The Sellout (Google Books ⧉, Amazon ⧉, Bookshop ⧉)

by Paul Beatty

Contributed by NobleBibliophile506

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References To Other Books

Direct References

Les Misérables

‘If Jean Valjean had me representing him,’ he likes to say, ‘then Les Misérables would’ve only been six pages long.

Batman #203, Spectacular Secrets of the Batcave Revealed

Batman #203, Spectacular Secrets of the Batcave Revealed, a moldy, dog-eared back issue someone had thrown into the farmyard and I brought inside and nursed back to readability like a wounded piece of literature. It was the first thing I had ever read from the outside world, and when I whipped it out during a break in my homeschooling, my father confiscated it.

The Lord of the Rings

After a lifetime of beating myself up for never having been breast-fed or finishing The Lord of the Rings, Paradise, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, eventually, like all lower-middle-class Californians, I’d die in the same bedroom I’d grown up in...

Paradise

After a lifetime of beating myself up for never having been breast-fed or finishing The Lord of the Rings, Paradise, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, eventually, like all lower-middle-class Californians, I’d die in the same bedroom I’d grown up in...

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

After a lifetime of beating myself up for never having been breast-fed or finishing The Lord of the Rings, Paradise, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, eventually, like all lower-middle-class Californians, I’d die in the same bedroom I’d grown up in...

The Planning of Change

he’d grab his social psychology bible, The Planning of Change, by Bennis, Benne, and Robert Chin, a woefully underappreciated Chinese-American psychologist my dad had never met but claimed as his mentor.

Blacktopolis: The Intransigence of African-American Urban Poverty and Baggy Clothes

Back then he was an assistant professor in urban studies, at UC Brentwood, living in Larchmont with the rest of the L.A. intellectual class, and hanging out in Dickens doing field research for his first book, Blacktopolis: The Intransigence of African-American Urban Poverty and Baggy Clothes.

DSM I

Opening up the DSM I, a holy book of mental disorders so old it defined homosexuality as 'libidinal dylexsia,' he’d point to 'Dissociative Reaction,' then clean his glasses and begin explaining himself slowly, 'Dissociative reaction is like a psychic circuit breaker.

The Thomas Guide

grabbed the latest edition of The Thomas Guide from the bookshelf. Every year my father used to bring the new Thomas Guide home, and the first thing I’d do was turn to pages 704–5 and approximate the location of the crib, 205 Bernard Avenue, on the map.

Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices

Thanks to a downloaded copy of the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, I had the design specifications for everything from the proper shade of green (Pantone 342) to the exact dimensions (60'' x 36''), letter size (8''), and font (Highway Gothic).

THE DUM DUM DONUT INTELLECTUALS

The Sellout  THE DUM DUM DONUT INTELLECTUALS

Huckleberry Finn

“One night, not long ago,” Foy said, “I tried to read this book, Huckleberry Finn, to my grandchildren, but I couldn’t get past page six because the book is fraught with the ‘n-word.’ And although they are the deepest-thinking, combat-ready eight- and ten-year-olds I know, I knew my babies weren’t ready to comprehend Huckleberry Finn on its own merits. That’s why I took the liberty to rewrite Mark Twain’s masterpiece.”

The Pejorative-Free Adventures and Intellectual and Spiritual Journeys of African-American Jim and His Young Protégé, White Brother Huckleberry Finn, as They Go in Search of the Lost Black Family Unit

“I also improved Jim’s diction, rejiggered the plotline a bit, and retitled the book The Pejorative-Free Adventures and Intellectual and Spiritual Journeys of African-American Jim and His Young Protégé, White Brother Huckleberry Finn, as They Go in Search of the Lost Black Family Unit.” Then Foy held up the copy of his revamped volume for examination.

The Thomas Guide

Checking my boundary for accuracy against old editions of The Thomas Guide.

EXACT CHANGE, OR ZEN AND THE ART OF BUS RIDING AND RELATIONSHIP REPAIR

EXACT CHANGE, OR ZEN AND THE ART OF BUS RIDING AND RELATIONSHIP REPAIR

The Trial

Marpessa put her feet on the steering wheel and covered her face in a tattered copy of Kafka’s The Trial.

Amerika

Kafka was our genius. We’d take turns reading Amerika and Parables out loud. Sometimes we’d read the books in incomprehensible German and do free-association translations.

Parables

Kafka was our genius. We’d take turns reading Amerika and Parables out loud. Sometimes we’d read the books in incomprehensible German and do free-association translations.

The Metamorphosis

Sometimes we’d set the text to music and break-dance to the The Metamorphosis, slow-dance to Letters to Milena.

Letters to Milena

Sometimes we’d set the text to music and break-dance to the The Metamorphosis, slow-dance to Letters to Milena.

All Quiet on the Western Front

We’d spend hours picking through the used-film bins at Amoeba Records on Sunset, hold up a copy of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, and say, “Hey, they’re digitally remastering our movie,” then dry-hump in the Hong Kong movie section.

Giovanni's Room

And a promised first edition of Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room didn’t hurt either.

The Color of Burnt Toast

“When did you fall in love with me?” … “The Color of Burnt Toast,” I said, naming the bestselling memoir about the guy from Detroit with a “crazy” white mother who didn’t want her biracial children to be traumatized by the word “black,” so she raised them as brown, called them beigeoloids…

Ulysses

Charisma flung back her long straight black hair from her face and took a hit that illuminated the mysteries of the Internet, Ulysses, Jean Toomer’s Cane, and the American fascination with cooking shows.

Jean Toomer’s Cane

Charisma flung back her long straight black hair from her face and took a hit that illuminated the mysteries of the Internet, Ulysses, Jean Toomer’s Cane, and the American fascination with cooking shows.

Fire the Canon!

He has a whole curriculum called ‘Fire the Canon!’ featuring such rewritten classics as Uncle Tom’s Condo and The Point Guard in the Rye that he’s pushing on the school board.

Uncle Tom’s Condo

He has a whole curriculum called ‘Fire the Canon!’ featuring such rewritten classics as Uncle Tom’s Condo and The Point Guard in the Rye that he’s pushing on the school board.

The Point Guard in the Rye

He has a whole curriculum called ‘Fire the Canon!’ featuring such rewritten classics as Uncle Tom’s Condo and The Point Guard in the Rye that he’s pushing on the school board.

The Dopeman Cometh

But I’ll be damned if the Chaff Middle School will hand out copies of The Dopeman Cometh to its students.

The Great Blacksby

I kicked a partially burned tome away from the fire. The cover was charred but still readable, The Great Blacksby, page one of which was: Real talk. When I was young, dumb, and full of cum, my omnipresent, good to my mother, non‐stereotypical African‐American daddy dropped some knowledge on me...

Ishmael Reed book

Thanks to years of my father’s black vernacular pop quizzes and an Ishmael Reed book he kept on top of the toilet for years, I knew that “reckless eyeballing” was the act of a black male deigning to look at a southern white female.

Don Quixote

As in “The motherfucking Wilcoxes came up, dude. Them niggers kicking it in a Brady Bunch house off Don Quixote.”

APPLES AND ORANGES

The Sellout   APPLES AND ORANGES

BDSM IV (Black Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition)

Followed by all 943 pages of the BDSM IV (Black Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition) flying at my head.

Sambo and Mammy Cleared for Takeoff on Runaway 5

Jolson, Al (1918). ‘Sambo and Mammy Cleared for Takeoff on Runaway 5,’ Ziegfeld Follies.

If Niggers Could Fly

Williams, Bert (1917). ‘If Niggers Could Fly,’ The Circuitous Chitterling Tour.

Dem Vaudeville Peckerwoods Sho’ Am Stealing My Shit

The Unknown Minstrel (circa 1899). ‘Dem Vaudeville Peckerwoods Sho’ Am Stealing My Shit,’ The Semi-Freemason Hall, Cleveland, Ohio.

Mick, Please: The Black Irish Journey from Ghetto to Gaelic

McJones read from his latest book, Mick, Please: The Black Irish Journey from Ghetto to Gaelic. The author was a good get for Foy, and with the free Bushmills, there should have been more people, but there was no doubt the Dum Dum Donut Intellectuals were dying.

The Ticker

Seeing as he wasn’t using it, I borrowed Cuz’s copy of The Ticker. In the fiscal quarter since the Wheaton Academy’s inception, employment in Dickens was up an eighth.

The Adventures of Tom Soarer

When it reached the back, King Cuz handed it off to me without even looking at it, and as soon as I read the title, I didn’t want to let go. The Adventures of Tom Soarer. It dawned on me that Foy’s written works were Black Folk(s) Art and were going to be worth something one day.

The Old Black Man

I was beginning to regret the book burning thing and that I hadn’t started a collection, because I’d spent the past ten years looking down my broad black nose at probably now-impossible-to-find first-and-only-edition titles like The Old Black Man and the Inflatable Winnie the Pooh Swimming Pool, Measured Expectations, Middlemarch Middle of April, I’ll Have Your Money—I Swear.

Inflatable Winnie the Pooh Swimming Pool

I was beginning to regret the book burning thing and that I hadn’t started a collection, because I’d spent the past ten years looking down my broad black nose at probably now-impossible-to-find first-and-only-edition titles like The Old Black Man and the Inflatable Winnie the Pooh Swimming Pool, Measured Expectations, Middlemarch Middle of April, I’ll Have Your Money—I Swear.

Measured Expectations

I was beginning to regret the book burning thing and that I hadn’t started a collection, because I’d spent the past ten years looking down my broad black nose at probably now-impossible-to-find first-and-only-edition titles like The Old Black Man and the Inflatable Winnie the Pooh Swimming Pool, Measured Expectations, Middlemarch Middle of April, I’ll Have Your Money—I Swear.

Middlemarch Middle of April

I was beginning to regret the book burning thing and that I hadn’t started a collection, because I’d spent the past ten years looking down my broad black nose at probably now-impossible-to-find first-and-only-edition titles like The Old Black Man and the Inflatable Winnie the Pooh Swimming Pool, Measured Expectations, Middlemarch Middle of April, I’ll Have Your Money—I Swear.

I’ll Have Your Money—I Swear

I was beginning to regret the book burning thing and that I hadn’t started a collection, because I’d spent the past ten years looking down my broad black nose at probably now-impossible-to-find first-and-only-edition titles like The Old Black Man and the Inflatable Winnie the Pooh Swimming Pool, Measured Expectations, Middlemarch Middle of April, I’ll Have Your Money—I Swear.

Me Talk White One Day

What are you writing?" Foy dropped the phone to his shoulder. "A book of essays called Me Talk White One Day.

The New Jim Crow: Has Public Education Clipped the Wings of the White Child?

Above the caption “The New Jim Crow: Has Public Education Clipped the Wings of the White Child?” was a twelve‐year‐old white boy, posed as the pint‐sized symbol of reverse racism.

Of Rice and Yen

Charisma had summoned me to read the business letter that accompanied the mailed edition of Foy Cheshire’s latest reimagined multicultural text, Of Rice and Yen, an all‐Chinese adaptation of Steinbeck’s classic set in the days of the railroad coolie. This book will place me firmly in the autodidactic tradition of authors such as Virginia Woolf, Kawabata, Mishima, Mayakovsky, and DFW.

Twelve Angry Men

I expected the air-conditioning in the Supreme Court to be for shit, like it is in all the good courtroom movies: Twelve Angry Men and To Kill a Mockingbird.

To Kill a Mockingbird

I expected the air-conditioning in the Supreme Court to be for shit, like it is in all the good courtroom movies: Twelve Angry Men and To Kill a Mockingbird.

A Few Good Men

We’re sitting in a nameless antechamber passing time and a joint back and forth, butchering the climax of A Few Good Men, which isn’t a great movie, but Jack Nicholson’s disdain for the actors and the script and the way he delivers that last monologue carry the film.

Blackula

Fred, do you think you could at least shave down my incisors? I look like fucking Blackula. Blackula. Underrated movie.

Enter the Dragon

I cover my face, and my silhouette cuts across a movie still of Bruce Lee fixing to kick some ass in Enter the Dragon.

The Emperor Jones

It’s too bad the world has missed out on Buckwheat as Brutus Jones and Froggy as the shady Smithers in “The Emperor Jones.”

Antigone

Darla returns to the fold and gives a brilliant performance as the headstrong “Antigone.”

Paradise Lost

Alfalfa is no less engaging as the beleaguered Leo in Clifford Odets’s “Paradise Lost.”

Catch-22

Anybody who could make me put down Catch-22 had to be funny.

Slumberland

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR PAUL BEATTY is the author of the novels Slumberland, Tuff, and The White Boy Shuffle, and two books of poetry, Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce.

Tuff

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR PAUL BEATTY is the author of the novels Slumberland, Tuff, and The White Boy Shuffle, and two books of poetry, Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce.

The White Boy Shuffle

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR PAUL BEATTY is the author of the novels Slumberland, Tuff, and The White Boy Shuffle, and two books of poetry, Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce.

Big Bank Take Little Bank

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR PAUL BEATTY is the author of the novels Slumberland, Tuff, and The White Boy Shuffle, and two books of poetry, Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce.

Joker, Joker, Deuce

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR PAUL BEATTY is the author of the novels Slumberland, Tuff, and The White Boy Shuffle, and two books of poetry, Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce.

Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor

He is the editor of Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor.

Slumberland

ALSO BY PAUL BEATTY FICTION Slumberland Tuff The White Boy Shuffle

Tuff

ALSO BY PAUL BEATTY FICTION Slumberland Tuff The White Boy Shuffle

The White Boy Shuffle

ALSO BY PAUL BEATTY FICTION Slumberland Tuff The White Boy Shuffle

Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor

NONFICTION Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor (editor)

Joker, Joker, Deuce Big Bank Take Little Bank

POETRY Joker, Joker, Deuce Big Bank Take Little Bank

Indirect References

Julius Caesar

King Cuz and his latest crew, the Colosseum Blvd et Tu, Brute Gangster Munificent Neighborhood Crips ’n’ Shit

Steinbeck’s classic

Of Rice and Yen, an all‐Chinese adaptation of Steinbeck’s classic set in the days of the railroad coolie.

Referenced By

No books reference this book

Places Referenced

Supreme Court, Washington, D.C., United States
"But here I am, in the cavernous chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, my car illegally and somewhat ironically parked on Constitution Avenue, my hands cuffed and crossed behind my back..."
Constitution Avenue, Washington, D.C., United States
"my car illegally and somewhat ironically parked on Constitution Avenue, my hands cuffed and crossed behind my back..."
Washington, D.C., United States
"Washington, D.C., with its wide streets, confounding roundabouts, marble statues, Doric columns, and domes, is supposed to feel like ancient Rome..."
Rome, Italy
"…is supposed to feel like ancient Rome (that is, if the streets of ancient Rome were lined with homeless black people, bomb-sniffing dogs, tour buses, and cherry blossoms)."
The Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia, United States
"Not surprisingly, there’s nothing to do at the Pentagon except start a war. Tourists aren’t even allowed to take photos with the building in the background..."
National Mall, Washington, D.C., United States
"At the National Mall there was a one-man march on Washington."
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., United States
"I stared in awe at the Lincoln Memorial. If Honest Abe had come to life and somehow managed to lift his bony twenty-three‐foot, four‐inch frame from his throne..."
Phoenix House, Washington, D.C., United States
"A slow saunter past the White House, Phoenix House, Blair House, and the local crackhouse for the message to become abundantly clear."
Blair House, Washington, D.C., United States
"A slow saunter past the White House, Phoenix House, Blair House, and the local crackhouse for the message to become abundantly clear."
Nuremburg, Germany
"…half-jokingly requesting a change of venue, suggesting Nuremburg or Salem, Massachusetts, as possible locales given the serious nature of the charges."
Salem, Massachusetts, United States
"…half-jokingly requesting a change of venue, suggesting Nuremburg or Salem, Massachusetts, as possible locales given the serious nature of the charges."
Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, California, United States
"…after a long futile night of carousing and chasing Mexican babes at the Santa Monica pier"
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
"Muhammad Ali is like jazz. Philadelphia is like jazz. Jazz is like jazz. Everything is like jazz except for me."
Selma, Alabama
"…protesters falling like dominoes in Selma, Alabama, begin to look like Keystone Negroes slipping en masse on an affirmative‐action banana peel and tumbling to the street, a tangled mess of legs and dreams akimbo."
Kentucky, United States
"A not‐so‐proud descendant of the Kentucky Mees, one of the first black families to settle in southwest Los Angeles,…"
Los Angeles, California
"…one of the first black families to settle in southwest Los Angeles, I can trace my roots all the way back to that first vessel to escape state‐sanctioned southern repression—the Greyhound bus."
Yale Law School, New Haven, Connecticut
"…a wad of spit hocked from the deepest regions of his Yale Law School education chambered on the tip of his tongue."
Washington, D.C., United States
"The marchers on Washington become civil rights zombies, one hundred thousand strong, somnambulating lockstep onto the mall, stretching out their stiff, needy fingers for their pound of flesh."
Disneyland, Anaheim, California
"Ever been to Reno, Nevada? It’s the Shittiest Little City in the World, and if Disneyland was indeed the Happiest Place on Earth, you’d either keep it a secret..."
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
"…All it takes is a day trip through Georgetown and Chinatown."
China, Asia
"…All it takes is a day trip through Georgetown and Chinatown."
White House, Washington, D.C.
"A slow saunter past the White House, Phoenix House, Blair House, and the local crackhouse for the message to become abundantly clear."
Reno, Nevada
"Ever been to Reno, Nevada? It’s the Shittiest Little City in the World, and if Disneyland was indeed the Happiest Place on Earth..."
South-Western Shan-tung, China
"…if he’d only tasted that unsweetened swill that passed for iced tea at the segregated lunch counters in the South he would’ve called the whole civil rights thing off."
Willowbrook Avenue, Los Angeles, California
"…back home we call the Willowbrook Avenue Stare, Willowbrook Avenue being the four‐lane river Styx that in 1960s Dickens separated white neighborhoods from black, but now, post‐white, post‐anybody‐with‐two‐nickels-to‐rub-together-flight, hell lies on both sides of the street."
United States of America
"“In case 09-2606, Me v. the United States of America.”"
Los Angeles, California
"We lived in Dickens, a ghetto community on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles, and as odd as it might sound, I grew up on a farm in the inner city."
Irvine, California
"Founded in 1868, Dickens, like most California towns except for Irvine, which was established as a breeding ground for stupid, fat, ugly, white Republicans and the chihuahuas and East Asian refugees who love them..."
Lexington, Kentucky
"being a stable manager’s son on a small horse ranch in Lexington, Kentucky, farming was nostalgic."
Mount Wilson, California
"the latest green flash sunset he’d seen from the summit of Mount Wilson that California was a special place."
Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, California
"from how giddy my father would get whenever he talked about Dodger Stadium, white Zinfandel, and the latest green flash sunset he’d seen from the summit of Mount Wilson"
National Boulevard and Westwood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"the blond cheese girl from the Trader Joe’s on National and Westwood Boulevards"
Stuyvesant High, New York, New York
"Of the 23,000 eighth-grade students who took the entrance exam for admission into Stuyvesant High, New York’s most elite public high school"
Key Biscayne, Florida
"Laurel Lescook is a student from Key Biscayne, Florida, who enjoys biking, photography, and poetry."
Los Angeles, California
"“In the history of the Los Angeles Police Department, do you know how many officers have been convicted of murder while in the line of duty?”"
Los Angeles County, California
"…that two‐acre, just‐this‐side‐of‐lunar‐surface fertile parcel of land in the most infamous ghetto in Los Angeles County…"
Salton Sea, California
"weekend custody trips to the Salton Sea and the science museum"
Larchmont, Los Angeles, California
"Back then he was an assistant professor in urban studies, at UC Brentwood, living in Larchmont with the rest of the L.A. intellectual class."
Nagasaki, Japan
"Dickens didn’t go out with a bang like Nagasaki, Sodom and Gomorrah, and my dad."
Soviet Union, Eastern Europe
"It was quietly removed like those towns that vanished from maps of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, atomic accident by atomic accident."
Los Angeles County, California
"When the housing boom hit in the early part of the century, many moderate‐income neighborhoods in Los Angeles County underwent real estate makeovers."
L.A. County Jail, Los Angeles, California
"waiting at the intersection of Compton and Firestone for the last weekend visitation bus to the L.A. County Jail"
Compton and Firestone, Los Angeles, California
"waiting at the intersection of Compton and Firestone for the last weekend visitation bus to the L.A. County Jail"
University of California at Riverside, Riverside, California
"I went to the University of California at Riverside because it had a decent agricultural studies department."
The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas
"and to a dust bowl county in Texas named after some unfortunate sap who may or may not have died at the Alamo."
Harris Avenue, Los Angeles, California
"looking for a stray goat on the Latino side of Harris Avenue"
Huntington Beach, California
"a dank, wispy cloud of smoke that smells like red tide at Huntington Beach, dead fish, and seagulls roasting in the hot sun"
San Gabriel Mountains, California
"the cracked and abandoned nest eggs of many a bankrupt one‐hit wonder run wild in the San Gabriel Mountains."
California, United States
"But even in sunny California you can’t grow watermelon year‐round."
Los Angeles, California
"Occasionally, a pack of college kids vacationing in Los Angeles for the first time would stop at a busy intersection just long enough to shoot twenty seconds of shaky handheld video of them jumping up and down, whooping like crazed savages, shouting, 'Check us out! We’re in Dickens, California. What you know about that, fool?' then post the footage of their urban safari on the Internet."
Corona, California
"fine-tuning a fickle ultra-high-frequency station like Channel 52, KBSC-TV Corona, Los Angeles, on a beat-up black-and-white portable missing one rabbit ear antenna and all its dials required a vascular surgeon’s touch."
New York, New York
"He said that the vast majority of slave revolts took place on Wednesdays because traditionally Thursday was whippin’ day. The New York Slave Revolt, the L.A. riots, the Amistad, all them shits,"
San Jose, California
"asking a local, 'Excuse me, do you know where I can find Hominy?' was like asking some penny-ante lounge singer if they knew the way to San Jose."
Edinburgh, Scotland
"If that naked old man crying in my lap had been born elsewhere, say Edinburgh, maybe he’d be knighted by now."
Ontario, California
"…stay there until I stepped on his back and took an unwanted trip to the liquor store or the Ontario livestock auction."
San Bernardino Mountains, California
"I almost ditched him in the San Bernadino Mountains like an unwanted dog."
Beverly Hills, California
"I paid some scrivener $200 to write out a contract on antique parchment paper that I found at a Beverly Hills stationery store."
Los Angeles County, California
"At 4,084 square miles, much of Los Angeles County, like the ocean floor, remains in large part unexplored."
El Segundo, California
"We were midway between the El Segundo and Rosecrans Avenue off-ramps."
110 Freeway, Los Angeles, California
"We were stuck on the 110 freeway, impatiently weaving from lane to lane."
405 Freeway, Los Angeles, California
"We were making good progress until we hit the stretch between the 405 and 105 interchanges and traffic began to slow."
South Central Los Angeles, California, United States
"One clear South Central morning, we awoke to find that the city hadn’t been renamed but the signs that said WELCOME TO THE CITY OF DICKENS were gone."
Rosecrans Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States
"We were midway between the El Segundo and Rosecrans Avenue off-ramps."
105 Freeway, Los Angeles, California
"We were making good progress until we hit the stretch between the 405 and 105 interchanges and traffic began to slow."
El Segundo Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"As the sun rose over the El Segundo Boulevard overpass, the morning commute was starting in earnest."
Pomona, California
"I missed my father driving us back from the Pomona State Fair, elbowing me awake, the Dodger postgame on the radio."
Burbank, California
"Biting into Burbank plums whose tartness to sweetness to skin thickness ratios took me six years to get just right."
Westside, Los Angeles, California
"Oddly, Hominy didn’t seem to mind that all the dominatrices at Sticks and Stones, the BDSM club on the Westside I contracted to dole out my punishments for me, were white women."
Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California
"…addressing his audience in an affected Southern Methodist drawl, even though he was from the Hollywood Hills by way of Grand Rapids."
Grand Rapids, Michigan
"…addressing his audience in an affected Southern Methodist drawl, even though he was from the Hollywood Hills by way of Grand Rapids."
Estonia, Europe
"“Everybody else is in NATO. You going to tell me we wouldn’t kick the shit out of Estonia? No doubt, nigger.”"
Victoria Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"Halfway down Victoria Boulevard where the El Harvard Bridge starts to cross the creek, someone bisected my line with 100 Smoots in purple print."
Los Angeles, California
"…as in the case of the corner fronting the L.A. LGBTDL Crisis Center for Chicanos, Blacks, Non-Gays, and Anyone Else Who Feels Underserved, Unsupported, and Exploited by Hit Cable Television Shows…"
Wilmington, California, United States
"…birthed in the Wilmington oil refineries and the Long Beach sewage treatment plant."
Newport Beach, California, United States
"lounge lizards returning home from partying in Newport Beach, drenched in sweat, tequila shooter runoff, and gallons of overapplied Drakkar Noir cologne."
Rosecrans Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States
"The bus lumbered down Rosecrans, the unrequited love of my life, Marpessa Delissa Dawson, calling out stops like a Buddhist timekeeper..."
Ocean Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States
"Bouncing up and down Ocean Avenue in the back of a shit box pickup truck with some shaggy, aboriginal, blond-haired white boys..."
Hermosa Beach, California, United States
"As opposed to Hermosa, Redondo, and Newport, which were much closer to Dickens, but the breaks were dominated by straight‐edge Jesus freaks..."
Redondo Beach, California, United States
"As opposed to Hermosa, Redondo, and Newport, which were much closer to Dickens, but the breaks were dominated by straight‐edge Jesus freaks..."
La Puente, California, United States
"to Angelenos who lived in hellholes like Watts, La Puente, and South Central..."
South Central Los Angeles, California, United States
"to Angelenos who lived in hellholes like Watts, La Puente, and South Central..."
LACMA, Los Angeles, California, United States
"There’d be a retrospective of Gerhard Richter, David Hammons, Elizabeth Murray, or Basquiat at LACMA, and we’d tap the ad..."
Baldwin Theater, Los Angeles, California, United States
"Between the bus and rides, the back of the pickup, the trips on horseback to the Baldwin Theater, it’s crazy how much of our relationship was spent in motion."
Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital, Los Angeles, California, United States
"A maniacal drive and an epidural later, Martin Luther King, Jr., Hospital, aka Killer King, got one right."
Interstate 10, Los Angeles, California, United States
"in the back of the pickup, speeding down the 10 freeway, doing eighty miles per hour in the fast lane..."
Reseda, Los Angeles, California, United States
"trying to convince themselves that the double penetration scene they shot in Reseda last week is only a stepping-stone to bigger and better things."
Escondido, California, United States
"surfing with seals and dolphins at increasingly remote spots like Topanga, Las Tunas, Amarillo, Blocker, Escondido, and Zuma."
Zuma Beach, Malibu, California, United States
"surfing with seals and dolphins at increasingly remote spots like Topanga, Las Tunas, Amarillo, Blocker, Escondido, and Zuma."
Watts Towers, Los Angeles, California, United States
"These not-so-mobile automobiles, along with the Hollywood sign, the Watts Towers, and Aaron Spelling’s 56,500-square-foot estate, are the closest L.A. gets to approximating the ancient marvels of engineering."
Aaron Spelling’s estate, Los Angeles, California, United States
"These not-so-mobile automobiles, along with the Hollywood sign, the Watts Towers, and Aaron Spelling’s 56,500-square-foot estate, are the closest L.A. gets to approximating the ancient marvels of engineering."
Alameda Street, Los Angeles, California, United States
"“Alameda!” Marpessa shouted, and a woman scurried aboard, toting one too many plastic shopping bags and pinning her purse tightly to her side with her elbow."
Los Angeles, California
"I love L.A. It’s the only place where you can go skiing, to the beach and to the desert all in one day white."
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
"These not-so-mobile automobiles, along with the Hollywood sign, the Watts Towers, and Aaron Spelling’s 56,500-square-foot estate, are the closest L.A. gets to approximating the ancient marvels of engineering."
Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"picking through the used-film bins at Amoeba Records on Sunset, hold up a copy of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front..."
Long Beach, California
"…the Long Beach sewage treatment plant."
El Segundo, California
"The 5:43 a.m. #125 westbound to El Segundo rolled in on time. I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until we reached El Segundo."
Santa Monica, California
"I surfed Venice and Santa Monica. Mostly Station 24. Sometimes 20."
Venice, Italy
"I surfed Venice and Santa Monica."
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"…in a vain attempt to steal Latino clientele from Florentine Gardens on Hollywood Boulevard."
Watts, Los Angeles, California
"to Angelenos who lived in hellholes like Watts, La Puente, and South Central..."
Los Angeles County, California
"There are more cars in Los Angeles County than in any other city in the world."
Topanga, California
"surfing with seals and dolphins at increasingly remote spots like Topanga, Las Tunas, Amarillo, Blocker, Escondido, and Zuma."
Alabama, United States
"Ten that wintery day in the segregated state of Alabama, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, she became known as the “Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement.”"
Sedona, Arizona, United States
"…if places like Sedona, Arizona, have energy vortexes, mystical holy lands where visitors experience rejuvenation and spiritual awakenings…"
Foothill Freeway, Los Angeles, California, United States
"Places like the breakdown lane on the Foothill Freeway, where Rodney King’s life, and in a sense America and its haughty notions of fair play, began their downward spirals."
Florence and Normandie, Los Angeles, California, United States
"Racial vortices like the intersection of Florence and Normandie, where misbegotten trucker Reginald Denny caught a cinder block, a forty‐ounce, and fucking centuries of frustration to the face."
Seventh Street, Los Angeles, California, United States
"Seventh Street, between Mesa and Centre, is the vortex where in 1942 a long line of buses idled as Japanese-Americans began the first step toward mass incarceration."
Poinsettia Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States
"…the dreadlocked woman who got on at Poinsettia Avenue toting a rolled-up yoga mat."
El Segundo Plaza, El Segundo, California, United States
"…the unknown white woman completed the three-hour round-trip from El Segundo Plaza to Norwalk and back again."
Norwalk, California, United States
"…the unknown white woman completed the three-hour round-trip from El Segundo Plaza to Norwalk and back again."
Pepperdine University, Malibu, California, United States
"Once past Pepperdine University, where the highway narrows into a two-lane hill that stretches like a skate ramp to the stars…"
Malibu Pier, Malibu, California, United States
"…the Jack in the Box drive-thru across the street from Malibu pier…"
El Porto Harbor, Manhattan Beach, California, United States
"The dusk lowered itself onto El Porto Harbor, and as the white woman sauntered down the aisle, the sunlight decanted itself through the front windshield…"
Leo Carrillo, Malibu, California, United States
"Once past Leo Carrillo, PCH begins to smooth out,…"
Santa Monica Mountains, California, United States
"…when the moon disappears behind the Santa Monica Mountains,…"
Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, United States
"…before Santa Monica, Hollywood, Whittier, and Crenshaw Boulevards come slowly cruising to life."
Whittier Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, United States
"…before Santa Monica, Hollywood, Whittier, and Crenshaw Boulevards come slowly cruising to life."
Rosecrans Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States
"…two kids who’d spent the past hour necking like twisted rubber bands in the back, who quickly found themselves in the middle of Rosecrans Avenue holding free transfer tickets that flapped uselessly in the sea breeze."
Tel Aviv, Israel
"Some unions, like that of Tel Aviv and Berlin, Paris and Algiers, Honolulu and Hiroshima, are designed to signal an end to hostilities and the beginning of peace and prosperity; arranged marriages in which the cities learn to love one another over time."
Berlin, Germany
"Some unions, like that of Tel Aviv and Berlin, Paris and Algiers, Honolulu and Hiroshima, are designed to signal an end to hostilities and the beginning of peace and prosperity; arranged marriages in which the cities learn to love one another over time."
Paris, France
"Some unions, like that of Tel Aviv and Berlin, Paris and Algiers, Honolulu and Hiroshima, are designed to signal an end to hostilities and the beginning of peace and prosperity; arranged marriages in which the cities learn to love one another over time."
Algiers, Algeria
"Some unions, like that of Tel Aviv and Berlin, Paris and Algiers, Honolulu and Hiroshima, are designed to signal an end to hostilities and the beginning of peace and prosperity; arranged marriages in which the cities learn to love one another over time."
Hiroshima, Japan
"Some unions, like that of Tel Aviv and Berlin, Paris and Algiers, Honolulu and Hiroshima, are designed to signal an end to hostilities and the beginning of peace and prosperity; arranged marriages in which the cities learn to love one another over time."
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
"Others are shotgun weddings, because one city, (e.g., Atlanta) impregnated the other (e.g., Lagos) on a first date that spun violently out of control centuries ago."
Lagos, Nigeria
"Others are shotgun weddings, because one city, (e.g., Atlanta) impregnated the other (e.g., Lagos) on a first date that spun violently out of control centuries ago."
Kabul, Afghanistan
"Some cities marry up for money and prestige; others marry down to piss off their mother countries. Guess who’s coming to dinner? Kabul!"
Amsterdam, Netherlands
"Every now and then, two cities meet and fall in love out of mutual respect and a love for hiking, thunderstorms, and classic rock ’n’ roll. Think Amsterdam and Istanbul. Buenos Aires and Seoul."
Istanbul, Turkey
"Every now and then, two cities meet and fall in love out of mutual respect and a love for hiking, thunderstorms, and classic rock ’n’ roll. Think Amsterdam and Istanbul. Buenos Aires and Seoul."
Honolulu, Hawaii
"Some unions, like that of Tel Aviv and Berlin, Paris and Algiers, Honolulu and Hiroshima, are designed to signal an end to hostilities and the beginning of peace and prosperity; arranged marriages in which the cities learn to love one another over time."
Inglewood, California
"…before the after-hours strip clubs in Inglewood open,…"
Korea, East Asia
"…to give thanks to the late-night joints in Koreatown."
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"…before Santa Monica, Hollywood, Whittier, and Crenshaw Boulevards come slowly cruising to life."
Crenshaw Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"…before Santa Monica, Hollywood, Whittier, and Crenshaw Boulevards come slowly cruising to life."
Catalina Island, California
"Unlike those expensive, staid, day-trip excursions to Catalina Island, the impromptu four-wheel birthday party cruise…"
Chavez Ravine, Los Angeles, California
"Chavez Ravine, where a generations‐old Mexican-American neighborhood was torn down, its residents forcibly removed, beaten, and left uncompensated to make room for a baseball stadium with ample parking and the Dodger Dog."
Pacific Coast Highway, Los Angeles, California
"Once past Leo Carrillo, PCH begins to smooth out,…"
Buenos Aires, Argentina
"Every now and then, two cities meet and fall in love out of mutual respect and a love for hiking, thunderstorms, and classic rock ’n’ roll. Think Amsterdam and Istanbul. Buenos Aires and Seoul."
Seoul, South Korea
"Every now and then, two cities meet and fall in love out of mutual respect and a love for hiking, thunderstorms, and classic rock ’n’ roll. Think Amsterdam and Istanbul. Buenos Aires and Seoul."
Guam, United States
"We used to be an official city, but now it’s kind of occupied territory. Like Guam, American Samoa, or the Sea of Tranquility."
American Samoa, United States
"We used to be an official city, but now it’s kind of occupied territory. Like Guam, American Samoa, or the Sea of Tranquility."
Sea of Tranquility, Moon
"We used to be an official city, but now it’s kind of occupied territory. Like Guam, American Samoa, or the Sea of Tranquility."
Florence, Italy
"For instance, Harlem, New York’s sister city is Florence, Italy, because of their respective renaissances."
Rome, Italy
"I knew better than to expect Rome, Nairobi, Cairo, or Kyoto."
Nairobi, Kenya
"I knew better than to expect Rome, Nairobi, Cairo, or Kyoto."
Cairo, Egypt
"I knew better than to expect Rome, Nairobi, Cairo, or Kyoto."
Kyoto, Japan
"I knew better than to expect Rome, Nairobi, Cairo, or Kyoto."
Naples, Italy
"But figured second-tier hotties like Naples, Leipzig, and Canberra were definitely in play."
Leipzig, Germany
"But figured second-tier hotties like Naples, Leipzig, and Canberra were definitely in play."
Canberra, Australia
"But figured second-tier hotties like Naples, Leipzig, and Canberra were definitely in play."
Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico
"Let’s see your three sister cities in order of compatibility … Juárez, Chernobyl, and Kinshasa."
Chernobyl, Ukraine
"Let’s see your three sister cities in order of compatibility … Juárez, Chernobyl, and Kinshasa."
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo
"Let’s see your three sister cities in order of compatibility … Juárez, Chernobyl, and Kinshasa."
Los Angeles River, Los Angeles, California, United States
"Chernobyl, while tempted, felt that, in the end, Dickens’s proximity to the Los Angeles River and sewage treatment plants was a problem."
Gdansk, Poland
"Gdansk is showing some interest. And we’re getting feelers from Minsk, Kirkuk, Newark, and Nyack."
Minsk, Belarus
"And we’re getting feelers from Minsk, Kirkuk, Newark, and Nyack."
Kirkuk, Iraq
"And we’re getting feelers from Minsk, Kirkuk, Newark, and Nyack."
Nyack, New York, United States
"And we’re getting feelers from Minsk, Kirkuk, Newark, and Nyack."
Thebes, Guadalupe, California, United States
"The first was Thebes. Not the ancient Egyptian city, but the immense silent movie set from Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. Built to scale and since 1923 buried under the massive Nipomo Dunes along the beaches of Guadalupe, California, its massive wooden gates, hypostyle temples, and papier-mâché sphinxes served as home to Ramses and a phalanx of centurion and legionnaire extras."
Nipomo Dunes, Guadalupe, California, United States
"Built to scale and since 1923 buried under the massive Nipomo Dunes along the beaches of Guadalupe, California, its massive wooden gates, hypostyle temples, and papier-mâché sphinxes served as home to Ramses and a phalanx of centurion and legionnaire extras."
Döllersheim, Austria
"Next the thriving invisible city of Dickens formed sisterhoods with two more municipalities, Döllersheim, Austria, and the Lost City of White Male Privilege."
Varosha District, Famagusta, Cyprus
"There was a bit of a silent bidding war from ghost towns around the world for the honor of being Dickens’s third sister city. The abandoned Varosha district, a once-vibrant high‐rise section of Famagusta, Cyprus, evacuated during the Turkish invasion and never demolished or repopulated, made an exciting pitch."
Bokor Hill Station, Cambodia
"We also received a stunning bid from Bokor Hill Station, the unsettled French resort settlement whose rococo ruins continue to this day to rot in the Cambodian jungle."
Krakatoa, Indonesia
"After an impressive presentation, Krakatoa, East of Java, was a frontrunner."
Orator-sur-Glane, France
"War-torn and evacuated towns like Orator-sur-Glane in France, Paoua and Goroumo in the Central African Republic, all made strong pushes for civic sisterhood."
Paoua, Central African Republic
"War-torn and evacuated towns like Orator-sur-Glane in France, Paoua and Goroumo in the Central African Republic, all made strong pushes for civic sisterhood."
Goroumo, Central African Republic
"War-torn and evacuated towns like Orator-sur-Glane in France, Paoua and Goroumo in the Central African Republic, all made strong pushes for civic sisterhood."
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
"when deep down inside you longed to live in Toronto. A city you told others was “so cosmopolitan,” by which you really meant “not too cosmopolitan.”"
El Camino Real, Los Angeles, California
"Ever since the Native Americans trod up and down El Camino Real in their moccasins, seeking the source of those annoying fucking bells that rang at daybreak every Sunday morning, scaring away the bighorn sheep and ruining many a mescaline-tripping spirit walk..."
Los Angeles County, California
"Eager to show me some newly disambiguated entry in an online encyclopedia written by some anonymous scholar: Dickens is an unincorporated city in southwest Los Angeles County."
Egypt, Africa
"Maybe one day an offshore storm will uncover it and dust it off, so that Moses can lead the Israelites back into Egypt and Dickens into the future."
Harlem, New York City, New York, United States
"For instance, Harlem, New York’s sister city is Florence, Italy, because of their respective renaissances."
Newark, New Jersey
"And we’re getting feelers from Minsk, Kirkuk, Newark, and Nyack."
Commerce Casino, Commerce, California
"The donkey on the button rivers a third queen at Commerce Casino? Too many Mexicans."
Santa Anita, Arcadia, California
"Your horse in the fifth comes up lame in the backstretch at Santa Anita? Too many Mexicans."
Harbor Freeway, Los Angeles, California
"A dog barked. A cock crowed. A cow mooed. The din of the Harbor Freeway went E-I-E-I-O."
Shenandoah Street, Los Angeles, California
"Marpessa U-turned the bus around and headed out the side gate and onto Shenandoah Street without so much as a goodbye wave."
Jalisco, Mexico
"Nestor Lopez was up. From Jalisco, by way of Las Cruces, the Lopezes were the first Mexican family to integrate the Farms."
Las Cruces, New Mexico
"From Jalisco, by way of Las Cruces, the Lopezes were the first Mexican family to integrate the Farms."
El Nido, Wilmington, California
"“What’s your name?” … “What parents? I live at El Nido,” she said, referring to the group home on Wilmington, which in the neighborhood was tantamount to name-dropping Sing Sing in a James Cagney movie."
Sing Sing, Ossining, New York
"… referring to the group home on Wilmington, which in the neighborhood was tantamount to name-dropping Sing Sing in a James Cagney movie."
Malibu, California
"Stay away from the arroyos near Malibu and Rincon, which tend to overflow with septic waste, and you’ll be fine."
Rincon, California
"Stay away from the arroyos near Malibu and Rincon, which tend to overflow with septic waste, and you’ll be fine."
Santa Monica, California
"He stood over me while I was shin-deep in the rice paddy, planting stalks into the mud. He muttered something about choosing between Jews in Santa Monica and Gentiles in Holmby Hills, then began citing research that black kids who go to school with white kids of any religion “do better,” while also positing some not-so-credible research that black people were “better off” during segregation."
Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California
"He stood over me while I was shin-deep in the rice paddy, planting stalks into the mud. He muttered something about choosing between Jews in Santa Monica and Gentiles in Holmby Hills, then began citing research that black kids who go to school with white kids of any religion “do better,” while also positing some not-so-credible research that black people were “better off” during segregation."
Paris, France
"That like Paris has the Eiffel Tower, St. Louis the Arch, and New York an insanely huge income disparity, Dickens would have segregated schools."
New York, New York
"That like Paris has the Eiffel Tower, St. Louis the Arch, and New York an insanely huge income disparity, Dickens would have segregated schools."
CA-91, California
"I’d finished freshman year midterms and driven home, flying west on CA-91, spurred on by what I thought would be the awaiting congratulatory fuck and not a note pinned through the sow’s ear that simply read, Naw, nigger."
Mississippi, United States
"After three days of nonstop driving, we ended up in a nameless Mississippi town that was nothing more than a dusty intersection of searing heat, crows, cotton fields, and, judging by the excited look of anticipation on my father’s face, unadulterated racism."
Memphis, Tennessee
"‘Dad, what are we doing here?’ I mumbled, my mouth full of the saltine crackers I’d been stuffing down my gullet since Memphis."
Natchez, Mississippi
"‘Is there a black buck Rebecca ain’t fucked from here to Natchez?’"
Canada
"Although he never spoke about it, like his runaway ancestors, my father, too, fled to Canada, dodging the draft and the Vietnam War."
Rosa Parks Museum, Montgomery, Alabama, United States
"Supposedly, every February when schoolkids visit the Rosa Parks Museum, or wherever the fuck the bus is at, the bus they tell the kids is the birthplace of the civil rights movement is a phony."
Birmingham, Alabama, United States
"Just some old Birmingham city bus they found in some junkyard."
Boston Garden, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
"That’d be like the Celtics hanging Magic Johnson’s jersey in the rafters of the Boston Garden. No fucking way."
Los Angeles, California
"Los Angeles, for whatever reason, is chock‐full of autistic children and I thought he was one of the afflicted."
Bernard Avenue, Los Angeles, California
"I stood in the middle of Bernard Avenue, the kids beckoning me over, waving frantically like World War I soldiers urging a wounded comrade out of the mustard gas and back into the relative safety of the trenches."
Prescott Place, Los Angeles, California
"Not when two years ago, the sixth‐grader Cipriano “Candy” Martínez, a half‐Salvadoran, half‐black boy who lived over on Prescott Place, tried to Lone Ranger and Hi-yo, Silver! Away! his ass out of an abusive household."
Panorama City, Los Angeles, California
"Following the steaming piles of horseshit, I had to go all the way to Panorama City to track him down."
Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles, California
"Mostly white public-school kids whose parents lived above their means in upper-middle-class neighborhoods like Cheviot Hills, Silver Lake, and the Palisades."
Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California
"Mostly white public-school kids whose parents lived above their means in upper-middle-class neighborhoods like Cheviot Hills, Silver Lake, and the Palisades."
Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California
"Mostly white public-school kids whose parents lived above their means in upper-middle-class neighborhoods like Cheviot Hills, Silver Lake, and the Palisades."
Watts, Los Angeles, California
"Bullet holes and a stolen car wrapped around the post signified kids about my hair texture, allowance level, and clothing style in neighborhoods like Watts, Boyle Heights, and Highland Park."
San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, California
"And on hot 104-degree San Fernando Valley days, when we’re carrying their groceries to their cars or stuffing their mailboxes with bills, they turn and say, “Too many Mexicans,” a tacit agreement between aggrieved strangers..."
Los Angeles River, Los Angeles, California, United States
"Welcome to the Glorious City of Dickens: The Urban Paradise on the Banks of the Los Angeles River."
Northridge, Los Angeles, California
"… and the roof of which had collapsed in the Northridge quake of ’94 and had never been rebuilt."
Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California
"Bullet holes and a stolen car wrapped around the post signified kids about my hair texture, allowance level, and clothing style in neighborhoods like Watts, Boyle Heights, and Highland Park."
Highland Park, Los Angeles, California
"Bullet holes and a stolen car wrapped around the post signified kids about my hair texture, allowance level, and clothing style in neighborhoods like Watts, Boyle Heights, and Highland Park."
Santa Monica, California
"Sky blue signified kickback cool bedroom communities like Santa Monica, Rancho Palos Verdes, and Manhattan Beach."
Rancho Palos Verdes, California
"Sky blue signified kickback cool bedroom communities like Santa Monica, Rancho Palos Verdes, and Manhattan Beach."
Manhattan Beach, California
"Sky blue signified kickback cool bedroom communities like Santa Monica, Rancho Palos Verdes, and Manhattan Beach."
Hawthorne, California
"Carson, Hawthorne, Culver City, South Gate, and Torrance are all designated by a working-class cactus green."
Culver City, California
"Carson, Hawthorne, Culver City, South Gate, and Torrance are all designated by a working-class cactus green."
South Gate, California
"Carson, Hawthorne, Culver City, South Gate, and Torrance are all designated by a working-class cactus green."
Torrance, California
"Carson, Hawthorne, Culver City, South Gate, and Torrance are all designated by a working-class cactus green."
La Mirada, California
"In Hermosa Beach, La Mirada, and Duarte the street signs are the bland brown of cheap blended malt whiskey."
Duarte, California
"In Hermosa Beach, La Mirada, and Duarte the street signs are the bland brown of cheap blended malt whiskey."
Beverly Hills, California
"The sparkling white signs denote Beverly Hills, of course."
Cal Tech, Pasadena, California
"Above me a student opened a second-story window, looked up from a school-issued microscope so old Leeuwenhoek would’ve called it antiquated, and stuck her processed head into the air to gaze out at the Godzilla-sized child prodigy of the Wheaton Academy peering into an electron microscope so advanced it’d make Cal Tech envious."
Philippines, Southeast Asia
"I backed away as Foy dusted himself off, muttering about conspiracies and defiantly marching toward his car like he was leaving the Philippines under siege!"
Los Angeles, California
"From the music clubs to the jailhouses to the fact that you can find Korean taco trucks only in white neighborhoods, L.A. is a mind-numbingly racially segregated city."
UC Riverside, Riverside, California
"Hoi Polloi Translation—The nigger fucking white hos out there at UC Riverside."
Cleveland, Ohio
"The Unknown Minstrel (circa 1899). ‘Dem Vaudeville Peckerwoods Sho’ Am Stealing My Shit,’ The Semi-Freemason Hall, Cleveland, Ohio."
Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama
"Booker T. Washington, the Great Educator and founder of the Tuskegee Institute, once told his uneducated people: 'Cast down your buckets where you are."
Johannesburg, South Africa
"Realizing I was the Arschloch at the Wannsee Conference, the Afrikaner parliamentarian in Johannesburg in ’48, the wannabe hipster on the Grammy committee who in an effort to make the award more inclusive comes up with meaningless categories..."
Santa Paula, California, United States
"I drove all the way to Santa Paula looking for a tree to plant. Something special."
Ithaca, New York, United States
"Since the late 1890s, Cornell University has been breeding the world’s best apples. The school used to be chill. If you asked nicely and paid the shipping and handling, they’d send you a box of late‐season Jonagolds just to spread the gospel."
Upstate New York, New York, United States
"But in recent years, for whatever reason, Cornell has taken to licensing the new varietals to local farmers, and unless you own a farm in upstate New York, you’re shit out of luck and have to make do with the occasional imported Florina."
Medellín, Colombia
"So now the university orchards in Geneva, New York, are to the black market apple trade what Medellín, Colombia, is to cocaine."
Sligo, Ireland
"I’m in Sligo, a small artist hamlet on the northern coast of the Emerald Isle."
Kilkenny, Ireland
"The all-Ireland hurling championship is on the telly. Kilkenny versus Galway. Men with sticks chasing a small white ball."
Galway, Ireland
"The all-Ireland hurling championship is on the telly. Kilkenny versus Galway. Men with sticks chasing a small white ball."
Dickens, California
"Eager to show me some newly disambiguated entry in an online encyclopedia written by some anonymous scholar: Dickens is an unincorporated city in southwest Los Angeles County. Used to be all black, now there’s hella Mexicans. Once known as the murder capital of the world, shit ain’t as bad as it used to be, but don’t trip."
Compton, California
"This is me at the Compton Cookout … I’m the third ‘ghetto chick’ from the right."
Geneva, Switzerland
"So now the university orchards in Geneva, New York, are to the black market apple trade what Medellín, Colombia, is to cocaine."
Carson City, Nevada
"Carson, Hawthorne, Culver City, South Gate, and Torrance are all designated by a working-class cactus green."
Riverside, California
"My connect was Oscar Zocalo, my lab partner at Riverside, who was doing his postgrad at Cornell."
Rosecrans Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States
"From the other side of the street Foy spotted me. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, the traffic speeding loudly up and down Rosecrans Avenue forcing me to play peek-a-boo with both his image and his words."
Hermosa Beach, California, United States
"In Hermosa Beach, La Mirada, and Duarte the street signs are the bland brown of cheap blended malt whiskey."
Guthrie Boulevard, Dickens, California
"I galloped home. Drove the horse hard down Guthrie Boulevard, inventing some inner-city dressage along the way as I ignored the traffic cop and ran the horse through a series of figure eights by dashing in and out of the orange construction barrels in the shut-down center lane."
Chariton Drive, Dickens, California
"On Chariton Drive, I latched onto a tiring skateboarder and, with one hand on the reins, pulled her along like a long board cabriolet from Airdrome to Sawyer, whipping her into a sharp turn onto Burnside."
Airdrome, Dickens, California
"On Chariton Drive, I latched onto a tiring skateboarder and, with one hand on the reins, pulled her along like a long board cabriolet from Airdrome to Sawyer, whipping her into a sharp turn onto Burnside."
Sawyer, Dickens, California
"On Chariton Drive, I latched onto a tiring skateboarder and, with one hand on the reins, pulled her along like a long board cabriolet from Airdrome to Sawyer, whipping her into a sharp turn onto Burnside."
Burnside, Dickens, California
"On Chariton Drive, I latched onto a tiring skateboarder and, with one hand on the reins, pulled her along like a long board cabriolet from Airdrome to Sawyer, whipping her into a sharp turn onto Burnside."
Chicago, Illinois
"There’d be none of the head rush Jean Baptiste Point du Sable and William Overton must’ve felt when they planted their flags in Chicago and Portland."
Portland, Oregon
"There’d be none of the head rush Jean Baptiste Point du Sable and William Overton must’ve felt when they planted their flags in Chicago and Portland."
Johannesburg, South Africa
"I hear Johannesburg ain’t that bad and the surf on the Cape Verdean beaches is incredible."
Cape Verde, West Africa
"I hear Johannesburg ain’t that bad and the surf on the Cape Verdean beaches is incredible."
Robertson Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"It took about two days to convert the long-out-of-business brushless car wash on Robertson Boulevard into a tunnel of whiteness."
Iwo Jima, Japan
"I attached two small purple-and-gold Lakers pennants to the front fenders of my pickup truck and, for good measure, flew a giant Iwo Jima–sized, 1987 Championship Lakers flag from the roof."
Broadway Street, Los Angeles, California
"…roll into the territory of their archenemies, the Venice Seaside Boys, caravanning down Broadway Street, four cars and twenty fools deep, the sun at their backs, looking for action."
Venice Beach Boardwalk, Los Angeles, California
"…like frat boys playing a rough game of two‐hand touch in the mud, the misbegotten sons of the Westside chase each other up and down the Venice Beach boardwalk, paying homage to the rumbles of old…"
Palmdale, California
"…now, whenever the vast majority of the Venice Seaside Boys want to “put in work” and defend their turf, they have to commute from faraway places like Palmdale and Moreno Valley."
Moreno Valley, California
"…now, whenever the vast majority of the Venice Seaside Boys want to “put in work” and defend their turf, they have to commute from faraway places like Palmdale and Moreno Valley."
Calabasas Hills, California
"…before the word “hood” had been appropriated to refer to any location from the upscale enclaves of the Calabasas Hills, Shaker Heights, and the Upper East Side…"
Shaker Heights, Ohio
"…before the word “hood” had been appropriated to refer to any location from the upscale enclaves of the Calabasas Hills, Shaker Heights, and the Upper East Side…"
Upper East Side, New York, New York
"…before the word “hood” had been appropriated to refer to any location from the upscale enclaves of the Calabasas Hills, Shaker Heights, and the Upper East Side…"
Baker Street, Los Angeles, California
"…Hammered them into two telephone poles on opposites sides of Baker Street, where the rusted train tracks divided the neighborhood between Varrio and Barrio P.G."
Shenandoah Street, Los Angeles, California
"…as they act out and relive the gang fights that changed history: the Battle of Shenandoah Street, the Lincoln Boulevard Skirmish, and the infamous Massacre at Los Amigos Park."
Lincoln Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"…as they act out and relive the gang fights that changed history: the Battle of Shenandoah Street, the Lincoln Boulevard Skirmish, and the infamous Massacre at Los Amigos Park."
Los Amigos Park, Los Angeles, California
"…as they act out and relive the gang fights that changed history: the Battle of Shenandoah Street, the Lincoln Boulevard Skirmish, and the infamous Massacre at Los Amigos Park."
Los Angeles, California
"Watching Hominy at the L.A. Festival of Forbidden Cinema and Unabashedly Racist Animation, on the Nuart big screen"
West Los Angeles, California
"From West L.A. the drive to Foy’s Hollywood Hills abode took longer than it should have."
Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California
"From West L.A. the drive to Foy’s Hollywood Hills abode took longer than it should have."
Crescent Heights, Los Angeles, California
"Back then Crescent Heights and Rossmore used to be side streets and smooth sailing; now they’re two-lane, bumper-to-bumper major thoroughfares."
Rossmore, Los Angeles, California
"Back then Crescent Heights and Rossmore used to be side streets and smooth sailing; now they’re two-lane, bumper-to-bumper major thoroughfares."
Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles, California
"Across Mulholland was a scenic overlook. Facing north, I timed my run and sprinted between a speeding Maserati and two teenagers in a birthday BMW convertible."
Crystalwater Canyon Park, Los Angeles, California
"A dirt trail peeled down the mountainside and through the chaparral for about a mile or so, eventually leading to a side street and Crystalwater Canyon Park, a small but immaculately kept recreation area featuring a few picnic tables, some shade trees, and a basketball court."
San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, California
"Sitting just off Mulholland Drive, on the crest overlooking the San Fernando Valley"
Nuart, Los Angeles, California
"Topsy was waiting for us out in the Nuart parking lot, still in costume and blackface, but wearing a pair of designer sunglasses and excitedly digging through her book bag."
White House, Washington, D.C.
"Remember those photos of the black president and his family walking across the White House lawn arm-in-arm."
Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, California
"About two weeks after seeking the Lost Film Treasure of Laurel Canyon, the secret was out."
Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
"But unlike Little Rock, Arkansas, on September 3, 1957, the city of Dickens didn’t spit in their faces and hurl racial epithets."
Little Rock Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
"Standing behind Charisma, and like anyone else apart from the custodial and food services staff at Little Rock Central High School or the University of Mississippi in 1962, on the wrong side of history."
University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, United States
"Standing behind Charisma, and like anyone else apart from the custodial and food services staff at Little Rock Central High School or the University of Mississippi in 1962, on the wrong side of history."
Paris, France
"Erecting fake schools like the ghetto was some sort of phony Paris complete with railway stations, Arc de Triomphes, and Eiffel Towers built during World War I to fool the German bombers."
Theresienstadt, Czech Republic
"Like the Germans, who, in turn, in the next war, built fake stores, theaters, and parks in Theresienstadt to dupe the Red Cross into believing that no atrocities were taking place."
Pompeii, Italy
"the same switchboard operators who took the calls from the Holocaust, Rwanda, Wounded Knee, and Pompeii."
Wounded Knee, South Dakota, United States
"the same switchboard operators who took the calls from the Holocaust, Rwanda, Wounded Knee, and Pompeii."
Rwanda, Africa
"the same switchboard operators who took the calls from the Holocaust, Rwanda, Wounded Knee, and Pompeii."
California, United States
"Too broke and embarrassed to provide an armed escort, the state of California watched idly as the sacrificial lambs of reintegration."
Vermont and 58th Street, Los Angeles, California
"if I got out of this alive, the first thing I’d do was visit the one over on Vermont and 58th Street. Order me a three‐piece combo—dark, with flame‐grilled corn and mashed potatoes..."
Rosecrans, Los Angeles, California
"Foy clacked two shots at the back end of his Mercedes crookedly parked on Rosecrans."
Sag Harbor, New York, United States
"At least niggers on the East Coast have the Vineyard and Sag Harbor. What we got? Las Vegas and fucking El Pollo Loco."
Supreme Court, Washington, D.C., United States
"I expected the air-conditioning in the Supreme Court to be for shit, like it is in all the good courtroom movies:"
Washington, D.C., United States
"Washington, D.C., is fairly muggy this time of year, but it’s mild, damn near frigid, inside the courthouse, yet I have to open a window anyway—to let out all the smoke and five years of judicial system frustration."
Plymouth Rock, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States
"Fred says the reason they don’t permit cameras has nothing to do with maintaining decorum and dignity. It’s to protect the country from seeing what’s underneath Plymouth Rock."
Washington Monument, Washington, D.C., United States
"There’s absolutely no skyline, save for the Washington Monument touching the night sky like a giant middle finger to the world."
United Nations General Assembly, New York, New York, United States
"Colin Powell sharing his recipe for yellowcake uranium before the United Nations General Assembly shortly before the potluck invasion of Iraq and Condoleezza Rice lying through the gap in her teeth."
Upper West Side, New York, New York, United States
"the beautiful Supreme Court Justice from the Upper West Side, who, leaning coolly into her microphone, has finally asked the first question that makes any sense:"
Los Angeles Basin, California
"Weatherperson Chantal Mattingly is waving her hands over the L.A. Basin."
Palmdale, California
"Current temperatures … Palmdale 103°/88° …"
Oxnard, California
"Current temperatures … Oxnard 77°/70° …"
Thousand Oaks, California
"Current temperatures … Thousand Oaks 77°/69° …"
Santa Monica, California
"Current temperatures … Santa Monica 79°/66° …"
Van Nuys, California
"Current temperatures … Van Nuys 105/82° …"
Glendale, California
"Current temperatures … Glendale … 95°/79° …"
Dickens, California
"Current temperatures … Dickens 88°/74° … “Wait, does that say Dickens?” Marpessa laughs maniacally."
Long Beach, California
"Current temperatures … Long Beach 82°/75° …"
Santa Barbara, California
"along the coast from Santa Barbara to Orange Counties"
Orange County, California
"along the coast from Santa Barbara to Orange Counties"
Ventura County, California
"for the interior valleys of Ventura County"
Dum Dum Donuts, Los Angeles, California
"One night, on the anniversary of my father’s death, Marpessa and I drove down to Dum Dum Donuts for open-mike night."
Los Angeles, California
"If we wanted our usual seats, we had to get there earlier and earlier, because word was spreading throughout black L.A. that a funny motherfucker was hosting the open-mike nights."
United States of America
"He said that he felt like the country, the United States of America, had finally paid off its debts."
California, United States
"“And what about the Native Americans? What about the Chinese, the Japanese, the Mexicans, the poor, the forests, the water, the air, the fucking California condor? When do they collect?”"
18 West 18th Street, New York
"Farrar, Straus and Giroux 18 West 18th Street, New York 10011"
New York, New York
"He lives in New York City."
Las Vegas, Nevada
"What we got? Las Vegas and fucking El Pollo Loco."
White House, Washington, D.C.
"I’m sitting on the Supreme Court steps, making a pipe out of a soda can, staring at the White House lit up like a department store window."
Greenville, South Carolina, United States
"in “Oil Ty-Coons!” our boys are seen pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with cash down the crime‐free streets of Greenville."
Santa Clarita, California, United States
"Current temperatures … Santa Clarita 108°/107° …"
Chicago, Illinois
"Chicago has the Hawk, and Dickens, despite its newly painted barrier, has the Stank, an eye‐burning, colorless miasma of sulfur and shit birthed in the Wilmington oil refineries and the Long Beach sewage treatment plant."
Los Angeles, California
"Decades later on, a seasonally indeterminate afternoon in a supposedly unsegregated section of Los Angeles, California, Hominy Jenkins couldn’t wait to give up his seat to a white person."
Los Angeles, California
"“We’re happy to have processed your application for International Municipal Sisterhood, but we can’t seem to find Dickens on the map. It’s near Los Angeles, right?”"
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
"Twenty-two Black people pop. “Pop” being Hollywood slang for having a dynamic camera presence, for being almost too photogenic."
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
"Later in life I would track Ms. Lescook down. She was a paralegal in Atlanta who remembered my father as a man whom she’d never met."
Southern California, United States
"the two more immediate goals in my life, segregating Dickens and raising a successful potato crop in Southern California."
Detroit, Michigan
"a few freelance journalists in Detroit, and the American hikikomori who sit in their basements pounding away at their keyboards composing measured and well-thought-out responses to the endless torrent of racist online commentary."
St. Louis, Missouri, United States
"That like Paris has the Eiffel Tower, St. Louis the Arch, and New York an insanely huge income disparity, Dickens would have segregated schools."
Downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
"We used to refer to the modern but smallish homes with their pools, plate-glass windows, stone facades, and weatherproofed balconies overlooking downtown Los Angeles as “Brady Bunch houses.”"
Westside, Los Angeles, California
"Much as he complained about the pretentious white people on the Westside, I think he secretly liked to drive over to Gelson’s whenever they had Opalescents on sale for $4.50/lb., or to the Farmers Market if some Enterprises were in."
Los Angeles County, California
"Between the police and the gangs, navigating the streets of any neighborhood in L.A. County, especially any section not familiar with you, can be dangerous. You just never know when you’re going to get rolled up on for being or wearing the wrong color."
Guadalupe, California
"Built to scale and since 1923 buried under the massive Nipomo Dunes along the beaches of Guadalupe, California, its massive wooden gates, hypostyle temples, and papier-mâché sphinxes served as home to Ramses and a phalanx of centurion and legionnaire extras."
Rosecrans Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States
"By the time the 9:49 westbound arrived at Rosecrans and Long Beach in a noxious but punctual cloud of exhaust fumes, the crowd had long since dissipated, and I sat at the bus stop next to Hominy, smoking a doobie and cradling my last two satsuma mandarins."