The Brief

During wildfire season in the western US, soot-clogged skies have long triggered public alerts with advice like: Shut the windows and stay indoors. For those who can afford it: Use an air filter. As Canadian wildfire smoke curled down to Kentucky this year, officials began to do the same thing.

On alert days, “smoke’s there when you wake up in the morning, it’s there when you’re going to bed at night,” said Michelle King, the assistant director of the Louisville metro air pollution control district.

She and other regulators say they’re working on how to communicate about smoke — something she anticipates doing more often.

“We collectively are seeing, more and more, the very real impacts of climate change, and no reason to think that is slowing down or going away,” King said. “I think that this is a new normal.”

From the midwest to the mid-Atlantic, more U.S. states are laboring to understand how and when smoke will make meeting federal health standards harder.

“The best advice a Boy Scout will give you is, ‘Don’t stand downwind of the campfire,’” said Frank Steitz, an assistant director at the New Jersey department of environmental protection.

“But what if you can’t? What if you can’t avoid it?”

An obscure part of the Clean Air Act grants regulators an opening to “forgive” air pollution from wildfires, meaning that it doesn’t count against air-quality goals. After wildfires flourished across North America this year, more U.S. states east of the Mississippi may use this exceptional events rule to subtract smoke from the record, if not from the air we breathe.

But these exceptional events are no longer exceptional, and the requests to obscure them from air-quality records are more common, according to an investigation from the Guardian, The California Newsroom and MuckRock. Without reform, the exceptional events rule is likely to become a regularly used tool, one that experts warn may divert resources or distract from addressing the growing problem of wildfire smoke.

Finding common ground to change U.S. clean air law is rare. But on wildfire smoke, academics, environmental advocates and some regulators agree: it’s time to reconsider our approach.

A cyclist rides under a blanket of haze partially obscuring the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 8, 2023.

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Mandel Ngan

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“We’re going to have to think bigger when it comes to solutions. We’re just getting there,” said Jodi Bechtel, the assistant director for the department of environment and sustainability in Clark County, Nevada. “I cringe at the idea of amending the Clean Air Act because that is such a heavy lift. But I think we’re at the point where the way it’s written and the expectations in it almost aren’t working anymore.”

This year, said Michael Benjamin, the air quality and planning chief at the California Air Resources Board (Carb), he and his western colleagues “felt really bad” for eastern cities affected by Canadian fires. “But part of us, especially when it was impacting Washington D.C., we said, well, good,” he remembered. “Now the policymakers really understand what it means to be exposed to wildfire smoke. And maybe they’ll start to think seriously about how to mitigate it.”

A growing problem

The Salt Fire burns in Shasta County, as seen from I-5 June 30, 2021. Photograph:

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Smoke from wildland fires is reversing a continent-wide, decades-long trend toward bluer skies, according to recent Stanford University studies.

A warming climate has helped to set the stage for wildfires to burn hotter and bigger. “Stopping them or making them less severe is going to be very hard and going to involve intervention on a scale that we’re just currently not prepared or able to do,” said the environmental scientist Marshall Burke, one of the leaders of Stanford’s work.

At the same time the likelihood of wildfires grows, the U.S. is considering making stricter goals for ground-level ozone and fine particulate, pointing to an avalanche of studies documenting health impacts. The Biden administration has delayed plans to take action on ozone until after next year’s election. On fine particulates, a contentious public rule-making is expected to yield a more strict standard any day now.

Yet in the face of growing risk, and in anticipation of tighter limits on these types of pollution, state and local governments have been clear: they will turn to exceptional events for relief more often, even if the process is arduous.

“Lowering the annual standard will require more exceptional event demonstrations, resulting in a significant increase in workload for the state of Arizona and Maricopa County, with no benefit to air quality or public health,” wrote that county’s department of air quality, commenting on the EPA’s proposed soot standard.

Dave Jefferis hands a flag he rescued from burning to his neighbor, Jim Marchio. Both stayed behind to defend their homes from the River Fire Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021.

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“There’s going to be much more pressure on regulatory agencies to take advantage of exceptional events,” added Carb’s Benjamin. “Sometimes people don’t understand what attainment means, and under the Clean Air Act, it’s not necessarily that you’re breathing clean air, it’s that you’re meeting these requirements that are defined by the federal government.”

Meanwhile, public agencies and other air policy observers argue that the exceptional events rule effectively undermines one of the few tools states have to combat wildfires: beneficial or “prescribed” burns.

Originated by Native Americans, controlled application of fire to wildlands reduces the risk of catastrophic infernos by clearing underbrush, pine needle beds and other fuels that make forests prone to burning. Federal and state agencies say that increasing this “good fire” is a priority. The EPA modified exceptional events guidelines in 2016, in part to do just that. But not a single prescribed fire has been forgiven under the exceptional events rule since then.

A group of 86 western scientists, researchers and advocates say that local regulators are not permitting prescribed fires because they fear they could create too much smoke – the kind that warrants exceptional events. “The current statutory scheme is selecting for the very worst type of fire when it comes to public health,” they told the EPA.

Near the California-Oregon border, the Mid Klamath Watershed Council advocates for a healthy ecosystem, which the director, Will Harling, said includes the return of beneficial fire. Obstacles to such planned burns, coupled with forgiveness offered wildfires, he said, are why his children “have smoked the equivalent of about 20,000 packs of cigarettes while they’re in their teens."

“Just because they scrub that out of the record doesn’t mean that smoke isn’t in their lungs,” he said.

EPA spokesperson Khanya Brann, responding to our questions in writing, confirmed that exceptional events “could result in the removal of event-influenced data from the data set used to make certain regulatory decisions."

Brann wrote that local air regulators must meet requirements in the exceptional events process, such as taking “appropriate and reasonable actions to protect public health."

Pathways to reform

A prescribed fire in Hayfork, California, on April 10, 2019. Advocates for the practice of setting planned burns to manage lands and minimize wildfire risk say the exceptional events rule gets in the way.

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Across the political spectrum, experts, advocates and states say it’s time to change the exceptional events rule. They offer vastly different ideas about what that change should look like.

States and their advocates generally seek liberation from regulatory paperwork. Republican senators, led by Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, recently introduced legislation aimed in part at making filing for exceptional events easier.

Similarly, the Western Governors’ Association has argued for greater state flexibility, complaining both that “the rule is resource intensive, costly, and place[s] a significant burden on strained state resources,” and that regulators are slow to act on it. The nonpartisan association suggested to lawmakers that rules should permit more complicated multistate exceptions.

We can’t fix it, goes the reasoning, so why should we be punished for it?

The EPA, for its part, maintains it is following the law. “The Clean Air Act requires the agency to address emissions from natural events such as wildfires differently than emissions from industrial or mobile sources that EPA and Tribal, state and local air agency regulations can control,” Brann wrote.

Independent clean-air watchdogs emphasize instead that the mission of the Environmental Protection Agency is to protect public health.

People take the tramway to Roosevelt Island as smoke from Canadian wildfires casts a haze over the area on 7 June 2023 in New York City.

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That could mean stepping up enforcement, said Eric Schaeffer, the executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, a non-profit that advocates for transparency. Plenty of controls already on the books could work better, he said, including more frequent inspections and better monitoring systems for known polluters. “There’s always more that can be done,” he said.

Michigan attorney Nick Leonard, who represents fence-line communities where Canadian smoke has mingled with routine local pollution, called the exceptional events rule a “misapplication” of the Clean Air Act, and pointed out that local air regulators could simply stop using it. “It’s sort of creating this alternative reality,” he said.

Though the EPA strips exceptional events-related data from regulatory use, epidemiologists and health experts continue to analyze air quality using unmodified data, which remains available. In its annual State of the Air report, the American Lung Association has always included pollution exceedances that exceptional events would leave out, said Will Barrett, a clean-air expert for the group.

“Those are unhealthy air days,” Barrett said. “Ultimately, your lungs don’t care if the pollution is classified as an exceptional event under an obscure federal law.”

‘A warning light on the dashboard for the Clean Air Act’

Hazy New York City skyline during bad air quality on June 7, 2023 due to smoke of Canadian wildfires brought in by wind.

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For the summer of 2023, more than 20 states so far, from Wyoming to Wisconsin to North Carolina, have flagged air-quality readings that were far higher than normal. Most of these days came in June, as skies in the midwest and eastern U.S. were blanketed with Canadian wildfire smoke.

Wildfire smoke knows no borders. Unlike refineries, wildfires have no scrubbers. You can’t shut them down. But the Clean Air Act, whose pollution controls have saved millions of lives, affords the agency responsible for healthy air no direct authority to manage lands that burn.

Instead, the EPA’s response to this fast-growing source of soot, ash and toxic chemicals has been “ad hoc” and muddled by a lack of coordination with other agencies, according to a Congressional watchdog’s report earlier this year.

EPA spokesperson Brann wrote that the agency “supports efforts by agencies across the federal government — including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior, as well as interagency forums such as the Wildland Fire Leadership Council — to implement and further develop strategies to reduce wildfire risk, and to help communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from wildfires.”

The growing use of the exceptional events rule reveals “a poorer and poorer fit between the policy we have and the problems it’s trying to solve,” said Stanford University’s Michael Wara.

He called the rule “a warning light on the dashboard for the Clean Air Act."

To heed it, say experts, it’s essential to adapt the law to the conditions under which we already breathe.

“If fires are going to become more widespread and more predictable, then that changes the calculus for air-quality determinations,” said Schaeffer of the Environmental Integrity Project. “You have to assume that’s part of your baseline now.”

The landmark law protecting air quality wasn’t created to deal with global heating. But the policies of the past are colliding with the problems of the future.

“The Clean Air Act should really include climate,” said Benjamin of Carb.

“States who have tried to keep these things separate — to keep climate change and exposure to local air pollution as two distinct things — I don’t think they’re going to be able to maintain that indefinitely,” he said.

A key assumption of air pollution policy, said Wara, has been that we are in control: “Climate change is kind of making a mockery of that.”

The obligation to protect people from polluted air remains, he added: “That’s really what the Clean Air Act is supposed to do, is keep people safe.”

While he was in college, Moiz Mir lived under an orange sky in Sacramento for weeks because of the Camp fire; some of that pollution was forgiven in nearby Nevada county as an exceptional event. His neighbors didn’t understand the risks of smoke then, or know where to get masks. He began to warn them, to educate himself, and to learn from other fire-prone communities how to cope.

Smoke, he said, “made a permanent and lasting impact” on his psyche and life path. Now 26 years old and a grassroots climate activist, he points out that “in crisis, people look to authority for answers."

They’re still looking, as the smoke thickens.

“We were thinking like the impacts of climate change were distant,” Mir said. “But now, it’s quite literally the air that I breathe.”

Manola Secaira of CapRadio contributed to this report

Los Angeles Unified special education teachers and parents are bracing for another year of large classes when the new school year begins, despite a first-ever limit the union negotiated this spring.

With booming special education enrollment, teachers say the district needs to hire more full-time staff to ensure tens of thousands of students receive the extra support they need — and are legally entitled to — every day.

Under the new contract ratified by the United Teachers Los Angeles, integrated classes with both special and general education students are limited to 20 students per teacher.

Classrooms with only special education students have different ratios, and those teachers qualify for a monthly stipend of $500 to $1,000, depending on how many students over the limit they have.

But teachers say that although the extra pay doesn't hurt, they want the district to focus on making both kinds of classes smaller.

Debby Schneider, a special education teacher and UTLA committee chair, told LAist that it’s not about the money.

“The stipend is to deter the district from overloading us. Really, what they need to do is open more programs and hire more educators,” she said.

Stipends for large classes aren’t new, but Schneider told LAist that in previous years, extra compensation didn’t stop the district from overfilling classrooms. Because of that history, she said she’s concerned this year won’t be any different.

As of July 17, there were 22 open positions for teachers in full-time special education classrooms, and three vacancies for those who work in integrated classes.

There are over 70,000 students enrolled in LAUSD’s special education services, which include support for learning disabilities, autism, and hearing and visual impairments. A district spokesperson wouldn't specify how many integrated classrooms are overfilled. The district is “continuously assessing staffing needs,” the district wrote in a statement, but would not comment on specific plans to hire more special ed teachers for the upcoming year.

A growing need

According to UTLA, the number of students in LAUSD’s special education services has grown over 7% since 2022, even though overall student enrollment is down by nearly 4%.

Emily Kolman, whose kindergartner receives speech therapy services, said that resources are overextended and the district isn’t doing much to help.

Kolman said her son was in an integrated class of 26 students last year. She told LAist that the teacher continuously asked the district to help her work with students in smaller groups. That help only came near summer break, which made it hard to identify students who needed extra support through the year.

Kolman and her son's teacher acknowledged that her son needed additional behavioral testing, but it was “like pulling teeth” to get a screening organized by the district. She’s now paying out-of-pocket to get him tested privately.

“I feel like our students with needs are bothersome or a nuisance for the public school” district, she told LAist.

The challenges of larger classes

LAUSD teachers say they can’t support students in growing class sizes alone.

Margaret Miller, an elementary school special education teacher, recalled that in one large integrated classroom she assisted, a student would climb on the teacher while she gave a lesson.

“When you're getting another student, it's not just a body. It's not just a kid in the classroom. It comes with quite a bit of work,” she said.

Amy Bogartz, a teacher of Deaf students, emphasized that in special-needs settings, each student requires personalized support.

“Every student requires something different. You have a student that you just need to check in on. … Then you have that other student that you need to spend three hours with,” she said.

Teresa Gaines is a parent of an 11-year-old with phonological awareness deficit and “focus issues.” She said her family is feeling the impacts of large integrated class size. She told LAist that her son’s classes have ranged from 21 to 24 students and he has often had to wear headphones to block out the noise to concentrate.

Teachers are burning out too

Some teachers said their colleagues are leaving the classroom because they’re stretched too thin to handle student behavior, or because they don’t feel supported by their school’s administration.

According to EdSource, LAUSD’s special education teacher retention rate dropped from 90% to 77% between 2021 and 2024.

UTLA's Schneider explained that the special education workload is particularly challenging. She said some teachers have duties similar to general education teachers, including writing report cards, on top of the special ed services they provide. With extra students, it can cause exhaustion, she told LAist.

Gaines, the parent of the 11-year-old in special ed, said it’s important for the district to retain teachers who have extensive experience with special education.

“I don't want to lose staff who are already teaching and in the system. I'd rather support them … so that they can further benefit all of our students,” she said.

What’s next

Teachers of classes with only special education students can qualify for the new monthly stipend starting this fall. If their class is two or more students larger than the ratio, they will be paid through a process that includes verifying the class roster.

Contract negotiations for next year will begin in the spring.

There’s been plenty of research lately saying that art is good for you — maybe even better for you than going to the gym! To combine the best of mental health and art, the Getty recently launched a free meditation app that encourages you to take a minute to stop, breathe and think about art. Sign me up!

For your listening pleasure, Licorice Pizza suggests starting your week off on a classy note with classical crossover pop star Josh Groban at the Grammy Museum. On Tuesday, indie icons Rainbow Kitten Surprise take over the Greek Theatre. On Wednesday, the Pacific Amphitheatre time-travels way back, with an oldies pop venue featuring The Association, The Troggs, The Cowsills and more.

Thursday is a big night, with blasts from the past and the present as actress-turned-indie pop chanteuse Suki Waterhouse plays Hollywood Forever Cemetery; Widespread Panic starts their three-night jam at the Orpheum; UK punks Bad Nerves are at Pacific Electric; and then there are TWO options for ‘80s new wave fans: Howard Jones with Wang Chung, the English Beat and Modern English at the Greek, or the Totally Tubular Festival with Thomas Dolby, Tommy Tutone and more at House of Blues in Anaheim.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can get tips on beating the heat, learn about a mystery at the Burbank Library and find the best cheap eats in Artesia.

Events

Mexodus

Through Sunday, Aug. 2
Pasadena Playhouse
39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena 
COST: FROM $40; MORE INFO

It’s not every day that friends recommend a show to me with such unanimous enthusiasm. Do what you can to get yourself to Pasadena Playhouse for Mexodus, a totally original show about the Mexican involvement in the Underground Railroad. The brainchild of Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson, the performance includes music looped live on stage and a story about our collective history that’s been overlooked for too long. It comes to us straight from NYC, where it was a New York Times critic’s pick.

40 Watts From Nowhere screenings

Through Wednesday, July 22
Laemmle Theatres NoHo, Glendale and Santa Monica
COST: $18.50; MORE INFO

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I saw 40 Watts From Nowhere at its Slamdance premiere last year and have been anxiously awaiting a wider release — and here it is. Take a trip back to the '90s and early 2000s in L.A., when pirate radio was how new bands went viral and Silver Lake was the epicenter of indie band cool. Our friend Lyndsey Parker from Licorice Pizza Records will host a conversation with some of the folks behind the film, including director Sue Carpenter, music supervisor Mara Kuge, plus DJs Chris Wagganer and Dana Childs on July 22 in Glendale.

Paws & Punchlines Comedy Show

Wednesday, July 22, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Wallis Annenberg PetSpace
12005 Bluff Creek Drive, Playa Vista
COST: $30; MORE INFO

Support rescue dogs and get your laughs in at this special dog-friendly comedy show at the Annenberg PetSpace. Featuring comedian Johnny Pemberton, you can bring your furry friend along to do the barking, er, heckling

Backrooms UCB

Tuesday, July 21, 6 p.m. 
Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre 
5919 Franklin Ave., Hollywood
COST: $20; MORE INFO 

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If you’ve ever wanted to see the inner workings of Upright Citizens Brigade — with a theatrical twist, of course — this is your one-night-only chance. Show up for an escape room like none other, where you’ll be assigned an entry time, get a map and set loose to make your way out of the storied theater while solving puzzles and encountering some unexpected surprises along the way.

Shakespeare by the Sea 

Through Saturday, July 25
Various locations
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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The Bard’s best are making their way across the area with performances of Macbeth, for free, outside in various parks and public spaces. Shakespeare by the Sea goes through July 25; this week’s shows are at Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills and Soka University in Aliso Viejo.

iPalpiti Festival

Through Sunday, July 26
Beverly Hills 
COST: FROM $44.80; MORE INFO

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Called the “UN of classical music,” the iPalpiti Festival is on in Beverly Hills this week with performances from international laureates at Greystone Mansion and the Wallis. Hear works by Schubert, Chopin and many more.

World’s Fastest 

Through Saturday, Aug. 22
Petersen Automotive Museum 
6060 Wilshire Blvd., Miracle Mile
COST: FROM $23; MORE INFO

Vroom vroom over to the Peterson for three exciting new exhibits. First, the world’s fastest cars are on display through August 22, featuring cars that broke speed records from World War II to now. There’s also an art show — Flat Out — by L.A. artist Joshua Vides that imagines cars as black and white outlines in his signature style. And finally, in the vault (which is an extra ticket cost) one of the world’s largest collections of historic French art deco cars from the Mullen Collection is now on display.

Mosquitos are on the minds of Southern Californians a lot these days. Also their ankles.

Although the insects are now a year-round problem in the region, mosquito season kicks into high gear at this time of year, adding a layer of nuisance to barbecues and other outdoor activities.

But the insects are also a more serious concern for public health.

West Nile virus is spreading in the United States at rates not seen in two decades, according to federal public health officials. Scientists are also logging a rise in infected insects in Southern California, where the virus is carried by a native species of mosquito.

Meanwhile, a different, invasive species of the insect is jumping in population. Aedes aegypti can transmit the diseases dengue fever, Zika and yellow fever.

In response, vector control officials around the region are releasing millions of modified mosquitoes to try to reduce overall populations.

West Nile virus

The virus is the most common and serious mosquito-borne disease in the state, according to the California Department of Public Health.

And there are more mosquitos testing positive for West Nile in Southern California this summer than normal. Data from the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District show the number of West Nile-infected mosquitos hit levels in June that weren’t hit until August of 2025.

But it's not yet clear if the higher rate of infected insects will translate to more human cases. Southern California has seen two human cases of the virus this summer — one reported in the Antelope Valley and one in Long Beach.

“Having two cases reported in our area is not unusual. It's already July,” said Dr. Aiman Halai with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. “Our mosquito activity picks up around May and goes on till November, December, and it's typically around this time that we start to get human cases.”

L.A. County has seen an average of 41 cases of West Nile virus per year over the past five years. The actual number of cases is likely much higher, however, as the majority of infected people do not show symptoms.

In cases where symptoms do develop, they can include fever, body aches, rash, nausea, vomiting and headache. Approximately 1 in 150 people also develop serious symptoms, such as brain inflammation and paralysis. West Nile is a neurological virus that attacks a person’s central nervous system.

Public health officials say people over 55, people with chronic health conditions or those who are at high risk of illness are most susceptible to West Nile. There is no vaccine or treatment for the virus.

Aedes aegypti

West Nile virus is transmitted by a mosquito species native to Southern California called Culex quinquefasciatus, a.k.a. the southern house mosquito, which feeds on birds as well as humans.

In fact, West Nile virus can’t be transmitted directly from human to human. It has to be carried by a mosquito from a bird to a human, because birds carry a higher concentration of the virus in their blood.

But that’s not the case for other diseases transmitted by a different mosquito species, Aedes aegypti. The invasive mosquito has made itself more than comfortable in Southern California since it established itself here over a decade ago.

The species was responsible for an outbreak of dengue in L.A. County in 2024.

“We saw local transmission of dengue happening, and that is obviously a great concern to us, and that's something that we're trying to avoid,” said Steve Vetrone with the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District.

Symptoms of dengue fever include fever, body aches, nausea, vomiting and rashes. About one in four people infected with dengue will get sick. One in 20 will contract a more severe version of the disease, which can result in shock and internal bleeding.

Aedes aegypti can also transmit Zika and yellow fever.

Tristan Hallum releases mosquitoes in Bassett Park. The San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District is releasing about 30,000 in the park and the surrounding neighborhood each week.

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Don't worry. The males released by San Gabriel Valley vector control officials don't bite.

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Sterilized Insect Technique

Public health officials use an array of strategies to manage mosquito populations.

Some of the most effective identify standing water where mosquitos can reproduce, whether that’s a natural pond or water collected in garden pots. Officials will sometimes use satellite imagery to identify unmaintained backyard pools that have turned into mosquito breeding grounds.

Severe situations can be treated with pesticides. Crews will treat gutters and underground storm drains where water can collect, for example.

They are also rolling out a new strategy called SIT, or Sterilized Insect Technique, that specifically targets Aedes aegypti.

The technique involves releasing hundreds of thousands of male Aedes mosquitos that have been sterilized, meaning they can no longer reproduce, using a specialized virus or radiation.

Once released, the male mosquitos will mate with females in the natural population, but since they will not produce viable offspring, the overall Aedes aegypti population decreases over time.

The San Gabriel Valley Vector Control District launched its SIT program this summer. Earlier this month, district scientists began releasing 30,000 sterilized mosquitos each week in Bassett Park and the surrounding neighborhood. They plan to release almost 500,000 in the area by the end of October.

“We are talking about established populations of these types of invasive species in essentially every city across our district,” said Tristan Hallum, a scientist with the district. “So we're seeing them fairly consistently across our area, and we're trying to identify the best possible way to alleviate some of this bite pressure for our residents.”

L.A. County launched a similar program in Sunland-Tujunga in 2024. Orange County’s program has been focused in Mission Viejo.

“People are seeing a good reduction in the number of mosquitoes that are out there, and they're pretty happy with it,” said Miquel Jacobs with the Orange County Vector Control District.

However, as promising as these Southern California SIT programs are, they are only test cases. It remains to be seen if they can be scaled up.

The best thing to do in the short term, officials say, is to get rid of the standing water that mosquitos use to reproduce.

On a Sunday morning, I walked into Coral Cafe in Burbank to have breakfast with a stranger.

Raz, as he prefers to be called, has been meeting with different people — different strangers — over a cup of coffee and French toast almost every week for the past six months.

The idea started when a solo meal turned into a spontaneous shared table with a woman who was also planning on eating alone. Their hour-long conversation left a profound impact on Raz, and a lingering feeling that he wanted to have that kind of connection again.

So, he opened up the invite on Reddit. Nearly 20 neighbors have had a meal with him since then.

“For me, it's never been about who you are or the job you have,” he told LAist. “It's just more about the impact that we have on each other, and the impact that you have on me.”

A little ‘leap of faith’

I didn’t know much about Raz when I first got to the restaurant, not even his name.

I did know I was looking out for someone with shoulder length blonde hair and glasses, but I didn't need to guess much with the waiter in on the arrangement.

The waiter walked me right up to Raz at his usual table, and any of the awkwardness or strained small talk I expected evaporated almost immediately. Although we were more than 30 years apart in age, we had a lot in common.

For our second breakfast, I had bacon and hashbrowns while Raz had his usual French toast and fruit.

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The hour-long breakfast quickly turned into two as we talked about family, politics, relationships, work, childhood, religion and health, to name a few. We made tentative plans to see each other again at Raz’s weekly dance classes, hugged, and parted ways.

“We're a puzzle, right? And all the pieces are everywhere … but if you start laying them down into the puzzle, it starts to create a giant picture,” he told me over another plate of French toast last week. “And that's kind of what it is, you know? It's that connection and disconnection.”

Stories from the series

Raz shares short posts on the Burbank subreddit about each breakfast, but he’s careful to avoid any identifying details of the neighbors he’s dining with or the conversations they have.

Instead, he refers to them as nicknames like the Artist, Captain Max and the Tornado.

Raz described the Artist in his post as a woman with “electric” energy who made the table seem “a little brighter from the moment she sat down.”

There was nothing pirate-like about Captain Max, but Raz wrote that he still found himself “on the ship, sitting on a barrel of rum, listening to our captain spin tales of the sea.”

The Tornado was a smart woman, “like big-brain, med-school smart,” who treated “life like a buffet,” Raz said in his post. After drinking an obscene amount of coffee together, they realized they still hadn’t gotten each other's names, but decided they didn’t need to, for the fun of it.

Southern California can feel lonely at times, which is why Raz said he went to the cafe to begin with. But he said he doesn’t feel that way anymore, at least since having Sunday breakfasts with strangers to look forward to.

“The more I get to know people, the more I want to know more people,” he said. “And to me, that's like a new feeling.”

A tradition in LA

There’s a history of having meals with strangers in Southern California, like with the Los Angeles Breakfast Club.

The club hosts weekly breakfasts at the Friendship Auditorium in Los Feliz — a storied tradition that dates back a century.

Anna Trumbo, vice president of the L.A. Breakfast Club, told LAist people often show up alone, and it’s a great opportunity to meet others outside of your age group.

“Everyone is so welcoming, and just immediately struck up conversations, and now these are some of my best friends,” Trumbo said. “But that first morning where it really was breakfast with strangers, felt very [much] like breathing a sigh of relief.”