Mike Davis

[ursus arctos]

I am interested to hear your reaction to Solnit's Infinite Atlas. I found it worth reading.

[Flynnie]

Yeah, I flicked through it on Google Books and saw enough that I purchased it. I vaguely recall flipping through it years ago and dismissing it as one of those "fun with maps" type books that Millennials like me just ate up but were thin gruel. That may have been a mistake.

[Incandenza]

Mike's widow discusses the ofrenda they had for him:

https://archive.ph/6v7SH

We thought you would still be with us through Christmas, but recently you were wavering whether you wanted to be around to find out the results of this November election. I know you’d be happy that Lula won. On this Día de los Muertos, your kids and I honor and remember you with this:
Besides the formal portrait, there are pictures of our travel adventures:
Standing by the “Utopia” sign that we found driving around New Zealand in the middle of nowhere.
With your raised fist by graffiti that says “Revolt” in a yard in New York. You always favored wearing red.
Capturing your interest for geology: in front of an escarpment in Newfoundland.
There are some of your favorite things:
A portrait of FDR
An IWW patch
A bust of Engels
The plumerias from our years in Papa’aloa, Hawaii
Your glasses. Your Speedball pen, which you always left uncapped
There’s the traditional flowers, cempasuchitl, water and salt. And the drinks and foods you loved:
Oatmeal, because you were a good Irish
Mexican hot chocolate
Irish cream (the Costco one was cheaper and better than Bailey’s)
And Coke Zero with the anarchist red and black
We imagine you driving in your Ford truck on a road with thousand-foot drops. Searching for that eclogite metamorphic rock, and listening to Coltrane as you turn the bend.

Also, Jon Wiener shared this on Facebook:

Simon Leung is a professor in the art department at UCI:
“Decades ago, before one of the dozens of free movies I frequently attended at Melnitz Hall at the northern most tip of the UCLA campus, I didn't have enough money to buy what was without doubt an unhealthy snack at the vending machines that used to line the alley between Melnitz and McGowan Halls. I don’t know how he knew this, but a guy without prompting just gave me a dollar and told me to pay him back next time. Did he mean next time we, two random strangers, were going to run into each other? How would I ever pay him back? A lot of people are writing tributes to him, but I just want to let you know that besides being the beloved Mike Davis who woke minds and changed lives with his words; who wrote about the disenfranchised and the dispossessed of the city he loved into the consciousness of millions, he was a guy who would give a dollar to someone he thought needed it and say, pay me back next time.”

[Satchmo Distel]

Tribute and analysis:

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcas...=1000586118580