Another City: Writing from Los Angeles - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0872863913 ISBN 13: 9780872863910

Publisher: City Lights Publishers, 2001

Synopsis

Thirty-seven LA writers map the scattered and diverse literary landscape of contemporary Los Angeles.

Stories, chronicles, and poems by both well-established and up-and-coming young writers about how it was to come to LA or what it was like to grow up there, about the ocean and the desert, the entertainment industry and earthquakes, riots and racism, fires and freaks.

Contributors include: Jervey Tervalon, Aimee Bender, Benjamin Weissman, Sesshu Foster, Richard Rayner, Jeffrey McDaniel, Amy Uyematsu, Russell Leong, Aleida Rodriguez, Luis Alfaro, Bia Lowe, Amy Gerstler, and others.

"The result of Ulin's labors is ... an engaging and satisfying collection of fiction, poetry, and essays about L.A.; the book features mostly unpublished work by both established writers like Jerry Stahl (Permanent Midnight), Aimee Bender (The Girl in the Flammable Skirt) and Richard Rayner (Los Angeles Without a Map), and by less well-known ones like Russell Leong, Aleida Rodriguez and Samantha Dunn."—New York Newsday

"David L. Ulin has assembled the literary equivalent of the Watts Towers: a dazzling dreamscape made from the most ordinary, terrifying, and euphoric debris of L.A. life."—Mike Davis

"This regional anthology is, in the best sense, all over the map. Broad in scope and varied in style, Another City offers some of the most exciting, unpredictable writing a reader could hope for."—Bernard Cooper

"Los Angeles has been called America's first postmodern city, and David L. Ulin's brilliantly chosen cast of extraordinary writers brings that hypothesis exquisitely to life."—Carolyn See

"Another City bids a long goodbye to the exile tradition of writing about Southern California that prevailed in the last century. Its contributors are Angelenos 'native or born-again' who embrace L.A. as hometown and body of fate. Their collective dispatches are confessional, nostalgic, tender, harrowing, often very funny, occasionally exhibitionistic, unfailingly vivid and evocative."—David Reid, editor of Sex, Death and God in L.A.

David Ulin has lived in Los Angeles since 1991. From 1993-96 he was the book editor of the LA Weekly. He is a former Los Angeles Times critic and is an Assistant English Professor at the University of Southern California.

About this title

About the Author

David Ulin has lived in Los Angeles since 1991. From 1993-96 he was the book editor of the LA Weekly. He is a former Los Angeles Times critic and is an Assistant English Professor at the University of Southern California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From "Enter the Year of the Dragon 2000" by Russell Charles Leong

I enter the dragon
careful not to waken any napping animals
or dreaming ancestors, for
if a hero falls alone in the forest
who will hear him fall?

Now turn the sound down
because Romeo must die.
Jet Li & Chow Yun Fat, Jackie Chan
battle it out on video
on my nine-inch TV screen, Korean-brand name,
assembled in Mexico.
The tape snags.
The screen goes gray, then white.

White is the color of loss.
Because Bruce Lee
left us a long time ago
kicking the air into architecture
art & essence.

To enter the dragon, head East.
East into the San Gabriel Valley
way past Pasadena, Altadena
the Santa Anita Racetrack
Arcadia, Monrovia
inching behind a thousand taillights
seven o’clock the eve of the New Year.

Enter the dragon. Make a left
off Irwindale Boulevard, home
to small industries like
metal Olympic torches,
veneer & laminate furniture
paper, cardboard, & electronic parts
assembled minimum wage
by Salvadoran & Vietnamese refugees.

You don’t quite expect it
coming up on you
as you turn your car onto Foothill Boulevard
cinderblock & concrete
spaces yearning to be filled.
A dark, moonless sky
lonesome, somehow.

To enter the dragon
step gently on your brakes
when you see neon glowing red.
A parking lot
for one thousand cars
Pacific Pearl Seafood Buffet
all you can eat
$7.99 dinner special:
It’s the Year of the Dragon!

To enter the dragon
Walk directly through the glass doors
past plastic pink roses & plastic purple grape
clusters stuffed in porcelain vases;
one side of the enormous room
Latinos, Filipinos, & whites
neighborhood folks
pile eggrolls, pizza slices, steak
& broccoli onto white plastic plates
squeeze themselves into vinyl booths
go back for seconds and thirds.

Other side of the room
rented for the night
Chinese women all primped-up
bound tightly in jackets that
shimmer red & green
dangly jade pendants & diamond earrings
middle-aged men don pin-striped suits
eyeing stacks of gold & red foiled boxes
hoping their raffle ticket will win them a DVD machine
or Sony color television, the grand prize.

Enter the Dragon.
Silver & gold tinsel pineapples
hang from aluminum air-conditioning ducts
red squares with the character
"Chwun," for Spring,
turned upside down.

Brown busboys pour
buckets of buddhist bamboo shoots
sliced pizza
fried shrimp
smoked tea duck
California sushi roll
kung bao chicken
ham fried rice
onto steel platters.

"Tonight, we enter
the Year of the Dragon!
To each of you sitting here
from China, Taipei, Tibet, Hong Kong,
Hawaii, Wisconsin, New York, Florida,
Los Alamos, New Mexico
& from Norman, Oklahoma,
Wan Swei! Wan Swei!
Ten thousand years more!"

Between each karaoke song
Miss Peony Wang Lin & Mister Bronson Kao
(well-known local newscasters)
call out five-digit ticket numbers
hand out red & gold boxes:

"Ganbei! Ganbei!
Bottoms up! A toast to each of you
bobbing your handsome
round heads up & down!
Pretty ladies, too!
Drink up! No one’s gonna go home
empty-handed tonight!
Everyone’s a winner here!"

(Lucky ones tear the foil off their
packages of ginseng tea, dried mushrooms,
silk scarves, gloves, & more of the same.)
After three hours we are tossed
& fried & digesting each others’
fluids & sweat & eating aromas:
drowning in the perfumed river
of the Pacific Pearl Seafood Buffet.

I step outside to the parking lot,
pass out of this world & into my own.
From below my belly
I find my breath
touch the roof of my mouth
with the tip of my tongue, exhale.

I pay homage to a moonless sky.
My life is a recycled koan
one hand clapping; one hero falling
over & over again.
I enter the restaurant
through another entrance.

Through the Western & Eastern door
Through the Northern & Southern door
I enter the dragon from four directions.

I enter flesh, bone & blood.
I return to my chi.

Following my fingers
crystal & concrete-block walls shatter.
Following my heels
tables buckle & chairs collapse
Following my breath
Plastic grapes & artificial roses melt.
Following my form
Swiss watches leave their wrists.
Gold coins escape their pockets.
Jade rings slip off their fingers.
Return back all plunder to the people
through the Little Dragon’s breath.

Through buffet aisles
I turn platters of sizzling meat & noodles
into boomerangs. Until the cops come.
Arrest & book me.
By this time I’m naked.
A fifty-year-old bowlegged Chinaman.
Black-dyed hair purple under the neon.
No suit, no shirt, no tie, no pants
No nylon socks, underwear, shoes
No fake Rolex. No dyed jade. No shiny manicured nails.

Naked. Nothing. Nada.
Essence. Original Body.

I’ve entered the dragon.
Sweet & sour blood flowing red
from the corners of my mouth
arms & legs bruised and cut
a number & a white band
Clipped securely around my wrist
Like other brown & black guys
we’re here in L.A. County Hospital
Here in the Year of the Dragon.

The County will hold me for observation.
The restaurant will sue me for damages.
The customers will file suit, too.
They will impound my car for unpaid speeding tickets.

Because today is February 4th, 2000.
Irwindale, San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles,
United States of America.

Today is the world without the Dragon.
Today is the world without Bruce Lee.
If a hero falls alone in the forest
who will hear him fall?

About this edition

• Publisher: City Lights Publishers
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0872863913
• ISBN 13: 9780872863910
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304
• Editor: Ulin David L.