On those piers, benches and tables are provided, there are also sea-food restaurants and a few shops. People sell hooks for fishermen and souvenirs for the tourists. I ate pranws and chips, turning my back to America and casting sidelong glances towards China. Perfectly happy, yet mortal in the daylight having within arm's reach the whole beauty of the world. 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.