Basin Complex Fire: Commemorative Slide-Show at the Henry Miller Memorial Library

William Wordsworth says that poetry is "emotion recollected in tranquillity."

Three years after the Basin Complex Fire, I'm not sure "tranquillity" is exactly what I feel...

But I've seen the early, prototype version of Magnus Torén's commemorative slide-show of the Basin Complex Fire — and it is definitely poetic. It features the photography of over 30 local photographers, accompanied by smart, lively musical twists and turns.

Magnus' slide-show isn't only a past-tense retrospective on the fire. But rather it takes us on a new journey through so many of the emotions we felt three years ago — and it helps us experience that journey in a new light. That is, it helps our own recollection, in the deepest sense of that word.

As The Henry Miller Memorial Library puts it themselves: "The hope is that the slide show will bring back memories and that we will have time afterwards to share with each other some of our personal stories."

This journal might have looked sleepy lately — but actually there's been alot of behind-the-scenes work going on. I've been interviewing and reading through paper records pertaining to the Mescal Ridge firebreak that protected the communities in and around Palo Colorado Canyon during the Basin Fire.

Much new information — and many new questions — have been coming up. I'll report on all this as a few more details begin to coalesce.

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Note

The photograph for HMML's slide-show announcement is by Kodiak Greenwood.