Paradise Lost
Nov. 11th, 2018 06:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_camerahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R7J0pH0dW8&feature=youtu.be
The images coming out of Paradise are absolutely horrendous. Beyond words. Beyond imagining.
My friend who lost his house to the flames notes that the death toll is likely to be much, much higher than the 23 documented so far. “So many people here live off the grid,” he said. “Down dirt roads. They’re retired, or they’re housebound, or they’re very poor with few avenues of communication.”
An entire town destroyed.
I cannot even…
When it happens, it happens very, very quickly.
And it can happen any time.
For any reason.
This is the same friend who stood on the Brooklyn Heights promenade 18 years ago and watched the Twin Towers collapse.
At first, it was a slow-motion movie. The unbelievable taking place. But, of course, the unbelievable takes place 10,000 times a day on your television screen. Its visuals are familiar.
But then the ashes began to fall.
The ashes weren’t grey. They were bits of particulate matter—plaster dust and pulverized rubble, jagged concrete pebbles and charred bits of parchment that looked like ancient prophecies but were really inventory lists or incident reports from businesses that had had offices in the Towers. And mixed in with the hard particulates were pellets of this yellow slime that Gerard realized with mounting horror were actually all that remains when human flesh is incinerated at high temperatures.
Then came the smell. Fuel with an undercurrent of something sweet and savory—burning meat.
Before 9/11, Gerard was a libertine. Too cynical to be political. A profiteer, one might say, off the ideological battles we fought in the late 60s and early 70s.
But he did a complete 180 after 9/11.
Became this ultra-rightwing, AmeriKa-uber-alles booster.
I understood the motivation, but it still made me sad because I remembered the night we got drunk at the Claremont Hotel, watched the sunset sky over faraway San Francisco fade to purple and thence to night, and I listened to him riff—he was like Robin Williams in his ability to riff hilariously and profoundly on any topic under the sun.
One of those nights when anytime you mentioned a song, the lounge guy on the piano 50 yards away would immediately start playing it.
Oh, sure, I had a crush on him.
But I was also smart enough to see the red lights flashing.
As an ultra-rightwing conservative, Gerard was a lot more political than he had been as a libertine, and insofar as we interacted at all, we clashed.
But, you know. The connection I felt never went away.
Call it karma.
Vonnegut would say we're members of the same karass.
I sent him money.
What else could I do?
He actually doesn’t need my money: Remember The Penthouse Advisor?
Dear Penthouse: One of my balls always seems to be slightly smaller than the other every time I slam the redhead who lives down the street. I never notice a testicular disparity when I fuck other ladies—
Gerard wrote and edited those letters! He did many other things in the publishing industry, too. He was remunerated well, and he had a particularly sharp accountant.
So he is positioned to survive the loss of everything, everything, everything better than most.
Still. I wanted to do something.
The images coming out of Paradise are absolutely horrendous. Beyond words. Beyond imagining.
My friend who lost his house to the flames notes that the death toll is likely to be much, much higher than the 23 documented so far. “So many people here live off the grid,” he said. “Down dirt roads. They’re retired, or they’re housebound, or they’re very poor with few avenues of communication.”
An entire town destroyed.
I cannot even…
When it happens, it happens very, very quickly.
And it can happen any time.
For any reason.
This is the same friend who stood on the Brooklyn Heights promenade 18 years ago and watched the Twin Towers collapse.
At first, it was a slow-motion movie. The unbelievable taking place. But, of course, the unbelievable takes place 10,000 times a day on your television screen. Its visuals are familiar.
But then the ashes began to fall.
The ashes weren’t grey. They were bits of particulate matter—plaster dust and pulverized rubble, jagged concrete pebbles and charred bits of parchment that looked like ancient prophecies but were really inventory lists or incident reports from businesses that had had offices in the Towers. And mixed in with the hard particulates were pellets of this yellow slime that Gerard realized with mounting horror were actually all that remains when human flesh is incinerated at high temperatures.
Then came the smell. Fuel with an undercurrent of something sweet and savory—burning meat.
Before 9/11, Gerard was a libertine. Too cynical to be political. A profiteer, one might say, off the ideological battles we fought in the late 60s and early 70s.
But he did a complete 180 after 9/11.
Became this ultra-rightwing, AmeriKa-uber-alles booster.
I understood the motivation, but it still made me sad because I remembered the night we got drunk at the Claremont Hotel, watched the sunset sky over faraway San Francisco fade to purple and thence to night, and I listened to him riff—he was like Robin Williams in his ability to riff hilariously and profoundly on any topic under the sun.
One of those nights when anytime you mentioned a song, the lounge guy on the piano 50 yards away would immediately start playing it.
Oh, sure, I had a crush on him.
But I was also smart enough to see the red lights flashing.
As an ultra-rightwing conservative, Gerard was a lot more political than he had been as a libertine, and insofar as we interacted at all, we clashed.
But, you know. The connection I felt never went away.
Call it karma.
Vonnegut would say we're members of the same karass.
I sent him money.
What else could I do?
He actually doesn’t need my money: Remember The Penthouse Advisor?
Dear Penthouse: One of my balls always seems to be slightly smaller than the other every time I slam the redhead who lives down the street. I never notice a testicular disparity when I fuck other ladies—
Gerard wrote and edited those letters! He did many other things in the publishing industry, too. He was remunerated well, and he had a particularly sharp accountant.
So he is positioned to survive the loss of everything, everything, everything better than most.
Still. I wanted to do something.
