Nature's no fool
In the late afternoon, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch and I hared forth into the wilds of Lexington, by which I mean the part of the Battle Road Trail through the Minute Man Historical National Park that would bring us to the Bloody Bluff. I even knew about assorted earthquakes in Massachusetts and had no idea until late last fall that a fault zone ran through the town in which I partly grew up. It records the subduction of the Avalon terrane beneath the Nashoba terrane during the Silurian period, one of those geologically slow-motion collisions that can still be seen in the twisting contact of magmatic and metamorphic rocks. Apparently the local chances of a major earthquake within the next fifty years are only about two percent, which of course makes me think instantly of Elio annoyed with himself in the Annuate Palace of Time City while his hair drips with rain: "I weighed the odds . . . and decided against having a rain-shield function on any of our belts. My calculation was that we would be outside in only two percent of the year's rainfall. What I forgot is that two percent is as wet as any other rain."
En route we stopped in Lexington Center so that I could collect my copy of Ernest K. Gann's The High and the Mighty (1953) from the library. I had become curious about the novel after encountering the 1954 film which I had not realized was so much the parent and original of the star-studded disaster flick and specifically the reason Robert Stack ended up in Airplane! (1980). We ended up perusing the perpetual book sale on the second floor and coming away with Howard Padwee and Valerie Moolman's The Cat Who Couldn't See in the Dark (1997) and Alan Bennett's House Arrest: Pandemic Diaries (2022) after hitting up the Theatre Pharmacy for 100 Grand and Charleston Chew bars—I had previously discovered them selling the Big Cherry Milkshake, the closest thing I have seen to a Cherry Mash since the days of the Big Broadcasts.
After a concerted effort on the part of Rob's phone to misdirect us into the wilds of Bedford, we attained our destination.
We have no idea why a dozen or so conifers were growing in a nearly complete circle near the visitor center, but I wisely went and stood inside them.
Pylons whose chained-off gate declared them the property of NSTAR strode humming over history.
Any microcontinent named Avalonia sounds as though it should have originated with Robert Holdstock, especially when I discover it is currently stuck to bits of the coast around the North Atlantic. The Nashoba terrane appears to be strictly a feature of eastern Massachusetts. Its rocks can be found to the north and west of the strike-slip fault named after the Bloody Bluff, while the Avalonian stuff lies to the south and east. The bluff itself is unjustly off limits for climbing, although a determined little pine tree was giving it a try.
The pylons march northeast like orogeny.
Dry stone walls were everywhere, although not always maintained. This one offered a portal to the leaf dimension.
Rob permitted himself to be photographed in one of his natural habitats. We didn't have a Studebaker.
We collected the car before sunset and returned home with the first barbecue I have eaten in nine months. I admit I was less than thrilled to see as soon as I turned on the internet that J.K. Rowling has moved right down the pipeline to Holocaust denial, especially when it includes the claim that gender-affirming care was an invention of the Nazis as opposed to Magnus Hirschfeld—I suppose it makes a change from the Jews turning your children trans—and then the next piece of news after the cat pictures was the death of Michael Culver. I will have to find something to watch in his memory. He will always look like Prior Robert or Captain Needa to me. Fortunately, the burnt ends and collards were delicious and further poking at the internet revealed thatmoon_custafer has written some most excellent pre-slash starring the young Marcus Brody. Hestia kneaded a little in the blanket at my feet. I still think of her paws as so small and delicate and she uses them mercilessly to rabbit-kick the catnip pickle. I definitely feel better when I get out into the world.
spatch and I hared forth into the wilds of Lexington, by which I mean the part of the Battle Road Trail through the Minute Man Historical National Park that would bring us to the Bloody Bluff. I even knew about assorted earthquakes in Massachusetts and had no idea until late last fall that a fault zone ran through the town in which I partly grew up. It records the subduction of the Avalon terrane beneath the Nashoba terrane during the Silurian period, one of those geologically slow-motion collisions that can still be seen in the twisting contact of magmatic and metamorphic rocks. Apparently the local chances of a major earthquake within the next fifty years are only about two percent, which of course makes me think instantly of Elio annoyed with himself in the Annuate Palace of Time City while his hair drips with rain: "I weighed the odds . . . and decided against having a rain-shield function on any of our belts. My calculation was that we would be outside in only two percent of the year's rainfall. What I forgot is that two percent is as wet as any other rain."En route we stopped in Lexington Center so that I could collect my copy of Ernest K. Gann's The High and the Mighty (1953) from the library. I had become curious about the novel after encountering the 1954 film which I had not realized was so much the parent and original of the star-studded disaster flick and specifically the reason Robert Stack ended up in Airplane! (1980). We ended up perusing the perpetual book sale on the second floor and coming away with Howard Padwee and Valerie Moolman's The Cat Who Couldn't See in the Dark (1997) and Alan Bennett's House Arrest: Pandemic Diaries (2022) after hitting up the Theatre Pharmacy for 100 Grand and Charleston Chew bars—I had previously discovered them selling the Big Cherry Milkshake, the closest thing I have seen to a Cherry Mash since the days of the Big Broadcasts.
After a concerted effort on the part of Rob's phone to misdirect us into the wilds of Bedford, we attained our destination.
We have no idea why a dozen or so conifers were growing in a nearly complete circle near the visitor center, but I wisely went and stood inside them.
Pylons whose chained-off gate declared them the property of NSTAR strode humming over history.
Any microcontinent named Avalonia sounds as though it should have originated with Robert Holdstock, especially when I discover it is currently stuck to bits of the coast around the North Atlantic. The Nashoba terrane appears to be strictly a feature of eastern Massachusetts. Its rocks can be found to the north and west of the strike-slip fault named after the Bloody Bluff, while the Avalonian stuff lies to the south and east. The bluff itself is unjustly off limits for climbing, although a determined little pine tree was giving it a try.
The pylons march northeast like orogeny.
Dry stone walls were everywhere, although not always maintained. This one offered a portal to the leaf dimension.
Rob permitted himself to be photographed in one of his natural habitats. We didn't have a Studebaker.
We collected the car before sunset and returned home with the first barbecue I have eaten in nine months. I admit I was less than thrilled to see as soon as I turned on the internet that J.K. Rowling has moved right down the pipeline to Holocaust denial, especially when it includes the claim that gender-affirming care was an invention of the Nazis as opposed to Magnus Hirschfeld—I suppose it makes a change from the Jews turning your children trans—and then the next piece of news after the cat pictures was the death of Michael Culver. I will have to find something to watch in his memory. He will always look like Prior Robert or Captain Needa to me. Fortunately, the burnt ends and collards were delicious and further poking at the internet revealed that
moon_custafer has written some most excellent pre-slash starring the young Marcus Brody. Hestia kneaded a little in the blanket at my feet. I still think of her paws as so small and delicate and she uses them mercilessly to rabbit-kick the catnip pickle. I definitely feel better when I get out into the world.
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Now I want barbecue.
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Yes! The legendary one is the 1755 Cape Ann earthquake, but we get a couple small ones every year [edit: I underestimated the average annual number]. There was a 3.6 in November 2020 which I remember because I actually felt it and a 2.3 just this past December which I read about. I think about them partly because so much of Boston is landfill; it would liquefy in a real quake. I also think about them because plate tectonics are neat.
(Unfortunately I did know about J.K. Rowling's Holocaust denial.)
It is not unforeseen in the sense that the gravitation of all conspiracy theories eventually seems to be antisemitism, but I reserve the right to think it still sucks.
Now I want barbecue.
I won't try to talk you out of it!
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I love the contrast between the blue sky and ochre ground in your photos!
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Is it terrible that I think it's fascinating we have earthquakery in MA?
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Not only hateful but frighteningly ignorant!
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I think of this every time I get caught outside without an umbrella! (Also in a number of other situations when people are saying "Yes, but it isn't likely to happen, so we don't really need to take precautions...").
Lovely pictures, as always <3
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that J.K. Rowling has moved right down the pipeline to Holocaust denial,
what the. /fails on words bad enough or indicative enough of the sheer STUPID.
(Conspiracy theories are so weird anyway, but how so many of them end in antisemitism even weirder and far scarier. And the ones that don't tend to wind up in classism, and presumbly work their way on from there in some sort of horrible devolutionary law.)
/stops being all whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy at the internet and people. (here anyway. in my head, never.)
♥ ♥ ♥
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No! It's fascinating! And little-known, because we tend toward slight to minor quakes, but enough of them add up every year that the state website calls us a "moderate earthquake zone." Elsenet I was asked about the mechanism and couldn't find anything more detailed than an oft-repeated reference to a "spiderweb of faults," but it's true that the geology of eastern Massachusetts looks like a crumple zone.
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At this point I can't think of it as anything but willful ignorance, because the information isn't hard to find.
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The bottom of the barrel was tunneled through some time ago, but she didn't have to keep going until she broke into the caves.
I love the contrast between the blue sky and ochre ground in your photos!
Thank you!
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Wow! When was this? The only one I can remember feeling for certain was in 2020.
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I sincerely don't know how people get out of conspiracy theories, if they live in worlds where all information can be dismissed if it doesn't reinforce what they already believe. I have the impression it does happen, but perhaps the mechanism is idiosyncratic. (I do not expect it to happen with Rowling.)
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It's a useful and memorable formulation!
Lovely pictures, as always
Thank you!
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I think it really started to impinge on my consciousness a dozen or so years ago. There was a notable earthquake in the Piedmont in 2011 that shocked all the way up through New England, although I myself missed it.
(Thank you!)
I was on a bus at the time of one of them, and if there was any shaking to be felt, it was overwhelmed by the regular feeling of the bus bumping along the Route 2 access road.
I feel that says as much about Massachusetts' highways as its earthquakes.
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Thank you! I had been taken to the national park when younger, but I had no memory of this particular outcropping. I'd like to go back sometime with more light.
/stops being all whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy at the internet and people. (here anyway. in my head, never.)
*hugs*
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Fucking seriously, you can practically set your watch by it.
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Thank you! Yeah.
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Ooooof. It's unsurprising, and yet.
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Harry, it sucks.
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Be sure to share the consequences of your standing in the circle, whatever they may be.
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You can hear them singing.
Be sure to share the consequences of your standing in the circle, whatever they may be.
With any luck, standing in more circles.
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takes notes