Description:
In Elements of Los Angeles: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, acclaimed essayist D.J. Waldie continues his singular meditation on Los Angeles: a place of contradictions, dreams, and disquiet. With uncommon clarity and emotional depth, Waldie considers Los Angeles as a place of both promise and disillusionment, of civic memory and strategic forgetting, of natural beauty and environmental fragility. Each of the four classical elements forms the basis for a profound and poetic reassessment of the city's image, exploring topics as diverse and resonant as the unlikely history of the Hass avocado, the St. Francis Dam disaster, an endurance contest that saw a young woman buried alive, and the sound of Vin Scully's voice carried across the summer air.
Brief description:
A writer whose books are a "gorgeous distillation of architectural and social history" (New York Times), D.J. Waldie is the author of the acclaimed Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir and other books about the everyday life in Southern California. In his essays and commentary, Waldie has sought to frame his experience of Los Angeles as a search for a sense of place.
Review Quotes: In this love letter to Los Angeles, Waldie reflects on the city's accomplishments and contradictions. Framed through the four elements--earth, water, fire, and air--his essays explore everything from the history of the Hass avocado to the St. Francis Dam disaster. A layered portrait of a constantly changing place that is not only for those who've lived in Los Angeles but also for those who've only imagined it.-- "Alta magazine"