Something Interesting
This week it was revealed that the Pacific Palisades fire, which devasted the westside of Los Angeles on January 7, 2025, was actually started a week earlier on January 1. An arsonist had started a fire in the hills outside of town and stood by while firefighters extinguished it. Except, as it turns out, they didn’t extinguish it. The fire continued to burn underground for a week, then flared upon again when 90 mph winds rolled through.
As it happens, this is not the first time I heard about a fire burning underground. In fact, there’s currently a fire burning underground in Centralia, Pennsylvania that started in 1962. The locals in Centralia had placed their landfill in an old strip mine without considering the fact that burning trash near a former coal mine might be a problem. A fire broke out, spread to an untapped reserve of coal, and has been burning there ever since. If you thought fighting fires in the foothills of Los Angeles was difficult, imagine fighting them in a decommissioned coal mine.
It’s obviously not safe to live in a town situated over an underground coal fire so the town of Centralia was gradually shut down by various government entities. However, a few holdouts resisted the efforts to relocate and were eventually allowed to remain on their property.
Something I Worked On
This week I’m working on an illustrated story, one that I envision taking a “storybook” form. That is, it’s designed to be a series of two-page spreads, pairing one or two sentences of text with a corresponding illustration. My current draft is only 119 words, which I intend to illustrate with 10 drawings.
I expect to be posting some preliminary drawings on my Patreon.
Something Beautiful
Also in the news this week is that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has acquired a significant collection of Austrian art from the early 20th century, including works by Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. I’ve always loved the expressively distorted way that Schiele depicts figures and admired how bold his self-portraits were. Below is a SFW sampling of his work.
A Final Thought
The other day we went to a local ice shop after dinner and stood in line behind a group of nuns. Three of the nuns had gray hair and appeared to be in their 60’s. The fourth nun, who seemed to be leading the ice cream run, looked to be in her late 20’s. It made me wonder about how different their lives are, how they perceive information about the world we live in today. Even the difference between a 20-something nun, who was raised with the internet, and a nun who spent the last 40 years living in a convent must be enormous.