Twilight Occidental

By Eliot Gabriel Graham

For one change always leaves a dovetail into which another will fit.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli

Reading Two

     Öxnadalur

     If you ever find yourself lost in a forest, according to Gústa, just stand up. On a bucket. A sturdier bucket, now capable of supporting one’s data weight, curing through burps of tick time and Newton-metres, tearing back to the fiesta neutron, ferrocarril. Shine a spot-speed of light in any direction, Alexandrian Pharos molting up between hemispheres of walnut control. It’s more interesting to exist this way, writing what’s reading. Anxiety of chronological omnipresence, the better it gets, the get better gets better, no porky pies. Day to dark, reverb retrospective, amuse bouche, defenestrating through the walls, the ominous bamboo horns of the red line train approaching its Union Station skanky basilican nave. A three-cheers piloting of the region by the skeletons of De Anza, Cabrillo, Anacapa and Balboa, à la Oingo Boingo. No cars go, but these tunnel barrels trundle every twenty minutes or so. The carriages sized in tacit supererogation. So much space to act a fool. No one ever went broke underestimating American taste, smell or test scores.

Sure, put the world to rights macroscopically, steadycam swerve dividing universe-sized vanguard blocks. The radix suits the collection of times, the rhythm, the pitch, the logic. Manholes shouldn’t issue steam when it’s this warm, like Colfax Avenue, upon exiting the 25. Here check Hope, Grand, Olive through 8th, a city, at least, the TopNotch Idiot Youtube boys pranking homies for the smashing likes and subs and cinema-sized Transformers seeking shelter from all these self-collapsing dioritic monoliths. Get in and give this day a rest, bed of your choosing, quiet sleeping civility, mankind’s only pure innocence; join them in silent protest, even if it is the wrong bunk.

A ripper that soft sleep, antithetical to the previous night’s. To bed with backlot Gotham in the grill, to wake with Thelonious tickling up and down the day’s launch panel keys, flipping the birds off, and on, horns and cars roostering on the sticky streets below, sunspots feeling for the right note of haze to eat through, delicious pops and cracks of a sanus corpus heavy water delight, staring down the alarm the morning after it all went to plan.

     The Angels’ Angels

     Explosions are the most efficient tool for deconstruction, otherwise why would stars do it so regularly? Dark matter applauds approval with that tight Hawking buzz its governing dark energy affords. Humans find them so satisfying to watch, bangs, big ones, minor, causal even. Re-atomization of anything in a moment’s effort. Saving time extends life, all agree, such is beautifully ethical, singularly synesthetic entropy, black on maroon so the nebulous possibilities fascinate starry-eyed monkeys. Ineluctable brisance. Civilizations build, naturally, on top of each other’s demolition piles. The glass of the library tank fogs up with these translucent particulates, and the heat-smell of the previous squishy animal. The librarian inclined at the smile, silking an access path forward, for guests: “technically, they aren’t supposed to, but they never ask”. Smells like white privilege, but the whiff can’t be traced. Oxidation of the card’s laminate implied expiry, but it was whipped out in style all the same.

Floccinaucinihilipilification, the subject line read. Been a while since that word’s been played with. As chance would find, a journalist for the New York Times had it on her mind that morning as well, and so my interlocutor excitedly relayed. Good bad news. Deployed too effectively, sigh, revealing a chasmic echo lake. Television research necessarily prohibits advancing variety of the mind as time passes. Mios dios, these words belong gobbed by a fitter, richer, statured, august such a one. An elder journalist a decade back couldn’t make out the nugget summation of his employer over the tire screech of the Paris Metro, looping his hand around his ear, finishing each cycle with gramophonic shell, until his wife stepped in, “He’s saying cant, it’s cant…cant.” This has evolved into the present as bad cant. A sincere comparison with, intended compliment or no, pumps the bread basket with powdery fireflies. Like standing up suddenly on a sleeping leg, not a propitious go. C’est pas la peine, the whole bit, bish-bash-bosh.

Two hour limit, per session, guaranteeing a turbine turnstile of undulating funky air. Get a full-throated pipe of the main bathroom on the ground floor for a true taste of any civilization’s finest backdraft effluvium. A deputy’s pounding on the door of one of the stalls, welfare-checking the motionless boots inside, because of the cargo festooning its lateral walls, or due to a quotidian checklist, either way, not far enough beyond the expected ordinary to half double take. Are humans the only species capable of constructing things more beautiful than themselves? A sleight of hand, surely, as there’s no roughing way it was in the operator’s invisible hand. Stick to the exterior to stay impressed, particularly in American downtowns. There is true value and consequence charged to the serendipity of ignorance.

     Museum of Jurassic Technology

     Culver City limits aren’t clearly nibbed. The north side of Venice Boulevard west of Media Park didn’t get a notification slip from the post office, blame Hank Chinaski, for beer shits and giggles, circa Ivy Substation. LAPD can straighten it out for you, if you’re interested. It should be simple, these streets, these cities, these blocks, however sharp the lines aren’t. Southern California gangs use the words loco and local interchangeably. An attractive proposition, a museum with such a title, mothing in the kooks and demotics and churls to see who’ll sneeze on whom first, the one in advance of the others to headline the throbbing obvious. The humor, we’ll accept as is, and offer a good foot first through the threshold, draining out sunshine the door’s reveal sinks shut.

With saurian artefacts deposited throughout the Los Angeles Basin, active derricks, oil wells--Beverly Hills High School closing theirs down only in 2017--the well of Jurassic anything in this region is very healthy, indeed. Here, however, the titular concept is applied, strangely, to the Upper and Lower regions of classical Nile, with a desultory account of human history since. For an animated museum of Jurassic technology, look just proximately, revolving beetle static, bulb grease, blinker fluid, graphs of shotgun cheese ruddered over in search of a Samarkand Freezer Bucket, free toys, Red Cars, et alia. Soldier those muses up with walls wrapped around, lit from within. Present Aunt Gertrude’s Goodwill pantry stash of chalky tintinnabula, replete with origin stories of poorly drafted fiction. Every bird in that damn courtyard tries to tell you this, but the tea mistress quiets them with samovar steam and that elusive hocus pocus Lynch, Pynchon, and Polanski pursued. It’s palpable in that place, daylight hypnosis. Next time the Tar Pits will make the trip list, or the collection out in Claremont, Huntington Library, maybe. For now the Science History Museum in Philadelphia is a much better deal, the cashier heard as she issued a refund.

The rise in dull activity around, is a Friday night reminder. A Trader Joe’s was spied just on the way in. A knapsack full of provisions ought to restore some fruit to this trip, a cayenne ginger shot is the right amount of rip, corn chips, honey Greek yogurt. Standing on the platform crunching through the minutes of LA train wait, they’re setting up an outdoor cinema screen at Ivy Station Park below. The crowd of large gatherers are settling into their beach towels, blankets and lawn chairs, rock-rolling like whiskered seals in post-prandial satisfaction, tamping down the sharply-landscaped patch of sod, scaring off the last bit of sunshine, unaware of Bryant Park’s summer lineup. The dj is winding down his set with some ‘90s hip hop; the audience doesn’t seem to mind. An Indian kid interrupts this slow wavelength with a question about the correct stop for USC. There are two, in fact, three maybe. Eye contact rolled in jammed expectation as he backstroked away, seeding dead vibes in his wake. Should have recommended the museum to him.

     Grey Flower Dust, Tra La

     It’s not the fogbank, nor the red cars dumped off the coast of Redondo, the competitive psychology, the eternal present zombied into with akimbo glee, the chase of a woman from coast to desert hoping for a tragic ending to write about, the aforementioned prehistoric misgivings, and so on, ad infinitum. No. Such complex flavoring is ex poste facto recursive involution, drama punching for the audience, filling the content with story, until the monad collapses in on itself. In the first instance, only ego stoke and ego hit dynamo this spectral playfield, they joust and lance, parry and touche, tin can concentration focuses more deeply, densely. For the birds, all that, progenitor archaeopteryx. Flash boil the celluloid, 2-4-7, and those are the watery mother bones holding up the surrounding institutions, physical or otherwise, demineralized of its Hollywood, corner-plaza mini malls, which can’t be suffered in immediate proximity; these lots would be created much later before and after the need for filling stations permanently stretched out the greater land’s physiognomy like polymer skin; that of this district’s ripens through the decades, aging with a blush of imminence. They’re connected, syllogistically, egos and internal combustions, the novel makes clear. It’s all pretty Mickey Mouse in spirit. In fact it is the competitive psychology, with a smattering of June moon, come think of it.

A pair of new stops correct an initial clunker-connector design, Bunker Hill and Historic Broadway. From the Arroyo Avenues to Alamitos Beach, it used to be: Gold Line board at Heritage Square, to Union Station; Red Line to 7th and Figueroa; then drip down the Blue on the gantry shoestring to the sea, it seemed. Now it’s a one-seat roller-coaster ride all the way, like it was to see Vera and her trembling earth a century ago. Next week it is, actually, when they officially open. Today, tomorrow, and the rest of the days in this area the paws walk soft blade steps ahead and behind hazards, as needed, seeing before seen, noticeably invisible like a Santa Ana. Survival sharpness being moderate here, in truth, for even in the region’s core, sidewalks are wide enough to accommodate skippy-loll gag swells of pedestrians; sight lines tend to be rich in angles, virtual tour with all the space in the world for complete capture--the dog snatchers, valet loiterers, live streamers, ground-floor smokers, beer baggers, frowsy fentanyl greasers, suckerface tourists, and shiny new Shake Shacks, Sweetgreens, and a Kaaba-like Apple store boxed into some old bank or insurance building, or theatre. Piss as well. The miasmic grip of human and pet piss genie-swirls everyone into a cosmic reionization, brane tapestry. More on that later.

A thirteen-storey stack of common spaces, nearly enough, altogether, to squeeze the individual out of anyone. There’s a pool on the roof, bars and security guards. Shared dorm, a basement break room, workout closet and hotel lobby that doubles as a free lounge, with much for sale. Only the bathrooms and bunks provide ample breathing space, clean of architected commerce. Down in the break room there’s running water, hot and cold, the trash can, fridge, and old television visibly chafed and chapped with communal smudge. The footprint of a vacated oven is so glaringly negative in space that the intent is all but equally obvious. These lot, though, a genre attracted to such digs, are thrifty crows, finding the shortest line of flight from home, congregating in bunker kitchens like these the world over, revealing themselves, invariably, like a surprise party of silence as the door swings open. A tacit welcome back. Budget luxurious for those who care more about the budget than the luxury. Intellectual comfort is the slice of cake here, keeping the social within or without at your discretion. Rumble seat where one can focus, muting and actively ignoring the American spirit with minimal to-do. Sweet insulating honeycomb cell this, balancing full and limited access adroitly.

A splash of pocket change against the bunk roof startles everything within earlick. Slapped awake, the spleen wants to speak first, but the logo-brain sucks enough material oxygen through the snooze gossamer to come online, taking over the controls from the primitive stack. So the minor grumbles, however adrenalized by the present, fade quickly enough, because apart from the odd dumb bump or goober stub, faux pas, pigpen hygiene, the deal’s a deal, and all the rest can be left on the side of the road or the suggestion message floating box or bottle, firm or soft sea, shoal, shore or soil. Think of it as an opportunity to thumb through the flicker book of images just arrived from, jotting them down if they feel sufficiently spicy and hang around long enough to be plucked out from the astrological inner. Don’t get mad, get some sleep.

     Muse Squads

     The parochial reasons traffic intersections as squares, if the sign above the south side of 5th Street is to be taken at face value. Fifth and Grand. Four corners banked on, 360 degrees of elbows shining outwardly, a projected geometric dual of the standard shape, with as many missing pieces. An inverse square, energy leveling off, waning dramatically. Straw-hearted, therefore, such a dedication, appropriate for an auto insurance advertisement that you may have seen around the glow tubes. Notwithstanding. Drawn into a state of sticky inquisitiveness, the namesake doesn’t hash with anything either. Noted, the name; discovery forthcoming, plaudits and merits to be balanced and figured in retroactively, either way, as a matter of reference. Suddenly, here the royal we are, the attendant pressure to swivel around, pursue a square. Starbucks on the northeast corner has a small configuration of aluminum chairs and tables arranged rectilinearly, loosely, like a jigsaw puzzle working towards completion. The gales are pointing in that direction. There’s a sign.

California is a windy place, by the way, though it’s often not emphasized. The flexed-arm-like coastline of sandy shore whipped up into creamy dunes, Oxnard and Pismo, for example. Pacific Isla de California that Maynard and the gang prophesized has always been there for irony’s sake, as a scab appendage to that ocean’s massive crystal mush underlayment lithosphere, forced into a squeeze-burn position against North America’s vast plate. Hence two geological lungs of Anaxagorean aether wrestling in a cyclical knot, convection swarms from the interior--bruta Santa Anas--fueling such tectonic feud, baiting the Pacific into supplying fresh inbreathe. Not reserved only for the enlightened north and twain of Twain; check the plaque at Thornton State Beach for phenomenological illustration. Here, too, people look to the sky in wonderment, combing through the clouds for ancient Greeks believed to be oracles capable of delivering functional fashion tips, diurnally. Strong memory of shivering in the dark at seaside parks, or dry-eyed up the Two Trees unofficial trail, as kids. Shrill and chilly the offshore gusts as they buff the warmth out of the metal furniture’s shine. Arctic fuzzy sheen and the petrels above who drain into CBDs for their pinball canopies, snapping around sharp corner alleys with elastic momentum in search of prey to spring cradle.

Once inside the Cure just about upstages the high-rise squawk talk din outside, all the attendant wind eggs. The glass door is corked shut with Hitchcockien drama. One of the baristas, whose friendliness is non sequitur to urban cores like these, mentions she just caught them at the Hollywood Bowl, as she points upwardly, not near any speaker, just the universal gesture for “listen”.
Still cruising along, those spry guys?
Glam makeup doesn’t age well, surely; isn’t that the premise of the Sean Penn flick This Must Be the Place?
Well, they still got it, she said, with eyes and smile strong enough to reject, perforce, even the slightest hint of guile. The svelte Chicana catwoman, punkrocker with a soft shadow of Goth, a species fiercely native to Southern California. Agents of undiscovered gravity, charmingly self-unware of this value. Thin and voluptuous. Big almond eyes and strong Aztec teeth. So smooth the cheeks and chin that slope down to a crane-like neck. Naturally fit, with plump rounds feeling themselves into perfect balance. Homogenous skin tone, perfectly roasted café, con leche. It’s hard not to fall over oneself for a genuine Camilla moment.

Angels Flight isn’t a long one, so just wiffle the two or so blocks up Grand instead, currents do what they may. There’s a fidgety hive of confused museum goers itching for entry. A miffed man near the tail end of a long cordon of belt stanchions bats away inquiries like treacle bees one after another, straining the color afferent-wise, from cheek lineament to tightening jowls. Reckon one more query should do him in. Is it possible to get tickets the day of? If so, how? Soft-spoken specificity attracted followers, whirring up a vacuum cloud of demands that the poor man hadn’t the lung metabolism to combat. An adjacent sandwich board mercifully stepped in and outperformed him. He slunk back as the gravity of the crowd squeezed him out. Just register on the museum’s website and hold quick and steady on that refresh button.

‘Scuze me, boot, oo-wat ah we, euh, suppoze-ed to doo?
Quel accent mademoiselle, ça vient d’où, en fait ?
Surprise and disappointment summed up in a facial expression.
Lyon, fin, autour de Lyon.
Ah ouais, Lyon, n’est-ce paw… comme ils disent la dessus, pahw, au lieu de pas, quoi. Capital gastronomique de la…
C’est ouf ça, comment t’en connais ?
Y’a des années j’ai travaillé comme comédien sur un court métrage á Paris, et, du coup, l’un d’autres parlais avec le même accent.
Quand même. En fait, je voulais dire comment t’a trouvé de parler français ?
Les Schtroumpfs m’ont appris. C’était dur, quoi. Mais, je m’en suis tiré.
Dis donc --
Alors t’as déjà touché un billet ?
Non, comment…j’attendais le….
Le videur ?
Ouais, c’est ça. Videur putain, c’est drôle ça.
Oh là, les gros mots, justement ! Bon, n’y’a pas de soucis, je vous aide, c’est pas grave, l’inverse de ton accent, en fait…rigole, je rigole….mademoiselle…d’Armentières parlez-vous ?
Quoi ?
C’est une chanson bien connue dans le -- seulement apparemment -- le Nord. Quand même, écoutez-moi bien : Faut qu’on se registre sure le site internet, et puis mise à jour la page chaque, euh, chaque euh… quelque secondes, quoi.
D’accord. Je le fait maintenant.

Well-built for a French woman, more Lotharingian than Carolingian, complexion stained with juicy blue blood splotches once thought a sign of superior birth, but whose quality has since degenerated to what now comes off as the product of generational consanguinity. High cheekbones and recessed eye sockets suggest a halberdian dimension to her lineage. Insufferably comfortable in their own skin and clothes and gait, apathetic glare surveying a world built according to a familiar will where everything makes sense even when it doesn’t. Exoticism follows the fireworks’ smoke. If the cliché of the moment had a voice it would sound like your narrator’s.

Ben, voilà, ça y est, y’en a disponible pour moi. C’est parti, j’y vais.
A bon ? C’était vite, euh ?
Ouais, applique-toi et t’en recevras parais. Sois sage, et courage…
Bien sûr.

No one likes to be snubbed of novelty, especially the French.

The memo concerning this season’s charm offensive has been read and studied by all employees. “This isn’t New York City,” it repeated boldly, all present nod in unison. Performance ready and manager-motivated this gang: if they don’t affect you with their candy light, time for a pulse plug up. At bag check, the waggish duo suggested a picture taken of the claim ticket they issued, in case the original is lost. “Maaaaannn,” was the response. To which they laughed full-heartedly. Where is this vibe coming from, the vents? Or is it sustained by all these art gogs, guiding each other through the mud textured interior of this tumulus? Enjoyment and questioning. The former without the latter, contrary to received assumption, is just hedonism. Working together, they spin like a turbine, producing at least single phase electricity, positive and negatively charged ends pushing and pulling, generating exponents. Upstairs to the main gallery floor and the show pieces of Koontz take pride of place, which is to be expected. Shiny puppies and fruit balloon art, ceteris paribus, is atmospherically appropriate.

But where is all the Rothko? De Kooning? Mark Tobey? Gustin?

Coo-coo!
Huh?
Oh, te voilà. T’as réussi, quoi. Bien fait.

Actually, sir, sir?
Sorry?
Actually they’re a couple of Rothkos across the street at the MOCA.
Wow, you heard that? And then took the time to look it up?
Sure, why not?
Gentle scholars, all of you, reckons the public weal.
I don’t know what that means, but it sounds good.
It does and it is. Appreciate you.

Bah, désole, faut que j’y aille. Profite !
Mais…
Salut!

Googlemaps has been very wrong of late. “Busier than usual” was the listed status. Up and over the monster block, then, in quick time, necessarily, was the thought, for it might close soon. Ghost winds and empty lines; this is where Heat was shot, wasn’t it? No puns, naturally. More employees than patrons; sad sight if Google was right, boondoggle if it was wrong, or either way, as the matter would have it, provided it’s open for business. Not being hungover is certainly a travel treat, it must be said. Imagine all the channels soft with absorbent tissue, cilia ticklish and keen, clean of clam sweat, net of buffer scrub, free of chalk buzz, a longer present to enjoy all this saturated goodwill. Ingratiating spookiness these glassy eyes of helpfulness, living in the “Black Hole Sun” music video or the portraits of Tania Marmolejo. Too much time in the Mid-Atlantic bog, perhaps, air lit with incredulity, cynicism and political PEZ heads. Or it’s just a bit slower here, find truth in the parking. And the paintings -- it’s nice to see Lee and Jackson’s work hung side by side, honorary Bonackers. Classy.

     Nouveau Row Jam

     String up those moonwalkers, and be quiet about it, there’s a resting room tone to respect; burdenous categoricals must be kept up with. A man of wordy worlds and respect for the defenseless in all of us. Items on the scenery punch list will retreat off the page when confronted with that menacing check mark, shadow of a monster. So satisfying. Surrounders remain ornithologists, scrambling for reference books to place this exotic feather. All that written in cursive z’s on their sleeping faces. There’s a new bridge to cross and an interzone to navigate, a landmark. Put eyes on the situation, either for enabling property gentry hawks or altruistic big birds with mime manners and clown gowns. It’s effective as a list populator, indeed. Like explosions, humans have an appetitive taste for the tender grime in others. Be a voyeur; be an altruist; cynic; epicurean; be a stoic; or a puritan; Manichean; simpleton; even a fucking hipster: just don’t block anyone else’s view.

Timber conveyance needs a broad way and slick surface, probably a few sooty hands to serve as roller wheels as well. Always work to be done, at least, something to keep the belly brain churning, the meter running, the focus hounds barking and biting productively. Until the traditional wood sources exhaust themselves. Then the Sixth Street mission is on, service perpetually stocked with the collective cleavage guilt of a system with deadpan morality. Palm trees could be directed towards the Malthusian four--food, fiber, fuel and building materials-- when necessity and creativity inevitably coalesce. Obsolescence, though, stiffens the gates, and narrows the attention span. No human hands and feet would be required to centipede these down to the river. Find a dead zone near you, for content, for context, for experience, for the hunt of it; North Kensington, Downtown Eastside, Pioneer Square, the Tenderloin. Upload your findings, sit back, kick your feet up and lip-smack as the odometer catches all the hits, popping all your neural sweet spots. Subscribe, like, comment, and all’s junk cables find the common euphoric phase.

During the run, undershorts keep this cable from obstructing locomotion and concentration, not-so-subtle stares at a pelvic region struggling, juggling fish tank in a bag, one can do without. The plight of the world’s Venuses attempting a like activity does not go unappreciated. Security shield privilege, this wing state provides, through hoods, forests, farm fields; private, public, sacred, developing and uncivilized lands. Red or blue. Like a jet airplane, there’s only lift when the turbines spin. Over-the-Rhine once, stopping for the perforce mid-course stretch, bomb-sucked Rhenish stacks, clinker brick expressionism, spot the cornice, mansard, Amsterdam cantilever, inter alia. Picky pigeon idiolect, wincing against the adversarial sunlight, confronted with a sanitizing gale, sprays lispy impudence,
You know where you’re at!!!?
Yes, precisely.

Public service announcement, peripatetico-flaneux: bipedal angular momentum is a hall pass. Keep that flashing in the visor as the sidewalks begin to thicken, squeezing the periphery into a tractor beam. Gladys Park, Hippie Kitchen, transactivity as a stir of life, whistles and glottal imperatives prepositioning inexhaustible barters, greywater laundry service, dark market warmup. The zips of tents lance and lacerate the funky vapor pool cleanly in step, gaining multiples therefore momentum, positional impatience suffers the dial. No tech support on hand; fitness, urban instinct and sympathy paddle, the tinge of volcanic lime hangs on taste buds for a lifetime. Keep transisting, for the air lifts gently at Central Avenue, swifts through the Alameda bend and clears a plot for those silver spider legs to sprout onto the horizon.

Grey Christmas tree, on its side, arms and legs flailing sinusoidally with no one around to hear the silent cries for attention, abandoned before the music stopped. The emptiness creates drama. Lonely roller rink begins its shift without the usual skid scuffs of existential traffic jams, the keys to the city, heart of the bulls and boulevards within. A humble elephant with thick skin and a nutty control center starving to dearth and public death, grand visible void sucking the buzzards, fireflies and scofflaws with inescapable dark-star charisma, tarstuck to the event horizon, suspended in stream indefinitely. The smooth underbelly mass hollowed with perfectly-graded powder-brown fill dirt. Looking up stands a profile of an apathetic ape, sky-high smugness, too good even, for the building he’s sprayed on, unconcerned with a 360-degree view, content to dedicate all points of condescending leer upon his cheaper neighbor, despite having to angle up slightly to do so properly. Eight-times more valuable than you, the meta-physical boasts, short-term silliness wiped away by the end of this sentence. And the beginning of the next. Try explaining that to people in tents.