Ripping on L.A.
Local writer Rip Rense (link thanks to L.A. Observed) has gotten down on Sweet Home L.A.
Granted, the recent fires were enough to get anyone down. And the hullabaloo about Disney Hall just serves to remind that we're so desperate for a sense of community here that we'll grasp at anything that makes us feel like a city. But call me crazy -- or brainwashed by KCET's California booster Huell Howser (who Rip tells, "Psst--Nobody cares!") -- but I'm still hopeful for L.A.
At least, I feel more momentum from the city than I did when I arrived in 1996. I came to L.A. from Chicago (by way of five months in Washington), and it took me a year to get used to the idea that there wasn't a true city center. But then I discovered the joy of L.A. discovery: It's all about finding your own hidden city gems. Discovering that there's some amazing architecture downtown. Realizing that L.A. boasts all sorts of semi-secret attractions, like the San Antonio Winery.
For all their cheeziness, both the Grove (a sucess) and Hollywood and Highland (a huge bomb) -- neither of which were around when arrived in 1996 -- have given L.A. a much-needed sense of community, much like Old Town Pasadena and Third Street Promenade did a few years before I arrived. Go ahead, scoff -- the Grove is manufactured community, it's a Disneyized sense of what downtown L.A. should feel like, or we're so desperate for community that we'll accept a made-up one -- fine, I get it. And I'm tempted to dismiss it too. But I'm sorry -- I like going there. It's at least a start.
Meanwhile, the loft-ization of downtown gives me hope that we'll be celebrating a real, revitalized central neighborhood ten years from now.
Apparently I've been drinking whatever's in Huell's cup. (And I haven't even been frequenting the Tiki Ti!) But call me optimistic. And by the way, the fires are almost all out.
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