Between Sherman Oaks and Studio City there are more pedestrians than I would have expected. Except they're all on their cell phones, staring straight ahead, striding along in focussed, independent universes. I might have to try to penetrate somehow. I'm not sure how.
I'm still commuting from home. Have been since Beverly Hills. It's not working out so badly. We'll see how it goes.
On Friday I walked between Woodman Avenue and Studio City and back again in a loop. I feel down in these areas mostly. They seem so sterile.
I found a winding road in the hills above Ventura called Sunswept Drive. I asked the mailman how far down Ventura it would drop me if I walked it's length. He said, 'Oh, about three miles.' He said it was a really long walk, that I might want to turn back. It took 20 mins tops in the end and dropped me less than a mile down the road I think. Odd that the mailman thought that way.
I came across 3 animals run over by cars. I found a skunk being eaten by maggots. A squirrel secretly decomposing by someone's drain and a lizard flattened in the position it died in - no sign of flesh at all. It was like irredescent paper.
I found some cool things along Sunswept Drive - signs of original life to foil the sterility of the main streets. Here's something I especially liked:
Maybe Sunswept Drive feels like 3 miles when you're carrying a bag of mail?
In defense of my adopted town, Studio City, you seem to have spent an awful lot of time here. There must be a reason.
I agree there are many people like you describe, to my irritation too. It's a disease that afflicts a lot of LA, and this generation - the "I'm here, but I'm not here, I'm buying a coffee from you but not acknowledging you" mindset. It's a sad state, to be sure.
What you're doing is the antithesis of that, and I love it. Experiencing the minutie of life by walking. Stopping to smell the roses, or admiring a paper lizard. I do it too, sans camera. I think the people who don't get out of their cars, or out of their heads, miss a lot.
Back to Studio City, we are victim of that LA non-architecture. More brick and narrower streets, to be sure, would help the character factor. But the scale of the place is what I like. Sunday mornings the farmers market and the dog adoption give the semblance of a village square. And, as you observed, people do walk.
There are a lot of neat people here. (Granted, many of us are living here by the grace of rent control.) Still, when you observe on the run (or the walk), first impressions are just that. Though it's true, they are valid, and certainly entertaining.
Now excuse me, I must go apply for a job with the Chamber of Commerce.
Posted by: Laura | July 18, 2005 at 01:22 PM
On penetrating the focus of pedestrians... Tools are required.
A rude t-shirt? a loud-hailer? deely-boppers? a tickling-stick?
I jest. Here is the essential dilemma in modern life. We're all worried that the person next to us is a psycho in disguise, and that if we engage them we'll regret it. We go from A to B without making any sort of meaningful contact with another person. I hope you find a way to break the barrier, Lisa!! Go for it!!
Posted by: John | July 20, 2005 at 05:43 PM