This week, the diner opened.
Since arriving in Los Angeles in June, and settling into my new apartment, my first apartment since October 2024, I’ve watched with interest the unfolding of the diner. Every night, I’d walk Julie by the site, nod at the security guards, settling into their shifts. Usually, we were the only ones out there, as dusk covered California. In the morning, fresh grafitti would adorn the tarp hung on the fence, the fence blocking the world from seeing what was happening within. In an era where “surprise” is becoming a new experience, I could see why the owners of the diner were keeping this joint under wraps. They were planning something HUGE.
And huge it is in vision and scope. Two large movie screens sitting in a right angle, one facing east, one facing south. The resolution on these screens are so pristine, you can watch a movie in its entirety without it being washed out. I’ve been watching the diner test out the movie screens since I got here. I know that the first film rolls out at 9am, and tends to run until 11pm, when I’m tucked away asleep. I worried I’d turn into Kramer, with a red light beaming into my home. Thank goodness that is not happening.
What is happening is an intense curiosity.
This week, the diner officially opened, at 4:20 (I know. So precisely sophomoric. People have stood in line for hours; how lucky for them the weather has been unseasonably reasonable. I watched a man played acoustic guitar to the throng. I’ve noticed people standing on line with their strollers and their dogs and their elderly folk. I watched a man lead a tour. I listened to protests play Tupac’s California on repeat, the dystopian video hauntingly real. Streams of people pulling up, on foot, in their cars. I have watched legions of cars pull up, be re-directed, and then wait on a line for cars, their engines purring, as they wait, wait, wait for entry.
This one sleepy block in the Media district has become some kind of destination. As a New Yorker, it’s more aural wallpaper, something I’d grown expert at tuning out, having lived in Manhattan for almost 40 years. What was noise then? I lived on seventh avenue and Grove street for close to a decade, my windows facing seventh avenue; the traffic on Friday, going south into the tunnel, would sometimes hit a standstill all the way up to where I was; honking, humans, humidity. I learned at an early age not to allow noise to disrupt by “Serenity Now” mantra. But as a woman who is looking for her next home, the place where she can live and love and laugh without stress, without trauma, without toxic energy, I’ve lost that finely attuned talent. Now, the noise is a constant boom, not even a dull throb, but an intrustive spectacle into my sanctuary.
In some ways, it’s a welcome sign: this is not the place. Where that is, this diner has given me the luxury to know that is the case, to look beyond the convenience of this huilding.
So that I can get to my home.
(An ode to Oasis; I’d seen them once. Watching my friends see them now is making emotional, an ode to a time past, an embrace to what is now.)
Soundtrack while writing this post (iPod shuffle, no editing)
“Wonderwall” by Oasis
“Vapor Trail” by Ride
“Alive” by Daft Punk
“7 Seas” by Girls Against Boys
“Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar
“When You Sleep” by My Bloody Valentine
“Jump Into The Fire” by Harry Nilsson
“Without Words” by Ray LaMontagne
Beautiful