LA Apocalypse

And now, for my last post of the morning, a little 'spice' from the incomparable James Howard Kunstler:

I was in Los Angeles for a few days last week, as chance had it,
marveling at the odd disposition of things there. I've been there many
times over the years, but you forget how overwhelmingly weird it is. Altogether
the LA metro area has the ambience of a garage the size of Rhode Island where
someone happened to leave the engine running. To say that LA is all about
cars is kind of like saying the Pacific Ocean is all about water. But one
forgets the supernatural scale of the freeways, the tsunamis of vehicles, the
cosmic despair of the traffic jams. The vistas of present-day LA make the
Blade Runner vision of things look quaint in comparison.

The city of Los Angeles, indeed the whole state of California, seems
exhausted too. Apocalypse is probably such a rich theme out there precisely
because everything about that particular way of life seems to be nearing its end
- whether it's the fiscal fiasco or the water supply, or the aerospace economy,
or the music industry, or the once-great university system, or the Happy
Motoring fantasy of cruising for burgers in what Tom Waits called the dark, warm
narcotic American night. I went to the movies there one hot afternoon -
Tarantino's latest, Inglourius Basterds, a completely crazy but enjoyable
revenge romp against Hitler & Co. - and before the feature, they showed a
"trailer" for Roland Emmerich's forthcoming apocalyptathon. 2012, in which
virtually every global landmark from the Vatican to the White House is
destroyed, and mankind's last hope is John Cusack riding a spaceship to worlds
unknown.... If that isn't shooting your wad as a movie-maker, I'm not sure
what is. Maybe next time out, Roland will step back and make a movie about
a puppy.