Forts and signposts in Los Angeles

Los Angeles airport smells funny. Not bad or anything. Just different from Australia. Maybe it’s the detergent they use to clean the floors.

As an outsider, it’s easy to ‘totalise’ America - this country gives rise to an uninterrupted orgy of power, consumption and war mongering. But even a jetlagged 15 minutes at LA airport reveals that it is much more than this. It is also a nation full of people just trying to make sense of their time on this earth. Struggling to make do. The ‘whole’ is an abberation that in many ways misrepresents the individual parts.

During my 3 hour wait for a connecting flight to San Fransisco, there is an almost constant stream of flights to “Forth Worth”, Forth This, Fort That. A constant reminder that this country was once a battlefield. That it was colonized through a long and bloody war with the traditional inhabitants.

The place names remain as a suble reminders. Pointers for the curious. Or maybe just curiosities amongst the pointless. Tight corners that evade the whitewash of history.