Birds and dragons and the afternoon haze

Cartoony birds sitting in dit-dit-dah-dah irregular spacing on telephone wires, some in communally neat rows, like old women on a day trip to the seaside, others wanting a bit more space, dammit. The whole looking like a complex piece of music on a stave, or perhaps a coded message — though what is music if not a coded message.

Students in the quad outside the USC medical school learning the correct procedure for operating the Chinese New Year dragon, to bells and drums and lots of happy smiles. The dragon’s as yet undecorated mesh body making it look naked, unprepared, as if it was rehearsing too.

A Sanyo blimp climbing steeply into the hazy LA afternoon sky like a submarine blowing the ballast tanks and making for the surface.