BROADCASTS.com

Colin Marshall sits down in the Hollywood Hills with Geoff Nicholson, author of such nonfiction books\xa0as\xa0The Lost Art of Walking\xa0and its more recent follow-up\xa0Walking in Ruins\xa0as well as novels like\xa0Bleeding London, Gravity's Volkswagen, and the new\xa0The City Under the Skin. They discuss which cities contributed to his concept of "the city"; the resonances between the novel's fictional Telstar Hotel and the LAX Theme Building, as well as the significance of their restaurants, revolving or otherwise; the failure of our intention to "build our way out of any problem"; when he first saw the "fading Hollywood" of the late seventies, and its process of de-ruination; how to take the "subway" to Stonehenge; whether cities ever develop except through bubbles and busts; how\xa0The City Under the Skin\xa0dramatizes the ever-present struggle for a city's future form; what everyone would draw if everyone had to draw a map of Los Angeles by hand; when all the murders, tattoos, and kidnappings got into the novel; his time at the glorious ruins at the Salton Sea; the "haunted house" nearby that turned new again; how elevation became an advantage in Los Angeles, at least notionally; what kind of building you get under the ideas of the American dream and "the Englishman in his castle"; why the deed to his house\xa0includes\xa0the phrase "no Hindus"; and whether he envisions even new developments as the ruins of the future.