Memo 3: Stuff I Can Walk To Now
This week has been a giant blur for me because of the recent adventure of moving apartments! In the middle of a heatwave! It’s fine, we are all fine now; my body is broken and I take heat-induced naps at weird hours but all is fine. Half of what has helped me recover from the exhaustion is how excited I am in this new neighborhood(s), Fairfax / Beverly Grove / Hancock Park. I can walk to things again!
So in lieu of actual coherent thoughts, I’m going to rank different things I can now walk to in my new neighborhood because everyone loves listicles or, at the bare minimum, read them without complaint —
Canter’s: Really, no introduction or profession of love would do Canter’s justice. 10/10
The Dolls Kill next to Canter’s: Disgusting, horrible, I will spit at the concrete in front of this store every time I have to walk by it, absolutely depressing and awful, an eyesore next to the most wonderful deli in the world. 1/10
Gas station topiary art: I’m a sucker for weird gas stations as it combines architectural absurdism (which I love) and feeding into the gas complex (which I hate). An example of this is how there are little shrubs shaped into animals at some of the nearby gas stations. Apparently there’s a whole history as to why the gas stations nearby have topiary art, and though it is brief, it did not disappoint. Sometimes people with money and power do dumb things with them; this is a dumb thing, objectively, but a wholesome and enjoyable dumb thing. 8/10
Mystery restaurant on Beverly Blvd: There is this one restaurant on Beverly and N. Vista that is poppin with customers at night eating outside, so it is active for sure. However, when you try to look up the address you find a convoluted history of various restaurants that have opened and closed there over the past 10 years. The mystery intrigues me, but the fact that people are eating out depressed me, so I’m split. 5/10
UPDATE ON MYSTERY RESTARAUNT: we did investigate and it turns out that it is just a taqueria on the street moving into a new location. The people eating out still depresses me. C’est la vie.
Supremo Ristorante: Located in a strip mall on La Brea, this small little restaurant would have passed me by if it wasn’t for their incredibly blatant ripoff of the Supreme logo. After doing some digging, apparently it is also a pretty good Italian place? It sounds too good to be true. 7/10¹
Pan Pacific: Being away from a dedicated, reliable park has slowly worn my soul down. Lo and behold, in walks Pan Pacific – a beautiful sloping patch of greenery. I will not lie, I am a little intimated by the sheer scope of it and the hectic parking lot, but I will prevail. 9/10
Literally all of Larchmont Village: I have not been to Larchmont Village in a while, but now I am within walking distance of it. Maybe I’ll mess around and get some Lemonade or Salt & Straw?² That’s what people do in LA? ??/10
And because there is always more to consume, here are some LINKS from this past week:
How to Bribe a Los Angeles Lawmaker is a little crazy, a little depressing, and very worthy of reading.
The Tiktok account for NPR’s Planet Money, such as this one. The guy creating these videos is an intern, and I would intern for him happily any day. He’ll be on Vice soon. I just know it.
James Blunt Developed Scurvy After Adopting an All-Meat Diet To Assert His Masculinity, which is almost as good as my favorite James Blunt article…
Where he explains that You’re Beautiful is about “a guy who’s high as a fucking kite on drugs in the subway stalking someone else’s girlfriend when that guy is there in front of him.” I know, right?
Has Self-Awareness Gone Too Far in Fiction? I didn’t realize that this would turn into a Sally Rooney-takedown, but the logic running through this essay reflects the thoughts I’ve had re:Rooney’s smart, passive woe-is-me protagonist choice. Especially with articulate logic like this:
“What does it mean to write a coming-of-age novel when a character’s life is predestined? These books, so reluctant to engage with change, agency, and suffering, turn instead to awareness, which they frame as atonement. Meanwhile, the actual substance of living—a person’s history, hopes, and contradictions—is rendered as fixed, external, and inert.”
Though I am clearly in a literate-critical mood, ‘The Disaster Tourist’ Is a Timely Capitalist Satire hits all the right buttons for me. Engage, critique, mock! You can do all those things and be self-reflective as well.
This may seem harsh but I haven’t eaten there yet, so this is a high rating considering that.
Going to Salt & Straw would be a real character development swing, considering I trashed it last week in my post.