Sidewalking is David Ulin’s collection of thoughts composed while walking the streets of downtown LA.\u00a0 Of course he’s polished those thoughts more than that, but that’s the idea.<\/p>\n
Ulin is a New York City transplant and academic, which shapes his thought and writing style.\u00a0 His views of LA are informed by comparisons to NYC’s own vibrant street life.\u00a0 These places are very different, though the differences seem to constantly surprise those raised in either place.\u00a0 I say that as a transplant myself who has been surprised by the differences between LA and my life.\u00a0 Everyone’s experiences light LA from a different angle, and Ulin’s are both interesting and well expressed.<\/p>\n
Ulin does have the perspective of writing as an academic.\u00a0 Again, I have some experience in that world, and we often write for posterity.\u00a0 Ulin does this, citing historical perspectives and framing his physical and literary ramblings against the policy initiatives that LA city government are carrying out to revitalize downtown.\u00a0 It’s a nice combination of erudition and street experience, albeit from different streets.\u00a0 For me many of his thoughts are as much conversation starters as pronouncements. I keep wanting to say “yeah, but in Southern California…”<\/p>\n
And I’m no native.<\/p>\n
Overall, an interesting read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sidewalking is David Ulin’s collection of thoughts composed while walking the streets of downtown LA.\u00a0 Of course he’s polished those thoughts more than that, but that’s the idea. Ulin is a New York City transplant and academic, which shapes his thought and writing style.\u00a0 His views of LA are informed by comparisons to NYC’s own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2257,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255\/revisions\/2257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}