Friday Night

I now check all local news services before heading to bed.

The word tonight is that the fire in Silverado Canyon may reach houses by tomorrow afternoon.

(Photo: Santiago Peak, the highest point in the Santa Ana Mountains of Orange County.)

Sketched on a napkin

In today’s OC Register: Irvine Valley College at center stage:

After 18-year wait, community college can boast of its own performing arts center

Stephen Rochford, conductor and director of instrumental music at Irvine Valley College, points like a proud papa to a cushiony chair in the college's new, 388-seat theater.

"Mezzanine, first row, last on the left," he says during a recent walk-through of the building.

That chair is Rochford's; that is, it has his name on it. Dance program coordinator Ted Weatherford joins the tour, and he, too, immediately gestures toward his seat – mezzanine, number 102.

… Tuesday, the college will hold its official opening for the 53,200-square foot building, which sits at the southwest corner of the campus, rising up over strawberry fields next to Jeffrey Road. An invitation-only gala concert that night will kick off with a trumpet fanfare and will feature the college's master chorale and wind symphony.


"Its just means so much," Weatherford said. "It means that we can now expand our program. It's going to attract serious music people, serious dancers. And it gives the students the opportunity to perform on a real stage. It also allows us to have more community events at our school. We are a community college, which means that part of our mission is to serve the community."

…Added Rochford: "The new Performing Arts Center is a significant step forward in the continual maturation of IVC. Everyone on the campus is talking about this building. There is a level of excitement here that we are not used to having at IVC."

…The building was designed by the award-winning Miami firm Arquitectonica, under the leadership of architects Bernardo Fort-Brescia and Laurinda Spear (the two are married). The firm has about 100 buildings under construction worldwide this year, according to vice president of marketing Tom Westberg. In Orange County, Arquitectonica designed the Rancho Santiago Community College District Digital Media Center, which opened in 2006, and Santa Ana's Taco Bell Discovery Science Center, known for its 10-story tall tilted cube.


…The concrete and glass center bears Arquitectonica's design trademarks, including bold colors and strong graphic forms. The building has an angular outside wall that juts out from its overall rectangular structure, an example of the firm's signature "surface articulation." The two-story glass lobby looks out on a grass lawn and across to another major building under construction, the $19 million Business, Sciences and Technology Innovation Center, being designed by another prominent, award-winning firm, LPA Inc.

"It was necessary for the building to make a statement about the importance of the arts in the college curriculum," Fort-Brescia said. "The building needed to be expressive, theatrical. The volume of the hall was enveloped by a series of planes that fold around the functional forms. Their planar qualities make them almost like sets."

… Rochford, Weatherford and theater arts chairman Ron Manuel-Ellison said the building has everything they needed.

In addition to the 388-seat multi-purpose main auditorium, the building houses a 170-seat, flexible black box theater; a 135-seat music hall; a green room, where artists wait before going onstage; a scenic construction shop; dressing room; design lab; costume shop; and several storage rooms.


"What's so nice about this is we designed it so it's multifunctional. We could have the audience at 360 degrees" around the actors, Manuel-Ellison said, standing in the black box theater.

"I am proud to say that this was an absolutely faculty-driven process," said Roquemore, the president. "The building was sketched out on a napkin and some of the same faculty are still with us and they have taken the vision to actual building plans."

The money for the project came from the state (about $14 million) and the South Orange County Community College District (about $15 million). The college is now seeking a final $2.5 million from private sources; it is looking, in particular, for an individual or family who would like their name on the building for a donation of $2 million. Roquemore admitted that the fund-raising was going much more slowly than he'd anticipated.

"We're hoping that folks will see a real jewel and be willing to help this along," he said. "On the $2 million naming rights (for the building), it's going surprisingly slow. We have so many folks that are into the performing arts, (yet) it's turning out to be quite a difficult task."


What will not be a difficult task, on the other hand, is attracting patrons, the faculty said, noting it's one of the few benefits of having performed out in the community for so many years. Students are deep into rehearsals for the comedy "A Tuna Christmas," and recitals, concerts and dance performances are already on the schedule for this "gala season," through May 2008.

"We'll fill the hall because we have such a regular following," said Rochford.

Friday; the power of ritual

WE ATTEMPTED to resume Friday rituals today: shopping at the farmer's market; visiting the grandfather/father/father-in-law with an offering of apples; cruising the thrift store for a substitute Halloween costume for the anxious son (Harry Potter was found (score!) as the handmade Puss-in-Boots remains at home). When in the world, I wear one of those face masks which I've noticed frightens young children. I plan to draw a cat nose and whiskers on mine tonight so as to avoid that reaction in the future. It will serve as my Halloween costume, I suppose.

Reports continue to arrive. A neighbor was escorted into our neighborhood and, yes, our house and hers stands. A backfire was started behind our home, at the edge of Hilltop Drive. We don't know what happened yet to the two bee hives. We evacuated our two cats, but not the bees. The sprinklers on the roof were turned off.

In the afternoon, we drove up to Cook's Corner where we we turned away. Escorts start from the other end of the canyon. The CHP officers were cordial. Further up, as we meandered around Portola Hills, I asked another CHP officer how it was going and he said it was fine. Some people had called him some names but he understood. It's hard to lose your house, he said.

As we drove back to our temporary quarters at our lovely friends' lovely home, we heard the news that the fire had moved into Silverado Canyon. By the time we got home, the OC Register had posted a front page picture of my son's teacher evacuating on foot, her arms full, her face, well, her face showing what you feel as you leave your home with the fire moving in behind you.

Tomorrow: in the morning we hope to qualify to be escorted into our canyon and our home. I need to retrieve papers and books so I can resume my classes on Monday. Then there are two birthday parties to attend, count 'em TWO. This will be the first time our son will have seen his schoolmates and friends since the conflagration. Some of the children invited have been, like us, evacuated from their homes all week. Some of them have lost their homes. Some of them don't know what they have lost. The birthday presents have been chosen (microscopes) and the cards have been drawn. We forgot to buy wrapping paper but we will find something. At some point, candles will be lit, wishes will be made, then the tiny fires will be blown out.

Where's your sackcloth, Laughing-Boy?

This morning’s OC Register ScienceDude column:

Outspoken UC Irvine author-historian Mike Davis will give a free public lecture Oct. 31 titled “Katrina in the Suburbs? The Politics of Fire in Southern California.” He will speak at noon in Room 3008 on UCI’s Calit2 Building, next to Bren Hall, on Ring Road.

In an e-mail, Davis told me, “I will discuss the relevant political background (lack of county fire department, failure of rural lands initiative, underfunding of fire departments, etc.) that might help us answer the questions: why are these men smiling (the governor, mayor of San Diego, etc.)?

“Shouldn’t they be wearing sackcloth or seeking exile in Paraguay instead of turning this tragedy into a celebration of conservative values...?”

Davis is a former MacArthur “Genius” Fellow who is well-known for his barbed social commentary, especially that which has appeared in his books “City of Quartz” and “Ecology of Fear.”

(Photo by Chunk)

From Bob Park's WHAT'S NEW:

INTERROGATIONS: BUSH DEFENDS INTERROGATION METHODS.

Earlier this month there was a remarkable reunion at Fort Hunt, VA of surviving members of the group responsible for interrogating Nazi prisoners of war. All in their 80s and 90s, they are shocked at the methods reportedly used today.

Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist, told Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post that he had been assigned to play chess with Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess. They took prisoners out to steak dinners and played ping-pong with them - and got information out of them.

During WWII when the news carried reports of torture by the Nazis, people would shake their heads and say "you couldn’t get American boys to do that." Now we know you could. The President insists "we don’t torture." The only way he could be sure would be to submit to "waterboarding."

In today's INSIDE HIGHER ED:

David Horowitz, the conservative activist, and his allies have been giving speeches denouncing radical Islam on campuses all week as part of “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” — viewed by many critics as a cover for spreading fear about Muslims. At Emory University, Horowitz was largely unable to give his speech, and police had to escort him from the stage as protesters shouted “Heil Hitler,” among other things, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported (last item). A detailed account and an online discussion of the incident appear in The Emory Wheel. On Horowitz’s Web site, the Emory protesters are being described as “leftist brown shirts.”

From yesterday's IHR:

San Diego area colleges remain closed, as institutions deal with the fires raging in the area. The colleges emphasize that their campuses and students are not in danger, but that they realize people can’t commute to and from campus right now. Several colleges — among them the San Diego Community College District, San Diego State University, the University of California at San Diego and the University of San Diego — have called off classes for the rest of the week.

Blaise Pascal was an a**hole (fire news)

I got to keep moving, I got to keep moving
Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail
And the days keep reminding me, there's a hellhound on my trail
Hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail
I can tell the wind is risin', the leaves tremblin' on the trees
Leaves tremblin' on the trees
I can tell the wind is risin', leaves tremblin' on the trees
All I need is my little sweet woman
To keep my company, hey, hey, my company

—Robert Johnson

I KEEP MISSING Reb and Red Emma. I've left messages, and they've left messages, but I haven't spoken with either of them since Tuesday. From what I hear, they're doing fine. They seem confident that their home has been spared.

At times of disaster and emergency, I always feel more connected to people. And not just friends and loved ones. I feel more connected to the many who live most or all their days in uncertainty or worse.

My time of uncertainty was late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Short-lived and feeble, I know. Since then, I've been living with the improbability that my Stuff (that's "stuff" with a capital "s") will be destroyed (including all of my Dissent stuff, which, to tell you the truth, I don't give a rat's ass about).

At this point, the probability of disaster-for-Chunk has declined to about .1 or lower, I guess.

Living with the likelihood of personal non-disaster is like holding a grenade that is very likely not going to blow up. If somebody comes up to you and says, "Hey, Grenade Boy! We just heard that the likelihood of your maimage and/or death with that grenade in your hand has gone down further! Ain't that good news?"—well, you smile, but you also cringe.

It all reminds me of Pascal's Wager. Do you know it? Pascal was a clever bastard. He said that there exist two possibilities, for either God exists or God does not exist. That's obvious.

He then said that you've got two choices, for you're either gonna believe in Him or not. Which is it gonna be? At this point, says, Pascal, you've gotta do a "cost/benefit" analysis with an eye to expected outcomes assessed in terms of probabilities.

OK then. Suppose you believe in Him. In that case, you've got nothing to lose and much to gain, 'cause if God exists, He'll bestow paradise on you, which is good, and if he doesn't exist, then so what. You've got a false belief. You've already got lots of those, especially if you're a Republican. One more won't make any difference.

Now suppose you don't believe in Him. In that case, you've got lots to lose. If he doesn't exist, then, all right, you got that one right. You don't win any prizes, though. But if he DOES exist, you are in one shitload of trouble, 'cause God punishes bigtime when somebody has the temerity not to believe in him, despite the paucity of evidence of Him and the clear and distinct urgings of common fucking sense that God is like Santa Claus.

So do the math. Sure, God isn't likely to exist. Just like Santa. But if he DOES exist, you are faced with a fate "a shittier than which cannot be conceived," as Anselm might put it. A 1% chance of INFINITE SHITTITUDE = well, a shitload of shittitude, fer sher.

I sometimes explain Pascal's Wager to my students. Then I'll hold up a board marker and I'll say, "OK, choose to believe that this here board marker is a potato. Go ahead."

LAST NIGHT, I spent some time with the family, who are assembled at the Irvine home of my little brother The Ronald. He and his wife just had twins. I decided to take pictures of these creatures.

Didn't wanna weird them out with a flash, so I took these pics hand-held, sans flash. They're a little fuzzy.

One of these gals is named Catherine. The other is named Natalie. They're very quiet babies. One seems always calm and collected. The other is generally peevish and gives people the stink eye. But she's pretty quiet about it.

Reminds me of the Sunny Girl.

THIS MORNING, after jawing with the Janster for a bit—while watching Sunny and her long-lost son Mojo warily interact—I headed over to the college (IVC). It was a ghost town. Saw no cops. Saw a couple of stray students. I had no idea what they were up to. I didn't stick around.

So, now, I'm here with Susan and the twins. What's next? I have no idea. Guess I'll peruse the latest fire news at OC Register online.

That Pascal sure was an asshole.

Mountain Bob (fire news)

I DROVE UP El Toro Road toward Cook's Corner today, hoping to get to my place near Trabuco Canyon (Live Oak Canyon), which I evacuated two days ago, owing to the fire.

As expected, a cop was there to keep everyone out.

"Well, I live here," I explained. I showed the cop my (expired) Drivers License.

"No exceptions."

As he said that, a KNX News Radio truck drove down from the canyon. The cop waved at its occupants as though he knew them.

I gestured at the truck.

"Except for the news media," said the cop.

So I parked behind Cook's and started walking up Harris Grade. I figured the cop was too busy to notice me. He was.

It was hot, and I wasn't really dressed for a midday hike, but it's only a mile to the top of the grade and it isn't much further from there to Lambrose Canyon.

About a third of the way up, the burned area on the Modjeska side (left) became visible. It was pretty ugly.

Took some pics. Check 'em out. [Click on the pics to enlarge them.]


When I got to the top, I could see what had happened to Hamilton Trail, which is on the left (the peak) side of Live Oak Canyon Road. It contains a few dozen homes.

It looked pretty bad. No homes were burned, but everything around them was black and still smoking.

I ran into a guy in a truck who lived there. Some people decided to defy the mandatory evacuation. They drive around from Cook's Corner down to O'Neill Park, but they can't drive through the cop blockades—that is, they can't leave—'cause if they do, they aren't let back in.

This guy explained that, at one point, the fire was "360 degrees" around his house. He gestured a circle around himself and made a horrified face.

But the firefighters saved it, he said.

"That's great," I said.

I've been through fires before, and so I wasn't surprised by the devastation, the ugliness, the silence.

As it turns out, my side of Live Oak Canyon Rd. was entirely unscathed, near as I could tell. Below Hamilton Trail, most of the peak side had been saved too.

I walked through the oak trees to Lambrose Canyon and spotted "Mountain" Bob at the entrance of our little colony. He commenced telling me stories. "The flames," he said, were "200 feet high." "I'd never seen anything like it."

"I got religion," he said.

Bob is pretty ironic. So I don't think he was serious.

Later, he asked me, "Do you believe in God, Chunk?"

"Nope."

"O.K. Ever heard of Herbert Spencer?"

He went on like that. Bob's a character, he is.


When I got to the Wheeler Compound, everything was exactly as we had left it on Tuesday.

The doors at my parents' place were unlocked. I walked in, checked things out. I had a beer. Then I locked the doors and left.

I headed up to my place. It was utterly quiet. I made a couple of phone calls, checked out a leaking water tank.

I noticed lots of billowing smoke coming from behind and to the left of Modjeska Peak. (See pic above.) That didn't look good.


Then I headed back down.

On my way out, I talked with Bob again. He offered to drive me back to Cook's Corner—or just short of it anyway.

"Great," I said.

"We'll take my Prius! It's up there!" He motioned to a high point next to his house. I walked up there as he parked his truck on the other side of his house.

No Prius.

"There's no Prius up here, Bob," I shouted.

He looked concerned. He climbed up to where I was. "Where's my Prius?," he said. He thought a moment. Then he cursed.

"We'll take my diesel!" shouted Bob.

"Sounds good," I said.

"But it's got no fuel, so we might not make it."

That's Bob for you. Off we went.

When I drove away from Cook's, I could see Bob arguing with two cops at the blockade.

Love that Bob.

Mid-Afternoon Update: 4:00 pm Thursday

TWO OF THE WONDERS of our canyon community are our schools: the Silverado Elementary School and the Silverado Children's Center. These two institutions are adjacent each other on Santiago Canyon Road, midway between Jackson Ranch and Silverado Canyon and nurture the minds and hearts of the canyon children who attend.

Rumors spread earlier today that the children's center had burned and I wondered how I'd break that sad news to my son. He's been a student there for three years now, under the inspired guidance of teachers Aimee B., Sara H., sweet Jenny, and canyon legend Chay P. The center is not-for-profit and a project of the Silverado-Modjeska Parks and Recreation Department. Its serves the needs of families in the canyon and beyond, offering quality affordable preschool and after-school care. Our son has forged friendships there not only with his peers but with the farm animals, Tiny the pig and Jazzy the goat. He has only recently and proudly matriculated to the the famous "school-agers'" classroom. Just last month, my little guy started kindergarten with 17 other children at Silverado Elementary School. The elementary school, part of the Orange Unified School District, has served generations of canyon kids. It's a small school; fewer than 100 children are enrolled in grades K-6.

Then word arrived this afternoon that confirmed the both the school and the center had survived. The Children's Center director Aimee B. acknowledged that much work will need to be done before they can open. (There's a project for folks with time and perhaps money.) The two schools are standing and whole (minus a quonset hut) and that is very, very good news.

The same email declared that not one home had been lost in Silverado Canyon -- though it admitted that there was risk still from still blazing hot spots and unstable winds.

On a more personal note, the visit to the doctor proved helpful. Rebel Girl now has an inhaler to help with her breathing as well as other medication to take. She is supposed to rest her voice (in other words, SHUT UP) and take it easy. She'll do her best. She already feels better.