Kelsey’s Reviews > The White Album > Status Update

like a lot was how she really did capture how driving in LA is unlike driving anywhere else in the world. I've described to people how I can feel a change coming over my body as I leave the grapevine, and relaxation turns to vivid concentration, but almost as if I'm in autopilot. She described it as a mystic experience that locals have come to worship, and that feeling certainly still persists

Bureaucrats- that one was ok too. I'm realizing that a lot of the seemingly strange and insignificant things she writes about probably came from stories at her journalism work which makes more sense. Again about change for the sake of change but I do find it hilarious that these projects initiated in the 60s to great public outcry and hatred still exist today (carpool lanes and freeway message boards). The part I did

The Getty- eh this was one of the weaker ones for me so far but I guess because it was stating things that I find obvious. Maybe it's because I'm a classics student and it seems second nature to me to understand that the ancient world was not all silence and white marble and demureness so perhaps this would be a bit more profound to the 'common man'.

Many Mansions- Somehow the house built for famous conservative Ronald Reagan was turned into a lesson against progress for progress' sake and the decline of American values. And I kind of have to agree with everything she said. I have always felt the romanticism of a closed door and a high vaulted ceiling over a shiny new modern facade. Short and impactful

yearn for the control over water

my fascination, but now she makes me think there is. Somehow the entire experience of living in California, especially now that I have lived both in the South and North of California, was summed up in this strange treatise on water. About craving control over what you have no control over. She somehow made it sound in the same way that people desperately yearn for control over the certainty of death, Californians

Holy Water- how is it that she can make such a dull subject as water treatment and control have so much life? Somehow I think she was able to explain to me in a way why I am so drawn to water. Living in California, especially Los Angeles, is such an enigma because you live in the constant presence of this vastness of water, yet water is also a scarcity. I never thought there was any kind of psychological reason for

ooh I really like her. The essay on James Pike was short but very impactful. I like how she deduced that he could be summed up by the word American more than anything else. This essay led me to believe that a lot about what I personally don't respect about American protestantism came from the 60s and this very unique mindset that's so egocentric. It was a fascinating case study and now I want to research him

The White Album, I think it's very telling and intelligent. Obviously it's a Beatles reference to their unnamed (and best imo) album released under The Beatles. Just like that album was a raw reflection of the band and colloquially came to be referred under this title, this was a raw reflection of a decade of her life that didn't need its own title because it was just her, her white album

suppose sources are biased because I really only hear from artists in this period but it seemed like everyone in the art, especially music, scene was connected and knew each other. She sat in while the Doors were recording and loosely knew Sharon Tate before she was murdered. She was fascinated in murder trials and seemed just so singularly herself the way the story was told. I also really love the title,