08 12 / 2008
"This is the California where it is possible to live and die without ever eating an artichoke, without ever meeting a Catholic or a Jew. This is the California where it is easy to Dial-A-Devotion, but hard to buy a book. This is … the country of the teased hair and the Capris and the girls for whom all life’s promise comes down to a waltz-length white wedding dress and the birth of a Kimberly or a Sherry or a Debbi and a Tijuana divorce and a return to hairdresser’s school… The future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past. Here is where the hot wind blows and the old ways do not seem relevant, where the divorce rate is double the national average and where one person in every thirty-eight lives in a trailer. Here is the last stop for all those who come from somewhere else…"
In all the swirl and hubbub over Prop 8, I was having a hard time articulating why I didn’t have much faith in the “state of California” as some kind of progressive stronghold. I found it, perfectly articulated, in this 1966 essay by this most brilliant essayist; one of California’s cultural treasures and best primary sources.
