Volume 18, Number 10 · June 1, 1972
Schlockology
By Francis Carney
Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies
by Reyner Banham
Harper & Row, 256 pp., $6.95
Reyner Banham's book is a lighthearted and affectionate tribute to Los Angeles. That's right, Los Angeles, everybody's favorite horrible example, Mumford's 'anti-city,' Reaganland, the Ur-city of the plastic culture, of Kustom-Kars and movie stars, nutburgers and Mayor Yorty and The Monkees, the Dream Factory, fantasy land, Watts and the barrio, glass and stucco-built, neon-lit, chrome-plated, formica-topped Los Angeles, schlockhaus of the Western world, where the pursuit of pleasure has become a way of life, auto-ridden, freeway-scarred, smog-choked Los Angeles, fortress city on the desert from whence each weekend the denizens spill out in their great belching machines to pollute the countryside.
Review, 2774 words
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