Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World

Angelenos speak in catchphrases and take pride in the length of their commute. Los Angeles is a city where ``people and their things are hard to tell apart,'' where mobile pleasure-seekers find the prospect of raising kids ``just a little bit of a drag.'' While its middle class gets ``sucked into . . . upscale consumption,'' its masses of largely poor Asian and Hispanic immigrants, many of them illegal, are not being assimilated, according to Rieff ( Going to Miami ). Drive-by shootings are nightly occurrences in black slums, and thousands of homeless ply the beaches of Venice and Santa Monica. A devastating, wonderful, witty send-up of L.A.--and CA--as crucibles of the 21st century, this disquieting report delineates a city with an ethos of unchecked growth, sprawl and possibility that ``decontextualizes'' its residents from reality. First serial to Los Angeles Times; author tour. (Sept.)