The occupants, a couple of indeterminate age, seated, oh, so casually, smile in the manner prescribed by a celebrated local photographer. (Once upon a time, I had run into the camera master and asked him if Cartier-Bresson had any influence on his work. “No,” he replied. “Annie Liebowitz.”) Below is a four star Moroccan restaurant, whose fare is North African-cum-French—or it’s changed hands and serves Italian-cum-Californian, but the prices are always high. Each time I passed this corner, I paused, trying to recall what this place once was, and kicked at the wall of the rather opulent entrance. The doorman always appeared discombobulated, as a seventy-five-year-old (the occurrences were twenty or so years before this writing) and obviously decrepit old bum limped away. I was, at three score and fifteen, only performing what was the usual ritual. For me, what was once a native habitat had become alien turf. The transformation that had been happening gradually, SUVesque, seemed so sudden.
