Debi van Zyl

I was on the bus today, lazily looking out the window, and almost fell out of my seat. Because .... (drum roll, please)...... there are goats trimming the grass in downtown Los Angeles. Let me repeat that: goats trimming the grass in downtown Los Angeles.

They were fenced in on Bunker Hill, the very steep site of the Angels Flight. I'm sure this is an exaggeration, but it seems like there were 100s of them.

When I got back to the studio I looked this up, and apparently I am very slow to realize this and also to have seen it, but this has been going on for almost a year. Nevertheless, I was brimming with pride for this city and happy that this place is quite literally crazy.

I think all my friends can back me up on this, but probably for the past eight years I have been saying that I dislike LA, that I can't wait to leave, that I need to move and it's only a matter of time. Blah blah blah. Though, to my own credit, the last two years Los Angeles has slowly become a different place for me: somewhere I want to be. I don't say that stuff anymore.

Just like when I saw the chickens up the road from the studio, seeing the goats made me just love this crazy city. I never would have thought that we'd be so progressive. But maybe I've also had my head buried in the sand? This place is just so facetted: I'm not sure if one can truely know only one Los Angeles; there is no such place. It's so many places at once.

Read about it here at the LA times blog, also where the images came from.

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On another exciting note: my wee beasts were featured in The Architect's Newspaper and Curbed LA (someone had a very good comment... good for architects to think about)

Thanks Marissa!