feel better for it.

  WILLIAM FAULKNER, to his agent

  1949

  Worked with Billy all day, trying to find scenes for Stroheim and putting back patches Billy had unraveled. Why such indecisiveness should have descended on him I can’t understand. Rosy Rosenstein brought in Dick Breen’s radio actor, Jack Webb, whom I’d suggested to play Artie in our picture. Billy was enchanted with him.

  CHARLES BRACKETT

  MARCH 16

  1964

  Los Angeles. Silver-pink towers in honey-coloured air. Palm-trees. Tall trees, a sprout of leaves, and “beards.” The great flow of power up and down the freeways, easy and controlled and fast—everywhere this characteristic American mode of moving, a sort of inherent jet-age tempo that you see in the way a young man crosses the street or a chair is designed—even status objects have this laconic muscled flow.

  JOHN FOWLES

  2007

  A couple of things I didn’t know (or maybe forgot): Echo Park Lake has a clay bottom. It’s a real lake, albeit one that’s filled with tap water and rimmed with cement. Also, the lake is leaking. They are not sure where the leak is occurring, but water is leaving.

  JENNY BURMAN

  MARCH 17

  1964

  I am luxuriously ensconced in a hotel on the Sunset Strip, with a view south over the whole of LA. The night view is very beautiful, a spill of jewels glittering in limpid air….This is the mad rich woman America; with the courage of her convictions, her rich madness.

  JOHN FOWLES

  1976

  I’m back home and all is well, but things got off to a shaky start at Mt. Sinai when we were waiting in the Admitting Office to be taken to my room, and a young male attendant came in and clamped a plastic ID bracelet around the left wrist of the middle-age woman across from us. She took one look at it and shrieked: “I’m not John Weaver, I’m Mrs. Blumberg.” I told her she was about to make medical history, and as they wheeled her away, she said, “Wait till you get my hysterectomy.” On the morning of the operation, the nurses forgot to give me a shot to sedate me, so I was wide awake when they wheeled me off to surgery, and while I was lying there waiting for the elevator, I heard the urologist saying, “But Mister Weaver’s chart must be here somewhere.”

  There had also been a mix-up about my room the first day, and I insisted on being transferred from the one they had assigned me. When I got to the next room and settled down in bed, a nurse came in with a clipboard, beamed at me and said, “You’re Mr. Blatnik?” I’m not sure just what operation I got, Mrs. Blumberg’s, Mr. Blatnik’s or my own, but I feel great and the surgery was quite painless, with minimal discomfort afterwards.

  I’ve come home to a burst of lovely spring weather, and the orange blossoms outside my work room smell like a Las Vegas wedding chapel. I have to take it easy for another couple of weeks and it will be a while before I’ll be able to pose for a Playgirl centerfold. I keep thinking of Mr. Blumberg, and hear him asking, “Darling, what in God’s name did they do to you?” And Mrs. Blatnik may be in for some surprises. “This is a tonsillectomy?”

  JOHN D. WEAVER, to John Cheever

  MARCH 18

  1845

  Called all the people on the ranch, servants and not servants, for the purpose of knowing them. Gave warning to all that did not work to leave the place. Divided the working hands. Gave six to Sr. Benabe for work of the timber, the rest to other occupations on the rancho cleaning the vineyard on the ditch, cutting firewood.

  HENRY DALTON

  1851

  SIX YEARS LATER

  Acting for myself and in behalf of my fellow citizens of Angeles in your district, I beg to call your attention to the enclosed “Prospectus” for the Publication of the “Los Angeles Star.” The necessity and importance of a publication of this description cannot fail to meet the approbation, not only of southern California, but of the honorable party of all the state. I beg therefore to suggest to you the propriety of soliciting from the government an appropriation for the purpose of publishing the laws in Spanish.

  HENRY DALTON, to Abel Stearns

  1949

  We have a view of the same little monastery church in the mountains—directly in front of us is the golf course….

  The plans enclosed will give you an idea of the furnishings—Fritz Lang drew them up for us, so that we knew exactly where to put every piece of furniture.

  THEODOR ADORNO

  1950

  I am not doing much of anything. Reading a little, loafing a lot, and writing letters sporadically; I’ve a lot of them to catch up on….I find that I am relieved of a great tension; if I am driving the jeep down the freeway and begin to think about a tire blowing, in the back of my mind is [the] thought of how I wouldnt really mind dying so much now. There is enough of it there now that they could print it; maybe it wouldnt be quite as good as it will be, but it would be printed.

  JAMES JONES

  MARCH 19

  1930

  EVERYTHING HERE IS MOVING ALONG BEAUTIFULLY AND I LIKE IT IMMENSELY.

  HORACE LIVERIGHT

  1940

  To: Zelda Fitzgerald

  Dearest…Nothing has developed here. I write these Pat Hobby stories—and wait. I have a new idea now—a comedy series which will get me back into the big magazines—but my God I am a forgotten man. Gatsby had to be taken out of the Modern Library because it didn’t sell, which was a blow. With dearest love always

  F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

  1942

  The other day I was talking to a hookey cop who told me that there is more delinquency and more absences due to illness among boys with paper routes and selling papers on the streets. It is not unusual for boys to rise in all weather between 3:30 and 4 a.m. and to return at 7 a.m. Often too ill to attend school, they nevertheless deliver their papers. Before going to school the boys often go back to bed for a short nap. If the mother works, which is often the case, the children sometimes sleep past school time.

  I used to stop at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Third Street in Santa Monica to watch a little newsie stationed there. He is a Negro boy who has lost the use of his legs and sits in a wagon with his shrunken helpless feet straight out in front of him. There are four children in his family similarly crippled, due to a nutritional deficiency disease. Often after the newsie sells out his papers he waits for hours until one of his sisters or brothers with sound legs comes to pull him home.

  When he gets home to his bedraggled short street with its many slow-moving arrogant flea-bitten dogs and the dirty shacks that overflow children into the street, he is part of the freemasonry of children at play. I have seen t
wenty or thirty children lined up along the curb, unplanned, casually singing spirituals together, teaching the three and four-year-olds to keep on key. They turn to games, and the crippled newsie is given his turn to be it. I have seen people struggling in vain to entertain themselves, and I never watch them without thinking of the Negro kids lined up along the street singing their slow powerful songs, and their dogs scratching, and the wagon-bound newsie not excluded, but one of them.

  THEODORE DREISER, to Eleanor Roosevelt

  1957

  We finished up the scenes in the hotel room and the lobby. They tell me you have to come early to get seats at the studio runnings of our dailies now.

  CHARLTON HESTON

  1971

  We crouched under the lintel, here—here, he said, holding us close under the crossbeam—here is the safest place. The floor rocked and I longed for the walls to fall away, fall away and leave for my eyes a landscape of suspended people each in his box, each in his moment. And we would look at each other across this encapsulated city and recognize each other.