Let Me Tell You One

New York Was No Mere City. It Was Instead An Infinitely Romantic Notion, The Mysterious Nexus Of All Love And Money And Power, The Shining And Perishable Dream Itself. To Think Of 'living' There Was To Reduce The Miraculous To The Mundane; One Does Not 'live' At Xanadu.

It Is Hard For People Who Have Not Lived In Los Angeles To Realize How Radically The Santa Ana Figures In The Local Imagination. ... The Wind Shows Us How Close To The Edge We Are.

Throw Yourself Into The Convulsions Of The World. I'm Not Telling You To Make The World Better, Because I Don't Believe Progress Is Necessarily Part Of The Package. I'm Just Telling You To Live In It, To Look At It, To Witness It. Try And Get It. Seize The Moment.

Many People I Know In Los Angeles Believe That The Sixties Ended Abruptly On August 9, 1969, Ended At The Exact Moment When Word Of The Murders On Cielo Drive Traveled Like Brushfire Through The Community, And In A Sense This Is True. The Tension Broke That Day. The Paranoia Was Fulfilled.

Do Not Whine... Do Not Complain. Work Harder. Spend More Time Alone.