So I've been spending a lot of time hanging with friends at the Brewery. For those not familiar with LA, the Brwery is an artists' colony smack in the middle of seedy spooky LA 'hood, near Chinatown and East LA. The group of buildings fills prolly a few acres and comprises former steel-working plants, warehouses, and several mostrous concrete-slab buildings the original utility of which I cannot fathom. There is also an old Pabst brewery here with a smokestack--hence the name. All have been converted to artists' lofts and apartments. It's not exactly a public place cos it's all off the street and self-contained--buildings dropped down onto the city concrete and blacktop in a haphazard manner, some parking lots--you never see the street or the outside neighborhood from inside here. There is a small central garden with trees and birdfeeders and strange sculptural mobiles. There is a bar that caters to the residents.

I have been lucky enough to make some good friends here. Spending time here, hanging out with them, laughing and soaking it all in--it is wonderful. Lovely, lovely, lovely. My heart is melancholy often, but I do not mind so much, and the air here in this place is calm and still, the city sky seems to shimmer with heat and a semitranslucent quality of light that seems to broadcast hot glass and seething metallic glare,and we are all hung over here, alternately working on projects, lying around immobile, and laughing, and somehow I think I can weather the storm on the inside.