“Everything in Los Angeles is too large, too loud and usually banal in concept… The plastic asshole of the world.” William Faulkner
Vickie Lester
I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion. What Hollywood looked like when Mr. Faulkner deigned to spend time here…
This is the corner of Highland and Hollywood Blvd. The building is still there.
This is Hollywood Blvd. Grauman’s Chinese Theatre is at the bottom of the frame.
He may have stopped at Sardi’s, designed by Richard Neutra for a drink…
Or picked up some paper for his typewriter here, at the stationer’s store…
And perhaps feeling a little worse for those cocktails at lunch he may have gone home to a courtyard apartment like this…”Would to god, why is the sun glaring so? Why is it so damn halcyon all the time?” he thought, a faintly cockeyed smile on his lips.
But he placated himself, thinking about that young script girl working for Mr. Hawks, she of the golden hair and the firm flanks and the steady hands. Perhaps she would drive him out to see the stars come up above the plastic city, and turn the loud, the usually banal, and the large into this:
