So L.A.

Bridget Hoida on: Surrealist free-association exercises

Bridget Hoida — Sat, 26 May 2012 01:59:17 +0000

As if Parisian tents and 18-point times weren’t already high enough on my love list… now there’s the Metro Poem, ala Jacques Jouet, who, according to Daniel Levin Becker “burns all his drafts.” Which has me imagining, of course, the musings of my darling Magdalena as she navigates La Cienega from Fairview (or at the very least the 10) to Rodeo. I’m keeping the constraints (as outlined below) but adjusting the stops if you will… from the open and close of the metro’s door to the irrational alternation of red and green traffic lights: When the light turns red, you write the line down. When the cars start again, you begin to compose the second line. No writing while the car is in motion; no composing while it’s stopped. And instead of stations, we’ll use neighborhoods to break our stanzas. We’ll call it the Unbuilt Highway Poem with a nod to the Beverly Hills freeway that never was.

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From Daniel Levin Becker’s essay “Little Demons of Subtlety: On the Oulipian Constraint” in Berfrois:

“The Metro Poem: it’s a free-verse form with rigid compositional rules. You get on the metro and compose the first line of a poem in your head. When the train makes its first stop, you write the line down. When the train starts again, you begin to compose the second line. No writing while the train is in motion; no composing while it’s stopped. If you change to a different metro line, you pause on the platform to write down the line you composed before getting off, then start a new stanza for the next leg of the trip. You write down the last line upon arriving at your destination, and then go wherever it is you were going in the first place.
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The metro poem is oulipian mostly in the sense that, if done rigorously, it’s surprisingly challenging—straightforward as it sounds, the time strictures make it less like a Surrealist free-association exercise and more like a suicide-aerobics drill for the parts of your mind that usually make observations into ruminations and ruminations into language. It constrains the space around your thoughts, not the letters or words in which you will eventually fit them: you have to work to think thoughts of the right size, to focus on the line at hand without workshopping the previous one or anticipating the next. You have to actively avoid the master craftsman’s impulse to map out the whole poem, since that would defeat the momentary experientiality of the thing. “There is no question of correcting one’s composition, beyond the time of composing the verse, which means that the time for premeditation is reduced to a minimum,” Jouet writes. “No manuscript version.” (As a rule, Jouet burns his drafts.)”

From: “Little Demons of Subtlety: On the Oulipian Constraint” by Daniel Levin Becker

Bridget Hoida on: hard beauty

Bridget Hoida — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:08:07 +0000

I’ve always had, at best, a tumultuous relationship with Los Angeles. It’s like that with things you love enormously. So when I came across this breathless quote by Michael Ventura, in his essay “Grand Illusion” I knew it was the only place to start my book:

“The beauty [of Los Angeles] is the beauty of letting things go; letting go of where you came from; letting go of old lessons; letting go of what you want for what you are, or what you are for what you want; letting go of so much—and that is a hard beauty to love.”

S o L.A. –dare I suggest like Los Angeles itself– is fraught with beauty and self-loathing. Not only do the palm trees of Sunset clash with the Central Valley combines that supply L.A. readily with the organic soy for her venti lattes, but I’m readily convinced that the tanned and toned flesh of most every Angelino secretly yearns for the soothing balm of an aloe wrap in San Joaquin starlight. When I first moved to L.A. I was told I would have to give up the levees and lakes of the California where I was raised in order to embrace the wave-crashed beaches of the Los Angeles enigma. Twelve years later, I realize that you can let go without relinquishing everything and that beauty, no matter how hard (or hard earned) is always still beautiful.

Magdalena on: naked rush hour bingo

Bridget Hoida — Thu, 24 May 2012 00:04:48 +0000

When we first moved to L.A. my favorite thing to say was, That’s so L.A. I used it to describe just about everything from fake boobs to traffic. Then I got implants and started to drive. Drive not to go someplace, but as sport. On the 10 you can pick out the regulars from the tourists. Those who merge left just before the lane ends and then have to merge back right again versus those who know the La Brea shortcut: exit but don’t ever get off. During a crunch you can save five minutes plus if there’s a pile-up. My favorite time to drive is early morning and right before dark. I like the added thrill of the sun in your eyes. It throws mirage into the game and the DJs are at their prime.

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Sig alert on the Santa Monica Freeway West, the Shady Lady hums through my speakers. Since nobody’s going anywhere anyhow I’ll take caller number nine for some naked rush hour bingo.

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I kid you not. Bingo. Naked. In rush hour.

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Shady Lady here. Name, make and license plate, please.

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Oh hi-yee! I’m Alyson, with a y, and I’m in a silver 325i on the 10 West, wearing pink and black—

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Which, as you may realize, is the physical description of a gazillion people on the 10, but everyone plays along.

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Okay listeners we’re on the prowl for a silver Beemer license 1MY325I. If you see her, honk. And Alyson, you know the rules: you lose a piece of clothing for every honk you hear.

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As if there isn’t enough honking on the 10. As if taking your clothes off while stuck in traffic weren’t so L.A.

Magdalena on: the courtesy wave

Bridget Hoida — Wed, 23 May 2012 21:01:58 +0000

The best part about freeways is the lane change. I like to cross from middle to fast without hitting the reflective bumps that divide the road. It takes a lot of practice, especially at speeds above sixty, but if you tune into the blinker, if you play the clicks of the flashing green light like a metronome, you can usually succeed provided some asshole—the type who refuses the courtesy wave—doesn’t speed up when he sees you attempting the merge. I always give the courtesy wave; it’s like waiting the requisite three seconds before making a left on yellow: survival. If I were a cop, I’d ticket anyone who didn’t wave. It’s inexcusable. Almost as bad as strutting down Rodeo with a Prada knockoff bought from a vendor on Venice Beach or screwing another woman’s husband.

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I said almost all right?

Magdalena on: caution tubes & cement dividers

Bridget Hoida — Wed, 23 May 2012 20:59:33 +0000

Now I consider breaking things just for conversation. Like the Tank. It’s silver and colossal and has a gazillion cylinders, so I run over things for adventure. It started with those little concrete blocks that separate parking spaces; initially I had to escape an irate gas man, but once I realized I could do it, I started to run things over on a regular basis. My favorites are orange tubes. Not the cones, those get caught in between your tires and can’t clear the muffler so you end up dragging them for a block or two and people look at you funny. But the orange tubes, they’re taller and usually stuck to the asphalt by a black hexagon. They’re also a harder plastic so when you run over them you get a nice click-thump rather than just a chub. The trouble is the tubes are usually located on on-ramps to alert your attention to cement dividers, so it’s quite a trick running over the tubes and still clearing the concrete. A trick I’ll most likely be avoiding today, considering the ’Vette and all. I mean I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the pinnacle of caution, but I’m not exactly malicious either. Although I should add—not many people know this—when you’re in a Polo White ’53 ’Vette with a personalized license plate that reads ARTGRL, you can’t see the front from the back, parking’s a bitch and you can forget cutting anyone off.

Magdalena on: the freeway

Bridget Hoida — Wed, 23 May 2012 20:59:21 +0000

I like to drive. Not to anywhere in particular because I have no place in particular to go, but I’m addicted to freeways. The 405 to the 10 to the 110 to the 101. It’s so L.A. I used to like driving more when I had a piece-of-shit Escort. It was a stick shift and unreliable and I never knew where I’d end up stranded. Since the move to L.A., nothing’s been unreliable, at least in terms of cars and appliances.