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Thoughts from Places: Los Angeles after the Earthquake

2011-03-14 · documentary visit · John · 2:37 · watch on YouTube

Topic: World affairs (also: Personal life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: recurring series, on location, timely hook, heavy topic, fundraising ask

John recounts the Friday of the Japan earthquake and tsunami in Los Angeles (his friend Ransom's found photographs, the beach, the Venice Canals, a Beverly Hills wedding) and reflects that water connected everything that day, yet technology can never quite bridge the oceans between us.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Friday morning in Los Angeles: news of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan on the radio; John gets lost and calls Ransom (Wilshire and San Vicente)

  • ★★★ John woke in Los Angeles on Friday (11 March 2011); driving to his friend Ransom's, he heard on the radio about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, got lost in the news and had to call Ransom for directions. — 00:00:01 · Los Angeles

00:00:33 — Ransom's collection of found photographs and their stories (Dorothy's 1961 photo); Ransom's video, linked

  • ★★ John says Ransom collects thousands of found photographs taken of and by strangers and is obsessed with their stories, especially the notes on the back, such as one where Dorothy found a baby girl near the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on January 24, 1961. — 00:00:35
  • ★★ John says Ransom used such photographs to make one of the greatest YouTube videos of all time, linked in the doobly-doo. — 00:00:57 · doobly-doo

00:01:02 — The beach and a newscaster, running into the ocean in shoes, the Venice Canals on a tragic day, turtles, the freeway, the wedding

  • ★★ At the beach a newscaster said this very ocean had just devastated Japan, and John ran into the water forgetting he had shoes on. (playful) — 00:01:02
  • ★★★ Walking the Venice Canals with Ransom, John found it weird to stroll there on such a tragic day, but says all human life is lived in close proximity to tragedy. — 00:01:11
  • ★ Watching turtles, Ransom quietly asked whether it would be sad if a child's pool were enough to imprison you. — 00:01:29
  • ★★ Driving back to the hotel as the radio news got worse, John then put on a suit for a wedding reception at a home in Beverly Hills. — 00:01:37

00:01:52 — Reflection at a Beverly Hills reception: water everywhere that day; wishing to tell people across the ocean we think of them; technology can't bridge the oceans

  • ★★★ Drinking champagne by the pool, John reflected that although they were more or less in a desert, water had been everywhere that day: pool, glass, turtle pond, canals, ocean. — 00:01:52
  • ★★★ John wished there were a way for people on one side of an ocean to tell those on the other that they were thinking of them: the people of Japan, and Dorothy, who found that baby girl in 1961. — 00:02:04
  • ★★★ John says images can travel in a way thoughts cannot, and he felt sad and frustrated that technology can never quite bridge the oceans between us. — 00:02:18

00:02:31 — Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund link; welcome back from Haiti; sign-off

  • ★★ John tells Hank that a link to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund is in the doobly-doo. — 00:02:31 · doobly-doo
  • ★ John welcomes Hank back from Haiti. — 00:02:31

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Los Angeles · Ransom Riggs · Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami

Also: American Red Cross · Amsterdam · Beverly Hills, California · doobly-doo · Haiti · Japan · Venice Canal Historic District

Only in the description or credits: Thoughts from Places

Also centred on Ransom Riggs: Life is Weird. Also beautiful. · Beneath an Abandoned Hospital: Thoughts from Places · Books, Movies, and Wonder: Thoughts from a Red Carpet

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