flâneur

When California Makes You Sad - by Michelle Jia

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But you just can't leave

“He said he had California inside him the size of his heart.” — Kyle Buckley, The Laundromat Essay A friend’s apartment, San Francisco. I turned eighteen, sick and nearly throwing up from a stomach bug, on a sidewalk somewhere in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. Inside, Sufjan Stevens was hosting a maximalist Christmas concert — it was December 5th, 2012 — in a grotesque bubblegum pink unicorn suit, complete with papier-mâché head that bobbed as he warbled: I’m a Christmas unicorn! You’re a Christmas unicorn! The stage swam with streamers and glitter as the audience of mostly thirty-something…

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