Winter is the season of the arsonist in Southern California. The Manzanita and Chaparral are dry and brittle and the Santa Anna winds have begun to blow. They move at gale force. They cross the arid Mojave and whip through the canyons of the San Bernadino mountains, thru the live oak and the pines, the ponderosa, the sugar and coulter, white fir and incense cedar. I know these names because i live in the mountains eighty miles east of the sprawl of Los Angeles and i worry when the winds come. I worry about the possibility of fire. I know he's out there, the arsonist. I know he's waiting, like me, for a day of opportunity very much like this.
L A Diaries
James Brown 2003
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