Lawrence Weschler has a great piece on the light in LA, and what makes it so unique (there’s scientific proof!) in the New Yorker. It’s in his collection “Vermeer in Bosnia,” I think. Unfortunately not online anywhere.

My first visit here was during an October heat wave with stage 1 alerts, I just remember how beautiful the warm glow made everything seem. Then my eyes and throat started burning.

Weird I just started reading Corey McWilliams “Southern California Country: An Island on the Land” and he talks about this very topic at the beginning of the book.

But let the light turn soft with ocean mist, and miraculous changes occur. The bare mountain ranges, appallingly harsh in contour, suddenly become wrapped in an entrancing ever changing loveliness of light and shadow; the most commonplace objects assume a matchless perfection of form; and the land itself becomes a thing of beauty. The color of the land is in the light and the light is somehow artificial and controlled. Things are not killed by the sunlight, as in a desert; they merely dry up. A desert light brings out the sharpness of points, angles, and forms. But this is not a desert light nor is it a tropical for it has neutral tones. It is Southern California light and it has no counterpart in the world.

So yeah it’s the Ocean.

Thanks for the tip, Evan (& John). The Weschler book sounds great. I’ll try to remember to check it out.