Los+Angeles+I+BD

Brittany Douthwright - Los Angeles Against the Mountains I Again, this was an interesting article. But one thing was different about this one than Sunken City and I compare it to this because I just read it. This article carries extreme amount of detail in the lead, almost too much in fact. It is hard for the reader to recognize the topic, because its not there until the second paragraph. Here is an example of the intense detail in the lead: “On down the slopes and all the way to the canyons was a thicket of varied shrubs that changed in character as altitude fell but was everywhere dense enough to stop an army. On its lower levels, it was all green, white, and yellow with buckwheat, burroweed, lotus and sage, deerweed, bindweed, yerba santa. There were wild morning glories, Canterbury bells, tree tobacco, miner’s lettuce. The thicket’s resistance to trespass, while everywhere formidable, stiffened considerably as it evolved upward. There were intertwining mixtures of manzanita, California lilac, scrub oak, chamise. There was buckthorn. There was mountain mahogany. Generally evergreen, the dark slopes were splashed here and there with dodder, its mustard color deepening to rust. Blossoms of the Spanish bayonet stood up like yellow flames.” Although there are good visuals here of color and nature, but at the same time, you are thinking ok, what’s the point to this story? This is definitely a common aspect in McPhee’s writing, and I like it sometimes, while other times, it can be a little over done. There was one powerful image that stuck in my head: ““Humidity drops very close to zero. According to Charles Colver, of the United States Forest Service, “moisture evaporates off your eyeballs so fast you have to keep blinking.”” I thought to include this was pretty neat. I am beginning to notice how McPhee often comes up with cool images like this one. Besides all this, before reading this article, I had absolutely no idea what “ Chaparral” is, and now I know. According to McPhee, this plant is responsible to many forest fires in certain areas of the world. What I found most interesting about this, was the fact that this is nature threatening nature, not humans threatening nature.