{"id":20,"date":"2005-04-15T17:08:13","date_gmt":"2005-04-15T21:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/desultor\/2005\/04\/15\/the-joy-of-semi-licit-destruction\/"},"modified":"2005-04-15T17:08:13","modified_gmt":"2005-04-15T21:08:13","slug":"the-joy-of-semi-licit-destruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/2005\/04\/15\/the-joy-of-semi-licit-destruction\/","title":{"rendered":"The Joy of Semi-Licit Destruction"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

As I was walking to get a sandwich for lunch, I saw a cracked-open lighter lying on the sidewalk – the long kind, like you use for a barbecue or fireplace. I wondered why someone would have done that, and a block later was still enveloped in my own fantasies of somehow saving the day (maybe it’s cold or something?), despite people’s fretful cautions, by using a jackknife (but which one?!) to incise my party’s last lighter at both ends, get the butane out with minimal spillage, and get the life-saving fire started…<\/p>\n

My reverie was interrupted by the sight of a small, low cloud of smoke on a sidestreet. It was coming from an apartment building’s knee-high keep-off-the-grass hedgerow; it looked like the mulch was smoldering somewhat vigorously. A guy, of grad student age and mien, was alternating between desultorily poking at the smokier spots with his foot and looking at his cell phone.<\/p>\n

Desi<\/b> (approaching)<\/i>: Is everything all right?
\nGuy<\/b>: Uh, this seems to be kind of on fire.
\nDesi<\/b>: Yeah, looka that, that one bush is actually burning! Well, with the mulch (starting to edge the smoldering mulch onto the sidewalk with a shoe corner)<\/i> the smolder travels underneath, you see, (stepping into hedge to kick more lustily and effectively)<\/i> you gotta get the whole layer away. (Really ripping into it now – almost no mulch remains – kicking the burning bush to knock the burning parts off)<\/i>
\nOld Lady Walking By<\/b>: That’s beautiful.
\nDesi<\/b>: Huh?
\nOld Lady<\/b>: (nods head toward flowerbed further back in yard)<\/i>
\nDesi<\/b>: Oh, aren’t they lovely? I don’t work here though – we just noticed this mulch was smoldering, so we were getting it onto the concrete.
\nOld Lady<\/b> (walking off)<\/i>: Well, you’ve done a good deed, young man!<\/p>\n

The Guy left after a bit too, and I cleaned up the last little bits. After watching the remains of the mulchbed for a minute or two for any other signs of smoke, I decided to go a half-block further, order my sandwich, and check again for smoke when I’d placed the order. Just at that moment, I heard sirens in the distance. Fearing cops, I started to walk away at a normal pace, trying not to look back or fixate too much on the horizon.<\/p>\n

The sirens passed me – they belonged to a firetruck – and I could hear them turn the corner and stop where I had been standing. At this point, I began to regret fleeing the scene, on the theory that I might be able to tell them something useful. So I went back.<\/p>\n

Desi<\/b>: That mulch was just burning.
\nSurly Boston Fireman<\/b>: That’s what we’re here for.
\nDesi<\/b>: I sort of kicked it onto the sidewalk.
\nS.B.F.<\/b>: (nods coldly)<\/i>
\nDesi<\/b>: (nods and walks away)<\/i><\/p>\n

Fifteen minutes later, sandwich in hand, I walked back by. The firemen were still there, drinking coffee and keeping an eye on the mulch.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I was walking to get a sandwich for lunch, I saw a cracked-open lighter lying on the sidewalk – the long kind, like you use for a barbecue or fireplace. I wondered why someone would have done that, and a block later was still enveloped in my own fantasies of somehow saving the day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}