We Must Remember That Nothing In This

Waking Up Begins With Saying Am And Now. That Which Has Awoken Then Lies For A While Staring Up At The Ceiling And Down Into Itself Until It Has Recognized I, And Therefrom Deduced I Am, I Am Now. Here Comes Next, And Is At Least Negatively Reassuring; Because Here, This Morning, Is Where It Has Expected To Find Itself: What’s Called At Home.

Do You Think It Makes People Nasty To Be Loved? You Know It Doesn’t! Then Why Should It Make Them Nice To Be Loathed? While You’re Being Persecuted, You Hate What’s Happening To You, You Hate The People Who Are Making It Happen; You’re In A World Of Hate. Why, You Wouldn’t Recognize Love If You Met It! You’d Suspect Love! You’d Think There Was Something Behind It—some Motive—some Trick.

In The Eternal Lazy Morning Of The Pacific, Days Slip Away Into Months, Months Into Years; The Seasons Are Reduced To The Faintest Nuance By The Great Central Fact Of The Sunshine; One Might Pass A Lifetime, It Seems, Between Two Yawns, Lying Bronzed And Naked In The Sand.

California Is A Tragic Country — Like Palestine, Like Every Promised Land. Its Short History Is A Fever-chart Of Migrations — The Land Rush, The Gold Rush, The Oil Rush, The Movie Rush, The Okie Fruit-picking Rush, The Wartime Rush To The Aircraft Factories — Followed, In Each Instance, By Counter-migrations Of The Disappointed And Unsuccessful, Moving Sorrowfully Homeward.

Hollywood's Two Polar Types Are The Cynically Drunken Writer Aggressively Nursing A Ten-year-old Reputation And The Theatrically Self-conscious Hermit Who Strides The Boulevard In Sandals, Home-made Shorts And A Prophetic Beard, Muttering Against The Age Of The Machines.