Los angeles, i'm yours.

I prefer microcosms, not mosaics.

In remembering a country or a city that I've been, I don't try to recall the dozens, or even hundreds of moments that make up the bank of memories that I have about it. Not when I want to define what the city itself meant to me.

Such focus is much easier the shorter you're in a certain place. Living in Los Angeles off and on for 18 years , I don't know what that moment would have been if you'd asked me a week ago. I've had lots of nights I love to remember, a few that for the life of me I can't, and a wealth of friends to populate the vast majority of both, as well as many, many more.

Last night for the 4th of July, I went to see a movie under the stars at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, one of the few things in Los Angeles that even the L.A. haters are forced to admit is something unique to cherish about this city. The setting was enhanced by the fact that the film was Jaws, a quintessential American movie to watch on a summer night. But I was cold, hungry, still hungover 14 hours after waking up, annoyed by a drunk lady who repeatedly fell into me while stumbling back and forth between her friends in front of and behind us, and a little impatient for the movie to finally start. All the while the DJ's continued to spin, moving away from the ambient filler of instrumental tribal electronica, eventually to a few Michael Jackson songs in a row. And with that, you could sense a sort of collective cathartic appreciation, and even a few people standing up to dance at "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." And then the inevitable happened. They played "Thriller." And even cold, hungry, hungover, only-somewhat-coordinated-white-boy Joshua got up to dance with his friends and the thousand other people there.

The music faded, as did the unabashed smiles of dancing in an actual graveyard to "Thriller," and one of the greatest summer movies ever made started playing, while we sat surrounded by the daguerreotype silhouettes of trees against a sky that held the quality of soft steel, peppered with the firework bursts from surrounding celebrations, and I thought of the word "fraternity." A word that, if you remove your initial instincts of Greek letters, keg stands, and hazing that may or may not involve livestock, can really be a powerful concept. One that relays a collective, unspoken harmony. The idea that you can be surrounded by a thousand friends you've never met.

This is how I will remember Los Angeles. Not the congested freeways, the pathetic exclusivity of clubs, or the hordes of Lakers fans that arrive just in time for the playoffs. But rather the absurd feeling of unity for those few hours in the simplest of pleasures. It was that moment of the embrace when you clutch just a bit tighter before releasing for good.