Intersection of Beverly and Rossmore, with the Wilshire Country Club coming up on your left. 

My dear friend RJ at The Daily Blague mentioned the other day the difficulty of capturing that special urgent shade of stop and brake-light red, and I can testify to the challenge, especially at a particular time of day referred to by movie people (in scripts at least) as "Magic Hour."  See?  This image doesn't come even remotely close.  

Speaking of stopping, the London Review of Books (29 January 2009, Vol.31 #2) contains an interesting review of a number of books on torture, including Death by a Thousand Cuts (by Timothy Brook, Jerome Bourgon and Gregory Blue, Harvard, 2008), which tells the history of linghci, a form of torture used in executions in China until it was abolished in 1905.  A photograph of the execution of Wang Weiqin, taken in 1904 by soldiers attached to the French Legation after the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion, is reproduced:

"The hapless Wang is shown lashed to a pole, wearing an incongruous frou-frou, his muscles already oozing visibly from the blade.  Worse was to follow, though the coup de grace -- a dagger in the heart -- came fairly soon afterwards."

Some torture, however, may be justified, as we have learned under the Bush regime.  Or for a worthy cause.  Just yesterday I was leafing through an old copy of F.M.I. [Female Mimics International} when, with some surprise, I recognized the model in a photo spread of a step-by-step "transformation."   I have subsequently learned that this old friend of mine had many years ago submitted to the elaborate feminization process in front of the camera in the spirit of art and commerce.  Brave! 

Meanwhile my friend N. is readying himself for a trip to Miami and the Winter Party at the end of the month, and going to the gym constantly in order to make himself presentable at the festivities.  His caloric intake is being strictly monitored.  "I'm back on the Creatine and Crackers diet," he explained last night from the car racing along on his way to Gold's.   Sometimes it seems the older you get, the more you have to suffer for beauty.   

But with limits, of course.  Another friend has resorted to taking steroids for body-building enhancement, but he confessed he would stop "the minute my skin breaks out.  Or, you know, if I start flipping over cars in some sudden inexplicable or unjustified rage." 

You see?  We have to be able to draw the line.  We have to know when to stop.