Another in a Line of Too Many Things that Aren't Here Anymore

I suppose I shouldn't complain.  After all, when The Grove was built in Los Angeles surrounding and encompassing the site of the Farmer's Market, there was a real danger that that lovely old tourist trap would be torn down. Somehow, probably in large part because of community dissatisfaction that another piece of history was being bulldozed, and though some of the old stores and structures were demolished, the main section of that 1934 Los Angeles gem was retained. You still have the too expensive fruit and vegetable section, the Patsy D'Amore Pizza stand, Mariconda Meats, and a few newer eateries, like Monsieur Marcel, which even French expats seem to like. The people traffic into and out of the Rick Caruso amusement park like shopping, eateries and movie theater and into this kitschy tented oasis and the success of the Grove probably has helped not a few of the small businesses in their stalls. One of the oldest of those businesses, Gill's, which sold ice cream and all the accoutrements, founded in that very place in 1937, is though no more. The local paper I was reading while in the market today said they were closing on February 2. But when I went to the other side of the market I found out that it already was shuttered, except for a school notebook chained to the stone counter asking for guests to sign and make a comment. I did.

It doesn't seem to have been a matter of income, rather a matter of the landlord of the market wanting something more upscale, with nicer signage and veneer. The landlord's side of the story is that the space needed more than cosmetic repair-- substantial infrastructure upgrades The family who had owned it for 80 years wanted to maintain the original charm, and apparently they didn't think there was a structural problem. If there was, it's not a huge space, so I think we don't know the whole story. But, as usual, it was a legal issue and one that didn't settle. Frankly, it's the time warp charm that's alway drew me to the Farmers' Market.  It's what has drawn the neighborhood cronies to sit there arguing about movies and books. Over the time since the Grove grew up around it, I had also noticed some more fancy stalls. They never seem to survive because they were out of place and time. You can get that anywhere. The Market publicity people have been putting out ads around the place showing the location back in the old day, with cute little saying about how good the old days were. And yet, they are getting rid of one of the most iconic of those places.

I will bet that the space will be one of endless turnover. Just around the corner an eatery opened for about six months and has been closed for about that same period of time. But the landlord will get his structural repairs from someone else. Let's see if those renters last.

After 80 years, Gill's goes the way of so many places of good times to become fond fading memory. The Market itself is still there. That's something, but I can't get too comfortable. Progress is inexorable. It also isn't often really progress.

Mocha. Venti. Hot

It's late, no rather it's early, 12:30 in the a.m. I just sent an e-mail to the United Kingdom, to a library that has some information which interests me. Before that I was watching an episode of "Star Trek, the Next Generation".  I wish we were exploring space. We have lots of probes out, and lots of fascinating things are evolving from the information garnered on these unmanned missions, but I wish we were actually exploring space, at least establishing a colony on the moon. Not that I would be among the explorers. I am afraid of the 767. I hate to fly. I wish I didn't feel that way, and maybe before I die I will lose that fear. But, as I was asking Alexa to play me some New Age mood music (given the hour, even a classical mood music seemed a little jarring) I found myself delighted that I was experiencing a little of the Trekian future. This one seems particularly powerful. Alexa comes to me by virtue of the Echo Dot. She isn't the android Data, but she is pretty stunning. Not only did I ask her to play mood music, which she is as I write, if I ask her to "Stop" she does. I wondered if I could say "next" because one piece was annoying in its particular repetition, and darn if she didn't move to another song in the loop. Each day we play six questions of "Jeopardy", and she tells me if I am right or wrong. If you say to her, "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot" she says, "I'm not a replicator." If I had a certain type of electronic system in my apartment, she could operate it. "Computer, Lights."

Now, I know there are limitations, but there is something mesmerizing about prognostication becoming reality in my lifetime. In the 1960s, a personal computer seemed out of reach for an ordinary human being. Yes, I know, there were places that had these behemoths, and the internet existed in some guise for the military long before any of us heard of it. But I can ask this little machine sitting on my breakfast bar to read me a book (if I join Audible, which I haven't yet, as I really prefer, like Elisha Cook in an episode of the original series of Star Trek to touch and read the real thing), or tell me the news, or, as it now is playing some delightful pastiche. If I get my instruction wrong, or she doesn't have access to what I want, she'll say, "I don't understand what you want." In Star Trek, I think the computer said, "I am not programmed for that information."

I am typing on a tablet. I have a smaller tablet that looks suspiciously like the one in the picture above.

There is a lot I don't like about the society in which I live. Civility is gone. Morality is relative. Still, and with some trepidation, I would like to see a lot more of these developments even as I worry that we will one day be debating the existence of the personhood of a robot like Alexa. We are not yet able to agree on the personhood of a fetus. We are not ready really for the advances hurtling toward us.

For the moment, I am not going to become discouraged by the nature of us humans to corrupt every invention. I am just going to enjoy Alexa, though it is time for both of us to go to bed. Maybe I'll pretend I am flying among the stars.

An Untoward Death in Weho

It was indeed untoward in the classic definitions of the word, as in unexpected, surprising, bad, unforeseen, unusual, improper, inopportune.  I have gone days wondering if I would write about what happened here in our little condo community just three days after the New Year. Or if I should. But ultimately I feel I must because it hit "home" literally, and figuratively. And because the suffering and death of another requires something to mark it, some testimony. So does the suffering, in greater or lesser degrees, of those whose lives have been touched. And it raises all those philosophical, theological, existential questions that never receive fully satisfying answers no matter how great the thinker who offers them.

A long time resident of my building shot himself to death by our pool early in the morning. I did not know the particulars right away, as since I am a late sleeper and in the back of the my apartment, I didn't hear anything. I came downstairs late in the morning on my way to daily Mass. There was the yellow tape for accident or crime scenes. And there were two sheriffs deputies standing at a distance from my stairwell. I did immediately think that someone had died, but assumed it was of natural causes. Even with natural causes, a death at home is by statute one that requires investigation.

I think I said a short prayer of some nondescript verbiage requesting God's intervention as I left the building. When I came back in the mid afternoon, there was a sign offering a meeting for the neighbors regarding the "incident" at the pool. Ah. An incident. Whatever had happened was outside, around that little oasis so many of us love, living the California life. I had begun to surmise who the victim might be, in part because of where the sheriffs had been stationed when I first saw them, but hoped against hope that whoever had died, for it was certainly that, had gone "naturally". But the word "incident" somehow stretched that likelihood.

The meeting was somber, and a chance for a kind of therapy for those with greater or lesser need. No one was on the spot when it happened. I say, "it happened" because the best anyone could assess he probably didn't intend to shoot himself. The bullet went into and out of his chest. That's what the people in the apartments nearest the pool heard, the shot. And his saying, "Ow!" which somehow suggests the unintentional. Somehow, I don't know precisely how, that makes a difference. One neighbor came out immediately. The paramedics were called.  And obviously the sheriff. Another neighbor felt guilty. She saw him shortly before as she was returning with her dogs. He told her he was waiting to be taken to the hospital. He was afraid that they would take him in a straight-jacket. She didn't know that he was having a delusion. Although he had given her and other neighbors in our pet friendly building complaint over barking, she saw his vulnerability of the moment, and they hugged. She said she'd put the dogs back in her place and come and wait with him. She has nothing to regret. The night before, another neighbor with whom he had dissension, over pets, said he had the first civil conversation of their acquaintance, although it was clear there was something bothering our neighbor.

In that brief interlude, he went back into his apartment and came out with a gun no one knew he had. He was the last person one would imagine would ever have a gun. And then he was dead.

There was a young woman who rented a room from him in his condo. She moved the next day. I understand that she is being assisted by the family of our late neighbor to find new quarters.

It was not a particular surprise to hear that there bi-polar disorder might be involved. He was edgy. He was often loud. I was happy to have a cordial relationship with him, although there were a few occasions in which whatever drove him led to calls to the police. When my father lived in the building I understand these were more frequent. Although he was certainly close to my age (he would never have said what that was) he seemed like a kind of Peter Pan. Puer Aeternus. The eternal child. Except he never seemed particularly happy.

He didn't buy the gun, apparently. He was given it. What I heard in that regard troubles me deeply. If someone knew of his condition, his bi-polarity, as it were, the last thing he should have had was a gun. I hope that isn't the case. There are few threats in our building or in our community. He didn't need a gun.

We have all been pretty quiet during the last days. You couldn't miss the guys from one of those companies that do crime scene clean up by the pool, where it happened. They left some rust colored chemical on the terrazzo for a day while the pool was drained so they could work there too, for yes, there was blood there too. I felt bad that I was angry now, where a day before I was sympathetic and sad.  How could he do this at all? But how could he disrupt this peaceful place, my/our little meditative space?  I noticed today that the bullet hole in the wall by the pool, very near another neighbors apartment, has been plastered.

Today, a young woman saw me as I was again leaving for Sunday Mass. She was a friend. She didn't know where he was. How do you break that news. I started slowly, using the euphemism--"He passed away." "In the apartment?" she asked.  "No", and I hesitated, "By the pool."  "Did he drown?" she pressed. That was oddly preferable to say if it had happened that way, at least in telling someone. "Are you sure you want me to tell you?" I didn't want to say, I realized. "I'm his friend," she repeated. I told her what I knew. And I introduced her to a member of our HOA board who I knew had the family's number.

Untoward? Surreal? Sad? Behind every face is a story, and some kind of pain.

It's warm enough today to be out on my terrace, and I have been. The hummingbirds have been especially active by the feeder, which overlooks the pool, in that corner that I love to sit in, reading, or writing, or praying or thinking.That has been a small blessing to moderate the awkward, weird, disrupted feeling I have and I am sure that every person in this condo shares.

All I can think to do is to pray.
Eternal Rest grant unto him O Lord. God knew all his struggles. Maybe now, he can rest in the peace that he did not apparently have in this life. Make it so, Lord.