In Defense of Joan Didion, With Respect to L.A. Water

Catherine Mulholland, in making her case against “Mulholland’s Dream,� (“Water and Power--and Accuracy,� Calendar, June 23) takes shots at Jon Else, who made the documentary, at Marc Reisner, the author of “Cadillac Desert,� on which the show is based, and at Kevin Starr and Robert Towne, who supply commentary. So far, so good: Take a stand, take the shot; it goes with the territory. But then Mulholland goes into the ether, as if needing another name, and says: “All that’s lacking is Joan Didion murmuring about the Nothingness of it all.�

Say again.

Didion has written about California water in the most reverential, even worshipful, terms (see “Holy Water,� “The White Album,� both Simon & Schuster): “I particularly like to think of it as it cascades down the 45-degree stone steps that aerate Owens water after its airless passage through the mountain pipes and siphons. . . . As it happens my own reverence for water has always taken the form . . . of an obsessive interest not in the politics of water, but in the waterworks themselves. . . . I know the data on water projects I will never see . . . the tailrace at Hoover on the Colorado, the surge tank in the Tehachapi Mountains that receives California Aqueduct water pumped higher than water has ever been pumped before. . . . “

So much for Nothingness. I doubt even William Mulholland was that loony over water movement.

Catherine Mulholland is determined to salvage the reputation of her grandfather, a complicated and compromised man, perhaps even a great one, and if she takes a tendentious whack at my wife, she’s entitled. Howard Rosenberg is not. A middle-aged Pulitzer Prize winner with access to Nexis and browsers and search engines does not take a cheap shot without getting called on it.

Not to call him on it would be Nothingness.