During the early 1970's in a junior college geography class our teacher asked if anyone noticed the sun's position on the horizon changed during the year. I certainly did, as well as how high old "sol" gets. Even acknowledging a verse from the Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize" I have noticed this perspective for a long time.

Today, February 1, it seems arbitrary to go by the tearing off of a calendar page but there was something about the sunlight which told of the upcoming longer days and seasons for various activities: it was sharper and maybe the Doppler effect of the longer day didn't make it seem so transient as during our alleged, apologies to the freezing elsewhere, dead of winter.

But after our sarcasm-dry January one would ask, "How is there a difference you can tell?" February often is real chamber of commerce time in Southern California, but in the past rendered riper by the green hills and moistened earth from January fronts. As far as the fruits of rainfall, not this year.

During a shopping drive the jazz station was playing Lazy Lester's "Raining In My Heart", which had rolling instrumentation like some of the real oldies seldom played any more. But it's their weekend blues show and is to be expected; what threw me at this approximately 3:20 p.m. was over on KCSN Glenn Miller's "String Of Pearls" was playing, not the usual Jackson Browne or Atoms For Science. A visit just now to their web site revealed a play list gap around that time.

The era of collages hasn't peaked yet; I left the car to pick up something else and never found out what this was except I was hearing more things "mashed" once back on the road.

Yes, displacement all over. I looked up at a billboard for "The Monuments Men" to see the sheet mostly peeled by our prolific wind. The heists have commenced, a page torn away just like yesterday's expired month. Californians generally look forward to the spring and very giddy summer offerings, but as a precious commodity dwindles and raises subsequent threats more urgent than celebrity shenanigans, what else will be displaced in this troubled world and our less idyllic west coast?