The destruction is visible to the naked eye. The three main fires in Palisades, Hollywood Hills and Eaton have burned over 2000 buildings and 29.000 acres of land, the equivalent of 22.000 football fields, or as the now-dominant Latino population would say. At least ten people have died after their bodies were found in three buildings in Altadena, but Sheriff Robert Luna warns: “It’s an optimistic estimate, the number will rise.”
Los Angeles. Even landing at LAX airport, in these tragic hours, is a gamble. As the first dawn flight from New York approaches, the captain informs the passengers like Indiana Jones: “If we’re lucky, we’ll make it. The track is now open, but everything depends on the direction of the smoke.” The smell is so heavy that it fills your nostrils as soon as the plane doors open. Bertolt Brecht wrote: “Hell must be like Los Angeles.” He was referring to the corrupt culture he believed was destroying the city of angels. But in the face of the destruction and death caused by the fires that are consuming it, The Hollywood Reporter magazine notes that now the lines of the poem “Contemplating Hell” sound prophetic.
As if the fire itself wanted – it’s not an apocalyptic movie, but it reminds a lot of one – to cleanse an already lost community. In a moral sense, for those in the American culture war camp who are happy that Trump is back in the White House, but mostly in a practical sense, because of the drought caused at least in part by climate change that the president of he denies, the Santa Ana winds blowing at over 160 miles per hour, the hydrants that have run out of water due to carelessness and because it hasn’t rained in months, and the burning vegetation that no one has cared for. really clean it. All of these are metaphors for a country that is both blessed and cursed by fate.
A country that, amidst fires, earthquakes and other threats, is increasingly fragile, forcing its inhabitants to sign a permanent pact with the devil: to accept the constant risk of being displaced, to prepare for the worst, in exchange for the privilege of living near the Pacific Ocean, with the sun always shining, as the movie La La Land sang, in the place where cinema illusions are born, amidst wonderful holidays and social opportunities that the rest of America can only dream of.
DESTRUCTION
The destruction is visible to the naked eye. The three main fires in Palisades, Hollywood Hills and Eaton have burned over 2000 buildings and 29.000 acres of land, the equivalent of 22.000 football fields, or as the now-dominant Latino population would say. At least ten people have died after their bodies were found in three buildings in Altadena, but Sheriff Robert Luna warns: “It’s an optimistic estimate, the number will rise.” Winds have died down, but forecasters are predicting favorable conditions for the fire at least through tomorrow. More than 16 million people in Southern California, from the actors’ villas in Malibu to Trump’s wall on the border with Mexico, are in red alert zones.
Icons of cinematic mythology burn, from Sunset Boulevard to Mulholland Drive. The flames are touching the studios, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Chinese Theater and the Dolby Theater, where the Oscars are held. Houses belonging to Will Rogers, Billy Crystal and Paris Hilton were destroyed, as well as the Topanga Ranch Motel built by William Hearst, otherwise known as “Citizen Kane” because of Orson Welles.
The grounds of the Getty Museum are burning. Disneyland hotels are far from the flames and have been transformed from havens for tourists to shelters for evacuees. Damages are estimated at 50 billion dollars. The Lakers’ basketball game has been postponed, while UCLA has moved classes online. Patrice Winter, the owner of the pastry shop Canyon Bakery, complains to the Los Angeles Times: “It’s like Armageddon.” Shana Soboroff recounts her family’s fears: “There were no alarms, but the winds became very strong. They were hitting the house and we ran away.” In the abandoned buildings, twenty people were arrested for robbery.
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DIMENSION
Jack Kerouac noted that even in New York there is a certain camaraderie, when speeders meet in winter on the frozen streets, but not in Los Angeles: no mercy, no sense of humanity. Maybe he was exaggerating, but seeing how politics exploits tragedy, you might suspect he was right. Mayor Karen Bass, elected to clean up the city and address the homeless crisis along Skid Row, was caught off guard by the crisis.
You can imagine the reaction of those wishing for the collapse of the City of Angels, even without the long-awaited big earthquake, called “Big One”.
President Biden happened to be here to announce two nature reserves and to await the birth of a grandson. Left to attend Carter’s funeral, canceling trip to Rome that was unaffordable for public image. Trump, who every night dreams of the downfall of liberal California, immediately used it to blame Governor Newsom (“Newscum”) for the hell that is going on. Perhaps because he fears that in 2028 he will run against him, with more hope than Kamala to stop Trump’s dream of a third term, or to stop the vice president. President Vance. Meanwhile, Los Angeles is burning. (BBC)
