heat

Summer is hot now. The ACs are whirring around me. The whole neighborhood is abuzz. I stay cool by keeping a cool mind. As long as the temperature don't hit the triple digits I tell my mind it is not really all that hot. Just like I tell my mind that I don't really have a jet lag and command it to program itself to the place of arrival when I board the plane. It works. That is why you have a mind, so you can use it, to fool yourself.
AC is highly overrated. Most of the time, when it's on, it is way too cold. Without it, I admit you sweat a little. But I try to go the Spanish way, keep the curtains down during the day, air the place out during the night. In LA it gets really fresh and cool once the sun is down. No problem. AC is costing too much for nothing essential but creature comfort (except when it is over 100, then babies, old people and hospitals certainly need it).
Today in the LAT today someone popped up who wrote a whole book about artificial cooling. "Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World" written by Stan Cox. His thesis is that AC empowered the trek to the West to overpopulate a place that you normally wouldn't flood to in such huge quantities if it wasn't for AC. Cutting it out is an easy way to safe energy. Lots of it. AC is just another dead end on the altar of technology. Right up there with SUVs. Ideas for a world that is blind to the realities of the consequences wasting resources.
Speaking of. Friday night I went downtown to enjoy a French band playing on a public square for a happy audience on a beautiful summer night. "Caravan Palace" swings it old style with a nice house-beat underneath, perfect summer evening music to dance to and let lose on the Grand Plaza. No wonder those European free-spirits tried an old fashioned way to cool down the hundreds dancing at their feet. The band played on a stage behind a little pool, an urban design thing to please the eyes amidst high rises and concrete squares. The water separated them from an enthusiastic crowd. Which the cute and very animated singer didn't like. She climbed down the stage, into the pool of shallow water to do what any normal person would do: She asked the crowd to join her and dance and play in the water. What else is summer for? I watched from atop and knew how this would end.
The European in me felt cool and normal, the Californian in me felt giddy and anxious. The thing about public spaces here is that they are organized by rules that make it impossible to truly use them as a human being. No drinking, no smoking, no messing with pretty ponds. But the singer was so excited that even the Angelenos relented. Maybe it was okay, for that one night to just jump in. And for a moment there was a childlike happiness of dozens of people splashing in the water, dancing, turning, feeling giggly and elated, for jumping in the element and doing something forbidden. Hundreds around watched and clapped and hooted and loved that moment - that ended after 2 minutes with the singer back on stage apologizing with an irresistible French accent for having disturbed the order of things. "I ham sorrieeehhh. You cannut bieh in ze wat-errr." And because the devil was out the box the concert organizer had to take the mic and shush everyone back to the dry land. "We have to stop the concert right now if you do not leave the pond. I am sorry. We will lose our permit. The mosaic in the pond has to be protected. Please get out of the water."
Way to spoil a cool down moment. The French musicians on stage were a bit flabbergasted and didn't see the problem. I totally got that. They just laughed at the weird rules that exist in LA and blasted on with their fun swinging sound. But I was also happy to see the Angelenos, pushed by a French girl, forget about the orderly behavior and just do what you do when it's a beautiful summer night: you use the pleasures of water, the public space and the mood and live.