AT&T Inc. workers repair phone lines as a burned-out vehicle sits on a road during the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018. (Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
Joan Didion's "Holy Water," written in 1977, is a paean to the elaborate engineering that supplied her taps in Malibu and filled drinking glasses in Hollywood restaurants. At its heart is a warning: The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion real live here in only the most temporary way.
Inhospitable place
The Golden State is actually a pretty inhospitable place: arid or semi-arid in large parts, prone to occasional floods (maybe even mega-floods) and, lest we forget, a giant quake-zone. There's even a clutch of volcanoes. As a prosperous home for almost 40 million people, it is a place made, not begotten.
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