California Dreamin

"If you want a laidback lifestyle, I begin to think, you should go to Perth; if you want beautiful beaches, head to Thailand; if you want cutting edge youth culture, turn to Japan. But to say all this is to be shortsighted about aspiration. We are as dogmatic in our dreams as in our beliefs. We need to have a place we can retreat to in our imaginations when we're sitting under house arrest in Burma, or battling traffic in Lagos. This place is called, naturally enough, "California," and it has a life more resilient than any reality, and is sustained by every rerun of Baywatch or reprise of "California Dreamin'," every new screening of City of Angels...
... It's hard for many of us in California to accept that we're leading lives that other people dream of. But the evergreen Shangri-La dreamed of and diligently preserved in every corner of the global imagination is the place where we're hanging up the wash and going to see the lawyer this afternoon."

- Pico Iyer, California Monthly, Nov/Dec 2005