In Which We Decide To Stop Traveling Alone

Backseat Diary

by MIA NGUYEN

December 7, 2015

12:30 p.m. By default, I’m inclined to map out potential worst case scenarios that could happen while traveling alone. I’m sitting at the terminal waiting for my flight. An episode of Broadchurch is playing in the background, but I’m distracted by the sweet, elderly couple sitting in front of me. It makes me long for permanence and romance. Longing for structure is a constant. 

Vacation Resolutions:

1.  Nap/meditate frequently
2.  Walk until my feet hurt
3.  Stay present 

12:44 p.m. I close my eyes as soon as I reach my assigned seat on the plane. I dread watching people toss personal belongings in overhead compartments. I’m always thinking about things. About how we accumulate so much of it. About how to get rid of it. 

3:00 p.m. Over the summer, I spent the week tucked away in a suburban neighborhood outside of Charlotte, North Carolina with my dad and younger brother. The vacation never left us. There’s an influx of people orbiting around an emotional support dog. I opt for a seat by the window to watch the planes pass. I enjoy a salad and wonder where everyone is headed. Where’s home?

9:00 p.m. The backseat of this car smells like an off-brand cologne. The driver asks if I want a bottle of water to hydrate. I decline. Had I accepted, ninety percent of the bottle would have remained. The driver would have no choice but to throw it out. I plug in the address on my phone to count down the ETA until my next fresh breath of air. 

9:33 p.m. We arrive at the apartment. I count $60 in cash from my purse to hand over to him. We tell each other to have a good night and part ways. 

8:24 p.m. It’s been 8 hours since my last deep breath. Traveling makes me anxious. After locking the door, I acquaint myself with the light switches and pour a tall glass of water and leave it on the coffee table. I send a message to my host letting her that I have arrived. She responds promptly with the wifi password. 

10:15 p.m. Rob sends me a text apologizing for the late response. I tell him that I had forgotten to pack a pair of sneakers and he talks about work. We text until he falls asleep. I take a shower and turn on an episode of The Great British Baking Show. I have already fallen in love with a few of the contestants.

11 p.m. The sound of a cello plays in the night. 

December 8, 2015

7:30 a.m. According to the host, I can help myself to any snacks in the cupboard. There isn’t anything I want to eat. I want to buy a bottle of champagne for the fridge just so I can have something to look at when I open it. I discover a box of expired rice milk with traces of mold around the rim. I throw it out in the dumpster and proceed to walk to the grocery store. 

7:40 a.m. I bag two croissants, grab a case of guacamole, tortilla chips, and cradle a bottle of Martinelli’s apple juice. 

7:50 a.m. The neighborhood is quiet, calm, and still. After dropping off my groceries and pacing around apartment, I regain momentum to circle back to the street so I can grab a cup of coffee. 

8:45 a.m. The next train to Pershing Square from Vermont/Sunset leaves in approximately 30 minutes. There’s a familiar face on the train. It’s a girl from my French class from high school. I don’t care enough to say hello. 

1 p.m. I wandered The Broad for two and a half hours before taking the train back to Los Feliz. The Visitors by Ragnar Kjartansson exhibit was completely engrossing. I sat in the corner of the dark and gloomy room listening to the 64-minute, nine-screen video installation. It’s easier to cry in a room by yourself. 

5 p.m. The Los Feliz Murder House is located on 2475 Glendower Place, a few blocks from where I’m staying. I immerse myself in the bloody story before taking a nap. 

6 p.m. The doctor killing himself and his entire family doesn’t leave my brain. Justin lives a few blocks away. I text him to tell him about my discovery. It doesn’t seem to worry him. 

9:30 p.m. Justin and I drive to House of Pies. We could have easily walked, but according to him and the rest of Los Angeles, no one walks here. We agree on splitting a breakfast sandwich and an apple pie a la Mode. We discuss social anxiety, fear of missing out, and not accomplishing enough while we’re here. 

10 p.m. Justin drove me home. I hurried into the apartment, locked the door, and found myself in the same position, as though I had never even left in the first place. I fall asleep to the sound of the cello. 

December 9, 2015

10 a.m. They’re filming Californication in Skylight Books. I wanted to pick up My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard, but that will have to wait until tomorrow or the next day. I cleared my schedule tomorrow to visit my grandmother in Rosemead, located east of Los Angeles. 

1:20 p.m. I’m taking an Uber down to Venice, a 30-40 minute drive from where I am. 

2:20 p.m. After visiting The List App office, I take an Uber back to Los Feliz, which feels like a million miles away. I’m restless, but the Uber driver Brian wants to have a long conversation about a non-profit that allows children to design and make their own books. I’m enthralled, but not enough to keep the conversation going. He hands me a business card with the information. I tell him to stop at the nearest bathroom. I drank too much coffee. I buy him a SmartWater. 

2:40 p.m. For the remainder of the ride, he talks about hover boards. I tell him that they’re not safe. I completely lose him. He completely loses me. 

6:00 p.m. I lock up and walk to Lassen’s, a small health foods store on Hillhurst. There are approximately six parking spots that occupy the lot. There’s never any room for shoppers. I order an eggnog smoothie, which is the only thing I have the appetite for. I buy dinner supplies: pesto and ravioli. I haven’t had a sit down meal in days.

7:00 p.m. I stained the pot and there doesn’t seem to be a strainer even though there’s dry pasta in the cupboard. 

8:00 p.m. I walk to get ice cream. I don’t feel so alone. 

December 10, 2015

11 a.m. I am almost on the verge of falling to my knees. Perhaps I’ve gone mad. I cannot fall asleep without thinking about heartbreak. I long for permanence.

11:30 a.m. I’m meeting Emily in Studio City for breakfast. She tells me Leah Remini’s family owns the restaurant. We drive over to Pasadena afterwards. There’s an empty Toy for Tots bin in front of her work. 

2:30 p.m. My cousin Jenny and I go out for dim sum. We have been to this restaurant many times before for birthday parties, family gatherings, and weddings. 

3:30 p.m. I’m worried my grandmother won’t make it back in time before I leave. She’s down the street at a friends house. I have a red envelope with money for her and a shirt my mom and I picked out for her. I can’t wait to see the expression on her face. She’s 89 this year.

4:00 p.m. My grandmother is at the end of the driveway. She mistakes me for Jenny. When she gets up close she pats my head and face. I feel normal again. I feel at home. One of my dearest friends, Victoria, is driving up from San Diego today. It will be nice to have a voice fill the apartment.

5:45 p.m. Jenny and I drive over to Koreatown. I’m carrying a bag of large grapefruits to pack for my trip back home. We part ways after our grocery store trip. I take an Uber to Beverly Hills to meet Rachel. She’s in town for a company Christmas party. We meet at the Urth Caffe. 

December 11, 2015

11 a.m. Victoria spills coffee all over the table. She goes and grabs another cup. We talk about our jobs and bosses. It’s a safe environment to conduct our hasty behavior. Everyone around us is doing it, making it acceptable. 

11:30 a.m. There’s a parking ticket on Victoria’s car. She takes it and throws it in her backseat and does a little dance. I spend approximately an hour feeling upset about it. 

2:00 p.m. After only wearing pointed Chelsea boots for the past few days, I finally get the opportunity to find a pair of sneakers. 

3 p.m. It’s raining in LA. No one knows what to do with their body.

4 p.m. We order Indian. The basmati rice was tough. It felt like there was a morsel of pebbles gnashing against my teeth. Everything is temporary, especially pain. I want to go home. 

7 p.m. We head up to Griffith Park right before the sun sets. I’ve seen this view a million times. Victoria thinks it’s magnificent. 

10 p.m. Victoria and I return from Yamashiro. We turn on Serial season two. We talk about her boyfriend. I fall asleep to the sound of Serial. She nudges my shoulder and tells me to stop snoring. I’m startled and stay awake for the rest of the night so she can rest soundly. 

December 12, 2015 

11 a.m. Victoria and I take the train downtown to the Los Angeles Athletic Club. We are first to arrive. I order a Moscow Mule and a Negoni. By the time people arrive, we can barely make out faces and names. I try to be polite. 

1:00 p.m. Everyone is quiet. Someone at the table is telling a story about an elderly woman accidentally eating an edible on international flight to Bali. 

3 p.m. I have to clean the apartment. My flight leaves at 11 p.m.

3:30 p.m. Anxiety is nigh. 

4 p.m. I remove all traces that I was ever in the apartment. 

8:30 p.m. I contemplate leaving a thank you note. I read bits and pieces of My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard. I forget to leave a thank you note. 

9:00 p.m. I head to LAX. 

11:00 p.m. It’s too early to wish people a Merry Christmas. I try not to think about anything because I’m heading home.

Mia Nguyen is the features editor of This Recording. You can find her website here.

"Death with Dignity" - Sufjan Stevens (mp3)

"All Of Me Wants All Of You" - Sufjan Stevens (mp3)

In Which Henri Takes Us Back

On Location

by KARA VANDERBIJL

We lived near Vasquez Rocks for a while. Do you have a place like this? To me, it was an obvious choice for elementary school field trips, for post-midterm hikes. One day we arrived at the gate and there was a guard. “They are filming on the premises,” he explained. We turned around, tires stirring up dust. It was easy, up until that point, to believe that the daily function of Hollywood was as fictional as the fictions it propagated.

Southern California Octobers are fiery. The blaze is on the other side of the freeway, people say to reassure themselves, even though vehicle fires have been known to melt overpasses. Paramount opened up the set to visitors during the filming of a Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman episode. We wanted to take a Canadian cousin to see it, but the road was closed due to fire.

“Did you ever meet someone famous?” asked the French in school courtyards, chewing forbidden gum.

I am waiting for the day when they will extract Vasquez Rocks, like the bandit for which it was named. They’ll throw that boulder bouquet south to frame some distant red carpet. Just kidding, they’ll say, it’s been a cardboard backdrop all along.

We never met a movie star. We visited a tiny Dutch grocery store in the valley to buy spices for Indonesian fried rice and also dark chocolate hagelslag. The Honda Accord my mother drove we named Henri. “Where’s Henri?” we’d cry, perusing parking lots. Other people’s mothers thought we’d lost a sibling. When El Nino passed through, we went out nonetheless in the early afternoon, walking single-file shortest to tallest (I was in the back) across flooded sidewalks in bright yellow Mickey Mouse rain ponchos. We were on the front page of the local newspaper.

“Where have I seen you before?” Compartmentalization is key to survival. The illusion is broken when we sit through the credits. It’s a big joke now to see Vasquez in anything, which is why the characters in New Girl spent almost the entirety of the first season’s finale among the rocks. Irony begets irony. Zooey Deschanel fights off a coyote; I don’t remember the circumstances. Vasquez Rocks is to Hollywood what the inside of Monica’s apartment is to New York City. It’s a location for key moments, for outdoor voices.

Vasquez Rocks is a goldmine. Not literally, although I think one of my childhood excursions involved a metal detector. It is possible that I am confusing this with an episode of Star Trek. I’d like to see a short video chronicling all the films that have taken place at Vasquez using nothing but iconic props, wigs, facial expressions, and the rocks. I’d like to act in this, perhaps even direct it. There is no other way I could conceivably link the cultural Vasquez Rocks to the Vasquez Rocks of my youth.

As a child, I did not watch as much television as my peers. I don’t think I missed as much in popular culture as I missed in opportunities to connect with other people. But doesn’t that seem shallow? My mother was (is?) a Trekkie. My brother and I were obliged to follow suit. We watched it purely for the marvelous cliffhangers. If the cliffhanger involved someone actually hanging off Kirk’s Rock, we got extra points.

We lived on the edge, in a cul-de-sac with two other houses. The air conditioning frequently let out in the summer. When my father opened the breaker, a giant brown spider was stretched out over the switches. My mother found dead black widows in the washing machine with our clean clothes. We celebrated our neighbor’s bat mitzvah, played with a cat who couldn’t jump straight after a brick fell on its head. Watering the plants in the backyard, Mom stepped over a baby rattlesnake three times before hearing its warning. Safely inside the house, we watched it coil in on itself, flick its tongue. Its siblings curled around the tires of my father’s yellow Dodge van, hid in the deep grass. Death by shovel.

“Don’t go outside without shoes,” Mom warned, as if the rubber flipflops we lived in would deter venomous fangs. It was easy to believe that going outside would result in someone’s death. More often, we just came home sunburned, intensely dehydrated.

Near the spot where we parked our bikes my brother drowned an ant colony with a garden hose. Three baby birds fell out of a nest in the big oak out front, Dad wouldn’t let us look. When I was invited to go hiking on location in Vasquez, I wore ballet flats. I didn’t own socks or the shoes to go with them until I moved to Chicago.

Two weeks ago I looked out the train window at the snow on the sidewalk. I was between the Southport and Belmont stops where the Brown line curves away from Roscoe Street and begins shadowing Sheffield Avenue to the east. This snow was as unmarked as the 2013 page for January, pure, excited powder. I took a long second look and fished in my bag for forgotten gloves. Wait, it’s October. Early October. I’d still been running in the mornings, crossing my arms across my chest as I walked a half mile to warm up my muscles. I’d seen my breath three times. Five other times it had been too windy to focus on anything except walking from Washington and Wells to my office in the West Loop, resolving with every unseasonal shiver not to take the second train until there is snow on the ground. Long stretches of 100 degree weather turns the blood thin. Snow?

“They must be filming something,” said the man next to me when we stopped at Belmont, while other commuters wedged into the train.

I had not even considered it. To me, the transplant, Chicago is a cold city. It is a winter city. Other seasons occur but all tend towards winter, as if preparing for a legendary play. White powder, check. Chapped lips, check. Winter sends her love. Postcards, ice. My mother asked if I’d bought long underwear, but it’s still October. The whole year is spent stocking the larders for hibernation. It’s a precious naivete, but even the natives will talk about the weather in the elevator. Rite of passage, like buying a thicker coat, a second pair of boots, warmer socks — socks at all. They’re more expensive than you might imagine.

Earthquakes ended almost as soon I realized I was experiencing one. We came to California immediately after the ‘94 Northridge quake, like we were hungry for gold a century too late. On the 405, two of our sofa cushions blew out from under the ropes holding them to the pickup. We returned later with Henri to retrieve them, the slow-moving traffic a gift for slow-moving eyes. Mom washed the cushions and put them back on the sofa.

Henri took us back to the Pacific Northwest a couple of times. On the Grapevine, he came dangerously close to overheating. Mom explained that her father used to place bottles of cold water in the engine to prevent this, then turned off the air conditioning and rolled down all the windows. The roar of the big rigs shifting down on the grade was deafening. Burnt rubber, tired brakes. Mom sat hunched forward in her seat, shirt plastered to her back with sweat. We didn’t sit easy until we were in Oregon.

Vasquez Rocks is visible from the CA-14 freeway, and it makes me think: aren't most things visible from this vantage point in Southern California? Henri barrelled in one direction or another, and we observed, as if we were standing on a moving sidewalk in an airport as images and lights flashed above our heads. I picked up the habit of being quiet in the car, watching for  familiar landmarks to predict the ending of the show.

Kara VanderBijl is the senior editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Chicago. She last wrote in these pages about Meredith Goldstein. She tumbls here and twitters here. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here. 

"Wolves (Black Cab session)" - Phosphorescent (mp3)

"Hej, Me I'm Light" - Phosphorescent (mp3)

In Which We Generally Play It Where It Lays

Los Angeles Dossier

by DURGA CHEW-BOSE

Flanked on four sides of a kitchen island in West Hollywood, friends were exchanging details about a serial arsonist on the loose in Los Angeles. Copycat fires had been reported; revenge or thrill-seeking were pinned as possible intent. A description of the suspect had been released by the LAPD: male, heavy-set with a receding hairline and ponytail, driving a white and tan mid-90s Lexus sedan. It was New Year’s weekend, eighty degrees and sunny, fifty-some fires and counting. It was also my first time in L.A.

News of the arson spree was being tossed around between bites of tortilla chips, riffs on Noomi vs. Rooney, and fanciful guesses as to how the Mayan apocalypse would hit. One girl in red polka-dots shared her excitement about the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena. I would miss it having returned to New York by then. At one point Dion’s “The Wanderer” came on and everyone fell into a brief stupor, twisting slightly and opening new beers.

Growing up on the east coast and having attended college in Westchester, pictures of friends bunched in kitchens, leaning against and perched on counters, gabbing, had swept — much with my affection for the Dunnes, both John and Dominick, any picture of Robert Evans, noir Los Angeles, and Ice Cube’s Raiders hats — into a vague notion of images that were “very L.A.” It was an indefinable place despite countless landmarks and friends who called it home. Its celluloid portrayals caused it to unnaturally ooze thrill and ease for someone far too impressionable like myself.

L.A. wasn’t real, real. "Some of these buildings are over 20 years old," Steve Martin points out to Victoria Tennant in his satire-celebration, L.A. Story. Mailer called it "a constellation of plastic." Of course Andy Warhol loved it for that very reason. "It's redundant to die in Los Angeles," Capote deadpanned. Dorothy Parker said it was “seventy-two suburbs in search of a city," and Kerouac rued "the loneliest and most brutal of American cities." Saul Bellow wrote that "in Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted and everything that wasn't tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California."

Frank Lloyd Wright echoed Bellow's sentiment: "Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles." Fran Lebowitz compares it to a "city-like area" that surrounds the Beverly Hills Hotel. And Montell Jordan testified that "South Central does it like nobody does." To me, Los Angeles was counterfeit. I hadn’t grown up with winds or fog or earthquakes. Seasons were dependable. And yet, entirely wooed, arson and apocalypse aside, in that moment with my forearms resting on cold tile, like Brenda Walsh or Annie Banks might, I too felt for the time being, merrily very L.A.

I stayed with my friend, Zoë, who up until recently had been living in New York. My vacation coincided with her renewed appreciation for Los Angeles. She was once again a California girl. Even her ponytail, which always flops to the side of her head, seemed to spring and twirl better with Pacific air.

She bought sunglasses like the ones Woody Harrelson wears in Natural Born Killers while I tried on bigger ones like the pair Gena Rowlands wears (and does not take off at dinner) in Minnie and Moskowitz. Most days Zoë wore her mother’s red corduroy zip jacket that she rolled into wide cuffs. It matched the red beams at LACMA where I took a picture of her near the re-created Charles and Ray Eames living room. I only now just noticed that that particular photo never developed.

At the tar pits adjacent to LACMA, my attention was stolen by a white vertical tower. Thirty-one stories tall in a district that upholds a seven-story height moratorium, the Variety skyscraper on Wilshire Boulevard is a stark giant crowned by its name in red lettering. Its stature is somehow comic, especially in Los Angeles. It appeared oversized; as if it was a spoof building, a prop, a facade, a mirage?

Designed by William Pereira, it boasts three hundred and sixty degree open views of the city. Didion might describe its lines as "alienating" and its build thick like an upright block of butter wrapped in wax paper. Jerry Bruckheimer, if he hasn't already, will use it for a heist helicopter landing in one of his next productions.

In the car, Zoë and I listened to the radio or the Boogie Nights soundtrack. More and more, my adolescent habits seemed to spark as if willed alive again by K-Earth 101 and one night, I spoke on the phone to a friend for over two hours. I haven't done that in years. Ann-Margret in a yellow shirt lying on pink sheets with a teal blue phone. Sally Field as Gidget. Dionne and Cher.

We spent a lot of time going places to hang out. We climbed up a hill on my first night — the first of many views — and ate graham cracker flavored frozen yogurt the next day while we talked and scraped the bottoms of our Styrofoam cups while staring out at a parking lot.

The sun warmed through my jeans — in January! — and struck me dumb. Nobody believes they are as invincible and the day infinite as a teenager on vacation, and that’s exactly how I felt. Even now, writing about the sun — and the sunsets too, which are an entirely different kind of spell, and that cruelly or precisely, no picture can ever capture — I feel foolish. From the car one evening as we drove through Silverlake, I stared at the sky’s airbrushed pinks, peaches, and lavender, only to look away because I only had one day left in L.A.

There’s a great picture of Ronnie and Phil Spector where he’s posing in the background holding a microphone stand while she’s in the fore, charming the camera with her attitude. He looks half her size. I always turn up the volume dial for The Ronettes — a regular occurrence during my stay. Nowadays it's Phil's trial pictures that are most vivid: his freakish wigs and chilling, googly stare.

Celebrity trials are another spectacle here. The wood-paneled court rooms, the lawyers, the lawyers' families, the media circus, the outfits, all of it. In college, I remember my friend Akiva, who grew up in Beverlywood, told me that his brother recorded on VHS tapes every item broadcast of the O.J. Simpson murder case: a plenary account of television segments and updates. Los Angeles media experienced a coup d’état of celebrity trial magnitude. A black leather glove.

Retention and analysis of proceedings, exclusive interviews, and tell-alls, create a specific type of mania spurred only when celebrity, power and privilege cross the judicial system. As Camille Paglia put it, "Television is America's kingmaker." And as Akiva put it in a recent gchat, "OJ is LA." I recently learned that Joan Didion was given press credentials and an opportunity to write a book about Kobe Bryant's 2003 rape case. She turned it down after the first day of trial. The cover art alone, in serif purple and gold, DIDION, KOBE, might have been the most L.A. gospel ever.

While Jacques Demy's only English language film, 1969's Model Shop, is not a great, it tempts. It ambles from Hollywood Boulevard to Santa Monica, from Beverly Hills to Malibu and loafs from a girlfriend’s apartment to a car garage, from a pink plush Rent-A-Model to band practice. "You don't buy a $1500 car just 'cause you like it. You don't have a cent and you don't even work! You get a skateboard!" a girl scolds her boy at the start. Conversations move in and out of burnout meters, never quite changing our protagonist, George — a ne’re-do-well who is about to get drafted. He meets a mysterious French woman Lola, played by Anouk Aimée, and seeks out one last human bond, if that.

What Demy does so masterfully is capture LA’s devil-may-care lure. Undoubtedly he was smitten with the city’s airy and delayed character. After all, the very first image is a blonde in bed, sleeping in. Her room is a mix of beach and artifice, bohemia and Barbie: piles of records, hanging stockings, a wig on its stand, an orange bra, a striped towel, neutrals and neons, both. Los Angeles is the film’s most palpable antihero. Los Angeles is the slacker, the layabout, the intrigue and the crush.

Demy splits the screen in two: sky and road. Pale blue and pavement. Billboards, Standard Chevron signs, palm trees and cars. It does not impose itself on anyone. And as I experienced it too, the faraway beach or winding hilly roads, there is something incredibly tacit about Los Angeles’ strangeness. It courts you. It’s still too new to simply exist — the trivia, infinite amounts of it, is what sustains the city.

Durga Chew-Bose is the senior editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. She tumbls here and twitters here. You can find an archive of her writing here. She last wrote in these pages about hypothermia.

"Blue Skies" - Deborah Wedekind (mp3)

"I Dreamed A Dream" - Deborah Wedekind (mp3)

"For All We Know" - Deborah Wedekind (mp3)