Do you enjoy Los Angeles more on screen or in reality? (Brea: middle-class, real estate)

[Senno]

Originally Posted by marilyn220

I'm still going to read it though, because I want to see just how close it was to 2012 LA when I was there.

You do that. I will listen to Lou Reeds "Take a Walk on the Wild Side" and see just how close NY today is to that...

Don't try to tell me you all don't have your Broadway dreamers in NY.


A Walk On The Wild Side - YouTube

Originally Posted by marilyn220

The above is so common just about 80% of the people I met in LA. They're REAL occupation is Janitor, but the "dream" occupation they tell you when you first meet is "Set Designer" or "Screenwriter".

Kinda sounded like Harrison Ford to me. He worked as a carpenter on sets until George Lucas cast him in a bit part in American Graffitti and then as Han Solo in Star Wars.

[munchitup]

Originally Posted by loloroj

Uh no, it wasn't.....

I don't know it has a lot of elements of satire, at least as far as I read it. Most every passage borders on absurdity. I just read your commentary upthread and I think your interpretation is very valid (if you're right, see my opinion of the book below) but I see it as a satire while you see it as more of a criticism - I am sure it is a bit of both but I think West's tongue is planted a little deeper in his cheek than you do.

If not it's just another East Coast transplant complaining / exaggerating about the shallowness / superficiality of LA.

[loloroj]

Originally Posted by RaymondChandlerLives

Apparently, it's the duty of the city of Los Angeles to supply you with a well-paying job in the career of your choice immediately upon arrival. Anything less, like paying your dues and/or enduring setbacks and failures (which is what the vast majority of successful people have to go through on their way to the top) and the L.A. fantasy has burst. That seems to be Marilyn's gripe. Oh yeah, no fridges in the apartments either. It's like a favela over here!

That is not the point. Propaganda and the advertising industry was created in order to sell you the image and not the reality. If the ad copy says that college is a place to go in order to have a career, and when they don't tell you that we're in a Depression and no jobs exist, yes, you can blame yourself that you fell for the lies, but that doesn't absolve those that promoted the lie.

The massive move to the Coasts, including SoCal, was based on the created vision of a certain way of life, better homes, better pay, better anything. This has nothing to do with individual failures, it has to do with an industry which has grown heavier and more intrusive in disseminating lies and deceit. That is why we have a PR/ad industry, because it is essential to sell stuff by not telling the truth. Socal is just a by product of that industry. Problem being it is getting much harder to resolve reality to image. Million dollar homes in formerly working class sections of Samo can only maintained based on fairy tales and the illusion that these homes are actually worth that kind of money. A dream industry which draws millions of people every generation cannot be maintained without that dream industry. It works, but only as false advertising works.

[munchitup]

Originally Posted by Senno

Kinda sounded like Harrison Ford to me. He worked as a carpenter on sets until George Lucas cast him in a bit part in American Graffitti and then as Han Solo in Star Wars.

Yep. Even the most well-known artists / authors had to have day jobs before they hit it big.

[Senno]

Originally Posted by loloroj

That is not the point. Propaganda and the advertising industry was created in order to sell you the image and not the reality. If the ad copy says that college is a place to go in order to have a career, and when they don't tell you that we're in a Depression and no jobs exist, yes, you can blame yourself that you fell for the lies, but that doesn't absolve those that promoted the lie.

The massive move to the Coasts, including SoCal, was based on the created vision of a certain way of life, better homes, better pay, better anything. This has nothing to do with individual failures, it has to do with an industry which has grown heavier and more intrusive in disseminating lies and deceit. That is why we have a PR/ad industry, because it is essential to sell stuff by not telling the truth. Socal is just a by product of that industry. Problem being it is getting much harder to resolve reality to image. Million dollar homes in formerly working class sections of Samo can only maintained based on fairy tales and the illusion that these homes are actually worth that kind of money. A dream industry which draws millions of people every generation cannot be maintained without that dream industry. It works, but only as false advertising works.

Pretty sure jobs exist out there. Unemployment isn't that bad, we could be Greece afterall.

My family moved to CA for jobs. And hasn't moved away because we like it here. /shrug

Seems to me you are pumping out your own bit of Propaganda...

[nslander]

Originally Posted by marilyn220

Like millions before and AFTER me.

But...it's not "satire".

This part stood out the most to me in one of the reviews:

The Day of the Locust - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



The above is so common just about 80% of the people I met in LA. They're REAL occupation is Janitor, but the "dream" occupation they tell you when you first meet is "Set Designer" or "Screenwriter".

I'm still going to read it though, because I want to see just how close it was to 2012 LA when I was there.

Then you either sought or attracted that. I've lived here most my life and its simply untrue.

[Senno]

Originally Posted by nslander

Then you either sought or attracted that. I've lived here most my life and its simply untrue.

Well, Marilyn might be a paralegal or legal asst of some type and had a hard time finding permanent employment in a law firm I take it.

Seems strange to me as I'm an insurance adjuster and know there's absolutely no shortage of lawyers in LA. /shrug

Marilyn moved back to NY and now complains about LA on the forums.

[PDF]

Originally Posted by Senno

Well, Marilyn might be a paralegal or legal asst of some type and had a hard time finding permanent employment in a law firm I take it.

Seems strange to me as I'm an insurance adjuster and know there's absolutely no shortage of lawyers in LA. /shrug

Marilyn moved back to NY and now complains about LA on the forums.

And complains about NYC! I was beginning to wonder what city Marilyn IS happy with.

[Bunjee]

Originally Posted by loloroj

It's only literary if you don't get the point. That might be the mechanism, the story is based on fact. The Depression took place, much of why it occurred was on the lies disseminated by Wall Street ad copy and fanciful belief in American exceptionalism. The problem isn't solely with people, if that was the case, then there would never have been a need to create an advertising or mass media that would promote this kind of nonsense. If it was simply people just being stupid, then there would never have been a need for a man such as Edward Bernays, who used the power of propaganda and mass media in order to manufacture a consent among people who would never had gone along with the nonsense unless they were deceived.

West was writing about the destruction of economies and the displacement that takes place with that destruction. One of the most interesting scenes was when the door to door salesmen came and did his routine in order to try to sell some medicine. He had been a vaudeville performer, skilled in both dance and singing, a live performer, when entertainment needed skilled technicians who knew the art of performance. The creation of the film industry had destroyed live performance, the workers who had taken years to perfect their craft had been displaced by celluloid caricatures, and the regional and local theatre which supported and maintained vaudeville was destroyed. The displaced migrated to Socal, looking for work and a promise of a better world, which simply didn't exist. That was a reality that West wrote to, much as Steinbeck wrote about the environmental destruction that preceded The Dust Bowl and dislocated millions of Midwest and Southern farmers, who also had been beguiled into thinking that the farm practices that destroyed tress and original prairies wouldn't cause harm.

More to the point, nothing is unique, not even Los Angeles, or better, the image of Los Angeles. The reality is that LA is semi desert, the barren plains could never have maintained the image of bounty unless water was stolen from people in Central California. The fertile lands which did support a much smaller, less delusional, population, resided mostly along the oceans and alluvial flood planes along the Santa Ana and Los Angeles rivers, which have been cemented over to create strip malls and parking lots. Another, possibly better book, regarding the recollections of immigrants to Los Angeles is Louis Adamic's 'Laughing in the Jungle,' published in 1932, which chronicles the massage parlors, fortune tellers, New Age charlatans, and the delusions of so many who that came to Los Angeles and found something quite different. Yup, massage parlors, fortune tellers and New Age charlatans existed in LA from at least the 1920's. Nothing new under the sun, which underscores that when someone tells you that some place is really different and unique, you'd be much better off not believing such nonsense....

Don't you recognize the self-perpetuation of illusion here, which is the POINT of the thread in the first place? As to your other claims ("desert" and water), the utter irony is those facts are informed probably by a movie! You may be convinced you know the reality but if you're truly interested in the subject you can research it for facts as opposed to popular conceptions.

[Senno]

Originally Posted by PDF

And complains about NYC! I was beginning to wonder what city Marilyn IS happy with.

Well, I'm in Fresno and without a natural home forum so I read alot of all of CA sub-forums and respond when interested enough. She seems to like SF somewhat. /shrug