The Geography of Doubt

Tonight I came, filled with doubt, down over the hill and into the valley. But California is a doubtless territory; it was settled by, and has settled into, brazen assurance. The tall slender palm trees and the tall slender cypress trees thrusting into twilights of gold and sapphire and rose are quite certain of themselves. The tall trees and the mansions on spiders legs above Mulholland and the women too young to drive the cars they do, and too rich not to, are all part of the Siren’s song. It’s why I was drawn here, despite the snarl of wolves. If liberty is the possibility of doubt, I might be the only free man in Los Angeles.

I hear the snarling, I think, more readily than others. I doubt the landscape. Vladimir Keilis-Borok who in recent years predicted two quakes with great accuracy, one in Japan and one in San Simeon, has predicted a Los Angeles area quake before September 5 of this year, though no one seems to be listening. But Californians have studiously learned to isolate doubt. We know there is no tectonic stability in our Golden State just as we can not really believe in an everlasting golden adolescence. But an admission against our interest is not doubt. It is blind hope and faith that our faults will not expose themselves while we’re still in the game.