Inherent Vice

As I was reading Thomas Pynchon's most recent (and by far most accessible) new book Inherent Vice towards the end of the summer, this passage jumped out at me as being a fantastic representation of late '60s Los Angeles:

"Doc took the freeway out. The eastbound lanes teemed with VW buses in jittering paisleys, primer-coated street hemis, woodies of authentic Dearborn pine, TV-star-piloted Porsches, Cadillacs carrying dentists to extramarital trysts, windowless vans with lurid teen dramas in progress inside, pickups with mattresses fully of country cousins from the San Joaquin, all wheeling along together down the into these great horizonless fields of housing, under the power transmission lines, everybody’s radios lasing on the same couple of AM stations, under a sky like watered milk, and the white bombardment of a sun smogged into only a smear of probability, out in whose light you began to wonder if anything you’d call psychedelic could ever happen, or if—bummer!—all this time it had really been going on up north."

Through the Night and Wind excerpt

With only a few weeks left until the release of Through the Night and Wind, I've selected a few more excerpts to share. The following is from the eighth chapter.

We hauled ourselves up onto the swimming platform and sat there for a while, watching tiny schools of minnows and sunfish dart here and there, mostly ignoring our presence just as their brethren had at the Baths and the Caves. My dad’s chest glowed a bright crimson and looked as though he’d been out in the sun without sunscreen for days on end. I poked him with my index finger, watching as the spot flashed bright white, then slowly faded from a pinkish hue to red again.

“You okay?” I asked, laughing as I recalled the look on his face the instant before he hit the water—a mixture of subdued terror and casual indifference as he likely realized there was nothing he could’ve done about it at that point.

“Nothing a cold beer won’t cure.”

“Bad news,” I said. “We’re almost out.”

“Lucky for us we’re less than a hundred yards from a veritable cornucopia of beach bars. What do you say?”

I didn’t hesitate: “Let’s go.”

We spent the next few hours bar-hopping along the white sand beach. Some of the places were relatively upscale establishments, with air conditioning and wait staff; others were how I imagined Bomba’s would appear—rundown little shacks that appeared as if they’d blow over in a stiff breeze (or even a gentle one). We’d taken the dinghy ashore, paid our mooring fee and enjoyed bottles of Red Stripe at Rhymer’s Beach Bar, then criss-crossed the beach, stopping at The Big Banana Paradise Club and Stanley’s Welcome Bar. We sipped Bushwhackers while reclining in lounge chairs, watching a trio of surfers negotiate the rocky reef off to our right at the bay’s eastern point. Observing them paddling out, catching a swell and cutting back and forth across the waves’ faces was certainly impressive; it reminded me of the Pacific. I knew that I’d be back in Santa Barbara in two days and was eager to enjoy the familiar pleasures of home.

The more thought I gave it, the more I realized that when I thought of “home,” that same mnemonic slide carousel dropped in images of Santa Barbara, not Naperville. It showed me the sun rising over Stearns Wharf as I paddled into the brilliant yellow aurora of daybreak; it showed me cruising north on the 101 through wine country; it showed the same fiery ball sinking into the violet Pacific, leaving an impressionistic ruby sky in its wake. It didn’t show me the impeccably groomed outfield at Wrigley or a blurred visage of an El train whizzing through a blustery, inky midnight. In the past week I’d grown to accept the fact that just as my father had left Illinois behind and cast his lot here (or wherever he was destined to wind up), I was growing accustomed to the fact that after two years in California, I had begun to think of it as home—and not just home in the sense that it was some other folks’ home, a place that I was simply passing through on my way somewhere else, but my home.

Note: here's a photo of Cane Garden Bay from one of the aforementioned beach bars.

Through the Night and Wind excerpt

With only a few weeks left until the release of Through the Night and Wind, I've selected a few more excerpts to share. The following is from the fourth chapter; it picks up right where the previous chapter 4 excerpt leaves off:

I’d been so immersed in observation that I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I stepped onto the sandy beach and my stomach growled angrily. Ken emerged from the ocean a few minutes later, and I could tell by his expression that he was feeling similar pangs. We slipped off our flippers and re-moved our sandals from a mesh bag that he’d been wearing as a backpack. The walk up to the restaurant was strewn with pointy rocks (a lesson he’d learned the hard way on his last trip) and shoes were quite a blessing. I stuffed our snorkeling gear back into the pack and shouldered it for our hike to the summit. The sun beat down on our bare backs, but even the mid-90s heat felt nourishing and merited on my shoulders.

For all the ocean’s beauty and splendor, however, I still couldn’t avoid the tangy grit of the salty water. Our snorkeling equipment was far from the top of the line, and multiples times I’d needed to re-adjust my mouthpiece, inadvertently sucking in huge mouthfuls of ocean water. Fortunately my mask was adequately airtight and I’d avoided eyefuls of saltwater, but my mouth was still awash in a briny bath that I couldn’t escape. It was like being ten years old again, except at 26 I wouldn’t have the same excuse for crying and pouting that I did back then. I bore my salty cross stoically as we marched up the hill, thinking about something—cold beer, soda, anything—to get the taste out of my mouth.

That something came in the form of a great feast at Top of the Baths, the restaurant perched quite literally at its namesake. Its patio, complete with freshwater swimming pool, offers 360-degree views of the surrounding islands, which, in the crystal clear noonday sun, were nothing short of breathtaking, as beautiful a view above sea level as we’d just seen below. Even though we’d only left the ocean 15 minutes earlier, after we placed our order my father and I slid into the pool, where our waitress brought us ice cold concoctions called Bushwhackers, local libations consisting of Amaretto, Bailey’s, Kahlua, vodka, rum, Coco Lopez, and freshly grated nutmeg (thankfully, they held the kitchen sink). The drink was noticeably stronger than the Cooper’s Dreams yesterday, and my dad laughed as I winced my way through the first sip. While it wasn’t a drink I’d order on a regular basis, it did a hell of a job of getting the taste of saltwater out of my mouth; I only wondered if I’d be conscious enough to swim back to the boat after I finished it.

Lunch consisted of crab fritters (rolled balls of crabmeat and breadcrumbs, fried golden brown), hamburgers adorned with juicy slices of fresh pine-apple, and gazpacho (which truly hit the spot on such a scorching day). Exiting the pool as our food arrived, we sat in the shade under a large awning, grateful for even a brief respite from the sun. We’d both earned some color in the past few days, but thanks to Ken’s constant badgering to wear more sunscreen (which, in turn, came directly from my mother—whenever he ordered me to reapply it to my nose, I could hear her tone echoing in his voice), we’d avoided any burns. Instead my pasty, chalky skin was slowly growing to match my father’s bronzed tone. I hadn’t shaved since leaving Santa Barbara, and after a few days, the scruff accumulating on my face and neck was also growing to match his. I ran my hand over my patchy beard, wondering how Bridget would react to it. She was easygoing by nature (which was quite possibly her most attractive feature) and would most likely rib me good-naturedly—calling me the Mitchum Man or Grizzly Adams—but take it all in stride, much like the aquatic world I’d just swum through had for eons.

We bandied about more names for the boat as we lunched, re-hashing Pelican and El Draco and adding new ones to the list, like Cooper’s Dream and Angelfish. A long series of sports-themed names bubbled to the surface: Ryno, a reference to former Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg, one of my childhood heroes, 23 as a nod to the ubiquitous number of Michael Jordan, and Sweetness for Bears legend Walter Payton, one of the greatest running backs in NFL history. None really fit, however, and we decided to go back to the proverbial drawing board and wait for something to jump out at us, confident that when the perfect name reared its head, we’d both know it.

Note: here's a photo of the view from Top of the Baths for reference.