sovay: (Rotwang)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2021-06-06 10:44 pm

Stuck between two countries in a fire

Today I have discovered the existence of the following things:

1. A moving mud pot in southern California which has been heading toward the Salton Sea at a leisurely rate since 1953 and a much less leisurely one since 2016. So far it has proven a pain in the ass to the Union Pacific Railroad, California State Route 111, the Santa Fe Pacific Pipeline, Verizon, and AT&T. I had no idea that mud pots moved, much less that they behaved like radioactive megafauna in 1950's B-movies. I feel I should have had this situation explained to me by Hans Conried.

2. Asphalt volcanoes! Does exactly what it says on the tin, only underwater. I have loved hydrothermal vents all my life and had no idea these had been discovered in 2003.

3. Peter Falk's Just One More Thing: Stories from My Life (2006). "[A]nd, uh . . . finally let me say that in the history of the CIA you're the first and only applicant that has a past that includes helping Marshall Tito build a railroad. So, uh . . . in all candor, Peter, you not only cannot work for the CIA, you cannot work anywhere in Washington." [personal profile] spatch and I are resolved to acquire a copy. We were also slightly reminded of the diaries of Aaron Burr.

4. Florence Crannell Means' The Moved-Outers (1945): a children's novel about the relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans written and published while the camps were still in operation. I feel as though I should have read it in elementary school, but none of the characters' names ring even corroded bells; I think what I read was the later novel cited in the article, Yoshiko Uchida's Journey to Topaz (1971).

5. Barbara Smith's "Lucifer Takes a Break." I am indifferent to the analysis, but I like the photo chosen to accompany the poem.

It was too hot to think about eating for almost all of the day, yet I am incapable of shifting this small sleeping furnace of a cat off my lap. May it count in my favor in the next life, after I have melted in this one.
thanate: (Default)

[personal profile] thanate 2021-06-08 02:13 pm (UTC)(link)
After realizing the mudpot article was two years out of date, I went on a brief wiki jaunt, and discovered that it has passed the railroad, the highway is busy mitigating, and it has somehow acquired the rather inaccurate name of Niland Geyser Fascinating!