“Los Angeles Has Not Yet Lost Its Way”: Viktor Rayzman on the Number 4 Bus

Since 2022 or thereabouts, I have found it especially difficult to keep up with the crises breaking out across the world. In part, I imagine, that has to do with the birth of my children, who are remarkably adept at generating small crises themselves. It also has to do, I’m sure, with the means by which information and its ugly opposite reach us these days—with little responsible sorting but with much irresponsible manipulation. And, of course, there is little doubt that the globe is in a particularly bad way at the moment. Living in Tulsa, I try to attend with special care to news from the cities closest to my heart, Odesa and Los Angeles. Russia’s war on Ukraine, now its fifth year, still occasionally filters up into the headlines. Smaller disasters in Los Angeles do as well. Recently, an industrial fire at a cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights spread toxic fumes through the city’s Eastside. A month later, the terrible consequences are still unfolding. All very grim, of course.…