One of the very best things about this job is being able to invite out friends from - I nearly gave myself away and said "home" - our former academic home, and entertain them (in exchange for wonderful academic input) in Los Angeles. Somewhere behind the glasses in Cafe Pinot is Ann Fabian: given that she grew up in Pasadena it's really, of course, a whole lot more her home than ours, but I'm enjoying pretending nativism. I'm very much aware of this interesting process by which Los Angeles is gradually and slowly mutating from a place that I know very well from the outside to being, indeed, Home. I mark this by the degree in which I want to get to know it, to master the one-way systems and the weird road junctions; to get acquainted with the history of the buildings that I pass and the origin of the street names; to care about it in a way that caring never quite kicked in - or even came close to kicking in - with New Brunswick. Today I was back at the Huntington - with Ann - and marveling at the fact that a library in possibly the most beautiful natural library setting in the world is just ten miles away.
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