I am almost finished with my tour though St. Augustine, and thus I have picked up another reading project: women writing about Los Angeles. In selecting my reading course, I have come to a conclusion: just like white people could take a break from writing about Los Angeles for awhile, people from New York who wish to write about Los Angeles can take a break from writing about LA forever as far as I am concerned.

Eve Babitz is where I’ve started, and I’m having so much trouble writing on my own stuff because all I want to do is cuddle under my blankies and read and read and read.

Why? Here’s why:

People with sound educations and good backgrounds get very pissed off in LA. “This is not a city,” they’ve always complained. “How dare you people call this place a city!”

They’re right. Los Angeles isn’t a city. It’s a gigantic, sprawling, ongoing studio. Everything is off the record. People don’t have time to apologize for its not being a city when their civilized friends suspect them of losing track of the point.

This is a pretty white woman’s take on the place, pretty girl from an important family no less, but she never pretends her take is anything else, and she is awfully, awfully observant.