La Jolla Playhouse of the Mind

[Steven Hunley]

La Jolla Playhouse of the Mind

We were there to see Hershey Felder and one of his one-man shows, imitating Irving Berlin. When it was over, we walked hand in hand through the parking lot. It sprinkled while we were inside. The eucalyptus trunks smooth and slick, revealed warm sodium vapor tones running like honey down their sides. Rain is a blessing on the California coast this far south. Like our night at the La Jolla Playhouse, we never get enough of it.

People learn to thirst in Southern California. For water, for love, for recognition, for solitude, for acceptance, they thirst. They make the best of what they’ve got in the meantime and they’re good at celebrating the moment with a significant other as long as it’s a short moment so they can get back to their phones.

For the rest of their moments, for the future, they covet, they thirst. They have their heads too far up their own *ss*s to smell the coffee brewing. It takes a life-threatening moment like a pandemic to make them slow down and smell the roses. You can’t do it from the freeway.

This is their plaintive song.

If you are the desert,

I'll be the sea.

If you ever hunger,

hunger for me.

Whatever you ask for,

that's what I'll be.

Tomorrow we pick up the pills at the pharmacy.

©StevenHunley2017

https://youtu.be/m_9hfHvQSNo Father Figure George Michael

Take care, My Readers.

[MANICHAEAN]

Set the scene, get the atmosphere, the smells, the heat.

"People learn to thirst in Southern California. For water, for love, for recognition, for solitude, for acceptance, they thirst." The message of gravitas slipped in.

The wry humour of phone addiction.

The new reality brought on by the pandemic.

Its all there buddy. A succinct observation by a writing craftsman.

[Danik 2016]

Thanks, Steve. The times when walking around hand in hand without masks seem almost distant.

[WolfLarsen]

Back when there were bookstores, you could pick up 100 books at random, and not find writing even remotely as original as this.

Thanks to the Internet, we can read original writing, like this piece.

For me, one of the strengths of the writing here is that it's more original than most of the stuff you read. And that makes it worth reading.