March 22nds

3/22/1944

 (Naples 44)

At the time of my arrival the lava was pushing its way very quietly down the main street, and about fifty yards from the edge of this great, slowly-shifting slagheap, a crowd of several hundred people, mostly in black, knelt in prayer. Holy banners and church images were held aloft, and acolytes swung censers
and sprinkled holy water in the direction of the cinders. Occasionally a grief-crazed citizen would grab one of the banners and dash towards the wall of lava, asking it angrily as to warn off the malignant spirits of the eruption. The spectacle of the eruption was totally unexpected. I had been prepared for rivers of fire, but there was no fire and no burning anywhere — only the slow, deliberate suffocation of the town under millions of tons of clinkers. The lava was moving at a rate of only a few yards an hour, and it had covered half the town to a depth of perhaps thirty-feet. 

Book Excerpt Library: "Write a report of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius" 

3/22/2011

An anonymous missive from Sendai Japan (very poignant): “Utterly amazingly where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."

3/22/2025

This Is How (It Used To Be) (3/22/2025) by meta4s

The lyrics from Talking Heads' Life During Wartime fits right in with the B section, or even throughout the piece. Just keep repeating the same 4 lines, or together with the A section lyrics,

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
This ain't no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey-dovey
I ain't got time for that now