Rule Forty-two in Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland: "All persons more than a mile high to
leave the court"
Let’s talk about the number 42. Sure there is the rule above, and of course it’s the
answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy but it’s
also the number of children God sent bears to maul for making fun of Elisha’s
baldness. You can look it up; 2 Kings
2:23-24 (Much like Donald Trump, I don’t know if it’s pronounced Two Kings or
Second Kings. Plus to add more muck to
the rake, for some reason, it’s sometimes referred to as Fourth Kings). But putting aside how much God likes bald
people and how convoluted the numbering system in the Bible is, I’d like to point out
that 42 is also the number of seconds that the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
lasted.
The 1906
earthquake was the big one for San Francisco. Hell is was a big one for anywhere. Had it been invented, it is estimated that the Richter Scale would have
registered it as a 7.8. Making it nearly
10 times more powerful than The Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, which lasted
around 10 seconds. Although there weren’t
as many buildings or bridges in 1906, there was damage; in the Mission
District the ground dropped 8 feet. That’s
the common height of a room in our construction, which sort of means if you
were on the second floor of a building in the Mission on that day in 1906, you
were on the first floor when it was all over.
Loma Prieta collapsed an Oakland freeway, many of the buildings in the Marina
District, and broke the Bay Bridge. The difference
between these two earthquakes is like the difference between being punched
repeatedly by Duane “The Rock” Johnson for 42 seconds and punched by me for
10. What would have been left standing
after Loma Prieta if it had been 10 times stronger and lasted 4 times as long? I dunno, how much damage would The Rock’s Howitzers
inflict on you as compared to my lady Derringers?
So with that
in mind, people who build things in San Francisco understand that earthquakes
are the elephant in every room of those designs. They can happen, they do happen, and they can
be terribly strong. So I hope it was the
right decision to construct a 1,070 foot tall building called the Salesforce
Tower on Mission and First Streets. - Salesforce of course being a company that
does some stuff with some people in relation to some things. - When finished, next year, it will be the
tallest building in the city, surpassing the Transamerica Pyramid by 217 feet,
although it will not be as pointy. If
fact it’s right flat on the top, and with the “ribbed” design, it kind of looks
like an erect sand worm from Dune. I’m
secretly hoping that San Franciscans will nickname it House Atreides (Or House
Harkonnen depending on your opinion of Saleforce). You can look that up too.
If you’re
thinking that only those crazy San Franciscans would construct such a tall
building in earthquake central, don’t call the Loony Patrol just yet. Down in Los Angeles, where earthquakes are certainly
as common, they are further along on an even taller building. Although not much taller. When completed the Grand Wilshire Tower will
top out at 1,099 feet, perhaps as tall as House Atredies would be if it stuck
out its tongue. Do worms have tongues? To me the Grand Wilshire doesn’t look like
anything from Dune or any other science fiction movie. But it will be covered with thousands of LED
lights that perhaps can recreate the advertisements on the Los Angeles
buildings in Blade Runner. To me it just
kind of looks like the world’s biggest thumb drive. Unfortunately, regardless of what it
resembles, the Grand Wilshire will have to start its life under a cloud, seeing
as how a worker committed suicide by jumping off it in March.
Since these
two building are taller than anything previously constructed in California, you’re
probably wondering if you get to the top of one, can you see that other? Sorry, but at nearly 400 miles, they are far
too far apart for that. If you wanted to
see one from the other, you have to move them closer, something like…wait for
it…52 miles. I know you thought I was
going to say 42, and I did consider putting that, but I thought that was
something you might actually look up.
P.S. In all the Sundays I spent at Mass in my youth, why did
no priest ever tell the story of God’s attack bears?
