D.J. Waldie
D. J. Waldie is the author of "Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir" and "Where We Are Now: Notes from Los Angeles," among other books about the social history of Southern California. He is a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times.
Lakewood, CA
I don't think there is anything that I could erase from the story I tell myself, despite the appeal of amnesia.
In L.A., deals are being made. The political chairs are regularly re-arranged for the term-limited. The ribbons still get cut. But who is governing?
There's little in the mayor's character or experience to suggest that he has the reservoirs of commitment and passion with which the process of remaking civic life in Los Angeles could be restarted.
The myths are many and contradictory. They point to ambiguous answers for questions we hardly know how to ask. And the river's "traditions" are even more complicated.
Off and on for eight years, the photographer Tom Johnson has walked the neighborhoods of small houses and small lots where I live.
One day four small palms, their corrugated, tapering trunks ending in characteristic green fans, appeared on my walk to work. The next time I passed, each of the palms - the tallest about 5 feet - was lopped off, crownless.
Mayor Villaraigosa spun badly the other day, the contrasting rotational forces of his past and his present whirling him out of control again.
The turmoil in Maywood has reduced city government there to an apparent phantom. Maywood has no police department now and no city staff.
Ebullient Art Leahy is a wonderful ambassador for the MTA, but he doesn't know how to get us to ride. And those who think to compel us are full of passionate intensity.
Some of us are exploring undiscovered Los Angeles this summer at KCET Voices and making lists. My list isn't of destinations, however; it's a list of dates.
Olvera Street was literally the first thing that tourists saw after walking out of Union Station, luggage in hand. That's changed, and the street has had hard times.
Who remembers? And what remembers for us when we've lost the point of the story we once felt we needed to tell?