Meanwhile while drifting in East
Hollywood in December …
Is it just me or is there always something incredibly melancholy and
mysterious about seeing abandoned women’s shoes lying in the street, whether
singly or in pairs? You assume there always has to be a story there, and
depending on your taste in stories it may be incredibly banal – woman finally
got fed up with her fancy shoes, found them too painful, decided to throw them
away – and maybe she had a pair of sensible shoes with her. Or maybe it's evidence of some noirish narrative –
a chase through the night, escaping from real or imagined demons, shoes cast
aside to increase mobility.
So what’s the story with these rather elegant, and as far as I could
tell, perfectly serviceable black suede, high-heeled boots that had been
carefully placed at the base of a tree? A
gift to the neighborhood? They were
certainly gone when I walked by again later in the day.
Of course it goes dark early in Hollywood these day. When I first arrived here a decade or so ago
it seemed that the neon of Hollywood was something very spectacular. I seem to
think there were organized bus tours.
Now I either don’t see it or the whole neon thing has dimmed. Consider the Hollywood Downtowner Motel,
which in neon form has become the Hollywood Downtowner Mo. Is that a joke?
And just round the corner from there one of the apartment buildings has
decided to make it a prehistoric Christmas.
I think this is just wonderful, while also being fairly glad that I
don’t live in the building next door.
