Dear Los Angeles
Page 30
And as the doors open she realizes that five people are watching this detailed reproductive display, so she stops kissing the guy and tells him to stop, stop, cut it out, stop, the elevator is here. But he really doesn’t care, he’s trying to get his game on, so he continues to grope and he’s very earnest about the groping.
And she’s getting annoyed, so she finally forces his hands off her body and stops him with one final “cut it out!” So he reluctantly gives up the groping and turns to enter the elevator and as he turns around all five of us in the elevator realize that this gallant groper is none other than Giovanni Ribisi.
And he realizes, shit, there are five people standing there watching this and he knows that we all know who he is, and so he gives us this pleading, furrowed brow that says, please, for the love of god, don’t ask me about the Mod Squad, I don’t know what I was thinking, can I please just have my dignity?
And all five of us are cool enough that we know better than to call attention to a celebrity. You just don’t do that here.
HEATHER B. ARMSTRONG
OCTOBER 16
1937
Preparations for my next picture Shanghai Deadline have not quite reached what I might call the “Hell—Let’s Shoot It” stage and consequently there are numerous story conferences, at which tremendous attention to the minutest detail of dialogue and characterization is paid by all concerned, and advance scripts marked “Revised Temporary Final” are issued to the principals. It never pays, however, to read these scripts as the entire story is invariably rewritten on the set, the dialogue improvised by the players, and the characterization moulded by the Director in accordance with his day-to-day moods, whims and fancies.
GEORGE SANDERS, to his father
1965
Why Dick,
…At the moment I am in LA, or possibly only think I am, and who knows for how long…
later,
Pyn~chon~
THOMAS PYNCHON
OCTOBER 17
1925
It is a hard job, this cross-country driving. We got into the traffic at Hollywood last night and it is frightful. There and here the traffic policeman keeps hurrying the cars to drive faster.
LAURA INGALLS WILDER, to Almanzo Wilder
1951
An old acquaintance of mine, James Agee, many years the movie reviewer on Time and latterly engaged in doing a script for John Huston on The African Queen, is also on the beach and occupying a room in Dotty’s house (no romantic connection; he spends his time drooling over some unseen dame Dotty calls The Pink Worm). Parker says Agee consumed three bottles of scotch unaided last Friday. I didn’t get Agee’s closing quotations on Parker’s consumption. They both exist in a fog of crapulous laundry, stale cigarette smoke, and dirty dishes, sans furniture or cleanliness; one suspects they wet their beds. All this, added to an absolutely manic pitch of fear out here on everyone’s part that he’s about to get about to be jugged by the FBI—and people are being [thus] jugged and blacklisted—makes for a Hollywood that is nothing like any I ever knew, a combination of boom town gone bust and Germany in 1935. By Monday I was in such a dreary frame of mind I was strongly tempted to cry frig to my various assignments and jump the eastbound plane.
S. J. PERELMAN
1962
I want you to know this is a literary family. Tony came home from school the other day with a composition entitled “Why I Must Not Talk in Class,” for me to read and sign. His father, on the other hand, is sending you his compositions for you to read, sign, and return. Find, enclosed, unless some crook with excellent taste has rifled the envelope looking for first edition material that he can sell as hot goods to the Huntington Library.
The pieces are from a book to be called Overkill and Megalove which World Publishing has scheduled for spring publication, always allowing that there will be any paper or people by then. Tell me frankly what you think and why you believe they are great….
Fuck the New York Yankees.
NORMAN CORWIN, to E. Y. “Yip” Harburg
1969
Somewhere out in an undesignated space my friend Turtle is watching the stars. He sent me a message of greetings last week and an invitation to “come and see us”—the us being a commune in the hillsides, full of sweet smiles and good vibes. But I can’t because tomorrow comes and I come with it fully charged with the pursuit of career and achievement and excitement that is doing something in the city.
LIZA WILLIAMS
OCTOBER 18
1919
The neighbor’s dog (a very gentle, affectionate doggie—white with yellow spots) was killed yesterday by a motor car, at top of the hill. We are very lonely, as he came to us to be fed regularly—his owner feeding him nothing but vile-smelling chicken-food.
OLIVE PERCIVAL
1930
There is no Los Angeles face. Almost any other great city will have an imaginable characteristic physiognomy….The Los Angeles picture, nevertheless, would be a very remarkable thing—namely, the truest conceivable representation of the whole American face, urban, big town, little town, all together.
GARET GARRETT
1973
I visited Henry Miller after serious surgery, fourteen hours and eight hours on separate days. He was so weak and frail. He is blind in his right eye from being too long on the operating table. He does not hear well. When he asked to have the pillows removed so he could slide into bed and rest, I felt almost as if he was going to curl up and sleep forever….
I don’t want to live as Miller has, limping, in pain, not able to travel and now for the second time undergoing major surgery. Henry once so healthy, joyous, lively. Tireless walker, hearty eater.
But let the sun shine on a beautiful autumn day, let me have a morning free of engagements when I can work on Volume Six and I am light again. Stay alive, Anaïs.
ANAÏS NIN
OCTOBER 19
1941
Picked out the suit Sam Goldwyn is giving me (one also for Billy) for the script.
CHARLES BRACKETT
1991
I drove to the studio this morning to visit the set. Inside a huge stage at Columbia Studios a grand Victorian mansion had been built. I loved seeing the furnishings, all the rich silks and brocades in a perfect harmony of muted color. Francis took my hand and said, “Come see this.” He led me to the bedroom to look at the large round headboard for Lucy’s bed with its carved bat designs and thick tassels.
The room opened onto a terrace overlooking the garden. We walked down two flights of wide stone steps to a fountain and a pond with water lilies blooming. Beyond, I could see the entrance to the crypt and a hill with family gravestones. There was a rose arbor and a maze of high hedges. Francis said, “All this garden is built in the pit of the stage where Esther Williams’ swimming pool once was.”
ELEANOR COPPOLA
OCTOBER 20
1927
We’ve been to Catalina for two days, San Diego and Tia Juana for four days. I went to the races but lost $2.50. Played roulette and lost—played the money machines and lost—in fact luck is just against me it seems, but I’m not worried. I feel ever so much better than in N.Y. and that’s something to be thankful for. The weather is simply marvelous—so warm and sunshiny. We’ve only had one cloudy day since I’ve been here….
Tomorrow I am going to really make an earnest effort to get a job and if I can’t get a job at the studios I’ll go downtown [to] Los Angeles in some law office temporarily.
VALERIA BELLETTI, to a childhood friend
1945
I think I have had all about all of Hollywood I can stand. I feel bad, depressed, dreadful sense of wasting time, I imagine most of the symptoms of some kind of blow-up or collapse. I may be able to come back later, but I think I will finish this present job and return home. Feeling as I do, I am actually afraid to stay h
ere much longer….
My books have never sold, or [are] out of print; the labor (the creation of my apocryphal county) of my life, even if I have a few things yet to add to it, will never make a living for me. I don’t have enough sure judgment about trash to be able to write it with 50% success.
WILLIAM FAULKNER, to his agent
OCTOBER 21
1906
6 hours at the carpenter’s bench which resulted in my putting the grille in Bertha’s door and hanging it on its hinges. Poor Amate had his fingers eaten up with the sulfuric acid in the cement and sat around and lent me his moral support while I toiled; and Keith lent me his immoral support and asked me 17,000 questions by count (he counted) in a voice that I used instead of a bit when I had to bore any holes in hard wood.
CHARLES LUMMIS
1940
Had dinner upstairs with Luther and Sylvia [Sidney], after this going for a walk down Hollywood Boulevard. They told me of a scene that happened in Ciro’s nightclub here the other night. [Anatole] Litvak, director, and [Paulette] Goddard, actress, were drunk there together. They have been sleeping together, in public, for weeks. Drunk at Ciro’s, sitting at a ringside table, he took out her breasts and kissed them passionately. They were stopped by the help but later continued the same thing on the dance floor. For this the management banished them to the outer sanctum of the bar. There A. Litvak suddenly disappeared, finally was discovered under the bouffant skirt of Miss Goddard on his knees, kissing the “eagerly sought triangular spot” with the blissful unawareness of a baby at a bottle.
For my part, I told Sylvia, I would rather be like Litvak than lead a life of wooden caution.
A warm feeling came to me when I began to think about the trio play this evening. I hope to come to it again with real excitement. Part of the theme of this play is about how the men of our country irresponsibly wait for the voice and strong arm of authority to bring them to life, etc. So comes fascism to a whole race of people. Danger ahead—I see it all over, even in myself. Nothing stands for authority and I wait for its voice! There is something in men in the world over today that welcomes dictatorship; the children are seeking for the father to arrange their lives for them!
CLIFFORD ODETS
OCTOBER 22
1962
I don’t know why I’m starting a new volume at this point. The day isn’t auspicious—nothing memorable but the death of Cezanne. And today is foggy. Rather snug, as foggy days are in the Canyon….
A whole week of no work, except preparations for the reading I gave last night at the Garden Grove High School auditorium. (This was looked on by the organizers as a historic event, because it was the first lectures given under the auspices of the future Irvine branch of the U.C., UCI, which has at present no buildings, no students, almost no faculty except the chancellor and some other administrators, nothing but one thousand acres of land.) I have got to get on with Ramakrishna. And I must keep at the novel, just for the sake of provoking a breakthrough.
CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD
2003
It’s hard to convey the tranquility and normalcy of these neighborhoods—the skateboarding kids, the Pizza Huts, the garage sales—while still presenting a truthful picture of their crime problems.
In fact, what many people in Los Angeles think of as this city’s “bad neighborhoods” are in many ways indistinguishable from those with milder reputations. They brim with aspiration and middle-class comfort, even as they distill every kind of despair. I pass blocks of graffiti on Slauson Avenue in the morning before stopping in at the bright new Western Avenue Starbucks, inevitably full of well-dressed commuters listening to cutting-edge blues. This is just northwest of where the 1992 riots broke out, and the area is now booming, construction everywhere: a new Gigante grocery store, a new Subway sandwich shop.
But just across the street is the permanent swap meet where a shootout broke out recently amid a crowd in daylight.
JILL LEOVY
OCTOBER 23
1848
Here I got the first news of the discovery of gold—obtained it from a negro—It seems incredible—They say that men in some instances have made as high as $50. a day—It seems incredible! But, they insist here it is true.
ORVILLE C. PRATT
1940
2000 words today and all good.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
OCTOBER 24
1871
There has been a Chinese massacre…a most disgraceful affair, the like of which is fortunately not on American records. Some members of different Chinese secret societies fought over the possession of a woman….
A few Celestials were taken to jail in consequence. The disturbance was thought to have ended and the jailbirds were taken the next day before the police court for preliminary hearing….
No sooner had the court set the day for trial than the Mongolians repaired to their own quarters, where a new fight ensued, which soon attracted a multitude of Mexicans and Americans from that vicinity….
The heathens fought desperately and an officer, Robert Thompson, who attempted to quell the riot, was killed and his deputy, Bilderain, was wounded, which naturally roused the boundless anger of the white mob….
One of the heathens ventured into the street and was at once caught by his pursuers, taken about four squares and hanged to the doorway of a corral amid the abjurations of the enraged spectators. Having tasted the blood of the almond-eyed stranger, the combined mob of Americans and Spaniards now largely reinforced, began the real massacre. As the beleaguered heathen had barricaded doors and windows, a crowd of hoodlums in desperate frenzy climbed upon the roofs, broke holes through and shot the inmates, males, females, young and old….
It may seem amazing that so-called civilized communities should have to witness the frenzied destruction of nearly a score of human lives, even though the provocation was very great. When quiet was restored, there were eighteen bodies found dangling in mid air, some from window casings, some from lamp posts, while one or two had actually been tied to the seat of farm wagons and others to awnings, among these the body of a child!
FRANK LECOUVREUR
OCTOBER 25
1908
I anxiously await Saturdays so that I can see your little letters, my love. All week I’ve been waiting to see if you show up, from my cell through the window on the alley, which is the third window….
When you all pass by the third window on the alley, stop if only for a half minute so that I can see you well. My dear: I feel that you are feeling a bit of pain. Would some of my kisses where you hurt make it well? I would give them so tenderly that you would feel no discomfort. I know, my life, I understand that you miss me as much as I miss you. But what can be done? More than the tyrants, it is our friends who are keeping us in jail, because their laziness, their indolence, their lack of initiative has tied them up, and they do nothing. I believe that they love us and have us in their hearts; but this isn’t enough to rescue us. What’s needed is that they work in an effective manner for our liberation, and they’re not doing that. Everyone comes forth in manifesting their sympathy for us and deploring our situation. We are devoting ourselves to putting an end to the tyrant in Mexico and nobody will lift an arm to stop the tyrant’s henchmen. There is much that could be done in our favor, but little or nothing is being done, and nothing, of course, is being gained. There should be a commission that is constantly after the press so that something could appear favorable to the prisoners, as much in the local press as that outside of California….
Goodbye my love, look closely and you’ll see that it is our friends who are keeping us prisoner through their apathy. Receive my immense love and adoration, you, the only woman who makes my heart beat. What I’ve told you isn’t a reproach for you, my angel. You’re doing everything you can, and I thank you from my soul. If you don’t win in this struggle aga
inst despotism and do not rescue your Ricardo who loves and adores you, it won’t have been for lack of effort on your part. With all my soul, your Ricardo kisses you tenderly.
RICARDO FLORES MAGON, to his beloved
1919
Convincingly proving his ability to weld into shape a new organization and his capacity for realizing both the musical and artistic content of his programme, Walter Henry Rothwell, as conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra, yesterday startled Los Angeles out of her symphonic slumbers and introduced what might be termed a new epoch in local musical history. The concert was [the] first afternoon event of the series to be given at Trinity Auditorium. The audience was not especially notable as to size, the glamour of a premiere was not broadly apparent, but the people who were there represented musical taste, and their appreciation, particularly after they were fully convinced that the result was real, brilliantly testified the triumph achieved by the musicians under the scholarly, and at the same time, unconventional leadership of the new conductor.
It was evident as soon as the orchestra members had assumed their places on the stage that the backers of the enterprise have spared nothing money can buy in their effort to give a new importance to music in this city. No doubt, the chief credit for this belongs to W. A. Clark, Jr., who officially and unofficially is the sponsor of the enterprise. And don’t worry about Mr. Clark not taking an active interest in his prodigy, because he has been watching its growth ever since the first rehearsal, and he was there yesterday and as proud as any sponsor should be over a prodigy’s debut.