So I'm going to read a poem about--
it has to do with the city.
Not the city I was born in, nor, to me, the archetypal city,
but I don't need to say any more about it.
It's a poem called "Late Wonders."
And this is the city of late wonders.
"In Los Angeles, the cars are flowing through the white air
and the news of bombings.
At Universal Studios, you can ride through an avalanche,
if you have never ridden through an avalanche.
With your ticket, you can ride on a trolley
before which the Red Sea parts, just the way it did for Moses.
You can see Los Angeles destroyed hourly.
You can watch the avenue named for somewhere else, the one
on which you know you are, crumple and vanish,
incandescent, with a terrible cry all around you, rising
from the houses and families of everyone you have seen all day,
driving, shopping, talking, eating.
It's only a movie.
It's only a beam of light."