Los Angeles is a city of extremes: a fortress of different worlds in one huge, sprawling grid. Consequently, the feeling of displacement is constantly renewed from one block to another. Do not get comfortable; you will inevitably be shaken from your semi-formed roots by cultural, and earthly, quakes. On Hollywood Boulevard the homeless sit above the stars; in Thai Town, a Country and Western themed bar is decorated with U.S. flags and animal skulls, serving Sake and Asian food alongside Corona and Budweiser. During the day, the moon shines sprightly out of a flawless blue sky--while at night, it is a city-dimmed sliver that could be mistaken for a street lamp.
Where is there to call ‘home’ in this mish-mashed complex of alternative perspectives? The people of Hollywood are divided into ‘those who look up to the Hills’ and ‘those who look down from the hills,’ without a comfortable medium. Everything in between is a nameless, disturbing limbo. In Santa Monica, million dollar homes rise out of streets where men shout and spit at invisible demons. Downtown, students working on their hundred-thousand-dollar education are offered fake I.Ds and social security numbers for forty bucks.
And yet, there is something to be found in this land of displacement. Perhaps the freedom of becoming your own alter-ego at will; perhaps the interchangeability of identity; perhaps the renewal and reinvention of four million 'selves'. The five hundred square miles of Los Angeles are enough to entice anyone to be 'reborn' day after day, and the City offers endless options for those with an inclination for change. In L.A, 'change' and 'self re-invention' just takes a little self-imposed bravery and a walk around the block...or forty bucks.