California dreaming. A tumultuous, fractal, sub-infinite series of images. Deep green forests and rugged mountains. Sun-drenched coasts with surfers riding unfeasibly large waves. Burning deserts and fertile valleys. Vast sprawling townscapes scattered with deep blue pools linked suburb to suburb by enormous, mustang-filled freeways. UCLA. Berkeley. All those funny people camped out in VWs around Mt Shasta. La Jolla and the Scripps Institute,  Everything the good life could be, democratically arrived at, and mass produced for ordinary people. Which made this State, in the peak years 1960-1980 the cultural and social centre of the world.  Our hope, our dream, our shimmering light.

It was defence that caused California to boom as the USA began its long tilt towards the Pacific after 1945.   The US Government’s act of undeclared Keynesianism funded Cold War icons such as  Lockheed (Burbank) North American (Inglewood) McDonnell Douglas(Santa Monica, Long Beach), Hughes(Culver City)  and Northrop (Hawthorne). As the money flowed through these companies and out the other side, it funded not only the great learning institutions, but also one of the most comfortable and agreeable lifestyles that had ever been known. Everyone, potentially, was in, although if you were black or Hispanic, your share of the pot was going to be much, much smaller.  Hollywood, to its credit, was self-funding.  But its endless output of iconic films and TV shows afforded the USA a soft power capability that was equal to at least ten carrier battle groups. All of this in turn grew the next generation of industry: Information, games and now AI. For this was a culture built not on oil, or gold or military power, but in the last resort on brains. In places, it still is.

You will by now,  gentle reader, have intuited your own huge list of favourite films, TV shows, books  popular musical singers, foods and brands which are your California. Yet it is poets who see  most clearly, capturing  the distilled essence of time and place most of all  when they set their thoughts  to music. Those poets were  Eagles Don Henley and Glenn Frey, whose songs such as Tequila Sunrise, Hotel California, The Last Resort and others managed to capture the crazy contradictory kaleidoscope  of hopes, dreams, indulgences and despairs in  a land and place at the  leading edge of our species’ experience.  Perhaps the shimmering light it is now growing dim. . But for us the word “California” carries the hope that somewhere out there still lies the possibility of a prosperous, future.

#california #cold war #JM Keynes # The Eagles #Los Angeles #hollywood