Pathé

Two things this summer. Turn him on. Turn him off.

The three-day trip to NYC ended faster than I thought. My biggest impression is that the "here" and the "now" do not matter much to New Yorkers, who are always rushing and who must always want to be somewhere else. I don't think that Mom likes NYC as much as Boston. In fact, she is not impressed by NYC. However, she became grumpy whenever we stopped at a tourist attraction. While she wanted to have her picture taken, I had to shrug my shoulder and say "Sorry, Mom, I forgot my camera in Boston." Actually, not having a camera at hand was not a problem for me. At least, it allowed me to see the city more intimately. Moreover, it could all be fated! - I will not be another anonymous passer-by who is only interested in taking pictures but someone who will really get to know NYC.

Penny and David.

Michael Jackson died yesterday at the age of 50. This man is a total mystery to me. It's strange; I somehow know that I will die in 2066.

Departures by Yojiro Takita.

Plots of land in the area had been acquired by retired Methodist clergy and various religious and community organizations. When the first moviemakers arrived around 1903, the suburb had a population of just 166. William De Mille remembered that it "was largely peopled by folks from Missouri and Iowa," many of whom "had gone west to die." Pepper trees lined the muddy streets, orange groves stretched across the fields for miles, and the hills were wrapped in "heat waves you could actually see." Rabbits vastly outnumbered people in the bungalows and the rickety wooden barns, which were later pressed into service as studios. The churchgoing locals were deeply suspicious of the movie people, having already heard rumors of the debauchery and drunkenness that seemed to be already an integral part of show business, an image hardly helped by the sleazy reputation of the nickelodeons. "No dogs or actors allowed," read signs placed in the windows of rooming houses across Los Angeles. Locals called the studios "camps" and referred to the film people as "the movie colony." It was as if the film community were exiled in the desert, a feeling exacerbated by the fact that the train journey from New York lasted five uncomfortable days, first passing through Chicago, then across the drab Midwest plains to the desert, where the perspiring passengers would fling open the windows to escape the insufferable heat, only to be assailed by waves of coarse sand. Finally to arrive in California was, recalled one early traveler, like "coming out of an inferno to a paradise."

Puttnam, David. Movie and Money. 66