Wandering LA with Philip Marlowe's ghost
Denise Hamilton
Denise Hamilton's an ex-reporter, excellent chronicler of Los Angeles in the Eve Diamond novels and, if the picture above is to be believed, an owner of very cool socks (or stockings-- as a dude, I'm bad with these details). She's got a great piece on looking for Raymond Chandler's old haunts over at LA Observed, where she bombs around with Judith Freeman. Freeman just penned the much-discussed The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and The Woman He Loved. I haven't read it yet, but after reading Ms. Hamilton's night out on the town, I certainly want to. It's nice to get away from real crime to the literary stuff, from time to time.
It’s a cool fall evening as we leave Freeman’s 1930s persimmon bungalow near MacArthur Park and head west along a gritty stretch of Third Street toward Rampart.
Freeman stops to point out the Mother Trust Superet Light Center. I’ve driven past it a zillion times without really noticing the two-story, white-columned brick building with its adjacent church and rose garden. It’s quaint, modest and also timeless, something right out of Carey McWilliams. Freeman says it dates to the 1920s, the era of evangelical cult personalities like Aimee Semple McPherson.
A little tingle comes over me. The Superet is a fenced-off jewel-box of a mystery, serene amidst the grime and gritty commerce of Third Street. I picture it weathering almost a century of change, watching the neighborhoods turn from wealthy and white to working class, then Latino and now Korean. When I Google Superet a few days later, I’m delighted to learn it was founded in 1925 by Dr. Josephine C. Trust, S.A.A.S., “the only Chartered Superet Atoms Aura Scientist of the Superet Science in the world.”
Do yourself a favor, as a colleague used to admonish me, and read the whole thing. It's definitely worth it.
Thanks to Mr. Blackmoore LA Noir for his always sharp eyes (and wit) that directed me to the story in the first place.
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