Disaster Movies (Some November)

 "Brian" Mix:

 

Final Mix:

 

Rough Mixes (November):

 

If all the disaster movies that we've seen over the past fifty years are in fact projections—as they have been in many cases (most notably 911), then we should just watch the movies to get a glimpse of what it's actually going to be like in the world. Films (and literature) are projections from the collective unconscious.

If there is a connection between the dream state and cinema, then it stands to reason that there would be a connection between waking dreams and films.

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1/2025

When I went to LA on business in April 1995, after having not gone there since several childhood vacations, the first thing I noticed on the trip from the Ontario airport to downtown LA was that it looked like a movie set. Brian Eno once said to the effect, "When you arrive in a place you can really see it." And that's true. But the longer you stay in a place the more it might become wallpaper. The city was still recovering from the Northridge earthquake in 1994. And there I was sitting at a desk in a hotel room when news came in about the Oklahoma City bombing. Disaster can be all around you, but in retrospect it's kind of ironic that you go to a place where disasters are like seasons, and another historic one happens there.

LA exists in its current state (or psychological state--or psychogeography) because of Hollywood, TV, and Disneyland, so it stands to reason that it would have a mirroring effect.

One of the most interesting books about the LA psychgeography is The Ecology of Fear, by Mike Davis, published in 1998, right around the time when climate change was getting more media attention, perhaps (partially) because of Al Gore. Perhaps if Gore never had a role in government, we might not have had the awareness we already have, and it takes those governmental roles to keep it in the public consciousness. But 1998 was also pre-internet, when free speech exploded, and anyone could call themselves a climate expert just because they have an opinion.

"Paranoia about nature, of course, distracts attention from the obvious fact that Los Angeles has deliberately put itself in harm’s way. For generations, market-driven urbanization has transgressed environmental common sense. Historic wildfire corridors have been turned into view-lot suburbs, wetdand liquefaction zones into marinas, and floodplains into industrial districts and housing tracts. Monolithic public works have been substituted for regional planning and a responsible land ethic. As a result, Southern California has reaped flood, fire, and earthquake tragedies that were as avoidable, as unnatural, as the beating of Rodney King and the ensuing explosion in the streets. In failing to conserve natural ecosystems it has also squandered much of its charm and beauty."