LOS ANGELES NOTEBOOK

JOAN DIDION
[b. 1934]

Los Angeles Notebook

There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hoc win from the northeast whining own through the !a"on an San #orgonio $asses. blowing u% san storms out along &oute '', rying the hills an the ner(es to the flash %oint. )or a few ays now we will see smo*e bac* in the canyons, an hear sirens in the night. I ha(e neither hear nor rea that a Santa Ana is ue, but I *now it, an almost e(eryone I ha(e seen to ay *nows it too. We *now it because we feel it. The baby frets. The mai sul*s. I re*in le a waning argument with the tele%hone com%any, then cut my losses an lie own, gi(en o(er to whate(er it is in the air. To li(e with the Santa Ana is to acce%t, consciously or unconsciously, a ee%ly mechanistic (iew of human beha(ior. I recall being tol , when I first mo(e to Los Angeles an was li(ing on an isolate beach, that the In ians woul throw themsel(es into the sea when the ba win blew. I coul see why. The $acific turne ominously glossy uring a Santa Ana %erio , an one wo*e in the night trouble not only by the %eacoc*s screaming in the oli(e trees but by the eerie absence of surf. The heat was surreal. The s*y ha a yellow cast, the *in of light sometimes calle +earth,ua*e weather.+ -y only neighbor woul not come out of her house for ays, an there were no lights at night, an her husban roame the %lace with a machete. One ay he woul tell me that he ha hear a tres%asser, the ne.t a rattlesna*e. +On nights li*e that,+ &aymon !han ler once wrote about the Santa Ana, +e(ery boo/e %arty en s in a fight. -ee* little wi(es feel the e ge of the car(ing *nife an stu y their husban s0 nec*s. Anything can ha%%en.+ That was the *in of win it was. I i not *now then that there was any basis for the effect it ha on all of us, but it turns out to be another of those cases in which science bears out fol* wis om. The Santa Ana, which is name for one of the canyons it rushes through, is a foehn win , li*e the foehn of Austria an Swit/erlan an the hamsin of Israel. There are a number of %ersistent male(olent win s, %erha%s the best *nown of which are the mistral of )rance an the -e iterranean sirocco, but a foehn win has istinct characteristics1 it occurs on the leewar slo%e of a mountain range an , although the air begins as a col mass, it is warme as it comes own the mountain an a%%ears finally as a hot ry win . Whene(er an where(er a foehn blows, octors hear about hea aches an nausea an allergies, about +ner(ousness,+ about + e%ression.+ In Los Angeles some teachers o not attem%t to con uct formal classes uring a Santa Ana, because the chil ren become unmanage2 able. In Swit/erlan the suici e rate goes u% uring the foehn, an in the courts of some Swiss cantons the win is consi ere a mitigating circumstance for crime. Surgeons are sai to watch the win , because bloo oes not clot normally uring a foehn. A few years ago an Israeli %hysicist isco(ere that not only uring such win s, but for the ten or twel(e hours which %rece e them, the air carries an unusually high ratio of %ositi(e to negati(e ions. No one seems to *now e.actly why that shoul be3 some tal* about friction an others suggest solar isturbances. In any case the %ositi(e ions are there, an what an e.cess of %ositi(e ions oes, in the sim%lest terms, is ma*e %eo%le unha%%y. One cannot get much more mechanistic than that. 4asterners commonly com%lain that there is no +weather+ at all in Southern !alifornia, that the ays an the seasons sli% by relentlessly, numbingly blan . That is ,uite mislea ing. In fact the climate is characteri/e by infre,uent but (iolent e.tremes1 two %erio s of torrential subtro%ical rains which continue for wee*s an wash out the hills an sen sub i(isions sli ing

towar the sea3 about twenty scattere ays a year of the Santa Ana, which, with its incen iary ryness, in(ariably means fire. At the first %re iction of a Santa Ana, the )orest Ser(ice flies men an e,ui%ment from northern !alifornia into the southern forests, an the Los Angeles )ire De%artment cancels its or inary non2firefighting routines. The Santa Ana cause -alibu to burn the way it i in 567', an 8el Air in 56'5, an Santa 8arbara in 56'9. In the winter of 56''2': ele(en men were *ille fighting a Santa Ana fire that s%rea through the San #abriel -ountains. Just to watch the front2%age news out of Los Angeles uring a Santa Ana is to get (ery close to what it is about the %lace. The longest single Santa Ana %erio in recent years was in 567:, an it laste not the usual three or four ays but fourteen ays, from No(ember ;5 until December 9. On the first ay ;7,<<< acres of the San #abriel -ountains were burning, with gusts reaching 5<< miles an hour. In town, the win reache )orce 5;, or hurricane force, on the 8eaufort Scale3 oil erric*s were to%%le an %eo%le or ere off the owntown streets to a(oi in"ury from flying ob"ects. On No(ember ;; the fire in the San #abriels was out of control. On No(ember ;9 si. %eo%le were *ille in automobile acci ents, an by the en of the wee* the Los Angeles Times was *ee%ing a bo. score of traffic eaths. On No(ember ;' a %rominent $asa ena attorney, e%resse about money, shot an *ille his wife, their two sons, an himself. On No(ember ;: a South #ate i(orcee, twenty2two, was mur ere an thrown from a mo(ing car. On No(ember =< the San #abriel fire was still out of control, an the win in town was blowing eighty miles an hour On the first ay of December four %eo%le ie (iolently, an on the thir the win began to brea*. It is har for %eo%le who ha(e not li(e in Los Angeles to reali/e how ra ically the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination. The city burning is Los Angeles0s ee%est image of itself1 Nathanael West %ercei(e that, in The Day of the Locust an at the time of the 56'7 Watts riots what struc* the imagination most in elibly were the fires. )or ays one coul ri(e the >arbor )reeway an see the city on fire, "ust as we ha always *nown it woul be in the en . Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastro%he, of a%ocaly%se, an , "ust as the reliably long an bitter winters of New 4nglan etermine the way life is li(e there, so the (iolence an the un%re ictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire ,uality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its im%ermanence, its unreliability. The win shows us how close to the e ge we are.