The Fires

Oakland, CA

September 9, 2020

I took the photo above in September, 2020. It's a view up the street from my house, showing a couple of rooftops, some trees, and the sky, which is eerily orange, turned that color by smoke from the fires then burning to north of us. The great city of Los Angeles, 350 miles to the south of me, has now been suffering for a week from major fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, and smaller fires in other locations. Fire warnings for tomorrow, at levels from elevated to extreme, have been issued for everywhere in the huge geographic triangle bounded by San Diego, Bakersfield, and Santa Maria. (Gift link; scroll down to find the map with that area.)

The losses so far, in human life, in homes, in art and music, in community and the built environment, are incalculable, and I fear they will only worsen. Alex Ross, who has an abiding love for the architecture of Los Angeles and the city's deep cultural history, has posts about lost architectural sites and about Villa Aurora, which still stood as of Saturday, January 11.

The fires are a consequence of global warming and the failure of governments worldwide to take action soon enough and with sufficient vigor. The risks have been known to some for fifty years or more, yet preserving the Earth and its people has taken a back seat to profit. One of this country's major parties acts as though climate change isn't real, though its leaders must know differently. They have managed to persuade numerous U.S. citizens that it's not real.

If you're writing about the fires and about the losses, I encourage careful fact-checking. A couple of days ago, the destruction of Belmont Music, housed in a building at Larry Schoenberg's home in Pacific Palisades, led to fears that the manuscripts of Verklärte Nacht and Pierrot Lunaire had been lost. The former manuscript is in the collection of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. and the latter is in the Morgan Library, New York City. 

According to the NY Times (gift link), Belmont Music lost its entire inventory of performing materials for Arnold Schoenberg's works, as well as digital backups that were housed on site, plus letters, memorabilia, and related material. It is a tremendous loss for the family, for performers, and for all who care about the composer. It is likely to affect performances for some time, as Mr. Schoenberg rebuilds the collection –– but the composer's original manuscripts are safe in archives and libraries around the world. The Arnold Schoenberg Center has a helpful online database of the composer's compositions and the locations of the manuscripts.

The effects of the fires will be felt for years and likely decades, owing to the scope of the destructions, the number of people affected, and the economic and cultural importance of Los Angeles. I recently started listening to the podcast Not Built for This, which is about United States infrastructure and climate change. The second episode is about the ripple effects of the Camp Fire (Paradise, CA) and its impact on those who lost homes and the city of Chico. The podcast is sobering and frankly terrifying, well worth listening to regardless of where you're located.