MALIBU

"I drove on to the Oxnard cut-off and turned back along the ocean. The big eight-wheelers and sixteen wheelers were streaming north, all hung over with orange lights. On the right the great solid fat Pacific trudging into shore like a scrub woman going home. No moon, no fuss, hardly a sound of the surf. No smell. None of the harsh wild smell of the sea. A California ocean. California, the department-store state. The most of everything and the best of nothing...

Malibu. More movie stars. More pink and blue bathtubs. More tufted beds. More Chanel No. 5. More Lincoln Continentals and Cadillacs. More wind-blown hair and sunglasses and attitudes and psuedo-refined voices and waterfront morals...I smelled Los Angeles before I got to it. It smelled stale and old like a living room that had been closed too long."

- Raymond Chandler
The Little Sister
written in La Jolla, California
1949