From a European perspective, Los Angeles is the opposite of our old metropolises. The sprawling multidimensionality is alien, and many things get on our nerves: the confusing highway network and the constant driving around, the people's emphasized nonchalance and endless optimism, the sunny weather, the modernist architecture, the film industry, the tourists and the bad art museums... maybe everything about this city gets on our nerves. Despite, or perhaps because of, all of this, LA is a damn great city, both in the biblical and slang sense. This breathtaking greatness is damn undeniable.

Slanted wanted to meet Ed Ruscha to talk about his mysteriously seductive and motionless-looking reductive paintings. Unfortunately, it didn't work out, but his piece "Hollywood is a verb" inspired the three different title/cover variations of this issue. They would also have liked to have seen David Hockney, who had fled to Los Angeles to discover a sunny and hedonistic city. There too – no luck. But hey! In a city like LA and in a production like Slanted, not everything has to work out. Often the best things happen when they are not planned, just like here.

The Slanted guys met with the wonderful actor Udo Kier and learned a lot about Hollywood and his life. They spent a great evening with Sarah Lorenzen and her husband, photographer David Hartwell, who carefully restored the Neutra VDL Studio and Residences, the house of architect Richard Neutra (see our video interviews) and a number of other objects. Slanted's partner in crime, Ian Lynam, provided many more exciting encounters with interesting locals.

Illustrations, interviews, essays and a huge appendix with many useful tips and the best Californian writings complement the topic thematically.