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“Hollywood Boulevard at night was a dream in neon. Mickey cruised along the strip, colorful lights blurring by like hallucinations. On his right, the El Capitan Theatre lured customers in like a Vegas casino, while the Walk of Fame preserved stardom on his left. Tourists bustled beneath the blinking signs like extras in the giant story of this land of stories, hoping for a real-life glimpse of that other world just behind the veneer of this place. In the ’50s, Hollywood Boulevard had looked different—less buildings, less vehicles, less pedestrians—but the aura of the strip, the energy, hadn’t changed at all.”

FilmFameHollywoodCaliforniaCinemaLos AngelesNoirFamousLaWalk Of Fame
Book:Porno Valley
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“Cruising down Compton Boulevard in the Catalina, Mickey sensed the charged atmosphere of the place, an energy that said anything could happen. Young men loitered in groups on the sidewalks in baggy T-shirts and bandannas while young women strolled up and down, smirking at the men hollering after them and whistling. When traffic lights turned red, blank-faced children appeared out of the darkness under overpasses like wraiths to sell drugs to drivers. Prostitutes wobbled along the streets on high heels, many of them with the vacant gaze of the addicted, while men with hard hearts and a lust for blood watched their every move. All the while well-intentioned families who called Compton home got ground up in the giant machine of this nation, slipping further toward poverty and the tragic moment when pressing need overtakes good intentions. Even still, Compton was no longer what it once was. Ten years ago, Mickey might not have driven through it, and certainly wouldn’t have stopped and wandered around. But the homicide rate had decreased steadily since ’94, down to forty-eight murders in ’98 from a peak of eighty-seven in ’91, and small businesses were slowly but surely returning to the city. It bothered Mickey deeply that the state of California, with an economy greater than that of most countries, wouldn’t help these people, or that the federal government of the United States, the richest country in the history of the world, wouldn’t help them either, instead spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year on warfare and destruction. The people of Compton could be lifted from poverty with the signing of a bill, and it was no wonder, when you got right down to it, why so many had resorted to crime.”

PovertyCrimeRacismUsaLos AngelesDesperationGhettoSystemic RacismLaCompton
Book:Porno Valley
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“Why are you leaving Los Angeles?' asked Andrei. 'Something about the city. People don’t want to see each other. Everything’s too far away. A bunch of reasons. On sidewalks everyone avoids each other; it’s weird to go up to someone. Most of all, the weather’s a lie. Too much sun, and then everyone acts like the sun. You know what I mean? There’s so much to do, but no one to do it with.”

LonelinessSolitudeHollywoodCaliforniaLos AngelesCityFilm IndustryCity LifeLaCity Of Angels
Book:A Happy Ghost
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“Freedom sounds phenomenal to the preoccupied young. But when one is an adult and has “free days” there is simply not much to do. Even in Los Angeles, where everything was. There was an unspoken spell of solitude cast on the city. Once one has been to the main parts of town, and had their fair share at the beach, Los Angeles turned unbreathably lonely. The biggest risks took place in grocery stores where a quiet shopper chose to switch to multi-grain bread after two years on sourdough. One could use their afternoons to create art— maybe writing a poem or painting a picture—all of which pass time but are isolating activities in and of themselves. The child begs for freedom and the adult wants to be told what to do.”

FreedomGrowing UpSocietyLonelinessAdultsBoredomLos AngelesAdulthoodLaLa La Land
Book:A Happy Ghost
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“Resonating the first half of the highest quality material known to man. Previously worked out, I embraced the back story never told but retold as practical reality. All I ask and bleed, there's nothing more to be felt as a man anymore. Most rebuild to be included, invoking the awakening stages of beautiful death; resonating with frozen lakes, dirty films we made and seven million pounds of sorrow disguised as drifting smoke that showed me the path out the final frame of reference.”

StarsBooksHotShadeRadianceLaStoreOceansideBrandon Villasenor
Book:Prima Materia
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“Most men think the most difficult part of being a porn star is having sex for so long without ejaculating. They’re right but for the wrong reason. It’s having sex for so long and then ejaculating that’s the problem. Porn becomes a job like any other pretty quick. Then it’s all about maintaining the erection and being ready to fire on command. It’s not easy, believe me.”

SexCrimeLos AngelesPornographyNoirPornLaHardboiledPorn StarAdult Film
Book:Porno Valley
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“For many years there have been rumours of mind control experiments. in the United States. In the early 1970s, the first of the declassified information was obtained by author John Marks for his pioneering work, The Search For the Manchurian Candidate. Over time retired or disillusioned CIA agents and contract employees have broken the oath of secrecy to reveal small portions of their clandestine work. In addition, some research work subcontracted to university researchers has been found to have been underwritten and directed by the CIA. There were 'terminal experiments' in Canada's McGill University and less dramatic but equally wayward programmes at the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Rochester, the University of Michigan and numerous other institutions. Many times the money went through foundations that were fronts or the CIA. In most instances, only the lead researcher was aware who his or her real benefactor was, though the individual was not always told the ultimate use for the information being gleaned. In 1991, when the United States finally signed the 1964 Helsinki Accords that forbids such practices, any of the programmes overseen by the intelligence community involving children were to come to an end. However, a source recently conveyed to us that such programmes continue today under the auspices of the CIA's Office of Research and Development. The children in the original experiments are now adults. Some have been able to go to college or technical schools, get jobs. get married, start families and become part of mainstream America. Some have never healed. The original men and women who devised the early experimental programmes are, at this point, usually retired or deceased. The laboratory assistants, often graduate and postdoctoral students, have gone on to other programmes, other research. Undoubtedly many of them never knew the breadth of the work of which they had been part. They also probably did not know of the controlled violence utilised in some tests and preparations. Many of the 'handlers' assigned to reinforce the separation of ego states have gone into other pursuits. But some have remained or have keen replaced. Some of the 'lab rats' whom they kept in in a climate of readiness, responding to the psychological triggers that would assure their continued involvement in whatever project the leaders desired, no longer have this constant reinforcement. Some of the minds have gradually stopped suppression of their past experiences. So it is with Cheryl, and now her sister Lynn.”

MemoriesViolenceMurderUniversityMemoryHuman RightsCanadaLos AngelesSecretsSpyCiaAssassinsIntelligence CommunityRepressed MemoriesSpiesSpiresRochesterLaTraumatic MemoriesManchurian CandidateHuman ExperimentsMcgillMilitary SecretsHelsinki AccordsMilitary Experiments
Book:Secret Weapons: How Two Sisters Were Brainwashed to Kill for Their Country
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“There are times when Los Angeles is the most magical city on Earth. When the Santa Ana winds sweep through and the air is warm and so, so clear. When the jacaranda trees bloom in the most brilliant lilac violet. When the ocean sparkles on a warm February day and you're pushing fine grains of sand through your bare toes while the rest of the country is hunkered down under blankets slurping soup. But other times, like when the jacaranda trees drop their blossoms in an eerie purple rain, Los Angeles feels like only a half-formed dream. Like perhaps the city was founded as a strip mall in the early 1970s and has no real reason to exist. An afterthought from the designer of some other, better city. A playground made only for attractive people to eat expensive salads.”

Los AngelesCityLaLily And The OctopusJacaranda
Book:Lily and the Octopus
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“I weave through LA's famous Farmers Market, which is really more of an outdoor food court, and now I'm a few minutes late. And the place is packed and there's still the uncertainty about where to meet when I look down and realize I'm wearing yellow pants. Yellow pants. Really? Sometimes I don't know what I'm thinking. They're rolled at the cuff and paired with a navy polo and it looks like maybe I just yacht my yacht, and I'm certain to come off as an asshole. I thin about canceling, or at least delaying so I can go home and change, but the effort that would require is unappealing, and this date is mostly for distraction. And when I round the last stall--someone selling enormous eggplants, more round than oblong, I see him, casually leaning against a wall, and something inside my body says there you are. 'There you are.' I don't understand them, these words, because they seem too deep and too soulful to attach to the Farmers Market, this Starbucks or that, a frozen yogurt place, or confusion over where to meet a stranger. They're straining to define a feeling of stunning comfort that drips over me, as if a water balloon burst over my head on the hottest of summer days. My knees don't buckle, my heart doesn't skip, but I'm awash in the warmth of a valium-like hug. Except I haven't taken a Valium. Not since the night of Lily's death. Yet here is this warm hug that makes me feel safe with this person, this Byron the maybe-poet, and I want it to stop. This--whatever this feeling is--can't be a real feeling, this can't be a tangible connection. This is just a man leaning against a stall that sells giant eggplants. But I no longer have time to worry about what this feeling is, whether I should or shouldn't be her, or should or should't be wearing yellow pants, because there are only maybe three perfect seconds where I see him and he has yet to spot me. Three perfect seconds to enjoy the calm that has so long eluded me. 'There you are.' And then he casually lifts his head and turns my way and uses one foot to push himself off the wall he is leaning agains. We lock eyes and he smiles with recognition and there's a disarming kindness to his face and suddenly I'm standing in front of him. 'There you are.' It comes out of my mouth before I can stop it and it's all I can do to steer the words in a more playfully casual direction so he isn't saddled with the importance I've placed on them. I think it comes off okay, but, as I know from my time at sea, sometimes big ships turn slowly. Byron chuckles and gives a little pump of his fist. 'YES! IT'S! ALL! HAPPENING! FOR! US!' I want to stop in my tracks, but I'm already leaning in for a hug, and he comes the rest of the way, and the warm embrace of seeing him standing there is now an actual embrace, and it is no less sincere. He must feel me gripping him tightly, because he asks, 'Is everything okay?' No. 'Yes, everything is great, it's just...' I play it back in my head what he said, the way in which he said it, and the enthusiasm which only a month had gone silent. 'You reminded me of someone is all.' 'Hopefully in a good way.' I smile but it takes just a minute to speak. 'In the best possible way.' I don't break the hug first, but maybe at the same time, this is a step. jenny will be proud. I look in his eyes, which I expect to be brown like Lily's but instead are deep blue like the waters lapping calmly against the outboard sides of 'Fishful Thinking.' 'Is frozen yogurt okay?' 'Frozen yogurt is perfect.”

LoveRomanceLos AngelesDateFirst DateLaFarmers MarketMeet CuteLily And The Octopus
Book:Lily and the Octopus
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“Dacă urmărești să devii ceva ce nu ești, vei da greș întotdeauna. Fii tu însuți. Arată, comportă-te natural și gândește cu mintea ta. Fii cea mai sinceră variantă a ta. Acceptă-ți eul. Susține-l. Iubește-l. Străduiește-te pentru el. Nu te abate atunci când oamenii îl iau în râs sau îl batjocoresc. Cele mai multe bârfe ascund invidii. Ține capul aplecat. Păstrează-ți energia.”

BibliotecaLaMattDeHaigMiezulNoptii
Book:The Midnight Library
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“I never thought about a job in astronomy until I saw a job advert advertising one. It was in the Canary Islands, working for the UK Government’s Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC). Wow! That sounded so cool! I applied, got flown out for an interview on the island and took the job. I felt like I had won the lottery, as I was being paid to do something I was interested in and living on the beautiful island of La Palma. I started my career fixing broken vacuum cleaners at the city hospital, it was quite a change!”

ResearchPhysicsAstronomyIslandUkLaVacuumPalmaParticlePparc
Book:Magee’s Disease
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“Molt sovint sembla que les situacions d'un mateix signe s'ajuntin; vull dir que, quan comences a tenir mala sort i comencen a passar-te coses dolentes, et fa l'efecte que tot plegat no s'ha d'acabar mai i que, facis el que facis, qualsevol cosa t'hagi de sortir malament. I, un bon dia, les circumstàncies canvien sense que et puguis explicar com. A partir d'aquell moment, tot comença a rutllar i sembla que el vent et vagi a favor.”

VidaLaGemmaAdolescènciaAixíCarlotaLienaséS
Book:Así es la vida, Carlota
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