slipping

Believe not what you see. From so many different directions and from disparate sources, we are being told not to trust our own eyes. At live press conferences on streaming apps, on posts from the desks of pro athlete-led entertainment/production companies, on digital letterheads from former presidents, on projections cast on walls in Beverly Hills and on the city hall building downtown, on screens at Gen Z’s “hottest” club, on X, on links dropped in group chats, on all the newspapers fit to print in Los Angeles — everyone is speaking with such conviction. “Never mind what’s going down. Disregard the details. Everything is fine,” they say, ignoring the irony of the meme. Everything is fine, we think, looking around.

Many try to shrug off reality, but there’s something about the experience of cataclysm you can feel in your bones. The sense of unease is palpable. It overtakes you as you scroll through shadow-banned content and algorithmic recommendations for the girlies. The tingling sensation arises on strolls down the Walk of Fame after dinner on Selma or during a quick eastward glance at the smog layer on a morning hike to the helipad at Griffith Park. Physical responses are how the body keeps the score when the visual cues and prevailing wisdom don’t add up. Everything might appear as it always does. But your body is giving you a heads up: Something is not quite right.

Disquietude lends itself to the most imaginative forms of speculation. (“The end is here! Are you ready for it?”) But on the real, what you’re feeling is that we’re slipping — and we have been for some time. The signs of freefall are all around. The ’burbs of Los Angeles are not OK, as Paul Thomas Anderson and Greg Mottola remind us, despite the veneer of manicured lawns and covered Tessies. The inner-city blues still echo off glass boxes and jut down a hollowed-out Central Avenue. Out west, humidity makes the glacial chill of the Pacific … bearable?

The paradise we know is the subject of “Slipping.” Issue 23 is our very own anatomy of a fall. We haven’t watched the movie yet. But a little nudge in the right direction in moments of great drama never hurt anyone. To say nothing of the open letters, L.A. is full of artists who stare directly at the edge without looking away. Here, Claire Salinda remembers the many “beautiful lives, beautiful deaths” she has experienced while surfing. Jillian Steinhauer unpacks artist Maren Hassinger’s lifelong project of thinking about the human condition. And Yendry explores what style might look like after the end of history.

The world won’t end all at once. Rather, the grand finale is, as American Artist reminds us, “happening in multiple moments and an on-going thing that is being contended with.” We might feel like we’re slipping and falling and can’t get up, but pushing through the penultimate scene takes a little faith. What’s next? Get back on your feet so you can tear s— up.

Ian F. Blair
Editor in Chief

Image logo by Paul Um For The Times