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Signs of civilization loom over the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu, California, on the northern edge of Los Angeles. These mountains contain the last semi-wilderness in Los Angeles County but are under threat of development. Some 84 percent of the state's residents live within 30 miles of the coast, and this concentration has resulted in increased land use pressure. Shoreline development has been restricted since the passage of the Coastal Zone Conservation Act in November 1972: photo by Charles O'Rear for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 1975 (National Archives and Records Administration)
It is only a few miles’ drive to the ocean, but before reaching it I shall be nowhere. Hard to describe the impression of unreality, because it is intangible; almost supernatural; something in the air. (The air . . . Last night on the weather telecast the commentator, mentioning electrical storms near Palm Springs and heavy smog in Los Angeles, described the behavior of the air as ‘neurotic’. Of course. Like everything else the air must be imported and displaced, like the water driven along huge aqueducts from distant reservoirs, like the palm trees tilting above the mortuary signs and laundromats along Sunset Boulevard.) Nothing belongs. Nothing belongs except the desert and the gruff eroded-looking mountains to the north. Because the earth is desert, its surface always has that terrible dusty brilliance. Sometimes it looks like the Riviera with a film of neglect over villas and gardens, a veil of fine invisible sand drawn across tropical colours. It is hard to be reminded of any single thing for long. These houses are real because they exist and people use them for eating and sleeping and making love, but they have no style of their own and look as if they've been imported from half a dozen different countries. They are imitation 'French Provincial' or 'new' Regency or Tudor or Spanish hacienda or Cape Cod, and except for a few crazy mansions seem to have sprung up overnight. The first settlers will be arriving tomorrow from parts unknown.
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How to grasp something unfinished yet always remodeling itself, changing without a basis for change? So much visible impatience to be born, to grow, such wild tracts of space to be filled: difficult to settle in a comfortable unfinished desert. Because of the long confusing distances, the streets are empty of walking people, full of moving cars. Between where you are and where you are going to be is a no-man's-land. At night the neon signs glitter and the shop windows are lighted stages, but hardly anyone stops to look. A few people huddle at coffee stalls and hamburger bars. Those dark flat areas are parking lots, crammed solid.
I suppose that Europeans, accustomed to a world that changes more calmly and more slowly, are not much interested any more in imitating its surface. It becomes more exciting to see appearances as a mask, a disguise or illusion that conceals an unexpected meaning. The theme of illusion and reality is very common in Europe. In America, illusion and reality are still often the same thing. The dream is the achievement, the achievement is the dream.
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The ocean appears suddenly. You turn another hairpin bend and the land falls away and there is a long high view down Santa Monica Canyon to the pale Pacific waters. A clear day is not often. Sky and air are hazed now, diffusing the sun and dredging the ocean of its rightful blue. The Pacific is a sad blue-grey, and nearly always looks cold.
Each time I drive down here it feels like the end of the world. The geographical end. Shabby and uncared for, buildings lie around like nomads' tents in the desert. There is nowhere further to go, those pale waters stretch away to the blurred horizon and stretch away beyond it. There is no more land ever.
High lurching cliffs confront the ocean, and are just beginning to fall apart. Signs have been posted along the highway, DRIVE CAREFULLY and SLIDE AREA. Lumps of earth and stone fall down. The land is restless here, restless and sliding. Driving inland towards the mountains, it is the same: BEWARE OF ROCKS. The land is falling. Rocks fall down all over and the cliffs called Pacific Palisades are crumbling slowly down to the ocean. Who called them Palisades, I wonder? They cannot keep out the Pacific. There are mad eccentric houses above the Palisades, with turrets and castellations and tall Gothic windows, but no one wants to live in them any more in case the ground slides away.
Gavin Lambert (1924-2005): from The Slide Area: Scenes of Hollywood Life, 1959
Seminole Springs Mobile Home Park on Mulholland Drive near Malibu, California, on the northwestern edge of Los Angeles County, is one of the few developments in the Santa Monica Mountains: photo by Charles O'Rear for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 1975 (National Archives and Records Administration)
Looking down from the Santa Monica Mountains towards Highway #1 near Malibu, California, on the northern edge of Los Angeles: photo by Charles O'Rear for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 1975 (National Archives and Records Administration)
Houses near the Pacific Ocean north of Malibu, California, on the northwestern edge of Los Angeles County. The Santa Monica Mountains are seen in the background: photo by Charles O'Rear for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 1975 (National Archives and Records Administration)
Looking down from the Santa Monica Mountains towards Highway #1 in the distance near Malibu, California, on the northern edge of Los Angeles: photo by Charles O'Rear for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 1975 (National Archives and Records Administration)
The cliffs of Malibu -- watch out for landslides: photo by Kat Howard, 21 February 2006
Malibu hills landslide (aerial view): photo by Doc Searls, 5 August 2005
Malibu hills landslide (aerial view): photo by Doc Searls, 5 August 2005
Roadway damaged by landslide, Malibu: photo by Ben Foster, 11 August 2005
Rock Slide Area, Mahou Riviera, Malibu: photo by Ben Foster, 11 June 2011
Cliffs at Pacific Palisades, close to Malibu: photo by Buck Winthrop, 7 September 2011
Cliffs and homes at Pacific Palisades: photo by Alan Fogelquist, 5 January 2010
Pacific Palisades, California: photo by Johnny Ciotti, 27 March 2012
Pacific Palisades, California: photo by Johnny Ciotti, 6 February 2012
West LA and beyond (aerial view just after takeoff from LAX): photo by Richard Wanderman, 30 October 2006
Circus sideshow billboards, Santa Monica, California: photo by Walker Evans, August-September 1967 (Walker Evans Archive/Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Slide Area, Los Angeles: photo by katie/king, 14 August 2008
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