Driving home tonight on Mulholland. About a quarter mile east of Deep Canyon looking south, Westside-ward, and seeing a weird fin of smoke in the sky, like the cloud cover was flat-as-glass ocean and some leviathan just under the surface.

I’ve been driving around on Mulholland for over a decade and it was just a week ago that I realized how completely different the drop-off is on the north and south sides. I always knew it (I guess), but it took until last week for it to come to my attention. Looking north at night is always the reverse starscape, the major boulevards lancing at different angles than you remember, the whole Valley looking alive, somehow ready (and to do what, really? let you get a drive through burger at Tommy’s? It’s still *the Valley*), the view south a completely different animal.

It’s weird, the distortions of driving. I know it takes a while to get to Sunset, down Beverly Glen, but it doesn’t seem like the same while it does from Mulholland, where sometimes you can practically see to Palos Verdes but kind of take the westside for granted, or on faith, or as a matter of principle, because you can’t see it. Looking north, at night, you’re firmly in the present. Looking south, you’re some Chinese guy on the Wall, alone at the outpost, hoping no Mongols come out of the steppes.

Just by way of saying, really, what the f*ck was that fin?

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