Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm. The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. I have recently launched a newsletter. You can subscribe to it at thememorypalacepodcast.substack.com. Music Sincerely Yours by LLLL Across the Other Side by Infinite Scale Sunset by Resavoir Mammoth by Golden Brown Unassigned by Vernon Spring Swimming by Explosions in the Sky Pure (Ride the World) by The Brendan Eder Ensemble Le Tunnel by Sylvain Chauveau Floating Away by Lullatone Notes There's a ton written about Emma Rowena Gatewood but so much of it, including this story, owes a huge debt to Ben Montgomery's book, Grandma Gatewood's Walk, which excavated the story of her life with her husband. Besides that, it is wonderfully written. Totally recommend it.
Hey, before we get started today, I want to let folks know that I'm feeling extraordinarily lucky in these last days.
I live in Los Angeles.
Our house is at the foot of Griffith park, which is a glorious place, just like a miracle of a thing and a gift to all of us who live in this beautiful, strange city.
Rarely has the phrase, there but for the grace of God go I resonated more than it has in these last several days.
It is honestly shocking that some stray ember blown from the two major fires that are still going on in our area a week later didn't land in the park or on our neighbor's roof.
You know, blown on the hundred mile an hour winds that blew for like 24 hours, as so many embers did in so many neighborhoods all around us.
Friends from other places who don't live in Los Angeles have written to ask if we are okay.
And this is a phenomenon that Angelenos know well.
There will be a fire or an earthquake or some sort of unrest, and a relative will call and ask if you're all right.
And you will shrug and say, yeah, this city is huge.
That happened miles and miles away.
We're totally fine this time.
No one here is fine.
We know a small handful of people who live in the Palisades.
Each one of them has lost their homes.
And every day we are finding out about people we know in Altadena who no longer have a place to live or to work.
If you living somewhere else are thinking, boy, this has looked terrible.
I can assure you that it is.
But we are safe and the sky for the moment is clear.
But our friends and our neighbors and our city suffers.