Flying
up over the dust this morning. Was
out on the brine’s side yesterday, the far side of the Pacific, walking long
Venice Beach. Now, I’m 35,000 feet
above what looks like it should be called “death valley.” Miles of dry, pale xanthous soil in
every direction. Occasional
patches of green in unnatural square blocks that must be drawing blue water
from some place other than where they’ve been lain.
I just galloped through Tiberius life in Tacitus
“Annals.” What a star-crossed
figure he was: stepson of
Augustus, with the toughest mom in town, who fends off myriad challenges more
legitimate heirs and ultimately his much more popular brother, Germanicus to
become, the man to rule after Augustus.
And he’s prudent and sagacious for a while, but always overshadowed by
someone and eventually he descends into pure treachery, unabashed, 背信弃义[1] How remarkable
these accounts must have been for the late medieval Europeans to consider,
imagining classical Rome when so much of Rome’s achievement were unobtainable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_(Tacitus)
Today, when we read about how power was transferred in Rome,
I for one, note that our own representative democracy, flaws and all, is more
predictable and less capricious as it concerns say, the transfer power. When Chinese read comparable works, the
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is set roughly two hundred years later than the
reign of Tiberius, I think they see great modern resonance in the way in which
power is transferred, because it is, achievements not withstanding, capricious
and arbitrary. It is accurate to
claim that this sort of authoritarian power transference somehow speaks to
Chinese characteristics, but wrong to say this is therefore China’s fate.
Yesterday, I was on a hotel, rooftop bar over Venice Beach,
staring out at the long plane that is formed in L.A. You can stare down the
coast towards the industrial smoke stacks of what I presume, eventually is Long
Beach, and turning look up to Santa Monica and towards the Hollywood Hills and
beyond and turning see higher mountains to the east, which I associate with
Pasadena. A mist that looked like
mist and not smog was settled over the valley but it was clear that not unlike
Beijing, with mountains on three sides this would do a great job of capturing
pollution, all this surf and sun notwithstanding.
I was told that a table for two on this lovely perch would
be about a half hour wait by someone who had no intention of ever seating me. Feel free to go stand by the bar. This was still my first few hours in
country and there is that magical initial period where America is exotic. There are such a myriad of faces, gene
types, derivations. You don’t know anyone but you already know who everyone is. Their everyday American utterances seem
remarkable and worthy of attention and the assignation of significance.
I went to the bar and ordered a double gin and tonic and got
a twenty out of my wallet in anticipation. “That’ll be $22.00,” says the young man who has done nothing
whatsoever to merit any tipping, but nonetheless, sends me digging back in that wallet again for
more funds. It seems unfathomably
expensive, but maybe I’ve just been out of the country too long. My friend joins me and reminds me that
you can spend that money on drinks in Beijing too. And he’s right. But nothing hurts like spending dollars.
The music in this venue is loud, steady thumping, with hooks
that don’t manage to catch me in the slightest. There is a young, entitled crowd, who are talking
loudly. Now someone has fallen
over and another man is yelling self-effacing commentary as he helps the other
person up. The ‘you have arrived
in Los Angeles’ view is marvelous as is the sea air, the ubiquitous California
sun, but its not quite enough to make up for the otherwise thoroughly
compromised atmosphere and we head out.
“Is there a nice place to have a drink and watch the world
go by?” My friend smiled. My friend sighed. Clearly it wasn’t going to be as easy
as I imagined. We strolled looking
for a place amidst the plebian street circus along Venice Beach. For some reason I was reminded of
walking along the Placa in Athens, down below the Acropolis. It was a strong, uncanny sensation: a long row of restaurants with abundant
pedestrian traffic that extended out to a beach on the one and over a railroad track
on the other. Incomparable for
all practical purposes, but the invocation hums on, regardless.
“Let’s just grab a table in here.” Once again, the doorman informs me there will be a wait for
a table, of which there appear to be many, but this time it is only five
minutes or so. It’s good to be
able to talk. I grab steak taco
and another drink, but it’s just a beach side joint and neither is very
good. And once again the music is very
loud, assertive, lacking in any distinction, this time as sort post-bad-rock,
rock. The crowd inside, the crowd
passing outside is fascinating in a rough, well-tattooed, everyman sort of
way. Across the main thoroughfare
and older lady is playing confrontational abstract expressionist sounds on an
acoustic piano. A few people have
stopped to watch. I’m glad I was
able to see some live music on this viist. A young man on a skateboard falls, and blames it on the dog
tethered to the next table up from me.
“They got, dogs and shit.”
I’m not adjusted yet so I actually do unadvisable things
like listen to the music in the places I am visiting. I think of the aural pollution of modern China, loud
crackling speaker voices, spitting sounds, construction, Kenny G., they are all
naturally offloaded from immediate recall when I’m back there in Beijing. They are “normal” and will not be
stored. With a day or two, I’ll
revert to my default American pre-sets for ease of navigation through our
country. I’ll stop paying
attention to everything.
Later that night we’re back at my friend’s place with his
two remarkable boys. The younger
lad, aged twelve, played a beautiful song from a band I hadn’t heard before. “Thirteen” is a disarmingly innocent
song that eerily and successfully captures something about what actually was
like to be thirteen in suburban New York.
Or at least I’ve allowed it to.
I know the song as an Elliot Smith number and adore his version. But it means something different
knowing it was first written by Big Star, in 1972. I like the Elliot Smith version better. But I’ll never listen to it the same
again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Star_(band)
Later my young friend said he was listening to a lot of The
Clash. I saw The Clash for the
first time when I was thirteen and I never listened to anything to same way
again after. We searched and found
a scene from the movie Rude Boy that he hadn’t seen before. This musical sharing went on for some
time and this was certainly the best part of being in Los Angeles, logging in
time with a best friends family, whom I’ve too infrequently been able to watch
grow and mature.
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