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My middle name is Alex, which is my father’s first name. Originally, because he was born in what is now Slovakia, it was Elek. In the U.S., he was Alex James Paris. I am James Alex Paris.
If I could be someone else for a day, I would pick Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890) who lived a super-adventurous life and at the same time was a superb scholar.
Unfortunately, both of my parents were deceased before they got to be my present age.
Finally Some Rain to Put Down the Wildfires
Just within the last half hour it has started to rain. It has provoked some strange news stories in which the hope is expressed that there won’t be too much. Yes, if there is “too much” rain, there will be mudslides. But then it is all part of the cycle of wind, wildfires, mudslides, and earthquakes that has formed (and will continue to form) the Southern California landscape.
I’m just happy that the air will be more breathable and that the increased humidity will relieve us from painful peeling hangnails. If there are mudslides, that will just be part of the cost we will have to bear for living in this strange and beautiful place.
The rains are expected to last for the next couple of days.
The Will Rogers Ranch House—Gone Forever
One of my favorite places in the Los Angeles area was the Will Rogers Sate Historical Park in Pacific Palisades. It was the home of Will Rogers for many years. On the grounds was a polo field where in the summer polo games were played. There were also hiking trails and a horse barn.
Now all are gone, burned in the Palisades Fire. Martine and I will no longer be able to relax in the shade of the oak trees in rustic rocking chairs or tour the ranch house to see the western memorabilia of one of my favorite actors.
Will Rogers was a genuinely good person as well as one of the most popular actors of the 1930s. There was not a contentious bone in his body. What the political divided United States needed was another Will Rogers, but alas it is unlikely we will ever find one.
Flying Embers Being Carried by Wind Gusts
One of the reasons this week’s Southern California wildfires were so devastating is that the wind gusts were so powerful that flaming embers were being carried up to five miles by the winds. And some of those gusts approached the velocity of a category 2 hurricane (up to 100 miles per hour or 161 km per hour) without benefit of the moisture that usually accompanies a hurricane.
Typically, January is a wet month in Los Angeles. This year, the relative humidity levels were frequently 10% or even less.
One of the reasons the Palisades Fire was so devastating was that the wind gusts would send flaming embers leapfrogging over the hills and valleys and starting new fires. This is what happened along the Pacific Coast Highway (Route 1) where dozens of beachfront homes burned down as the waves of the Pacific Ocean gently lapped over the ruins.
Martine and I remain sick at heart following the news and seeing nothing but devastation everywhere.
Still from Jacques Tourneur’s Night of the Demon (1949)
I was in the hospital until a few days ago—and that wasn’t even the worst thing that happened at the start of this inauspicious New Year. What affects me more are the wildfires that are destroying the city of Los Angeles.
One of my best friends has lost his house, his church, and his neighborhood from the Eaton Fire in Altadena. To this point, I have not been affected, but in the nearby city of Santa Monica, just two miles to the northwest, residents are being warned they may have to evacuate.
The hurricane-force winds buffeting the area are sending flaming embers for miles, each one of which is capable of burning down a house, place of business, school, apartment building, or church. I have never experienced such powerful wind gusts in the sixty years that I have lived in Southern California.
First Responders at the Palisades Fire
Over the decades, I have come to love Los Angeles. What is happening to it now is tearing me apart.
Christmas Display at the Grier Musser Museum
This afternoon, Martine and I visited our friends Rey and Susan Tejada at the Grier Musser Museum near downtown L.A. The Victorian house is being dwarfed by a four-story apartment building under construction just north of them, but the Spirit of Christmas is very much evident in the holiday-related antiques on display.
I forgot to bring my camera along, so the picture above is from our 2019 visit at Christmas time.
As Christmas Day gets closer, I have pretty much surrendered to the good feelings that supposedly prevail at this time. Martine is listening to the Classic Christmas Music channel on Music Choice, and I no longer grit my teeth—unless they decide to play “The Little Drummer Boy,” in which case I feel it incumbent on me to leave the room. Pah-RUP-pup-PUM.
I just want to make Martine happy this time of year. On Monday, I will cook up one of her favorite dishes, a beef stew from a recipe in the New York Times. And we already have a couple of bottles of her favorite wine, Egri Bikavér (Bull’s Blood of Eger) from Hungary.
If Martine is happy, I will be happy.
Today was the fourth (or was it the fifth?) day of a brutal heat wave. I haven’t been able to accomplish much, and I refuse to cook any meals, as long as my living quarters resemble a sweat lodge.
If there are still any climate change deniers out there, I invite them to ascend a podium in the middle of the afternoon wearing a winter coat and explain their position in a hours-long speech without dropping dead.
Hot! Hot !! Hot!!!
It had to happen eventually: the wind suddenly started coming from the east and blowing the hot air of the desert all through Southern California, even by the coast where we are usually protected by the Marine Layer. Well, now there is no Marine Layer. Only the beginnings of a nasty Santa Ana Wind that makes L.A. about as comfortable as the Mohave Desert.
Because I live in an apartment building that was built around the time I was born, before there was the slightest hint of global warming, we have no insulation in the walls and ceiling. That means the apartment gets super hot and stays that way until the wee hours of the morning.
Today I have gone through three trays of ice cubes fixing iced water and iced tea for me. I was going to cook Spanish Rice for dinner, but then I thought, “To hell with it! No way am I going to make the kitchen hotter than it already is.” Instead, Martine and I scrounged around for what we had lying around in the pantry and in the refrigerator.
As is usual with these Santa Ana Winds, they always last longer than predicted. To give you a feeling for what life is like under these conditions, just read the opening of Raymond Chandler’s story “Red Wind”:
There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband’s necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge..
Tarnmoor 
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