David Siskind | Sunday, 12 January 2025
Actually not from LA. I left for NY on Monday morning with some localized fires burning in Altadena and Pacific Palisades. The Santa Ana winds picked up during my flight and strengthened to 100-year force Monday nightand Tuesday. “It is hard for people who have not lived in Los Angeles to realize how radically the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination. The city burning is Los Angeles's deepest image of itself.” - Joan Didion. Places that NEVER burned were gone in a flash. Usually the fires destroy exurban developments built on the foothills and slopes of the steep brushy mountains while the flats are relatively untouched. Not this week. I had assured my housemates that they were far enough from the flames to remain safe but by Tuesday afternoon the Sunset fire popped up and within an hour had climbed to the ridge of the Santa Monicas two miles north of my apartment. By nightfall the flames were forced downhill through Runyon Canyon, racing to the bottom. Later the wind died allowing firefighters to stop the advance. My roomies did not get the order to evacuate. Other friends lost homes.
In the meantime our President elect, his minions, and captive news outlets were all spouting bullshit about progressives in government having somehow caused this disaster. These guys are relentless. Most of us had convinced ourselves that they wouldn’t be back. Why would anyone want to repeat the distorted reality and unpleasantness we experienced here last time? The loutishness, the abandonment of science and the neoliberal order (pros and cons here), the unleashing of aggressive behaviors, the explosion of cos-play patriotism. It’s nuts.
And now new threats of American colonial expansion and suggestions of radical global realignment dominate the discussion here. There is open discussion among the architects of Project 2025 suggesting the abandonment of the constitutional order and embrace of Heaven on Earth led by Christian theocrats. Even more jarring however, is the realization that a plurality of Americans saw this coming and did not shy away. So I can’t be in the world and say - “don’t worry everyone. This is an anomaly. This is an artifice of our political system.” To some degree I’ve got to own it too.
My bonefish trip in February will be hosted by a Danish outfitter. I wonder whether I can slip under the radar or whether I’ll be answering for Trump’s saber-rattling over Canada, Panama and Greenland. No, not a good time to be in the world.
David Siskind