All along the sea, between Santa Monica and Venice, people stroll and skate. People run, meander, slide on the surface of one's own life. Or rather, of life, just like that, which no longer seems to be someone's. One runs on America. Rollerbladers have monopolized cycle tracks, swaying both arms with the regular movement of a pendulum, identical to those Scandinavian champions of speed on their ice rings, their busts bent forward, the Californian skaters to their everyday exercise, their walkmans on their ears, light rucksacks on their shoulders.
Californian skaters are the new heroes of America.
I hereby erect a stele to pay tribute to their vain race, to their sweat and their consumation. They have understood that a man never recaptures his own life. Instead of remaining for a long while on the sea front, studying the infinite as poets used to, they have gazed into infinity which they absorbed and have released it step by step in every single race. Day after day, they repeat the same path right at the end of America, along that West Coast where all dreams wear out. From now on, they go from north to south, or from south to north as a wild cat paces a thousand times against the wire of its cage, for failing to still be able to leap freely towards any savannah.