On Friday the United States Senate passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a behemoth piece of legislation that radically redistributes wealth upwards. The bill is an assault on most all Americans, most especially those in the underclass who will see still-deeper cuts to the entitlement programs on which they rely even as their personal rates rise. Such is the cost of lowering the corporate rate to twenty percent, repealing the individual mandate, and doubling the estate tax exemption to eleven million dollars. Something’s Gotta Give.
On Saturday I went to The Grove, just like everybody else. It was the second of December, only twentythree more sleeps. Time to Get Some Shopping Done; if not now, when? There was no sign of an ongoing class war. It was crowded but that was alright. Everything was in impeccable order, functioning exactly as intended.
The ramp in the center of the garage conveyed us directly to the roof, plenty of Justice League advertisements along the way. The parking structure at The Grove stands eight stories tall, dominating the surrounding blocks of low-slung low-stakes two- and three-story structures. The view is spectacular, one of the best in the city. The hills to the north are studded with strips of pristine midcentury moderns. To the west, titans — the PDC, the Beverly Center, Century City’s few towers, deaf dumb and blind. To the south, Wilshire Boulevard and all it entails, and to the east, downtown, the new tower looking especially impressive from this angle. The city laid bare, unembarrassed and unpretentious. It sounds the way the distance looks, thin and grey; at night it looks like Blade Runner.
These are views you’d kill for, or at least charge for. The Grove offers them free of charge.
The promenade leading to and from the garage is more impressive with each visit. There is a fancy new eyeglass store tucked between the escalators now. Outside the toilets, across from the shoeshine stand where children play, there are some framed illustrations to observe while you wait for your partner. They are by Pablo Picasso, but most of those waiting do not look at them. Instead they look at Instagram or ESPN, even though reception is terrible.
It is only three in the afternoon. The street is already packed, barely wide enough to accommodate the trolley as it crawls around Santa’s Cabin toward the Farmer’s Market. There is no War on Christmas here. The tree is seventy feet tall, impossible to fit in a single selfie. “Snow” falls nightly at seven and eight PM. Saint Nick himself presides over the whole scene, he and his sleigh suspended directly above the fountain in the center of the courtyard. This could all be something to fuss over had Christmas not been completely annexed by American culture over the past half-century. It’s a secular holiday now, as enjoyable for Rick Caruso the Catholic as it is for the tourist from Tel Aviv, or Hong Kong, or Riyadh.
December twentyfifth is not about celebrating the birth of Our Lord & Savior, it’s about exchanging things we have bought for one another. And that is Fine, even Actually Good. It is true to our culture and it brings us closer together. We think about what our loved ones might like, what they need, and we buy those things for them, and when they use them, or wear them, or see them, they think fondly of us, and perhaps of the time we spent together. There’s no need to overthink it. It’s just a small nice thing.
But it makes for a scene at The Grove. The everpresent excitement is exponentialy greater in December; the air is sharp (as sharp as it will get), the days are short, there is simply So Much To Do. The energy is so great here because it is compressed. In London, New York, San Francisco, the spirit is diffuse, spread all across the many blocks of the shopping district. In Los Angeles it is contained and concentrated within small discrete locales. We are all of us part of the shining whirring jumble jostling around the women’s shoe section in Nordstrom, and the sun sets, and the dead trees bloom with lights lights LIGHTS, and the brass band on top of the trolley strikes up a gingerbread march, and it is simply all too much. Sublime, we could call it; even the most cynical self-styled socialist cannot help but surrender to all that surrounds her. Shopping has always been shopping, but now it can be so much more.
The Grove grows more indistinguishable from Disneyland with each passing season. It would not be hubristic to bill itself the Happiest Place On Earth; Anything Can Happen, any memory made. People queue for the Google Home Donut Shop like it was Space Mountain. The escalators in Barnes & Noble are as thrilling as the Matterhorn, almost. The front patio of Parisian export Ladurée looks straight out of Main Street, USA. Taken together it all yields the same impression: of something better, something that never was but could have been. A special treat to enjoy for just a little while. And it doesn’t cost a nickel to get in. There is no class war here.
