Happier things.
Got sucked into the L.A. Library photo collection tonight. That always means nothing else gets done. Here's and example of why (for me old pictures are like potato chips, and once I start I can't stop.) This building has two matching towers. The one on the east end can be only partly seen in this picture. I was in the east tower once, over twenty years ago. Some guy operated a retail model shop up there, so it was open to the public.
It was an imposing room, the wooden beams of the ceiling high above, a strangely softened light coming in the windows. The place was full of intricate model sailing ships the guy had built, and a stock of models for sale and various materials and tools, and a large work table where the owner was assembling yet another craft. It was all very not at all Raymond Chandler. It was more like everyday Los Angeles slightly askew, but benevolently so, as though Los Angeles were a city in which Raymond Chandler would have had nothing to write about, but (viewing the moment in retrospect) perhaps a place where J.K. Rowling would have found something.
One of those strange moments that happens now and then. I liked being reminded of it. The building, by the way, is still there, unlike most of the many similar works of the era by the same architects. I'm glad that at least one of those buildings has survived.