Appearances

This is my grand observation of LA, the home of Hollywood, where youth and beauty are idolized and appearances are everything: the beauty is only skin deep, but so is the ugly.  Reviled as a concrete jungle, a desert scarred by freeways on which solo drivers in oversized, traffic-jammed cars shuffle along until, driven mad by automobile claustrophobia, one of them points a semi-automatic out the window and starts shooting, Los Angeles can be hard to like at first glance.  City of Angels?  Are you joking?

There are a lot of beautiful people here, everyone is very conscious of their appearance.  America's obesity crisis is not apparent in LA.  Gyms and nail salons abound, as do hairdressers, tanning studios and teeth whitening products: big hair, tiny bodies, brown skin, white teeth.  The women are very well groomed, paying more attention to the meticulous maintenance of their nails than the average Australian woman.  Wrinkles are removed - don't get me started on botox, that's a whole other rant - and breasts are enhanced.  And then there's Beverly Hills, the grand dame of LA, where the buildings are gilded, the fences are high and the grass is supernaturally green.  Only skin deep.

Meanwhile, much of LA itself comprises nondescript concrete boxes, hunkered down against the dust and blistering sun.  But enter one of these establishments and discover a whole new world.  It's like walking onto a film set; from the outside it looks like another ugly concrete-rendered box, but inside it looks twice as big and you could be anywhere in the world, from Mexico to Morocco.  Similarly, driving into the city from LAX, or strolling along the Boulevard of Stars, your sparkly idea of Hollywood glamor may be tarnished.  And unless you have a guide to show you around or drive you from one side of town to the other, you may very well miss the natural beauty of Griffith Park, the spectacular architecture of (and even more spectacular view from) the Getty Museum, and the peaceful greenery of walking tracks in the Hollywood Hills. 

Yes, there is much in LA - both beautiful and ugly - that is superficial, but that's not all bad.