FALL ON THE RIVERS: 2026
"Yet the leaf is the chief product and phenomenon of Life: this is a green world, with animals comparatively few and small, and all dependent upon the leaves. By leaves we live. Some people have strange ideas that they live by money. They think energy is generated by the circulation of coins. But the world is mainly a vast-leaf colony, growing on and forming a leafy soil, not a mere mineral mass: and we live not by the jingling of our coins, but by the fullness of our harvests." ~ Patrick Geddes
NOTES:
The Delta King paddlewheel boat (pictured above) has been docked at Old Sacramento for years, but one of the ironies of renting a room there to relax in autumn is that chinook salmon, the King Salmon, run at this time of year. Across the river there is a dock where a clan of sea lions hang out harvesting their share of the salmon and barking loudly from early dawn to late night. Good luck sleeping.
Before the Army Corp of Engineers, and multiple other associations and commissions, decided that the way to preserve the levees of the California Delta was to drop tons of concrete and stone riprap on the riverbanks, there was a wildness along the rivers that was astonishing. I remember swimming in a tributary of the Calaveras and seeing a gray fox in the low branches of a live oak tree watching me float by. A fox in a tree.
There was the time two huge sandhill cranes decided I was too noisy drinking a beer on the redwood bench overlooking the mud beach outside the now derelict Lost Isle bar. They rose out of a clump of tules like a hallucination and flew at me passing only inches above my head. Two birds with five-foot wing spans and not quiet about it either. I was frozen in place for a long time.
I have other stories. Fish stories, actually.
It's night. You're under the Port of Stockton wooden dock at the rice terminal netting pigeons with your crazy cousin when your flashlight hits the back of one of these monsters surfacing next to your little aluminum rowboat. Do you call out in terror as it bumps the boat, or do you decide to clamp your mouth down? Perhaps to never speak again. That sturgeon returns in my dreams.
When they built the levees and drained the land, they called it "reclaiming" the land. Scientists now write that it is one of the most extensively transformed and heavily modified estuarine ecosystems on Earth. Additionally, it holds the title of the most biologically invaded estuary in the world, containing more non-native species than native ones.
But it is not over yet. In some places, the land has sunk so low that farming is becoming unproductive and too expensive. There is talk of letting the islands flood and return to wetlands. Some of the farmers are fighting to keep their farms and their fight is one of the primary reasons that the tunnel that would divert more fresh water away from the Delta to the south has still not been constructed.
There are still wild places in these 1200 miles of waterways. You have to know where to look.
THIS MONTH'S CHARITY
Please go to this website and give what you can.
MUSIC: "Who Do You Love" by Quicksilver Messenger Service
This is the live soundtrack I recommend when you take one of the back roads into the Delta through Thornton then down West Walnut Grove Road into Locke. Grab a steak at Al The Wop's and smear peanut butter on it like you're supposed to.
If you ever had the pleasure of hearing QMS live this is the guitar stack that John Cipollina, the self-proclaimed guitar gunfighter, invented using horns from Leslie speakers. There were sounds coming through this stack that defied physics.
My best friend, Pat Craig, liked to take three of us in his bug Volks down these empty roads at night playing this music. Happy Trails, Pat. If you happen to see this and thanks for the ride.
BOOKS: "Get In The Cab" by Joe Donohoe
I have a humble prediction. It will be books like this that save us from AI slop. Joe Donohoe is an honest, preceptive, and articulate writer. The kind of poet who read at slams in San Francisco dives. This is a book written by someone who knows The City. This was such a refreshing read. I have no photo of the author so I offer the back cover:
Highly recommended. It's available on Amazon.
SCREEN: "Blade Runner 2049" directed by Denis Villeneuve
Sometimes some scrap of screenwriting genius comes along that makes me happy. I know I'm late to this party as I have been told that what I am about to describe is a known film cult thing, but a recent review of the novel "Pale Fire" brought this to my attention. In "Blade Runner 2049" the protagonist played by Ryan Gosling must recite verses from a poem to determine if he is baseline stable and not to be executed. The poem verses used from the novel are written by the fictional poet John Shade:
A sun of rubber was convulsed and set;
And blood-black nothingness began to spin
A system of cells interlinked within
Cells interlinked within cells interlinked
Within one stem. And dreadfully distinct
Against the dark, a tall white fountain played.
The poem is from the novel by "Pale Fire" by Vladimir Nabokov. This so-called baseline test uses lines from Canto Three (lines 703-707) of the poem central to the plot. In the novel a scholar obsessed with the author of this poem may have murdered the poet. Or maybe not. As used in this movie, it is a perfect echo of the book.
In my opinion "Pale Fire" was Nabokov's puzzle novel, his answer to James Joyce, whose "Ulysses" he professed to dislike. But honestly, the poem in the novel amazes me. It has a T.S. Eliot authority. But it's a satire, right? The word play in it is next level so it must be a joke, right? Check out this obsessive and notice her smile. Is it a parody? I have no idea, but for me, the poem is haunting and strange and perfect for the film.
Composer Nils Vigeland set the entire 999-line poem to music in a solo piano work. It's a challenging piece: https://www.nilsvigeland.com/catalog/pale-fire
Frankly, I think the band Disturbed should take a swing at it.
MUSIC: "The Sound of Silence" by Disturbed
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