rain or shine...

it's really funny to call home one of the most famous metropolis of the world, the city of angels (and angelic demons). everywhere i look, it's safe to say that only 100 years ago this was nothing else than an arrid desert. cactus trees were the only towers around, and everything else around them were rocks, sand & not much else... in only 100 years, los angeles bloomed into one of the most influencial & recognizable cities on the planet. what was a desert a century ago has become a myth for the rest of the world, a magnet for those who sacrificied so much to chase a californian dream, and a jackpot for a very few lucky ones who have been smart & savy about reinventing themselves... this is the promise land for those who aren't afraid.
in LA, nothing is permanent. the only constant is that survivors stick around while victims don't... in a way, it's this sense of non-permanence that has attracted me to LA; it's familiar to my life, the african & latino american cities i've lived in & passed through, the cultures i've navigated through, etc etc... this is why i've never gone back to europe or i'm not so attracted to new york city, where if not "non-permanent" at least everything there always seems so solid, with centuries of organized establishment, centuries of architecture & centuries of lived-in ways around you at all times constantly, with no sense that everything could just suddenly collapse at any moment. somehow, i long for stability like that, yet i can't seem to want to set my anchor in such places ever since i got a taste for the unpredictable, the new, the "in a constant state of development" (is there a word for that?)... when LA blows up in flames, survivors come right back to rebuild bigger, smarter, stronger on the ashes of their former life & belongings. this is the promise land of survivors & this is where i feel i belong... here are a few pix i took from my house of some of the fires we had in 2007: