What do you see when you wander the streets of L.A.? On July 9, ALOUD invites you to explore our city in a new way, with Love, Los Angeles: A Conversation in Words and Images featuring local journalist and essayist Lynell George and poet Marisela Norte. Both writers will share their photographs and texts–a series of notes, fragments, reflections and odes that each have collected while navigating the quickly-changing landscape of contemporary Los Angeles. Whether traveling on foot from Boyle Heights to Venice and the Miracle Mile to Arcadia, or crisscrossing time, place, dreams, and memory from the driver’s seat of a car, these observations of hope, grit, faith and longing will be presented for the first time on stage. Paired with a live DJ mix by Frosty of dublab, the artists will create the perfect backdrop for us to eavesdrop on this intimate look into the heart of our city.

In advance of the ALOUD program, here’s a sneak peek into an inspiring vision of Los Angeles–as experienced by these two native daughters.

“Every morning I wait
For the light to change my mind…”
–Marisela Norte

“Both my parents traveled here from elsewhere.
To this heaven.
From one hustle to the next.”
–Lynell George

“The Los Angeles Public Transit Story
Where we have been cast as
Stangers on the same train of thought…”
–Marisela Norte

“Waiting is part of some larger agreement we Angelenos made with fate.”
–Lynell George

“’These dreams are not for you’ he whispered.”
–Marisela Norte

“Satin and sequins.
Lace and leather.
And those ankle-turning heels – because we do walk in L.A., we do…”
–Lynell George

“I seem to have lost Los Angeles,
as if the city were a set of keys
I’ve somehow misplaced.”
–Lynell George

Learn more about the upcoming program here.