Frankly, I've always enjoyed the Santa Anas: they're warm and they're breezy, so it's the best of both worlds. But then again, I live in the flats, like 85% of the rest of Los Angeles, not the hillside, like Joan Didion and the affluent crowd she writes about, so I don't connect the winds to that foreboding cleanser which is a brush fire. Still, even in Bel Air or Beverly Hills, I've never heard of school being cancelled because the wind picked up.

Rule of Thumb for the rest of you: never pay attention to any sociological observations about SoCal from anyone who lives in the Santa Monica Mountains.