Under its combed lawns, Irvine holds down a mad carnival of Bosch, Max Ernst, Seraphinianus. Pressure makes it leak.
CELEBRITY TEETH! From a waiting room at a large dental laboratory. They have a showcase of these. Many.
This phenomenon is all too common in Irvine. Why? Why is there a careful path to nothing? WHY, IRVINE?
This is Central Orange County. At least most of it. If you head inland more than a couple of miles and can’t smell the sea air any more, here’s what you get. This, interrupted by strip malls:
Here, have a whole set of those. More to come, I’m sure.
The Santa Ana Boxing Club
Mural and a store
The Mojave desert is a mess. I love it, not in an ironic-slumming decay-hugger way, just love it. Chaparral crackles when there’s no other sound. Weird stuff grows out of nowhere and sits there daring you to find context. Ancient Mexican cowboys sell fruit to displaced urban black teenagers. The light is fierce and perfect and constant. Things break down and people just board them up and move on with their lives. All my life I’ve seen the desert as more functional, better adjusted, more of an organic whole than the city and the suburbs.
I want to say “don’t change,” Mojave, but I know you will, and I know you’ll always surprise me.
This is the least despairing of my latest suburban despair photo expedition. This time I was in Stanton, which is a small, boring, violent chunk of North Orange County. Stanton evokes for me, because it looks the way Costa Mesa did when I was a child in the 1970s: strip malls, asphalt, and piles of improbable small businesses.
I have always liked Lalitree‘s photography. This shot in particular takes me straight to Twin Peaks. I hope this isn’t the Black Lodge.
Costa Mesa -> Riverside -> Indio -> Salton City -> Anza Borrego -> Julian -> Escondido -> Riverside -> Costa Mesa.
Temperatures up to 112 F, climb up a mountain at 90F, lots of twisty roads, 367 miles, 35 MPG.
Yeah, I think I’ll keep the Fiesta.
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I remain in awe of Manny Diller.
NB 405 going through Westminster, iirc. I love politicalmobiles.
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