Okay, this began not so much a post as a plea for mercy for those of you controlling the weather today, but once I began writing, what unfolded below is a full-blown post about The Turner Diaries and the power of art to inspire action, both good and evil.
But first, the weather:
I’m in Los Angeles, near the Arroyo Seco, which is nestled between various valleys—so our weather pattern is very much the Valley weather pattern, not the ocean-side LA basin, which can be ten degrees cooler most times.
The heat from the valleys basically moves through my valley toward the LA basin. (Often times, perhaps not always. In past heat waves I've heard this described by meteorologists.) It means we get the heat, too, and sometimes for an extended period after the local areas of the valley cool down, we keep getting the heat.
Anyway....
The three weather stations nearest me, according to weather underground, read 110, 116 and 119 right now. It’s 100 degrees inside my top-floor apartment. (Update: That was about 2 this afternoon. It’s 7:22PM now and it’s 108 degrees outside and 98 degrees inside my apartment.)
Just yesterday my boss had remarked that if it’s quiet today I could go home early. Once I read the heat advisories this morning I took him up on that as I have no air conditioning and I’m worried about Frank (my cat) on days like this. I can’t leave windows open on one side of the house while I’m away, both because it’s an open invitation for anyone to break in, but also because Frank could just pop the screens out and flee.
But if I'm home I can close the windows on one side of the house to stop the hot air from coming in, and then I blast fans out the other side. It keeps it from getting up to 112-114, the highest temperatures I’ve ever recorded inside the house, but it remains around 95-100 degrees until around 10 o'clock, then cools down into the 80s by midnight.
HOWEVER, if I don't get home until 7ish, it's in the triple digits--like 105-112--until 10 or so, and down into the 90s overnight.
I began around 2 o’clock this afternoon thinking I was going to share a few songs about the heat and protest or revolution, which I did, but then I wound up writing a post about the 1978 white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries by accident.