Notes from Los Angeles, part one:



It's unnatural for a city to smell so good. The entire place feels like a house for sale in which the estate agent has lit an aromatherapy candle just prior to a viewing. Meanwhile, you stay locked in a staring contest with the daylight, waiting for it to blink, but it never does.

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There is a white guard dog on the roof of Frank Lloyd Wright's Sturges House in Brentwood. There is also a white guard dog on the balcony of the colonial-style house opposite. They bark at each other hour after hour, staunch canine proxies for the architectural debates of the 20th century.

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The serious young women at MOCA who discuss minimalism and Robert Frank with visiting groups of Latino grade school kids may be the closest thing I've ever seen to angels.

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In the middle of the day, three deer saunter through the car park of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. They are friendly but visitors are told not to stroke or feed them. The previous night I saw a coyote crossing the street up on Griffith Park. It was only the size of a medium dog. I had honestly thought that coyotes were as big as werewolves.

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Later, in the space exploration museum at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we are shown a full-size replica of the Voyager spacecraft that was launched in 1977. It was wrapped in “black thermal blankets” to keep the electronics from freezing. As a result, it looks like something assembled in the back room of a biker bar.

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Silverlake is now world famous as LA's Williamsburg/Hoxton; when in fact it comprises about five nice cafes, three vintage shops, and a comic shop.

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My last meal would be albacore rolls from Yoshi's Sushi in West Hollywood followed by strawberry pancakes from Fred 62 in Los Feliz. Or maybe a few pounds of the spicy shrimp and clams from the Boathouse in Alhambra, which are dumped on the table in a big clear plastic sack full of blood-red sauce, like something from an organ transplant facility.

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As it turns out, house parties in West Hollywood are not really any different from house parties in Camberwell, except that you are apparently allowed to dance to Maroon 5 and Matchbox 20 without irony.