Driving in L.A. / Dancing in New Orleans
Today: Miles Klee, culture writer at Rolling Stone, author of the novel Ivyland, and co-author, with Mads Gobbo, of the story collection Double Black Diamond; and Tod Seelie, photographer and author of BRIGHT NIGHTS: Photographs of Another New York.
Issue No. 516
Ten Years Behind the Wheel
Miles Klee
Encore in New Orleans
Tod Seelie
Ten Years Behind the Wheel
by Miles Klee
As a bitter winter continues to grip most of the U.S., Los Angeles faces temperatures that have us wearily cranking the air conditioner up again already. It reminds me of two common questions I get from family and friends when I visit my northeastern homeland. The first, if I’m there anytime but summer: “You must be freezing, huh?” (Amusing, insofar as I retain a high tolerance for the cold, whereas they continue complaining about it despite spending their whole lives in that climate.) The other, more probing one: “So, you’re still liking it out there?”
Yes, “out there in L.A.,” a place my New York cousins have said they just “don’t get.” Maybe growing up in the New Jersey sprawl makes me a better-adapted transplant; I am sometimes shocked to realize just how many of my friends in southern California have the same origins as mine. In any case, I realized as 2026 rolled around that it had been ten years since I took the leap and headed out there, a period of time that seems as legitimizing as any if you want to establish yourself as a true local. That I should keep being asked at this late date whether this is something of a phase or experiment, rather than a place where I have found community and a feeling of home, seems to affirm L.A.’s reputation as a mirage—a daydream rather than a solid grid of streets and taco stands.
Keep us breathing fire!
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