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IN THE SHADOW OF THE SAN GABRIELS Specificity and improvisation O L I V E R WA N G
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f you’re ever in the vicinity of the Santa Anita Racetrack in the San Gabriel Valley city of Arcadia, you might pass by a street named Sunset Boulevard. It’s an odd avenue, only existing in name for four blocks, becoming California Boulevard on one end and Temple City Boulevard on the other. As a teenager of the ’80s, growing up in nearby San Marino, I would often notice how this Sunset Boulevard curved northwest, out of eye shot, and I liked to imagine that it magically connected to the other Sunset Boulevard, that one in Hollywood. Me and my high school classmate, Winston, used to climb into his Camry station wagon and cruise that Sunset on weekend nights, joining hundreds of other cars as we slow-gawked our way beneath the strip’s towering, irradiant
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