Meditations on Southern California

The first time I encounter California, that wild slice of American imagination, I am fifteen, visiting friends in a long, purple bungalow in the hills of San Francisco.  At the time, I am obsessed with cults. When my parents aren’t looking, I flip through Heaven’s Harlots, a book about The Children of God.

Like many Western cults, The Children of God was infamous for their sexual habits.  Members were encouraged to masturbate to Jesus Christ (a metaphor not so  different from the King James metaphysical interpretation of The Song of Songs, in which a woman substitutes her object of affection for the church). 

Walking the sparse, cold beaches, I mulled over the question:  “Is Jesus sexy?”


I return to California , to L.A., in 2017. I lounge topless in a hot tub in Mar Vista, casually discussing the finer points of ancient Greek history with the singer of a a local punk band.   I have grown. I am no longer a skeptical teenager, though there is, somewhere in me, a remnant of a skeptical teenager waiting to jump out. This explains a few pillars of my restlessness, namely my desire to be proximate to punk singers. 

Most of the United States suffers from a Puritianical hangover, some kind of left-over shame.  L.A. seems to have shaken this hangover. 

Later, I go to the beach and watch the surfers revel in their skin. They float like otters.  Wait.  Chase. Topple. Fail.  Throwing their bodies at every opportunity of fun and squalor, they are triumphs of balance.

“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself,” wrote James Baldwin in The Fire Next Time. “To be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.”  The surfers are sensual.

California body worship sometimes manifests as cosmetic obsession.  Billboards for liposuction and plastic surgery⏤ dashes interrupting a sentence ⏤punctuate the sprawl.  My relationship to these body modifications is complex.  For women in image-based fields, these procedures are simply a requirement for success, like a college degree or a driver’s license. 

But I don’t think of these women when I see the billboards.  I think of the young girls who haven’t yet been taught to hate their bodies. I wish, instead of billboards, these girls could see the surfers instead.

For all of the palpitating neon of L.A., the bokeh skylines and Hollywood folklore, it’s the wilderness on which the city spins like a dazzling top that intrigues me the most.  

The Chumash people of Southern California have an apocalypse-turned-creation story that goes like this: First, a torrential floods kills all life on earth, all but a few birds, the descendants of gods. Then, the spotted wood pecker and the great eagle decide to create new people, kinder this time.  The Earth goddess plants some seeds. The new, kind people grow from these seeds. 

 I compare this myth with the Christian creation story; Adam is given “dominion” over the plants and animals of the earth.  There is no reciprocality.  In Genesis, the Judeo-Christian tradition encourages a one-sided, abusive relationship with the earth.

Outside L.A., the canyons brim with trash.  When we form kinder relationships with our bodies, we may, finally form a kinder relationship with the land. 


Winter’s Bone


I keep revising my artist statement: “Had I not created my own world,” wrote Anais Nin, “I would certainly have died in other people’s.” Creating the world of my photographs, I have come to understand the urgency behind this sentiment.  I chose the language of surrealism because I feel it indirectly starts a conversation about issues that may otherwise be divisive. Documentary is explicit; Surrealism is suggestive. I find that potential very exciting. 

“So I follow the wilderness and the people in it, becoming it.  Black and white photographs appeal to me not because of what they expose, but because of what they hold back: color. They leave a negative space for our imagination, and as such read like poetry, non-explicit narratives that bypass the analytical brain and speak directly to emotions.”

And yet, the language of color brings its own illuminations: 


Specialization is a myth of late capitalism. We can, and should, do many things with our life, speak many languages, if we are so lucky. 




That Feel

“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.”  

⏤Frida Kahlo

“All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.

All of them?

Sure, he says. Think about it. There’s escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves, or throwing others to the wolves so the wolves will eat them instead of you. Running with the wolf pack. Turning into a wolf. Best of all, turning into the head wolf. No other decent stories exist.” 

― Margaret Atwood

“What work do I have to do then?” said Will, but went on at once, “No, on second thought, don’t tell me. I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you might say, I’ll always be thinking about it. And if I do end up doing that, I’ll be resentful because it’ll feel as if I didn’t have a choice, and if I don’t do it, I’ll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one else.” 
— Philip Pullman

I have that feel, like I’m about to spill out of my skin. It’s about time. I’ve been the same too long. I want to change ⏤ what, I don’t know. 

I’m going to Mexico in September, and hope to figure out some of this there. 

For better or worse, I’ll be writing all my life. I’ve been wanting to get away from the social scene, hole up in some cabin somewhere and write. I have dreams of a residency in New Mexico, just me, the desert, and all those sun-white bones.

It’s a wonderful life, if you can find it. –Nick Cave

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