Los Angeles is a city that wouldn't exist if it weren't for the entertainment industry. Well, it might exist, but what would it be? Phoenix with orange groves? Bakersfield with an ocean? Or worse yet, the canned cultural wasteland that is San Diego - a city whose lamps in their eponymous district are as filled with gas as are the rectums of the many frat boys who troll it? Hopefully not.
Los Angeles is a city built on and perpetuated by a singular, unifying myth; that of the silver screen. This acts as a wide-reaching siren call penetrating the subconscious of even the farthest flung hamlet across the country, and, indeed the world. This summons makes for a hugely variegated populace, sophistication and trash often marching hand in hand with a surprisingly egalitarian presence and ballyhoo. And while the silver screen myth lies at the core of the Los Angeles narrative, as a relatively recent phenomenon, the city of Los Angeles itself is still trying to figure out how to honor its history. Its architecture is only beginning to be preserved - countless midcentury homes designed by influential architects are becoming increasingly protected by concerned citizens - and its landmarks, oftentimes barely old enough to be considered such, are under the jurisdiction of the city's Office of Historic Resources which was only established in 2006. In essence, Los Angeles in all its vast splendor (and grimness) is still figuring out what to make of itself.
It is universally understood, however, that the city's movies remain at the center of its historic narrative. Even Los Angeles, with its rag-tag patchwork of disjointed civic imperatives, cannot ignore its movies - the very phenomena that made it what it is, and does its best to pay appropriate homage, in whatever way it knows how. On the Fox lot the other day, I was reminded of this fact:
Julie Andrews, may you live in infamy in the hearts and minds of movie-goers around the world... and on the side of a parking garage in Century City. Better there than in San Diego.
Sincerely,
Dear Crabby
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