The Black Dog has been upon me lately.
Of course there are always reasons to be less than cheerful, but it’s the
nature of the Dog that these things get blown up out of all proportion. Walking has always been a reasonable way for me to keep the Dog at bay and it’s true that recently I haven’t been pounding the
pavement as much as I’d like to. The LA
summer has been long and hot, and it’s not over yet – it’s going to be 100
degrees again at the weekend, so I thought I should get some walking done while
I can.
Monday being a cooler day, and since I had a dentist’s appointment (no
big deal this time, just a check up on last year’s root canal work) and my
dentist being within walking distance, I decided to walk there and back,
probably an hour in each direction, itself no big deal by serious walking
standards.
The route offered the opportunity to walk by the newly-completed Emerson
College building, properly referred to as a campus, and just as often referred
to as a “futuristic outpost.” It’s on a
slightly bleak stretch of Sunset Boulevard, and it’s designed by local
architect (starchitect in some accounts) Thom Mayne and
his firm Morphosis. It’s a fine and
eye-catching building and if it doesn’t as yet look totally at home in the
neighborhood it does at least seem thoroughly, excitingly LA. And right around the corner from it work was
going on to refurbish this rather wonderful building, which in many ways seems
even more LA.
On the way to the dentist I happened to notice other dentists’ offices, something I suppose I wouldn't have done in other circumstances – one with this sign:
I personally wouldn’t have spelled esthetic that way, but that’s just
me, and then there was this one with it’s own roadside library out front,
Richard Ford, the Simpsons, a guide to the best places to kiss, a book on
astrology. Well I guess everything starts
to seem very LA after a while.
And of course there are those curious little LA ironies, that you
always see when you walk, some of which seem a little too obvious like this Gideon’s
bible on top of a trash can:
And these goofy stick on eyes on a fire hydrant:
And finally as I was getting to the end of the return journey, as the
temperature was getting above 80 degrees, I saw that classic Batman had returned to the streets in
this very fine depiction, front:
And rear:
And was the Black Dog slain? No,
but he was tamed a little, and by the end of the walk he, and I, were a little
too hot and sweaty to get into much of a dog fight. Sometimes I’ll settle for that.
