The Fourth of July has always been my favorite holiday, since I was a little kid in a small town with a parade and relay races and fireworks over the beach at night.  The fireworks exploded so loud I called them thundercrackers.  One year the folks out on the barge bungled the order and shot off the grand finale first.  It might have been disappointing, but in a way that only fireworks can be, which is to say not at all.

There was a man with his young daughter and son behind us, watching the fireworks.  The girl asked, “Dad, what makes that noise?” and he responded, naturally, “Rice Krispies.”

The swimming hole is an interesting spot, where the confluence of people from different walks of life reflects the spirit of summer and its relaxing of convention.  It might be psychologically impossible to feel bad at a swimming hole.

Here’s a review I wrote of Mona Simpson’s new novel, My Hollywood, for The Comment Factory.

-words without translation — examples include the German weltschmerz and the Korean word for a certain kind of stress

-societies that cannot be taught mathematics because of their lack of a number system and also the wonder of a new human (baby) applying their learned numbers to real-world things, like pieces of fruit

-the probability of being in photos, perhaps prominently displayed, in strangers’ homes and the similar probability of crossing paths with the same stranger in different places in space and time

As respite from the road, we stopped at an outlet shopping mall somewhere in Oregon.  The hanging baskets teemed past their boundaries with unlikely flowers in such dry heat.  The baskets reminded me of similar ones Molly and I saw together last summer in an equal and opposite setting.  When our bus back from Montreal to New York stopped in Youngstown (I think it was Youngstown but I’m not certain a bus on that route would stop in Youngstown), we got out to stretch our legs and found a swimming pool behind the motel whose parking lot the bus was occupying.  There was a sign on the fence surrounding the pool that said Closed, which we disregarded.  We took off our shoes and cooled our dogs in the forgotten water, before getting back on the bus for a few more sad hours chronicling the end of a vacation.

Wonderful Moments of the Road:

-singing at the top of our lungs, mostly to T. Swift (conversely, a terrible part of the trip since we both lost our voices)

-bonding with the Washington driver and passenger of another gray Element as they passed us in Oregon

Awful Moments of the Road:

-watching a dog die on the side of the road as we slowed in the traffic that its death caused

-seeing, for the first time, a “Yes on 8″ sticker on a minivan in California

-getting into California and realizing we still had another five hours of drive time, trying to negotiate it down to three

“Dig: I’m Jewish.  Count Basie’s Jewish.  Ray Charles is Jewish.  Eddie Cantor’s goyish.  B’nai B’rith is goyish; Hadassah, Jewish.

If you live in New York or any other big city, you are Jewish.  It doesn’t even matter even if you’re Cathloic; if you live in New York, you’re Jewish.  If you live in Butte, Montana, you’re going to be goyish even if you’re Jewish.

Kool-Aid is goyish.  Evaporated milk is goyish even if the Jews invented it.  Chocolate is Jewish and fudge is goyish.  Fruit salad is Jewish.  Lime Jell-O is goyish.  Lime soda is very goyish.

All Drake’s Cakes are goyish.  Pumpernickel is Jewish and, as you know, white bread is very goyish.  Instant potatoes, goyish.  Black cherry soda’s very Jewish, macaroons are very Jewish.

Negroes are all Jews, Italians are all Jews.  Irishmen who have rejected their religion are Jews.  Mouths are very Jewish.  And bosoms.  Baton-twirling is very goyish.

Underwear is definitely goyish.  Balls are goyish.  Titties are Jewish.

Celebrate is a goyish word.  Observe is a Jewish word.  Mr. and Mrs. Walsh are celebrating Christmas with Major Thomas Moreland, USAF (ret.), while Mr. and Mrs. Bromberg observed Hanukkah with Goldie and Arthur Schindler from Kiamesha, New York.”

Another Jewish thing I was pondering the other day is the word “ungeblusem.”  I believe it’s a Yiddish term for a physical/metaphysical state of ennui, especially well-formed since the utterance gives you the feeling, and also relieves it.  I’m fairly sure that “ungeblusem” is not the correct spelling, but I can’t seem to find the word anywhere on this reputable internet system.  Maybe it’s not Yiddish but Norwegian or German or some other lingo that has shaped my core of loan words.  Maybe my dad made it up, in which case, congrats Dad on being a fantastic neologist!

And also a Penfield mood organ.

Or maybe just some of this crazy water:

Masaru Emoto’s water crystal experiments consist of exposing water in glasses to different words, picture or music, and then freezing and examining the aesthetics of the resulting crystals with microscopic photography.  Emoto claims that there are “many differences in the crystalline structure of the water” depending on the type of water source, which were taken from all over the world.  For example, a water sample from a “pristine mountain” stream would purportedly show a “geometric” design that is “beautifully” shaped when frozen.  On the other hand, “polluted water” sources will supposed show a “definite distortion” and will be “randomly formed.”

(via Wikipedia)

Initially, my desire kindled when I saw the magical words “Hearst Castle” for the same exit as the Madonna Inn.  But upon passing that hot pink sign visions of Greek Revival and Gothic dining rooms and mosaic-bottomed indoor pools all but vanished from my thoughts.

I finally ventured in for an early lunch with my mom on our way down south.  It was exactly what I’d expected, only better.  The sugar shaker on the enormous copper table is filled with pink sugar.  The cakes for sale at the counter by the door are my two-year old dream come true: huge mounds of sugar and flour, encrusted with thick shavings of pink.  What this pink consists of I can’t say–I didn’t try any cake.  This is less a cake to eat than a cake to marvel at, for its sheer architectural stability.  It is not beautifully but improbably molded–huMONGO!

The Copper Café has a quality similar to the Winchester Mystery House or reading Joan Didion’s writing on California–it reminds you of a much earlier time while constantly reminding you of the present.  For example, the circular bar is all copper and wood and studded leather as out of a rich mining town of the 19th century and our waitress, Fay, was dressed in a sky-blue dirndl but the bar offered white zinfandel and Fay was Asian-American.

California will do that to you–you’ll be driving through fields and hills and come upon the ocean and soon be plunged back into desert.  In the desert, you’ll find a town that has somehow persisted.  Los Alamos is an old one-horse town with its buildings intact, now transitioned into art galleries and coffee shops.  The best of it, though, is the stuff that looks as old and dusty as it feels.

And then we came upon it.  June gloom–it’s amazing how two years away can make me forget the daily details of living in LA, like the fog and the cold that settles upon the city in, of all months, June.

The 99¢ Store is typically LA and also very beautiful.

Comforting, like a grocery store.

The La Brea Tar Pits are the perfect setting for a reunion with an old friend,

despite the smell.

When driving with Helen to the Venice Whole Foods, we passed this lovely motel.  Lovely in its simple design, but for no other reason.  When I snapped these shots, that Mark Boone Jr. lookalike below went into the office, as pictured.  When I was back in the car, a sinister, bespectacled Eugene Levy lookalike told me I had to leave and I cravenly obeyed.  Only in LA!

I wonder what they were doing in there…

When Sandra and I visited the Autry museum, we came upon a school group.  The docent asked the children to join him on a wagon ride through the room but first they would have to pack their comestibles.  He started with flour.  “And what else do we need?  What do you add to flour to make cake?” he ventured.

“Frosting!”

it was never clear how far or near the gates to my citadel lay

Los Angeles, 6-11 June 2010