Not even ten days into the new year and already it feels like the wheels are coming off of the bus. There was a brief reprieve today with the measured and elegiac state funeral for former president Jimmy Carter. President Biden granted all federal employees the day off today in remembrance of Mr. Carter and, as Thursday is one of my VA days, I got an unexpected day away from work. I spent it relaxing with some friends, a thing I don’t get to do all that often these days. Tomorrow, however, we will return to the president elect being sentenced for felonious conduct, the city of Los Angeles going up in smoke, Republican congress critters falling all over themselves as they try to prefile bills making the plans laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 a political reality, a terrible winter cold and flu season with the hints of a new pandemic on the horizon, and the promise of up to six inches of snow overnight in the greater Birmingham area. (I will still be expected to slide down the hill and into work – no patients will show up…)
The golden hills of California have burned regularly with wildfire for millennia. The entire ecosystem evolved around the rejuvenative properties of fire clearing away underbrush. Various conifer trees require the high heat of fire to burst open their cones so the new seeds can scatter. The hills will survive, with or without the sound of music or fire sirens. Up through the early 20th century, societies understood the power of nature and adapted dwelling and planning around the way in which the local eco system worked. (The 18th and 19th century neighborhoods in NOLA, for instance, were the ones that did not flood during Katrina). In the 20th century, with the rise of real estate as a major economic commodity, rather than just the creation of human habitation, all of that went out the window as developers threw up houses and other buildings anywhere and everywhere a buck could be made. Now, a century later, the bill is coming due with coastal erosion, sea level rise, stronger hurricanes, excessive rain events, and stronger winds that can whip up firestorms and mother nature, stressed by climate change, doesn’t really care where you built your house. She’s gonna do what she’s gonna do.
This is the third catastrophic California wildfire which has marched through an urban area and destroyed the lives of multiple friends and acquaintances. The other two were the Oakland Hills fire of 1991 and the Santa Rosa fire of 2017. I was a Californian for fourteen years so I have a lot of ties to the state. My life was in Northern California so I have no special love for Los Angeles (Steve did – he grew up in the San Fernando Valley) but I cannot help but grieve for the thousands upon thousands of little deaths of culture, of community, and familiarity that any disaster of this magnitude brings. The best book I read this past year was Stephen Markley’s The Deluge, a sprawling novel of near future United States history as the current economic, climatic, and political forces continue to play out unabated. One of the major set pieces of the novel is a massive wildfire, nicknamed ‘El Diablo’ that nearly destroys Los Angeles. The conditions that produce and progress of the fire in the book is being eerily replayed on the nightly news. Markley’s largely pessimistic novel is a painful read but as time moves on, it looks like he read the tea leaves correctly. I was so impressed with The Deluge that I read Markley’s earlier novel, Ohio, a few months ago. This one is an examination of the millennials of small town America as they enter middle age and the dreadful things that happen to them as America has not lived up to her promises for the younger generations. The audio book is very good.
The next few days should be rather interesting for political junkies. President elect Trump receives his sentence tomorrow for being found guilty of felony crimes involving the falsification of business records. Most people convicted of 34 felonies would be looking at some serious jail time but most aren’t as well connected or ten days away from walking again into the White House. I suspect Judge Merchan will end the whole affair with an admission of guilt and then a general discharge so that the whole thing can be swept under the rug. It won’t be long before the propagandists begin completely rewriting the story making Trump a hero-martyr. The way in which the propaganda machine is busy trying to turn January 6, 2021 into something other than what it was is truly a marvel to behold. I saw some piece where the pundit was describing it as a bunch of patriotic American grandmothers giving themselves a self guided tour of the Capitol. DO NOT let them gull you into disbelieving what you actually experienced. Following this, the Jack Smith report on the federal cases involving election interference and mishandling of classified documents are expected to be released as early as this coming Sunday. There are reporters all over the country salivating at what little nuggets of information might be contained therein. I’m sure we’ll hear all about it.
On a lighter note, I have a new theatrical project next week. It’s a readers theatre piece for Cahaba Theatre Group entitled Finding the Absent Crescent by Gina Pauratore. This means that we don’t have to learn our lines, but we still have to give a performance, even with the books in front of us. It has one glorious performance at 2:30 PM Sunday the 19th at the Clubhouse on Highland (a venue near and dear to my heart – we did a number of the later Politically Incorrect Cabarets there). The play is a Southern Fried Comedy with a Creole flair. Eccentric family, check. Funeral brings them together under high stress conditions, check. It’s not as mordant as the plays of Del Shores and not as sit com as the Hope Jones Wooten oeuvre which has replaced Neil Simon as the community theater comedy staple. It reminds me a bit of Dearly Departed which I directed for Bell Tower players a couple of years ago. I play a ghostly grandfather who bookends the show. Two weeks later, I have an Alabama Symphony Orchestra concert where the men are singing Schubert, the women, Debussy and everyone joins up for Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances (best known as the source material for the musical Kismet – Stranger in Paradise and He’s in Love are prominent in the piece we’re singing). And that’s it for a while. Something else will turn up, it always does. In the meantime, I have to buckle down to various writing assignments which will become my next book and a few other things. Fortunately, I write very quickly and do some of my best work under the pressure of deadline so something should have form by summer.
I just looked out my window. There is no snow and minimal clouds. So I opened my NOAA weather app (something that will cease to exist if Elon Musk has his way) and there’s a wall of snow just starting to cross the state line from Mississippi to Alabama. Things may be very different in the morning.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 