We do not believe investors should extrapolate the William Lyon orders to mean demand in Southern California is falling off.

Demand soared in the March quarter. Demand was strongest in Japan, where our orders were up 110 percent on the strength of new digital TV and game station programs.

I'm not buying it. I grew up in Southern California. I'm not buying into (the notion) that has to be the image of L.A.

I grew up with fantastic Southern food. In Southern California.

The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception, Bosch thought, as he drove north on the Hollywood Freeway to home. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story.

Like so many named places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts--census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts, shopping nuclei, all overlaid with access roads to its own freeway.