The air was filled with smoke today, the Woolsey fire still raging. Fortunately the wind had died down so they were able to get 5% containment. Yesterday I speculated on the reason for Woolsey as a designation; I was worried about the Santa Susana Field Laboratory which is situated at the top of Woolsey Canyon. In my blog, I guessed that it had nothing to do with why the fire was named Woolsey, but I was wrong. As it turns out, the fire started on the Field Lab's property, in some brush located near the old Sodium Reactor building where the nuclear meltdown happened in 1959.
Needless to say, this has not been mentioned on the news. I discovered it by Googling "Santa Susana Field Lab" + "Woolsey Fire" this morning, and I found a small online article about local Chatsworth residents who have been involved in a legal battle with Boeing, the current owner of the Field Lab property, over the decades-long cleanup of chemical waste in the soil there. That story is a long one and i won't get into it (you can Google if you want), but I have taken several tours of SSFL since 2010, and I believe the Boeing spokespeople who say that the 1959 meltdown posed no toxic threat to the community, and I also believe that their efforts to remediate the soil have been ongoing and productive, though it is true that that soil was highly contaminated during the 1950s and 60s by rocket fuel and other chemicals, which no doubt washed into the groundwater during that time.
They are not to blame for the fire, though, and I am glad (or at least I hope) that the Field Lab property was not heavily damaged, though I believe one of the rocket test stands may have been burned.
All of this is nothing compared the people who have lost their homes and belongings, and in some cases their animals. Watching their devastation on the news is sad beyond belief. The Woolsey Fire will probably rival the horrific Bel Air of November 1961 as one of the most destructive as far as homes as concerned. The Bel Air was legendary when I was a kid, almost 500 homes were burned to the ground, many belonging to movie stars and other celebs. Woolsey is in the same general area, but closer to the beach. The whole thing is horrible, but thank God we have some of the best firefighters in the world working around the clock to knock it down. /////
I didn't do much today but read my books. The air quality was too hazardous to take Pearl out, or to go on my usual walks.
I have finished "Energy From The Vacuum" by Thom Bearden, a 900 page text that I began in early July. It was a highly technical work that was not an easy read, but I feel as if I got a real education on electrodynamics and the nature of the spacetime vacuum, and how energy is transduced between the time domain and three dimensional space. It took me four months to get through but was well worth it, one of the greatest and most important books I have ever read. Beyond highly recommended for anyone so inclined.
My current daytime book is Michael Cremo's "Human Devolution", which proposes a Vedic alternative to the Theory Of Evolution, which you know I do not believe in. I do not know if I will believe the Vedic alternative either, because my take on the subject is that no one really knows the true story of human origins (not even scientists nor anthropologists), but it is an interesting read so far, and I trust Cremo to at least be thorough. He is the guy who wrote "Forbidden Archaeology", another major tome I read this year, which relates a truckload of evidence for ancient human ancestry here on Planet Earth. That book is also highly recommended.
My nighttime "page turner" book, that I read here at Pearl's when I have time, is Paul Tremblay's "Disappearance At Devil's Rock", which tonight has gotten so scary that I may have trouble getting to sleep. I had never heard of Tremblay before August, when Stephen King recommended his latest book "Cabin At The End Of The World". Now I have read two of his horror novels and have almost finished the third, and after tonight, I think he is the scariest horror writer since King. Tremblay is major league; it's so rare to find a writer this good (if you can handle the subject matter). But yeah, he scared me silly tonight, and as Stephen King himself said about Tremblay : "I don't scare easily".
Paul Tremblay is very highly recommended as well. That's all my books for the moment. ///
Tonight I watched a classic screwball comedy called "Midnight" (1939). It's a bit late for me to give a full review, but it stars Claudette Colbert (rapidly becoming a favorite) as a dancer just arrived in Paris, broke and out of luck. All she owns is the gold lame dress on her back. She runs from handsome Don Ameche, the taxi driver who is pursuing her for love, because he is nearly broke as well, though he does earn a steady living. She has her sights set on the Paris Wealthy, and ends up impersonating a Countess at a high society party that she happens upon one rainy night.
From there, she meets the inimitable John Barrymore, a megarich baron who needs help getting rid of a suitor toward his wife.
As you can imagine, the hijinx flow from there, and all the way through the film. I wish I had more time to tell you about it, but I must sleep because of church tomorrow. The script by Billy Wilder is one of the best I have seen in screwball comedy, and everyone involved in the production, from the cast to the crew, is a Ten. This movie is so good that it should be known in the same company as "Dinner At Eight" and "The Awful Truth" and other classics of the era.
Man, you had to have a great cast and director to pull off a movie like this. Every single person had to be top notch, no weak or even "moderate level" contributors were permissible. This is why Hollywood ruled the movie world in the 30s and 40s, and why these films will hold interest indefinitely, because these people were so talented and had so much charisma.
Long live the legacy of Studio-era Hollywood. That's all I know for tonight, I will see you in church in the morn.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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