You See LA: Fall 2017
Five things NOT to see and do around LA, handpicked by Dean Brett Steele
Brett Steele, dean of the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, is an architect, teacher, writer and leading voice on the arts, architecture, cities, and education.
I've been invited to suggest five current LA favorites, as part of this great series, but since I've only been here now for a few days, the city's lessons so far seem to be what NOT to do. So going against the grain, and with apologies for having not exactly followed the format of offering up must-dos within this amazing, horizontal city, given what I've learned in my first few days of LA life here are my tips for what I now know one SHOULDN'T ever do:
1. Do a double take and look twice at someone you recognize, but have never met.
So uncool.
Better to pretend you have never seen a screen, or magazine, of any kind. It's astonishing how skilled Angelinos are at this; practiced ignorance is a sort of LA inverse law of celebrity adoration.
2. Pick a place to live before owning an automobile
I made this LA rookie mistake last Easter, finding a dream mid-century house and compound for which we immediately made an offer, and was lucky enough to have been able to call our own. Geographically, it was (seen on a map) next door to Westwood and UCLA. Only by plugging in a departure time on google maps approximating an abnormal start of the work day did a creeping realization set in—we had just bought a house that it would have been faster to walk home to than navigate in a car the tortuous, limited number of routes its location afforded.
LA is a city where distance is measured by clocks, and not yardsticks.
3. Buy vegetables in supermarkets
I innocently added three cucumbers to the shopping cart last week and got home to find that not only were each wrapped individually in plastic, but that as a group they were then bundled together and wrapped in another layer of plastic—prepared, it seemed, more for a journey to deep space than a ride home (in yet another plastic bag used as a carrier) in the back seat of my car. It's an ecological disaster and, with most industrial grade plastics having an average expected life span of something like 50,000 years, a horribly immoral practice shared by both sides of the carnivore/herbivore LA split.
4. Drive to the beach after 9 a.m.
You can, and the beach is lovely as the day warms up, but the limited number of parking spaces suggests serious beach-goers set their alarms for before sunrise. We spent long enough circling the micro-lot at Annenberg Beach House that we might have ended the day with more hours in the front seat than on the sand. As per item two above, parking and driving are to LA as sleeping and eating are in less modern cities than this one, which brings me to my final top tip of things not to do in Los Angeles:
5. Drive on a freeway with the numbers 405
An Uber guy finally explained this to me the other day. This horrible north-south cut through the hills, providing as it does an east-west divide most cities have owing to older geological or natural formations, was presciently named and numbered by Californians centuries ago for what travel along its path now promised: 4 or 5 hours of frustration, wherever you think you're meant to be going. I'm pleased to say that I and the family have ended up on the Westwood side of this particular divider deserving to be called something other than a 'free' way today. If Joan Didion was right decades ago to call the experience of driving on California's freeways the one true moment of its citizens lives (tuck into her 'Play it as it Lays' if you haven't read it in a while—it rings truer than ever in today’s world of conspiracy theories and traffic jams), then a bumper sticker I saw the other day: “The 405 sucks” misses the point entirely.
For those of you newly arriving: I hope some of the above helps you ease into life here in a school and city like no other. I am writing this contribution to the school’s series (it's great—be sure to read the back issues written by our faculty, alumni, and curators who offer the real tips) up against a deadline, as a text message sitting in the back of a darkened auditorium in Chicago with a hope that maybe once I've been in LA a bit longer and actually get to know my new hometown, I can circle back to offer suggestions instead for what TO do at the spaces and points in between the pathways and packaging that make up such an amazing city.
I can't wait.
Best,
Brett
Read past editions of this series.
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This story is part of the Spring 2017 newsletter. Subscribe to our mailing list to receive this quarterly newsletter directly to your inbox!