Taketh Away

Well, we survived Phoenix, but it was a close-run thing. There weren't any specific incidents, it's just we dared to enter a part of the world designed specifically to kill us. There are a few places like that, probably more than we'd like to let on, like Antarctica, the Sahara, the Amazon, (nine-tenths of) Australia and Detroit. Granted, some of the inhospitability wasn't clear until after human settlement happened, but I dare you to walk any direction from the Renaissance Center and not come to the conclusion that that place is not compatible with "thriving" as a concept.

What we learned in the desert, as we had when we visited the bayou in Louisiana and the cultural fever swamp of the Deep South last year, is that even in places anyone who believes in intelligent design should have read as God's NO VACANCY sign, communities can be established, adapt and even, after a fashion, prosper.

The stilt houses along the banks of the wetlands, with the cypress trees and the Spanish moss, are all sights to see, for sure, but living there seems like it would be an almost feral existence, reduced to an everyday worry about the existential menaces of malaria, alligators and people's escaped pets.

Of course cultures in extreme conditions normally arise out of necessity, established by people chased off the black-soil bottom land by the people with the right accents or last names or skin color or firearms, usually more than once. Those subcultures usually learn to adapt to the living conditions presented by the ecosystem. Nobody's adopting a lizard-heavy diet out of choice.

A problem more often arises when the climate and environment are too right for human settlement. Take, for example, the meteorological Shangri-La that is Southern California. Sure, the very earth beneath our feet tries to shake us off once a decade or so, but not all of us at once, at least not yet. There are a hundred reasons why people of multiple cultures and traditions have come here, taken in the view of wide, sandy valleys, breathed deep the salt-tinged air and said "Kill everyone who's already here. This is ours now." And then probably something about God.

Other humans heard about the land where there's no humidity, no mosquitos and it never snows, and lo! Every-fucking-body wanted to move here, like all at once. Not the downtrodden adapters either, these were the winner-types, the well-fed and comfortable, driven by the most destructive of human impulses, to be more comfortable.

There are no rivers or lakes in Southern California, not really. The lack of reliable potable water sources should have been a natural cap on population growth in the area, but ooh, the sunshine! And then also Hollywood was here! So a few public-minded municipal saints got involved and, a little theft and murder here, a little mass peasant death there, badabing, water for everybody and their lawns! Yes, some of the details are pretty depressing, but we got a really good movie out of it, so that's the same as karmic penance.

Or maybe karmic penance is what's happening right now with newly announced actual water restrictions. The hardship we've brought on ourselves is almost too much to consider: dying immense lawns in a semi-arid climate? Brown spots on fairways on golf courses in actual deserts? We are not frog-eaters. This will not be taken lying down. If there's anything we've learned recently it's to fight for the things that we've suddenly decided are super important to the preservation of our culture. And also that we have a culture.