Madonna's Madame X Show Blew Me Away

Oftentimes musical artists perform concerts, where it's just them performing music.  More rarely, an artist will add some visual effects, just a little complementary eye candy.  Even more rarely, shows are a song and dance, adding choreography, costumes and some lighting effects.  Yet more rarely than that, a unified story arc is presented from beginning to end.  And, then, there is the one-of-a-kind show that Madonna has put together entitled Madame X.  It is simply like no other.  For this atheist, it was as close to a spiritual experience as I've ever had, getting me clapping in the air excitedly and singing to songs I didn't previously think I'd sing along to.  Make no mistake, the album Madame X is not even my favorite Madonna album; but the Madame X theater show is the single greatest show I've ever had the fortune to see, hands down, bar none, head and shoulders above everything else.

Madonna had many reasons for doing a theater show, the intimacy of such a setting being prime.  Whatever her reasons, I think the theater plays to her particular artistic talents best.  She was a pioneer of the music video, elevating them to the status of short film almost immediately, a practice she perfected to work symbiotically with her music, the success of each feeding the other.  This sense of drama and visual stimulus combined with her music made for a truly spectacular show all by itself.

Photo of Wiltern Madame X promo poster
(taken from background of a photo for copyright reasons, apologies for quality)

What truly set this apart from anything else I've seen was the overall arc of the show.  From the very beginning, Madame X is a character, out to help the world and free the oppressed, her dogged pursuit always encountering resistance from those who would see her fail.  Madonna weaves in her own life to this arc in a way only she can.  Who else has over 35 years of continuous hits to draw from?  Who else can say they've had just about every religion on Earth oppose her art?  Who else has inspired entire African villages and even adopted some as her own?  Who else is fighting patriarchy harder than this soccer mom normalizing female sexuality, whether it be expressed in men or women?  There may be some others, but they couldn't pull off this show, the physical demands of which would wilt most.  From there, the drama both intensified and eased off, giving us times to just be with Madonna, her telling her personal stories and even chatting with friends in the audience.  By the end, however, it had built up again to fever pitch, with an ending and encore that was just perfect.

Madonna is, of course, a singular talent, not just able to sing and dance, but to truly envision a world and an experience from her audience's point of view.  Nonetheless, she pulled together an amazing array of supporting talent.  Putting together any theater show requires hair, makeup, costumes, stage design and construction, lighting, music, choreography and probably more than a few things I don't even know about.  Every element was executed to perfection.  I was especially struck (quite literally) by the thundering, bass-heavy versions of every song.  While the body-thumping audio system was probably tailored for sound effects, it was masterfully integrated into the music as well.

The true standouts were the dancers.  Watching any one of them individually would have been worthy of a master class, but seeing such an ensemble perform together to realize Madonna's vision was a true delight.  The sheer athleticism, artistry and skill of each performer was simply stunning.  I'm normally not much for interpretive, modern dance, but the production of her song Frozen and its prelude in this show took me from "Not another one of these" while a single dancer flailed about in a way I couldn't quite understand to "WOW this so fits in with the theme of this show" when at first two and then an entire stage line of dancers joined in and then took me further yet to a slack-jawed "OMFG, this is absolute brilliance!!" when a projection of some more interpretive dance was centered around Madonna, who could be seen through the sheer projection screen.

All I can say is anyone who is even slightly a Madonna fan needs to see this show.  It took her from never been my favorite musician to Greatest Artist of All Time.

2019, Book 26: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Book 23: Post Office by Charles Bukowski. Sorta funny.  Pretty misogynist.

Book 24: When She was Bad by Patricia Pearson. Violence? By women? You better believe it.

Book 25: Home Fire by Kamala Shamsie. Many ebbs, many flows, often slow, then a burst.

Book 26: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The reality of being black in America yet again being put on display.  Coates frames this as a letter to his son, much in the vein of James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, and it allows a far more personal view to come forward.  The restrictions of a more straightforward non-fiction account of being black in America are thrown off and the reader is forced to see, as an individual, how insidious the whole business is.  A more straightforward non-fiction work would be subject to all manner of "Well, actually"s and "Not all"s and would seek to re-center attention on to those whose precious feelings are hurt by accusations.  As a personal letter, the personal experience is far more difficult to de-center.

What really hits me hard in this book is they sheer physicality of Coates's experience.  As if the mostly invisible but occasionally highly visible forces physically confining where black people can live isn't bad enough, Coates was threatened with actual, literal physical confinement for defending his son for simply being a child.  As if the entitlement both demanded by and granted to so many others but not black people forcing black people to wind and wend their way through various societal pitfalls isn't bad enough, Coates is forced to literally wind and wend his way on a sidewalk because their children are allowed to occupy the entirety of it for play.  Example after example ensues.

2019, Book 22: Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt

Book 22: Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt

A very necessary book.  The history of space exploration is so awash in accounts of "great men" doing "great work," this under-appreciated history of contributions by women in aerospace needs to be told.  While the very popular movie Hidden Figures broke open the story of women acting as computers in our spacefaring history, it focused on NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia.  Rise of the Rocket Girls adds to this story by focusing on JPL in California.

JPL holds a unique place in NASA.  It's NASA's only FFRDC (federally funded research and development center).  It conducts operations for NASA as though it's one of NASA's field centers, but is not run directly by NASA, instead managed by Caltech.  This makes employees of JPL employees of Caltech, not the U.S. government.  The Rocket Girls in the book played no small part in making that happen, helping JPL prove its aerospace capabilities time and again to give NASA the confidence to allow such an arrangement.

What I really liked towards the end of the book is how Holt gives a run-down of the various parts these Rocket Girls played in a few select missions.  These women were really central and crucial to the success of these missions, not just an auxiliary function.  The list is also very broad, ending up far more expansive than the initial, somewhat limited roles women were initially hired for.  We have far more to thank women for in space exploration than is usually given.

2019, Book 21: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

Book 19: Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion. Privileged people privileging.  Sorta entertaining in spurts, but not really a great overall work.

Book 20: Naive Lie Theory by John Stillwell. If the mathematical term "group theory" means nothing to you, so will this book.  If it does mean something to you, this is a great reference and springboard into quantum mechanics.

Book 21: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.

Only religion that ever made any real sense to me.  Unfortunately, it's fictional.

This book is actually the first in the two-book series that includes Parable of the Talents.  I didn't realize I was reading book 2 first, so when I found out, I decided I should read book 1 also.  Like Parable of the Talents, Parable of the Sower is barely science fiction.  That should come as no surprise, since they occupy the same world.

Given the time of publication and backing out the time of writing, these two books probably looked like predictions that didn't seem at all far-fetched.  Much of America's inner cities were going through a crack epidemic and the crimes that come with it.  Much of America saw this as a completely irrational trend that could not be reasoned with.  Butler is practically stoking that fear by setting her books in an even more dystopian version of that perception.

However, that's not a criticism.  Butler actually couples the stoking of this fear with at least the acknowledgment of a social apparatus that created the conditions.  While the individual acts remained irrational (justified by the small bit of fictional science, a new drug), the state response and failure to cope with it seems to be a comment on first responders in the real world: police that respond much too late and are completely ineffective even when they do, politicians that spew rhetoric divorced from reality, fire services that make you pay, insurance companies demanding far more evidence than is reasonable, etc.

By way of the required healing, Butler seems to outline what the original cause of this dystopia was in the first place.  The healing simply requires people to re-engage with each other.  It is to understand that change is inevitable and that you are a part of it.  Each individual has a part to play and is doing so whether they want to or not.  The implication is that a complete distrust of each other and a complete inability to see the humanity in each other is what led to this in the first place.  This is far more simultaneously profound and practical than can usually be found in a science fiction novel.

I actually have a lot to say about the novels that would require spoilers.  If anyone is interested in hearing them, drop a comment and I can do a "Spoiler Alert" post.

2019, Book 18: We are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby

Book 17: Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spiers. A short story collection with a few misses, but several home runs.  Some of these should be turned into short films.

Book 18: We are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby.

This is the single funniest creative work I have ever experienced.  Samantha Irby manages to bring it, chapter after chapter.  I honestly still chuckle to myself just thinking about some of the things she writes about.  That's really all I should say.  You just have to read Samantha Irby's pouring of herself in all its nakedness, at once disgustingly honest (far more honest than "brutally honest") and beautifully human.  I'll leave two tidbits here as examples.

Read about what she uses snow for.

Read about the two strokes and a heart attack.  Or was it two heart attacks and a stroke?

Ok, one more: night-only moisturizer.

I'm a big fan of taking advantage of the library.  This is one work I'll be buying my own copy of.  Irby deserves all the royalties and more.  I will go out of my way to support her creative works financially in any way possible.

2019, Book 16: Gasa-Gasa Girl by Naomi Hirohara

Book 16: Gasa-Gasa Girl by Naomi Hirohara

I'm not generally a fan of mystery novels.  They're formulaic, dripping with misogyny and racism and the fictional events rarely interest more their real counterparts.  I will, however, read just about anything by Naomi Hirohara.  Though The Summer of the Big Bachi and Gasa-Gasa Girl are formulaic in plot, Hirohara imbues every other aspect of the novel with a humanity both specific to southern Californian Japanese Americans and familiar to all.

The first indicator that this would be the case is the main protagonist, Mas Arai.  Is he a private investigator? No.  Is he a former police officer?  No.  Does he have any professional business whatsoever in crime?  No.  He's an aging gardener, bearing witness to seismic shifts in his profession, bearing widowerdom and bearing familial estrangement from one generation for being too Japanese, an estrangement he committed against another generation by emigrating.  This may sound unfamiliar to many, but the alienation, comfort found in an almost tribal sub-population, economic anxiety and intergenerational struggles are as common as the 99%.

Another indicator that this was a literary mystery novel was the speech.  So many authors who try to put Asian-American speech patterns into fictional characters fall on the wrong side of the believable/ching-chongery border.  Even when the accents are passably portrayed (which is rare), the content never is.  A Chinese immigrant, for instance, will almost never discuss their finances, but they'll talk your ear off about the deal they got that day on a pair of pants (look, name brand!).  Hirohara has an unfair advantage in getting Japanese immigrant speech just right, of course, being Japanese American herself; but I pity the creative that doesn't make use of all of their advantages.

One thing that totally charmed me in The Summer of the Big Bachi was the setting.  There are plenty of novels set in L.A., but few are as familiar with the odd corners outside of the Westside as I am.  The places Hirohara depicts are neither ultra-dangerous nor safe above reproach and have all their subtleties in place.  Gasa-Gasa Girl moved Mas Arai to New York, but Hirohara does make the New York places real in the same way.

2019, Book 15: I'm Judging You by Luvvie Ajayi

Book 13: Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. Will say more about this with book 21, Parable of the Sower.

Book 14: Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin. Fantastic writing, though I wish I knew more about the specific events he's writing about.  There was a global conference for black authors and the trends and issues of the time are not well-known to me, nor are the specific people referenced.

Book 15: I'm Judging You by Luvvie Ajayi.

Like so many other books by black authors, this seemed like it was written after the 2016 election, even though it was, in fact, written before.  This particular one happened to be very shortly before, but it has become less and less of a surprise that marginalized people tend to see the cultural "surprises" much sooner than others, black women being amongst the most marginalized in America.

But don't get the idea that this book is all politics.  This book is about life, the life of Luvvie Ajayi, but not in an autobiographical way.  She talks about lots of things and politics and feminism play important roles in her life.  It's not that she necessarily finds politics more interesting or is naturally drawn to power struggles (maybe she is, but it doesn't come off that way in the book).  It's just that she's a black woman.  All politics will affect black people more adversely than anyone else and all feminism will affect women far more than men.

The most important thing about this book is that Luvvie is funny.  Whether she's talking about why jojoba oil is important for "black don't crack" or explaining why some of her girlfriends stay with unworthy men, she manages to tap into that part that everyone knows and notices, but no one seems to want to mention and turns the discomfort into laughter.  I caught this one on audio-book and it's one of the few books I'd recommend in its non-paper form.  It's not quite a stand-up bit, but a lot is added to this book by having Luvvie read it to you.

2019, Book 12: What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Book 9: Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun.  Epic tale of settling land and all the conflicts that arise between settlers and the land as well as amongst the settlers themselves.  The idea of a "simpler time" fails to acknowledge that the complexities arise from within.

Book 10: The Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv.  Great resource on both the philosophy of sufficient exposure to nature and the evidence behind it.

Book 11: Summer of the Big Bachi by Naomi Hirahara.  A literary crime novel, driven at least as much by the characters and their interactions with each other as the official particulars of the crime.

Book 12: What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I avoided reading this book for over a year.  The anguish felt over the result of the 2016 Presidential election was still too fresh.  Rehashing what led to its result was just going to get me completely upset again.  Every single time I've heard Hillary Rodham Clinton speak, in her own words and on the topics she has selected, I have been impressed.  She's thoughtful, caring, smart, articulate and genuinely seems to be trying to make the world a better place for everyone.  For that alone, her defeat in 2016 was tough.  What made it genuinely terrible was who our country selected instead.

But it was time.  I'd shook Hillary's hand and received a copy of the book on her tour.  Over a year later, I finally read what her thoughts on her campaign were.  Not surprisingly, ALL of the criticism I had heard about the book were completely unfounded.  What I found was yet again, a thoughtful, caring person trying to improve lives while having things thrown sideways at her, both from within the country (within her own party even) and from without.

I really think this is the most important thing to note about the book.  The details about the campaign itself (and there are many) are important to understand, but what really shines through is that Hillary really cares.  While I may disagree here or there, that's the nature of desiring progress.  There are a million ways to move forward and figuring out an uncharted path is difficult.  Contrast this to the desire to move backwards, where history lays out an exact path.  There will always be more disagreement on how to move forward than backwards.  I will not let those disagreements diminish my admiration for one of the greatest public servants our country has ever known, an admiration reinforced by this book.

2019, Book 7: Mildred Pierce by John Cain and Book 8: Eden by Design by Hise and Deverell

Book 6: Not a Scientist by David Levitan. Nothing earth-shattering, but still important work on how politicians twist science.

Book 7: Mildred Pierce by John Cain.

Classic story of class in Depression America.  Some were able to navigate high-class society and its vanity.  Some jumped for such heights, forgetting that landing from such a jump puts you back where you started.  Some could play the wealthy's social games of whimsy.  Some weren't even aware such games were being played at their expense. Some were born to be of another, higher class, floating (not jumping) up and staying.  Some are the working class mothers of them.

Veda Pierce just needed an opportunity.  When she got it, she worked the hell out of it--without working. As much as mother Mildred wanted to be in a class with daughter Veda, Mildred's belief in honest, hard work eventually paying off clashed with the aloof lack of responsibility that the upper class is practically defined by.

Set in the greater Los Angeles area, some of the most amusing passages come off as downright mean to those who haven't lived it.  While Pasadena might not be the pinnacle of high society it was then, there is still a snobbishness to this day that harkens back.  Glendale has become a bustling community unto itself, but it still has never claimed the status of Pasadena at its peak.  And so it goes for Hollywood, Laguna Beach and countless other locales.

Book 8: Eden By Design by Hise and Deverell.

This book is a pure urban planning policy wonkfest.  I include it with Mildred Pierce because its content was being created at about the same time and place as Mildred Pierce's setting.  The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, even way back in the 20s, recognized that the city was being choked.  All the wonderful natural settings that made Los Angeles unique and appealing were being obliterated to make way for housing.  A report was commissioned from Olmsted-Bartholomew to both survey the natural landscape and propose ways to preserve it.  The main takeaway for me is that cities should build parks when they can, because eventually they won't be able to and wish they had.

Again, this book has special meaning to those who live or have lived in the greater Los Angeles area. Much of the county's larger physical contours remain and it's quite interesting to see where some communities tried to follow the plan, even though it was never formally adopted.  Of particular note is the stretch of green from Debs Park through Hermon Park to the Arroyo and Lower Arroyo Parks, all the way up to Devil's Gate Reservoir near JPL.  Another nice stretch runs from Griffith Park out to Topanga State Park, though I suspect this was more a result of difficult terrain than anything else.  In contrast, when one sees how barren the San Fernando Valley is of green space, it's no wonder that Lake Balboa is so crowded on the weekends.

While we can always lament what could have been, I think this book also serves as a counter to what currently is.  Los Angeles is still trying to build its way into affordable housing, an objective continuously held as noble in intent despite decades of failure.  This inevitably leads to further constrictions in public green spaces, deterioration in natural habitat and an overall reduction in quality of life for current residents who see their recreational spaces continuously eroded.  Perhaps there is a way to genuinely balance these interests, but what counts as "balance" right now suggests otherwise.

2019, Book 5: No-No Boy by John Okada

Book 1: Close Range by Annie Proulx.  Brokeback Mountain actually wasn't the best short story in this collection; and it's every bit as good as the movie.

Book 2: Life's Work by Willie Parker. If reproductive rights are at all important to you, this is an essential book.

Book 3: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward.  Remarkable writing really made the setting jump off the page. Ruined for me by the central role dog fighting plays.

Book 4: When Elephants Weep by Jeffrey Moussaief Masson.  Great content about emotions in animals, but not the greatest writing.

Book 5: No-No Boy by John Okada

There are only two books I've ever literally read cover-to-cover without putting down.  No-No Boy by John Okada is one of them.  Right from the beginning, the informal divisions of Japanese-American society immediately after World War 2 are front and center.  If we are being brutally honest, most Americans don't think about any Japanese-Americans most days.  Yet fewer think of the context Japanese-American society provides these Japanese-American individuals.  And yet fewer consider the internal divisions and strife of that Japanese-American society.  And almost no one considers what those divisions must have been like immediately after World War 2.

For anyone who knows not their American history, Japanese-Americans were jailed en masse during World War 2.  Of course, the more innocuous term "internment" is preferred to "jailed," so as not to hurt red-blooded Americans' feelings too much about what evil deeds patriotism can lead to.  Prior to FDR (yes, that liberal hero FDR) signing the order to jail/intern Japanese-Americans, many of them had family in the military.  Many had businesses in their communities.  Many had never set foot on Japanese soil.  Yet they were rounded up, forcibly removed from their homes, often separated from their families and put in camps despite being accused of no crime, except possibly that of collectively gaining too much economic power.

The really bizarre twist is that while jailed/interned, Japanese-American men of the appropriate age (boys really) were offered an out.  If they demonstrated loyalty to the United States by serving in the military, they could leave the camps.  If they refused, they were sentenced to real prison time.  So, the government yanks you out of your life, gives you meager conditions to live in and then asks you to demonstrate loyalty to it as a way to get out of your meager conditions; and if you don't, your conditions get even more meager.

Imagine being such a boy.  Well, you've always considered yourself American.  You were born and raised here, speak perfect English, go to school with everyone else and like the same movies and music.  Why shouldn't you fight for your country?  But, they just uprooted you and took everything from you, your family and lots of very close friends and their families.  They put you in a prison camp, complete with guard towers, barbed wire and squalid living conditions with no guarantee that your home would still be your's and there for you when you got out.  Why should you fight for a government that does that to you?

At the heart of No-No Boy, Okada explores the deep emotional trauma that this turn of events can impose.  There is a single instant in time where you get to decide.  Will you continue your internment and perhaps facing additional jail time for being disloyal?  Or will you risk your life for people who just imprisoned you for no discernible reason, people who, as near as you can tell, don't see you as human?  In that one instant, your two possible futures could not be more disparate and how could you possibly understand the consequences?  Yet there you are.

And this is all just Chapter 1.  This is just the setup.  We find our main character returning to Seattle after serving his time for declining the government's offer, making him a "no-no boy."  Folks who didn't have a choice had already been back for some time and most who had served were already back too.  The main character had to face both of these groups upon return; and even these groups had their own divisions.

Perhaps the central reason I connected so well with this writing is that it came from an East Asian-American (EAA) voice.  There is something unique about the EAA experience in this country.  EAAs are in between in almost every way.  Our daily existence is certainly kinder than what other minorities face, but it is still much less kind than what the majority faces.  Our generational existence and memory often straddles an ocean and so must our identity.  Our politics are shaped by sympathy for the collective that is left of the most-left TV politics and an individual industriousness that is right of the most-right TV politics.  Our places are caricatures of our ancestral homes catering to exotic notions of foreign lands, but what is more American than Chinatown? A voice that knows and understands how this all forms a person is hard to come by. When I read this book, I found such a voice, one that knew me better than the rest.

Super Bloom, 2019: Preparation

"I'm making an executive decision to go see wildflowers." Though no irony was intended in putting "executive" and "wildflowers" in the same sentence, in hindsight, it was hard not to see it.  Already part of the negotiation was seeing Salvation Mountain in Niland in the same trip.  Driving out, trying to get there and to Anza-Borrego state park and get back home in one day didn't seem worth it.  With a two-day trip decided upon, preparations could begin in earnest.

Procrastination sometimes gets the better of this particular family.  Searching for a pet-friendly hotel began one day, but didn't finish until the day before departure.  Mild panic set in when the possibilities from the prior search could no longer be found.  This Super Bloom thing was more popular than we knew.  We just wanted something to do during Child's spring break and the record rainfall made Parents think seeing wildflowers would be worthwhile.  Dad had just finished reading Last Child in the Woods and wanted to make sure Child got occasional high doses of nature.

Regardless, staring at us were options not at all palatable.  The remaining pet-friendly hotels had unreasonable restrictions: low weight limits, high fees, high-weight-low-fee-but-no-kids, etc.  Eventually, we decided we could afford the high fees and picked a hotel in Palm Springs near places we were already familiar with.  A few clicks later, the reservation was made.

What about the gardeners?  Shit! Fuck! Unlocking the gate and locking up again after them would mean we couldn't leave until fairly late in the day.  Most of day 1's daylight would be gone by the time we reached Salvation Mountain or Anza-Borrego.  Easy, just stay two nights!  If only we would have thought of that before making our reservation!  No matter, there were too many other things to attend to.  We would ask the hotel when we arrived.

The morning of our departure, the gardeners made sure to be later than usual.  After they left, a few final preparations were made.  And they're off!

Super Bloom, 2019: Day 1

All in all, Day 1 was not so eventful.  The drive there was rainier than expected.  Upon seeing the huge wind farm on the way in to Palm Springs, Child continuously marveled.  "LoooOOOK! Windmill!  COOOoool. When I go back to school, I'll tell everyone I saw 5 or 6 dozen windmills," Child said upon setting eyes on San Gorgonio Pass wind farm, home of over 3,000 wind turbines.

Driving down Palm Canyon Dr, we noticed far more foot traffic of a completely basic variety on a weekday afternoon than there had been before.  There were also a lot of newer mall-looking things that these basics were foot trafficking into and out of.  Such direct, grotesque capitalism stood in direct contrast to the mid-century modern, old-gay sensibilities that made us like Palm Springs.

Between our late departure, need to eat and supreme confidence that we had two full days of vacationing in front of us, we first dined at Native Foods Cafe like we always did before proceeding to the hotel.  Upon inquiring about a second night, it had been sold out!  Looks like we would have to improvise.  New plan was to get up early on Day 2 and just do a lot of driving.

In the meanwhile, Mom and Child explored the hotel and thrifted.  Dad looked after Dog, taking a walk around the Palm Springs Convention Center (literally around, as it was closed to the public).  Having been so taken in by the beauty of the built environment before, Dad had never really taken in the natural beauty of Palm Springs.  Nothing like a nice, long evening walk to cure that.  After, Dad and Child swam under the stars at the outdoor pool.  Child loves the water so much, she did her usual insisting that she wasn't cold despite shivering. "I just like to shiver."

Mt San Jacinto at Dusk

Little else of note occurred that night.  Mom did almost get into a fight with a Canadian and noted the poor service all around the city.  Parents have agreed for a long time now that economists should factor quality of retail service as a contrary indicator to economic health.  Bustling as Palm Springs was, this was a reinforcement of that street economist axiom.

Super Bloom, 2019: Day 2

Sniff, sniff
Jingle, jangle
Sniff

Huh?  What the?  Oh, hi, Dog.  It's morning.  You're antsy.  I'll get up, but don't get too excited yet.  I still need to fumble around in the dark to find my clothes and if you're lucky, I'll be able to keep my balance while putting them on.

By the time Dad returns with a freshly relieved Dog, Child and Mom are up and getting dressed, much to Dad's surprise.  In less time than is usual for this family, things are packed, in the car and ready for departure.  After a stop for coffee and a light breakfast (complimentary hotel breakfasts are not to be trusted), the drive to Salvation Mountain commences.

Child had a similar reaction to seeing the Salton Sea as she did to San Gorgonio Pass wind farm.  After years of training, she was able to articulate hesitance.  "I wanna go swimming in there, but I can't because of bird AIDS."  While not biologically a thing, Mom uses "bird AIDS" as an excuse not to trust anything that has been contaminated, something the Salton Sea most definitely is.  Mom relayed what she had discovered in her documentary-watching during the drive.

For reasons explained in the Salton Sea sidebar, the drive to Salvation Mountain is a bleak one.  The landscape is desolate, ruins abound, the smell of alkali dust occasionally roils with rotting fish and the sun beats down mercilessly.  This is, in fact, the perfect transition to Salvation Mountain, a place too bizarre to be placed physically closer to population centers.  The environs wipe your mind clean of any heady expectations of an existence built up from the refineries of comfort.  When all you see is air, dirt and water with some asphalt and an occasional concrete something or other sparsely mixed in, you are staring survival in the face and you know that everything you encounter has been staring much longer.  Thrusting yourself into the arms of something bigger is the only way to counter the never-ending downward draft of basic survival.

Salvation Mountain, front

One man thrust himself so devotedly, he created Salvation Mountain.  Religion isn't big amongst us travelers, but it is the principal force behind this place.  That we can enjoy its splendor and its particular sensibilities should be testament to what a wonderful creation it is.  We were not particularly big fans of The Flintstones, but we were able to enjoy Bedrock City.  Similarly, Salvation Mountain entertained and inspired--and with more fellow visitors.  The aesthetic is similar, bright colors, hand-crafted clay/adobe/plaster, seemingly aimless arrangements of things too fantastic to be real.  Salvation Mountain is what Hundertwasser might have made had he let the American desert strip what was left of his pretension away and he had no funds with which to buy supplies.  Just like the Flintstones camp site, this was a playground for Child and Mom alike, wandering the yellow brick road (not actually made of brick).  Dog made many friends as well.

Salvation Mountain, innards

Though Salvation Mountain is a fully-formed and developed monument unto itself, it was also a seed.  The harsh desert forges survivors.  Even the symbiotic and parasitic survivors need the stout individuals that can mix their environment and the meagerest of supplies into a living.  When some of these saw Salvation Mountain, they realized a community could be created.  Though Slab City had already existed, a new element was drawn to it now, one that founded the only art museum in all of Imperial County.  This place is called East Jesus.  A rotating cast of artists arrives, creates what comes to mind from the junk lying around them and puts it on display.

East Jesus. Something about media, I think.

This was yet another playground for Child and Mom.  Child craves nothing more than things she's never seen before.  Mom craves nothing more than the dystopian dysfunction of society's relationship with stuff manifest itself in mocking reflection, artists using the throwaways of consumption to vividly illustrate just how much gets thrown away.  All manners of scrap metal, vacuum hoses, disembodied doll heads, decapitated doll bodies, plastic bottles, immobile vehicles, vehicle parts, mobile vehicles, electronic parts, full televisions and anything else that might find its way to a dump is far from put back together again.  Instead, it is reimagined and manifested in an art form Child calls Junkee.

East Jesus. Don't think of an elephant.

The confluence of zombies, libertarians and artists in this particular stretch of desert eventually had to be left.  We still had to get to and through Anza-Borrego.  The plan was still to make it back to L.A. before sleep time.  On our way out of town, an Army caravan was going the opposite direction.  Slab City had been founded around an abandoned military base.  Perhaps it was time for reclamation.  One could never tell.  We had one last brush with authorities.  Our proximity to the Mexican border meant that we passed by one border checkpoint on the way to Salvation Mountain.  Another one awaited us on our way to Anza-Borrego.  We turned immediately after the checkpoint onto a desolate highway that would take us to our destination.

East Jesus. Art car adorned with doll parts.

Super blooms fatten the base of the food chain and the effects ripple up.  With more pollen comes more consumers of pollen.  Often this means bees, but in the case of southeast California, it means painted lady butterflies.  The unfortunate consequence of this abundance is that driving more than about 30 mph leads to butterflies on the windshield and grill of the car.  Dad maintained this speed, much to the chagrin of the drivers behind him, who were all too eager to get to the off-road vehicular recreation centers.  Even so, it was impossible to avoid all splats.

Painted lady butterfly. Not my photo.

It was clear as we passed the destinations on the super bloom maps passed out by the state park officials that the super bloom itself had passed.  There were large areas of green that took a light yellow or purple shading.  However, we had missed the main event.  Even some of the hillsides within the confines of Los Angeles had been more colorful with flowers than what we saw.  There was immense consolation that we were in a state park, a place that had been deemed naturally beautiful enough to be set aside by the state long before the word "superbloom" had been used.

Smattering of yellow and purple, but we clearly missed the "super" part of the bloom.

After enjoying the mountainous views of ocotillo-spotted valleys from our vehicle for some time, we turned out to take a few pictures.  By sheer, dumb luck, the turn-out was a trailhead (Bill Kenyon Trail, specifically).  Child and Dad commenced to hiking as Mom tended Dog in the vehicle.  Why dogs were not allowed on the trail was not hard to guess.  Dad tried to explain to Child that many who take the initiative to visit state parks do not respect leash laws and probably don't pick up after their canines, an explanation Child questioned relentlessly while hiking towards a ridge.  Once it was clear that the trail was taking us there, it became a point of anticipation.  When we came up over the ridge of the trail, Child said, "Wow, we can see all of America from here."

🎶Here on the range I belong🎶

A couple hours of hiking were rejuvenating for Child and Dad.  When we got back on the road, we decided to head to Julian, a mountain town with strong tourism driven by people's need to experience quaint.  Mom had visited a few times in her youth, but hadn't for some time.  It was on the way home and would be a good place for those who didn't get to attend to nature's call in nature.

When we arrived in Julian, Mom was relieved that not a whole lot had changed.  Most lodging is in the form of bed and breakfasts, the block of town where the apple pies were hadn't really modernized and almost everything closes at 5 pm.  We wandered into a well--well, a shop that had a well in it anyway.  Here, the proprietor, Lisa, informed us of the early closing times for most of the town and directed us to Heroes for food.  We could not have been more pleasantly surprised.  It's not often a restaurant with a military and law enforcement theme (they're "heroes," get it?) even knows what "vegan" means.  Not only did Heroes have a vegan burger, they had a soup that they took the initiative to inform us was vegan as well.  Both were excellent.  We were again pleasantly surprised when we stopped in to ask about vegan apple pie.  There was an entire set of vegan offerings of pie, not just apple; but we ordered apple anyway and relished in having it served warm to us.

Mom and Dad both noticed someone pan-handling.  She would not have been recognized as a pan-handler in L.A., clothes and body too clean and hair only slightly wild.  However, she did ask people for change.  As Mom and Child entered a shop with a candy mine in it, another person on the corner shouted, "Yeah! and Megadeth too.  I got 'em all!"  While Child was inside mining for candy, Dad got to hear more.  "Hiiii, Tom!"

"Hey! How you feeling?  You're looking good!"

"I'm just waitin' for my sister, you know, the usual." Before Mom and Child returned from the mine, the pan-handler and the corner shouter got together and strolled off on the 78/79.  Shortly after, Mom and Child emerged.  We all hopped back in the car and headed for home.

On the drive back, mountainous woods gave way to wetlands with cows grazing, which in turn gave way to intensively farmed lemon orchards with fruit stands along the street.  We promised that we would make time some other time to procure cheap, fresh produce by the bushel to haul home.  As it was, we had to beat exhaustion in the hours of driving ahead.  And we spent the next morning planning our next road trip to southeast CA.

Super Bloom 2019, Salton Sea sidebar

The Salton Sea, born from an hydrological mistake, spent its formative years completely unsure of itself, but emerged from adolescence with aspirations of rivaling Palm Springs.  This desert oasis was supposed to thrive as a recreational destination for masses from the farther flung metropolises whose residents needed occasional escapes.  Platte maps had been drawn, parcels of land had been sold off, houses built and facilities for not-quite-all varieties of adult debauchery had been built: yacht clubs for the day drinkers, night clubs for the night drinkers, bars for drinkers who didn't like clubs and water recreation of all sorts.  Celebrities started arriving for vacations and it was a genuine tourism destination as it headed into adulthood.

As with any hard-charging lifestyle flinging itself forward in double-time, The Salton Sea's development couldn't be sustained.  Any artificial sea would normally dry out quickly, but irrigation run-off kept The Salton Sea watered.  This run-off wasn't closely monitored or managed.  Over time, it turned the Salton Sea saltier and saltier.  Eventually, sufficiently hot days normal in the region choked the sea of oxygen.  No oxygen, fish die.  Fish die, algae blooms.  Somewhere along the way, botulism has also entered the sea, causing large die-offs of migratory birds seeking some piece of the ever-diminishing wetlands on their routes.  The fish still die by the millions each year, but somehow the tilapia replenish themselves.  Active management has lessened the impact of botulism on the birds.

Even the irrigation run-off can not prevent the dwindling of water.  The sea is evaporating away year-by-climate-change-altered-year, with occasionally long periods of water diversion to various local municipalities accelerating the process.  Houses have been abandoned.  Towns have been hollowed out, growth stunted from the unfulfilled promises, ruins manifesting in empty commercial buildings with caved-in roofs.  These remnants take an unending beating from the desert sun and wind, mostly populated by the desperate or down-on-their-luck.  Farms do sustain some homes and businesses and some genuine desert-dwellers thrive, but the numbers are nowhere near the levels needed to keep these main streets ticking.  In hindsight, it's not clear why anyone thought something as contaminant-ridden as irrigation run-off would be able to sustain any kind of appealing life, but when the west was growing dreams and outgrowing them regularly, it's not hard to imagine grifters convincing wide-eyed newcomers what the next big thing would be.

2019 Goal: Read 52 Books

I picked up a book (an actual, physical, honest-to-goodness paper book) during my winter break and enjoyed it so much after years of only reading from screens that I'm going to make a point of not depriving myself of this joy ever again.

I started keeping track of the books I was reading on Twitter.  It's actually not a bad medium for something like this.  Boiling things down to 280 characters is an art unto itself.  Nonetheless, going beyond 280 characters has its value too.  I won't do a full write-up of every book.  However, the ones that I particularly connect with will get a write-up.  For each of those, I'll list the books prior that didn't get a write-up just for completeness's sake.  I'll link to the tweet for that book and may say a few more words, but not much more than that. So, here it goes.  Enjoy the ride (my 2.718 readers)!