Suzy Beal

When I was a kid, Hawthorne (Aerospace Capital of the Nation or City of Good Neighbors, depending on which sign you read) was all recently subdivided farmland and county property, with abandoned farms, cow pastures and orchards still around. The South Bay was full of Okies, Arkies, Missourians and Texans,......

Standing on Mount Hollywood after two days of autumn rain, I can make out distant objects that I never see all at once, looming like pieces on a giant Monopoly board. There is something sinister in such an encompassing view. We are supposed to be in our frame of reference......

Bunker Hill: A glimpse to the south, the filigree and narrow clapboards of century-old houses, eternal weeds . . . and the first smell of the day, clouds of charred meat from Barbeque King. Figueroa: Pre-smog-induced sinusitis, and even the cooking smells from not-so-great eating places don’t seem to stink......