A Couple of Comments on Lewis Hamilton, and Los Angeles

“Having seen the hosts before, I remember I would look on and think, ‘It would be cool one day to be a host.’ Anna’s been so gracious as to include me within that group.” Lewis Hamilton

People cut themselves off from their ties of the Old Life when they come to Los Angeles. They are looking for a place where they can be free, where they can do things they couldn’t do anywhere else. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.  Frank Lloyd Wright

Like earlier generations of English intellectuals who taught themselves Italian in order to read Dante in the original, I learned to drive in order to read Los Angeles in the original. Reyner Banham

I would describe Los Angeles as actually not having taste. In New York, there’s taste. But you have to remember that taste is censorship. It’s a form of restriction. James Turrell

In past posts, I’ve written about Lewis Hamilton winning races, moving to Ferrari, and as a black role model. I’ve even written about Lewis and random numbers, and I’ve written about Lewis at The Met Gala, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute’s annual fundraising event, so there is not much left.

Ah, but there is. This year, Sir Lewis Hamilton was made one of the co-hosts of the 2025 Met Gala. The theme is “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” The Gala costs $75,000 a pop – it started in 1948 with tickets at $75 – and it is generally considered the hottest fashion event of the year. I think Hamilton has been going for about ten years. An interesting side note is that Donald Trump is the only person who has been publicly banned from The Gala by the chief honcho, Anna Wintour.

View of Los Angeles from the backyard of Lewis Hamilton’s home used as a segue picture (he has homes in LA, NY, Aspen, London, and Monaco).


A couple of months ago, Peter and Ophelia were talking about their trip to Mexico. Peter mentioned that Mexico City was his favorite city in the world. I was shocked; the concept of favorite city had never occurred to me. I have a favorite athlete, Lewis Hamilton*; a favorite place, Southeastern Utah, especially Coyote Gulch in the Escalante River basin**; and even a favorite car, the Birdcage Maserati – or Tipo 61 – the last great front-engine racecar, but a favorite city had never occurred to me.

Maserati Tipo 61, showing the unusual space frame that gave it the nickname Birdcage.

But now that I knew the concept of favorite city, I started thinking about what mine would be. As a disclaimer, when I say favorite city, what I really mean is favorite city to visit. It seems to me that it should be something cool like New York, Paris, Florence, or maybe even Shanghai, well, the French Quarter in Shanghai, anyway. But none of those cities work, maybe because I haven’t spent enough time in them, maybe because they are filled with furriners. I don’t know why, but I kept coming back to Los Angeles; how uncool is that?

But I don’t want to give the impression that Los Angeles is my favorite city by default; it isn’t. It is my favorite city because I love visiting it. The same goes for Coyote Gultch; when I told Michele that we should consider moving to Escalante, all she said was, “Why don’t you check the weather there for a year.” I did, and after about three months, I decided moving there was a bad idea. I don’t want to live in Los Angeles; I just want to visit it…often.  

I love the chaos of Los Angeles – and, by Los Angeles, I mean the greater Los Angeles area, including places like Manhattan Beach and Glendale and even Pomona – the anything-goes attitude. I love the sprawling size and the diversity. I love the car culture, and I love that I can get an excellent Chinese snack at midnight after a Stravinsky concert. And, I should add, it is not a generic Chinese snack but a spicy pork snack in a Schezwan restaurant, and the concert is in a building designed by hometown architect Frank Gehry with superb acoustics. Rather than rambling on, I just post some pictures to show my point. 

*duh, **duh, again

4 thoughts on “A Couple of Comments on Lewis Hamilton, and Los Angeles

  1. My favorite city is Chicago, and your post reminds me that I haven’t been there recently. I love it for the architecture, for music, theatre, and art, for sailing on Lake Michigan on a hot day and freezing my buns lakeside on a December day. I went there to visit family and for work. I was in Chicago for a few extra days on 9/11.

    1. My daughter, Samantha, went to school near Chicago and lived in Lincoln Park. When I stayed there, I liked getting up in the morning and going for a run through the zoo. What I didn’t like was the weather and how run down Wright’s Robie House was (and the surrounding neighborhood). But it surely is one of the world’s great cities.

    1. I’d like that, Laura. Maybe in the Spring (we could put some gardens, like the Huntington, on the agenda).

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