APOCALYPSE

We love to talk about the death of this and the fall of that, and to boast that we are there to witness it. We do like to feel special.

A great enough disaster cancels all enmities, and calls upon the utmost concentration of the earth's resources.

The time to save people from a tsunami is before it happens

But alongside the hopeful fantasy of moral simplification and international unity embodied in the science fiction films, lurk the deepest anxieties about contemporary existence. I don't mean only the very real trauma of the Bomb—that it has been used, that there are enough now to kill everyone on earth many times over, that those new bombs may very... See more

We practiced sight fishing — looking for light ripples on the surface that indicate activity below. (Rodríguez called it “nervous water.”)

In her 2021 novel Fake Accounts, Lauren Oyler pokes fun at what she sees as a propensity to wallow in self-loathing and impotence: “the popular turn to fatalism could be attributed to self-aggrandizement and an ignorance of history, history being characterized by the population’s quickness to declare apocalypse finally imminent despite its permanen... See more

These are the questions that make the genre fizz: do we expect the end of the world? Do we deserve it? Do we secretly long for it? What would we miss and what would we love to banish to oblivion?

With the current preparedness levels of Oregon, we can anticipate being without services and assistance for at least two weeks, if not longer, when the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake occurs. While this will be difficult to overcome, individuals, businesses, schools, government and communities can take steps to prepare. Take action now by activ... See more

Rodríguez talked a lot about survival math — being mindful not to expend more energy than you would consume.