Back in San Francisco
Well we finally made it back to California half alive after a rough trip and a bad case of Covid. Flying in from the north right at golden hour, we got treated to a very pretty aerial view of San Francisco — the fog bunched up against the central peaks, folding over itself like some kind of whipped cream.
It’s hard to imagine that before San Francisco was terraformed for human habitation when the hordes rushed this place to get the gold, most of the land here was either covered by tidal mudflats or giant shifting sand dunes. Apparently the dunes only expanded after early settlement because people here, desperate for firewood and fuel on a bare and almost treeless peninsula, picked whatever scrubs and vegetation they could — including the stuff that was anchoring the sand. That freed up the dunes to take over even more territory. But the dunes were no match for Progress! They were quickly pounded down and paved over with an orderly grid. The only glimpse you can get of the old dunes that used to rule here is a small stretch of beach in the southwest corner of the city, where they sometimes take over the first few streets that run along the ocean.
From 1868
While I’ve been in Russia and escaping from Russia, Rowan and our editor Luka have been making progress on our documentary — the one about how a bunch of oligarchs have plundered California and taken over its water supply. For those who remember, the working title of this film is Pistachio Wars. We’ve been working on this thing for years — and are years behind schedule. But we’ve entered a new phase of the project now: doing the graphics, tightening the edit, hunting to down archival material, improving the writing. The end is finally in sight like never before — and it’s exciting. It’s shaping up to be a great and very, very grim film. Nothing’s sacred in our industrial society. Rivers? Fish? Birds? Animals? Plants? Bugs? Preserving the last bits of some kind of natural habitat? Fuck all that. They mean nothing unless they can be turned into short-term ersatz wealth for our ridiculous, rapacious capitalist class. Who need the future when you can eat a salty snack food today?
I’m gonna be doing a lot more work on the documentary so my writing here is gonna reflect that in the months ahead. I’ll be focusing more on the things that our film is about to get my head in sync with it all: California politics, oligarch famers, water, ecological destruction, our shitty industrial civilization…you know all the things that bring out the optimist in all of us.
—Yasha
PS: We’ll be back soon with another episode of The Russians.
Want to know more about the progressive state of California?
Private islands, forgotten California oligarchs, and Jewish converts. Say hello to our ruling class.