Episode 70: The Strange Contradictions of Los Angeles

[00:00:00] Welcome to English, please, the podcast where we explore interesting topics in under ten minutes in clear, intermediate English. I’m your host Christopher. I live in New York City, and I’ve always been passionate about languages and how we learn them. Whether you’re listening on your way to work, or while cooking dinner at home, this show is designed to help you with your English listening and comprehension skills.

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Today we’re talking about Los Angeles. Even if you’ve never been there, you probably already have a picture in your head: palm trees, sunshine, maybe some celebrities. And that picture isn’t wrong, but it’s only part of the story. Los Angeles is a city full of contradictions, and once you notice them, the city becomes a lot more interesting.

Let’s start with the setting. Los Angeles sits right next to the Pacific Ocean, with mountains rising up close behind it. On a clear day, you can see the water and the hills in the same view. It sounds like paradise, and in a lot of ways it is. But this beautiful landscape sits directly on top of a fault line, which is a place where two pieces of the Earth’s surface meet and sometimes slide against [00:02:00] each other. That means earthquakes. Small tremors or small shakes in the ground, happen fairly often—so often that a lot of people barely notice them anymore

In truth, there is the real possibility of something bigger. People in Los Angeles live with that risk in the background, and most of them just carry on with their days. That’s the first contradiction: a stunning, peaceful-looking place that is quietly unstable underneath.

Then there’s the industry. Hollywood is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, but the word “Hollywood” means something much bigger. It’s shorthand for the entire American movie and television industry. Think about what that industry actually does. It builds fake worlds, spaceships, castles, [00:03:00] small towns that don’t exist, and it convinces millions of people around the world that these places are real for two hours. A single street in Los Angeles might be dressed up to look like a completely different city, or even a different planet, and then taken apart again the next week for another film. People drive past studio lots every day, ordinary-looking buildings that hide entire fake cities and spaceship interiors behind their walls. Somewhere behind one of those walls, someone might be filming a war scene, or a wedding, or the end of the world, all in the same afternoon. Los Angeles is a city built partly around the business of make-believe. That’s the second contradiction: a very real city that spends its time creating illusions.

And then there’s daily life, which [00:04:00] is much less glamorous than the postcards suggest. Los Angeles is famous for its traffic. The city is enormous and spread out, so most people depend on cars to get anywhere. Driving across town can take an hour, even if the distance is short on a map. Underneath the sunshine and the movie studios, there’s just a lot of ordinary time spent sitting in a car waiting for the traffic to move.

So you have three things layered on top of each other: natural beauty with a hidden danger underneath it, a city that builds fantasy for a living, and a daily reality that’s often just traffic and patience. These three things don’t cancel each other out. They all exist at the same time in the same place, which is part of what makes Los Angeles such a strange and specific city.[00:05:00] 

If you’re ever able to visit, it’s worth seeing in person, not just through movies. The light there really is different, and the geography, with the ocean on one side, the mountains on the other side, is something you feel immediately, even before anyone tells you it’s special.

If you want more practice with real-life topics like this one, the English Listening Accelerator has 10 lessons built around everyday situations, with a repeat-after-me section in every lesson to help you with pronunciation. There’s a free sample lesson at comullen.com/listen if you want to try it.

Again, I’m Christopher, and I want to invite you to join me in future episodes of English, please to hear about a variety of topics, all focused on helping you with your English. Subscribe now wherever you listen, and let’s continue this adventure together in clear, understandable English.

Sincere thanks, as [00:06:00] always, for listening.

See you soon!