Earthquake country

I have lived in California for seven years, and in that time, I’ve only felt a handful of mild earthquakes—mild enough to really enjoy them. They’ve most often happened when I was in bed, and it felt as though someone was kicking the bed frame.

This—by that I mean the one that happened moments ago—was more like a series of small waves, less jarring than rocking. I was sitting at my desk, editing a book, and I suddenly felt as though my office chair had turned into a rocking chair, moving just barely forward and back at a faster-than-normal pace. “I wonder if I should get up and stand in the doorway,” I thought to myself, and by the time I stood up, it was gone.

When I moved into this apartment, after I signed the lease, the landlord told me that, when she bought the house the month before, she had a geological survey done and discovered that a fault line runs through the property. The earth could open up and swallow me at any moment, and in some strange way I take comfort in that, the way only someone who’s never truly suffered as a result of an earthquake could.

Copyright © U.S. Geological Survey, Earthquake Hazards Program

California dreamin’

When I drove home from Venice last night, I took the Pacific Coast Highway, and thought to myself how calm it was. Surfers sitting on their boards in the water, waiting for a wave. Bikers congregated at Neptune’s Net (and when I say bikers, I don’t mean the Northern California cyclists—I mean guys and girls on Harleys and Hondas and Yamahas). Blue water and blue skies and slow-moving cars with license plates from Colorado and Ohio and Nebraska, with drivers and passengers all staring out their windows to the west.

When I went to bed around midnight, the winds were blowing and the dog was pacing. I awoke to pictures of Malibu burning, and thought of these words, which I read for the first time when I lived in Indiana, and which now, having lived in Southern California for six years, I know to be true:

There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sandstorms out along Route 66, drying the hills and the nerves to the flash point. For a few days now we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night. I have neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks. I rekindle a waning argument with the telephone company, then cut my losses and lie down, given over to whatever it is in the air. To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior.

I recall being told, when I first moved to Los Angeles and was living on an isolated beach, that the Indians would throw themselves into the sea when the bad wind blew. I could see why. The Pacific turned ominously glossy during a Santa Ana period, and one woke in the night troubled not only by the peacocks screaming in the olive trees but by the eerie absence of surf. The heat was surreal. The sky had a yellow cast, the kind of light sometimes called “earthquake weather.” My only neighbor would not come out of her house for days, and there were no lights at night, and her husband roamed the place with a machete. One day he would tell me that he had heard a trespasser, the next a rattlesnake.

—Joan Didion (from “Los Angeles Notebook,”
Slouching Towards Bethlehem)

Brian Vander Brug/Los Angeles Times

Recommended reading

A couple nights ago, I added a list of links to photo blogs I regularly check out. Here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve listed (so far) and why:

Jen Bekman: Her Personism blog is all about art and photography and poetry and such. And she owns a gallery in New York and runs the Hey, Hot Shot! contest (see below). Way-cool stuff.

Jörg Colberg: He publishes the Conscientious blog (usually short posts, often multiple times a day). It’s a great place to find out about other photographers’ work. Plus, his interviews with photographers are must-reads—check them out by clicking the Conversations link on his home page.

Amy Elkins: Her blog started as a series of self-portraits—one a day for every day remaining in her father’s incarceration. She often includes a sentence or two from a recent phone call with her father. I like Amy’s blog because it leaves me with more questions than answers.

Martin Fuchs: His Journal of a Photographer blog is a glimpse into the life of a photojournalist. The blog grew out of an earlier one that Martin did during his internship with Magnum Photos in 2005. If you have the time, read some of his first posts in that first blog—you can get to it by clicking on the About link on the home page and scrolling down.

Hey, Hot Shot!: This is the blog affiliated with the contest by the same name (see Jen Bekman, above). I think this may be my favorite blog of all, just because I love seeing all the work people are putting out there. I’m not ready to enter Hey, Hot Shot! just yet. But in the next year or so, I’m there. In the meantime, I’m watching.

Shane Lavalette: To illustrate my point (see Hey, Hot Shot!, above), I found out about Shane’s work through the Hey, Hot Shot! blog just a few days ago. His blog is mostly photos, some words, and a good ride.

Alec Soth: I’ve said enough about Alec Soth already. His blog is a great big goulash of photography and poetry and randomness, and all you have to do is start reading it to get why his blog is popular.

State of the Art: This blog is a group effort by the editors of American Photo magazine. You get everything from tech news to gallery news to gossip here.

Amy Stein: Amy’s photos are just amazing, and her blog is pretty nifty, too. I think I first heard about her in PDN. If you’re not a fan of her work already, you will be.

Zoe Strauss: She’s the cool kid on this blog block, as far as I’m concerned. She’s got a voice and she’s not afraid to use it.

Brian Ulrich: His Copia, published as part of MP3: Midwest Photographers Publication Project (Aperture, 2006), rocks. So does his blog.

P.S. Here’s a photo to end the post with, in honor of all the incredible, awe-inspiring photographers whose books will crush me in my sleep if we have an earthquake. Buried in photo books. Could it get any better than that?

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball