El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula.

Today I concluded my last of the conversations with random and important people on campus who might be able to give me insight into how I do my faculty leader job. I am full of notes and advice and ideas. Now, I need about two weeks to catch up with all my stuff like, y'know, teaching.

Since that's clearly not going to happen, unless there has recently been a breakthrough in the space-time continuum--has there been? if there has and someone failed to tell me, I am going to be mightily put out--I think I will instead take a trip with the historian to L.A.

L.A.! City of my youth that I barely discovered, and name of my new project: the L.A. Project! This project entails:

• seeing places I've never seen except in movies (Griffith Park),
• seeing places I should have seen by now (Olvera Street, Union Station),
• seeing places I have only read about/seen in movies (Mulholland Drive),
• seeing places Joni Mitchell used to live (Laurel Canyon),
• seeing places lots of other famous 60s and 70s types lived (Topanga Canyon),
• hanging out at the places where my more free-spirited friends had fun in the 70s (Hermosa Beach).
• going to the beach both early and late in the day,

and also going to the Getty. And probably eating a lot of Mexican food.

We are going over fall break. The L.A. Project will probably have multiple chapters, since there are whole San Fernando Valley (not technically part of L.A., but by extension) aspects to cover, as well as desert stuff, and so on and so forth. If you have suggestions for me, I highly recommend that you fax them right over. Or put them in the comments section of this blog posting. I will give you credit as an advisor for the Project. You know you want credit!

L. A.: there will be video essays. I hope.