Artists and writers carry ideas around with them all day. These half-formed thoughts and random pieces of information jostle against each other, mostly making no sense. This is the quandary of the creative mind, full of inspiration but staring at a blank page, into an empty room. Then a pathway appears, an opening suggests itself. I suspect that Stephen Prina carries around more ideas than most, ideas about art and architecture and music and the relationship between high culture and pop, and a lot else besides.

Writer Esther McCoy (1904–89) arrived in Los Angeles in 1932 and reckoned it was the wrong place to be. She stayed, however, and for over fifty years her sharp-eyed writing explored the radical politics, modern architecture, and sidelined literary ambitions of the endlessly compelling city.