Off the Grid: Bombay Beach

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Me Photographing Bombay Beach TV

You cannot find a more low-down community in the United States. Literally. That’s because the unincorporated town of Bombay Beach is 223 feet (68 meters) below sea level. It used to be larger, but each successive census has shown a drop in population, in 2020 down to 231. And that number is a little dicey because of the large number of snowbirds who winter there.

In 1999, Huell Howser did an episode of his show “Visiting” in a Bombay Beach which is hardly recognizable today. Back then most of the residents appeared to be senior citizens. At some point since then, the hipsters moved in, and the whole place became something of an art installation.

As such, it’s a fun place to visit. My bother and I spent a couple hours there last Saturday.

Art Installation in Bombay Beach

The beach itself is no beauty. At times, the town of Bombay Beach floods when the sea, which has no outlet, rises in an unusually wet year. Part of the town is now isolated from the beach by a protective berm. In any case, the sea frequently smells bad because of all the fish die-offs. In fact, the Huell Howser video shows him walking noisily on the bones of dead fish that line the shore.

Art Along the Beach

Many of the current residents of the town are living off the grid, using solar panels to provide electricity. There is water service provided by the Coachella Valley Water District. I rather doubt that sewage is piped out of town, as the next populated place is Niland, California, some 18 miles (29 kilometers) south. There is no gas station in town, and only one bar/restaurant and possibly one convenience store.

Beginning tomorrow, we will visit a place that is really off the grid.

Off the Grid: The Salton Sea

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Southern California’s Salton Sea

When I was still in college trying to decide where I would go to graduate school, I kept studying maps of California because it looked like I would attend UCLA (which I did). The one thing that arrested my attention was that Southern California had a sea entirely within the state. It was called the Salton Sea, and it did not seem to have any major population centers along its banks. Why, I wondered.

It seems that the Salton Sea was created by accident in 1905-1906 when the Colorado River was diverted to flow into a low-lying basin that had been dry since the late 16th century. For a while, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, it was a major tourist draw—but not in the summer, when the temperature frequently exceeded 120° Fahrenheit (49° Celsius). Hollywood stars swam and boated in the waters, and there were a number of resort towns along the banks.

During the 1970s, the Sea’s increasing salinity and pollution resulted in large-scale fish and bird deaths; and, suddenly, the Salton Sea was deemed an environmental disaster. Plus, it was shrinking due to evaporation. The roads to the north ran through land that was white with salt. People started to remember that the San Andreas Fault ran right through the middle.

Last Saturday, my brother and I drove along the eastern shore of the Sea to view a stark landscape that was staging a weird comeback, first as a major lithium extraction site, and secondly as a magnet for people who wanted to live off the grid.

For the next several days, I will be posting blogs in a series I call “Off the Grid,” about our visit to the rogue communities of Bombay Beach, Slab City, Salvation Mountain, and East Jesus. None of them are incorporated cities, but all are alive with a kind of ferment that lends them a certain glow.

Too Much and Not Enough

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Heavy Rain in Southern California

Is it time to turn on the news yet? And when it is, what do you expect to hear? I don’t know about you, but I have come to the conclusion that the purpose of the news is to sell advertising by making the viewers fearful, such that they will want to be “informed” on the latest developments and continue to come back for more.

I have been asked by several friends outside of California whether I have “survived” the rainstorms that have hit the state this month. Evidently, I have, as I am writing this blog.

Southern California weather news can be illustrated by the following Venn diagram:

The blue circle indicates that “there has been too much rain”; the yellow circle, that “there has not been enough rain.” And what about the pale green zone where the two circles intersect? That’s when some weather reports are saying “there has been too much rain” and some others are saying that “there has not been enough rain”—at the same time!

At the same time we have been bombarded by reports of too much rain, there have been numerous stories that now a La Nina weather pattern is being established and that soon we will not be getting enough rain.

Apparently, there is no such thing as “just the right amount of rain.” It’s always a case of too much or not enough.

My suggestion for all of you: Try not to turn on the news just before going to bed. It will play havoc with your sleep.

The Four Oaks Puzzle

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This puzzle is from the Futility Closet website. According to the description:

One other notable problem from Sam Loyd’s Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles: A father left to his four sons this square field, with the instruction that they divide it into four pieces, each of the same shape and size, so that each piece of land contained one of the trees. How did they manage it?

Curious about the solution? Just click here.

Signs

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Bronze Chinese Bells

Here is a poem by Jorge Luis Borges of Argentina that mentions the butterfly dream by Zhuangzi that I wrote about in yesterday’s post.

Signs

for Susana Bombal

Around 1915, in Geneva, I saw on the terrace
of a museum a tall bell with Chinese characters.
In 1976 I write these lines:

Undeciphered and alone, I know
in the vague night I can be a bronze
prayer or a saying in which is encoded
the flavor of a life or of an evening
or Chuang Tzu’s dream, which you know already,
or an insignificant date or a parable
or a great emperor, now a few syllables,
or the universe or your secret name
or that enigma you investigated in vain
for so long a time through all your days.
I can be anything. Leave me in the dark.

About that last line: Remember that for the last thirty or forty years of his life, Borges was blind.

The Butterfly Dream

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Zhuangzi, also known as Chuang Tzu, was a Chinese sage who lived around the 4th Century BC. There is a famous parable of his in which he talks about dreaming he was a butterfly. It is a simple parable that requires no explanation:

Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream Parable

Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, dreamt I was a butterfly,
fluttering hither and thither,
to all intents and purposes a butterfly.

I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly,
unaware that I was Zhuangzi.

Soon I awakened,
and there I was,
veritably myself again.

Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly,
or whether I am now a butterfly,
dreaming I am a man.

Between a man and a butterfly,
there is necessarily a distinction.

The transition is called the transformation of material things.

Probably the only line that requires an explanation is the last one. I rather like the translation of the last line shown on this website: “This is called ‘Things Change.´”

Valentine’s Day in the Rear View Mirror

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Valentine Exhibits at the Grier-Musser Museum

I know that Valentine’s Day was three days ago, but Martine and I decided to commemorate it anew with a visit to Susan and Rey Tejada’s Grier-Musser Museum. There we saw the elegant collection of figurines, greeting cards, and other antiques honoring the holiday.

There is an elegance, even a sense of formality, to the way our forefathers saw the rites of love-making in the 19th cntury. One could see a change in the way the subject was treated after the First World War. The flappers of the 1920s appeared to be more in charge, an impression that was underlined by the newfound power of Hollywood.

The Grier-Musser Museum brings us almost up to the present day. Sue and Rey are big-time movie junkies and spend a lot of time with their fingers on the pulse of popular culture. Their holiday exhibits, particularly around Halloween and Christmas, are a great way to see how the culture has changed and continues changing.

Bad Brujo

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Speaking of Cajamarca …

Although he did as much as possible to hide all information about his origins, Carlos Castaneda, whose books about the sorcery of a Yaqui Indian named Don Juan Matus were best sellers in the 1960s and 1970s, was actually born in Cajamarca, Peru. If I ever went there, I sincerely doubt there will be monuments or museums dedicated to him. Nonetheless, Northern Peru, about which I have been writing posts for the last week, is known for its brujos, or sorcerers.

I am currently re-reading in order of publication the books written by Castaneda. Even though it is generally known that there probably never was a Don Juan Matus, Carlos was in fact a spiritual leader whose work clicked with the American public of that time. And his work is in fact very interesting to me.

Do I care whether Castaneda was telling the literal truth? Not at all. But he was intent on describing a way of power that, in the end, caught him up in its web. I am also reading Amy Wallace’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda.

To be sure, Carlos would not have liked this tell-all biography, in which he is surrounded by a cadre of adoring females whom he dominates. But then, in it Carlos tells the tale of his encounter with Alan Watts, another more or less legitimate spiritual leader, who attempted to seduce him—even as Carlos seduced Amy Wallace and probably others.

One can point the way toward the path to be followed, even as one, being human, cannot follow it perfectly. In one of his works, he writes, “If [the warrior’s] spirit is distorted he should simply fix it-purge it, make it perfect-because there is no other task in our entire lives which is more worthwhile…To seek the perfection of the warrior’s spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our manhood.”

Yes, but there is this problem about being human.

Chiclayo and Sipán

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Tomb of the Lord of Sipán

After Chachapoyas, my Northern Peru has one more destination to its farthest point, back to the coast to Chiclayo. The bus ride to Chiclayo is nine hours. Nine easy hours. No two mountain passes at Himalayan-like altitudes to cross on a dicey road hovering at the edge of a precipice like the one between Cajamarca and Chachapoyas.

Also, we are in the land of the Moche, whose lifelike sculptures I have noted in an earlier post. As with Trujillo, there are numerous ruins, particularly those of Sipán, and museums to visit at Lambayeque, Ferreñafe, and Túcume.

And then it will be time to return to Lima. Chiclayo has an airport, but it is not an international one, so I will have to fly out of Lima’s Jorge Chávez Airport. So I could fly to Lima via Avianca or LATAM. Or I could even take a 12-14 hour bus trip arriving in Lima with a burst bladder.

What will I have accomplished with this trip, should I decide to eventually take it? Peru, Guatemala, and Southern Mexico were the homes of great urban civilizations—none of which had managed to invent the wheel. The Maya of Mexico and Central America did, however, develop a form of hieroglyphic writing. The civilizations of Peru did not, but they were nothing short of amazing with all their closely packed mountain civilizations. In the end, there is far, far more to Peru than just the Inca. They were just the final pre-Columbian civilization before the Spanish Conquistadores rode into town and took over.