California Dispatch | Searching for Eve’s Hollywood

Navigating surreal sunsets, roadtrips and wildfires in Los Angeles.

Quick context - I’m a travel writer who specialises in responsible tourism. I was recently in LA at the time of the fires. During this trip, I was reading Eve Babitz (whose first book is titled Eve’s Hollywood). She’s the inspiration behind this piece, which explores whether Eve’s hedonistic worldview can still exist in today's era.

A psychic told me last summer that I would be going to LA, a place I have never wanted to visit, so I thought she must be wrong. But then a few weeks later, the family we’re planning to spend Christmas with in New York call to say they’ve decided to go to LA and would we like to join them there instead. That’s how I ended up in California on a trip that started with lilac and pink and ended in black and orange.

Week 1 vs Week 3

Upon arrival, the first sign I see as we leave LAX says ‘your higher self is calling you here.’ I think back to the psychic and make up my mind in that instant that I’m going to have a good time. There are palm trees here and therefore it’s written in stone that I will love it.

The first morning, the palm trees loom ominously against a sky thick with fog. I’m relieved because it’s Christmas Eve which is for being cosy and watching Christmas movies and it would be sinful to do those things if it’s sunny outside. A couple of days later, I watch my first LA sunrise transition from dusty pink to an intense orange morning. The city buildings in the distance are tinged with lilac, the glass reflections making them glitter and shimmer under the new sun. The palm tree silhouettes sit inky black against clouds of candyfloss. I understand immediately why Eve Babitz wrote about the city in colours and her obsession with pleasure and prettiness and the sensory experience of LA.

Often when we travel to a new place, we visit a version built in our minds before we arrive. We’re not seeing the place as it actually is but through the lens of the movies, books and artists that have shaped our perception of it. For a duration of my stay, I’m in Eve’s Hollywood. Eve Babitz was the quintessential Los Angeles writer. She was a writer, artist and socialite who captured life in LA in the 1970s with the same passion one would write about a love affair. Eve’s LA is dreamy and romantic and sensual. It’s pink skies and fluffy clouds, all-night parties and random road trips, neon lights, golden sunsets and vibrant personalities. Romanticised? For sure. Out of touch with reality? 1000%. Eve’s Hollywood is a pleasure playground, her pleasure playground to be precise. What’s so appealing about Eve is that she’s fun. She’s carefree and unserious - traits women often don’t get to be, but ones I’m desperate to embody for my stay.

Most people’s brains switch off when they’re away; for me, it’s when mine goes into overdrive. I want to understand the political and cultural context of where I am. Who are the different communities that live here and how did that come to happen? I observe social situations and try to read what it means about this place, this time. I want to know what I'm not seeing, what’s missing from the picture. Due to my studies and work, I can’t not think about the impacts of travel. When I’m writing for clients, I feel a responsibility to write about those issues and consider all angles and perspectives from different groups of people. That’s extended into my personal writing too. I don’t feel as though I can write about frivolous things like Eve. How can I when there’s so much heaviness in the world?

Yet in LA, it feels easy to slip away from reality. Inspired by Eve, I begin to write very irresponsibly in my journal. I write whole paragraphs dedicated to silly little things such as the pigment of the sky, the pink bougainvelle surrounding the bungalows, the warm evening haze that reveals itself beneath the lampposts, a crescent moon against a purple sunset. I spend mornings floating in the pool thinking of nothing else except the different shades of blue I can see. I get so dizzy on sunshine and colours and sugar that I do things I thought I never would, like buying eye-wateringly expensive salads from Erewhon (considered to be one of the world’s priciest grocery stores where a mere smoothie can set you back $30). All the assumptions I’ve heard about LA make sense to me - of course it’s a city for dreamers, for fantasy, for cinema, for people with an appreciation for aesthetics. How could it be any other way?

There’s a lot of feminine energy in Los Angeles. It’s all drama and dress-up; emotional sunsets, mystical Santa Ana winds, vibrant houses done up to the nines. The streets are dotted with psychic shops and adverts for tarot card readings. There’s an embrace of wellness and alternative healing, creativity and artistic energy. It’s a sprawling city, but it’s a relaxed one. There’s so much space that it doesn’t have that condensed chaotic feel belonging to other major cities, and the ocean and nearby nature (plus the year-round sunshine) all add to the laid-back feeling. These are the things I enjoy about LA for the most part. But there are reminders of reality that threaten to shatter the illusion - a lingering fog that keeps ruining plans, the undeniable homeless and mental health problems seen on the streets, genuine confusion around how regular people afford to live here - but for the moments I get to exist in Eve’s Hollywood, there’s no denying it. Ignorance really is bliss.

I reach peak surreality in Palm Springs where I genuinely fear of death by dopamine overdose. I spend the majority of the drive there taking photos of the mountains we’re passing; with each one, I think I’m never going to see a view like it again so I have an urgency to capture it all. But they turn out just to be a warm-up for arriving in the city itself. Emerging out of the Sonoran desert, it genuinely looks like it was created in Photoshop. Picture mind-boggling giant mountains with the sharpness turned up against a ridiculously blue background; streets lined with heavily saturated green grass; low-rise buildings that look directly plucked from a movie set; postcard-perfect palm trees thrown in for good measure. I get so overwhelmed by the perfection of it all that I shed tears of excitement as we drive in. The dopamine levels continue to rise steadily from there.

For anyone unfamiliar, Palm Springs is located two hours from LA within Coachella Valley. It’s known for having one of the world’s largest collections of mid-century modern architecture. Between the 1930s-1960s, young architects descended upon the city to play with the desert landscape. The goal wasn’t just to create stunning buildings; the surroundings and the environment were also considered part of the whole design. They played with light and colour and the sun, and made the mountains and the blue sky their backdrop. Then they added clean-lined, minimal buildings that blended the indoors and the outdoors; large sliding windows to let in natural light; low-rise roofs that allowed for unobstructed views of the landscapes; and natural materials that blended in with the surroundings. Nothing about the look of Palm Springs is coincidental and the impact of that was undeniable. The visuals command your attention so that you’re forced to be present. In between hypnotic trances, I write frantically about everything I see and fervently switch between my camera and phone to capture it all. Of course California writers have done so well: they have so much material to work with. Eve Babitz and Joan Didion wrote about dry Santa Ana winds, heat-drenched afternoons, symbolic freeways and dizzying sunshine. I feel justified and certain that my writer's block must be down to living in a country that’s grey 80% of the time.

The days pass like a vivid crescendo as though someone keeps turning up the intensity. Balmy afternoons are spent spotting the most delirious buildings we can find, slipping beneath turquoise pool water to cool off and driving through the desert at sunset entirely surrounded by peachy pink. I race outside the second I wake up to watch the sun rise over the mountains (the mountains! I always thought I was a water baby but those mountains do something to me). I feel deeply tuned in to each moment, noticing details I’d usually miss; orange hues of light dancing across diner tables; steam rising from my coffee cup; slants of sunshine shimmering on a wall. It all comes to a head when we drive to Joshua Tree, the most graphic, cinematic drive of my lifetime marked by heart-stopping landscapes, otherworldly trees and a sunset that rapidly transitions from pink to purple to black before the stars make an appearance. We drive back in a state of pure bliss. It’s one of those rare moments where everything feels perfect; the person I’m with, the music that’s playing, the setting around us. I’ve reached peak Eve and managed to switch off to the point where I almost convince myself I don’t need to worry about the big issues that usually permeate my brain.

Joshua Tree

On our final morning, I wake up with a headache from all the excitement. The sun has died down and there’s a storm coming in. Truthfully I’m relieved because I feel like I could overdose on the perfection of it all. There’s news that a fire has started in Los Angeles but I don’t pay too much attention to it. Until on our drive back that evening, we see a tree set alight and embers blowing dangerously close to the freeway. When we arrive back in West Hollywood, the hills in the distance are glowing red. But it doesn’t truly hit us what’s happening until the next morning. It’s daylight but the sky is black with smoke. The smell is pungent, so strong that it makes me feel ill even from inside. The perfect blue pool is now dirtied with ash; walking outside it floats around making our eyes sting. We have to go and pick up friends who are staying closer to one of the major fires; yet another surreal drive but for all the wrong reasons. The traffic lights aren’t working because the power’s gone out, roads are blocked by trees that have blown down in the wind, and lines of cars are evacuating, people who are having to leave their homes and have potentially lost their homes and possessions.

Here’s how I imagined the climate crisis would go. There would be a slow response to the warnings being made by scientists (as we’re seeing now), but one day there would be a catastrophic event that would cause everyone to sit up and pay attention. We would all realise what’s coming and begin to make the drastic changes that are needed to save ourselves and future generations. And we would all live happily ever after.

Here’s how the climate crisis is actually going. We witness devastating fires on a level that LA hasn’t seen before, with schools, businesses, houses and entire communities lost. A father loses his life while waiting for an ambulance to come and evacuate his disabled son (who also dies). A man is found dead in his front yard holding a hose after trying to save his family home. Thousands of people lose everything they have in this world, and they don’t have insurance because the companies know what’s coming so no longer provide cover for it. And the response is using all of this horror to promote a political agenda. Elon Musk sees it as an opportunity to blame the destruction on diversity and inclusion. Trump blames it on Democratic mismanagement. The response is conspiracy theories being spread online blaming it on anything except what it actually is and fuelling climate change denial in the process.

The response makes me feel sick as I sit on my phone scrolling through it all while hearing the firefighting planes and news helicopters whirring above me. It suddenly hits me that there really is nobody coming to save us. There isn’t going to be a moment where we all collectively decide to work together and do what needs to be done. There isn’t going to be a moment that forces climate change deniers to change their mind and take action: people will interpret whatever they see to reinforce their own beliefs about the world. My anxiety comes flooding back in and it suddenly feels so silly to think that I could be like Eve. Eve’s Hollywood no longer exists - or maybe it only ever really existed in her head. Either way, it was nice to pretend for a while.

Book rec: Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz.

You can also watch my Palm Springs videos here.

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