Among the gorges and ravines that hang on Los Angeles's shoulders like a necklace, Topanga - nestled in the cleavage of the Santa Monica Mountains - is the most singular of ornaments.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Like all paradises, Topanga is pitched at the tipping point of promise and peril.
If you are great, 'El Topo' is a great picture. If you are limited, 'El Topo' is limited.
Declaring the San Gabriel Mountains a national monument will make this natural wonder more accessible. It will welcome people from all walks of life and maintain the mountains' wild character at the same time.
There's a particular style that is very Peru that you don't see anywhere else; it's got so many different imprints. When you mix Incan minimalism with the heavy, ornate Spanish Baroque, it is very interesting.
Ironically, if only because over the years I've known so many - from college deans to studio executives to European expats - who come to Los Angeles aspiring to nothing other than living in Topanga, I wound up there by accident.
Getting to Valle Nevado is half the fun. A serpentine road from Santiago wriggles up the spine of Andean peak for an hour, then traverses a valley and finally up again. The hotel is perched on a rugged mountain crag at 3,000m: no other sign of human development is visible from this spot, which is close to the Argentinean border.
Los Angeles is like a beauty parlor at the end of the universe.
In Glendale, where I live, there's a street called Broadway. The bottoms of the light posts have swastikas on them.
Mauna Kea from Hilo has a shapely aspect, for its top is broken into peaks, said to be the craters of extinct volcanoes, but my eyes seek the dome-like curve of Mauna Loa with far deeper interest, for it is as yet an unfinished mountain.
There is no top. There are always further heights to reach.