Hi friends,
I write to you this week from Nevada City, California, where I'm attending the Wild & Scenic Film Festival to screen the short documentary I directed and produced, To Be Rich.
Nevada City is an old Gold Rush town of about 3,100 people in the Sierra Nevada foothills, about an hour from Sacramento. Above is an image of a Pelton waterwheel, which was invented here, specifically to make gold mining more efficient. The design was imagined by Lester A. Pelton, who failed to strike it rich in California when he came West from Ohio as a prospector in 1850. Two decades later, his water wheel made him a wealthy man.
Waterwheels are ancient technology, little improved upon until Pelton innovated the design in the 1870s and ushered in the era of modern hydroelectric power in the American West and beyond. His design made rich mine owners even wealthier by making it more efficient to pump water out of deep gold mines and to power mining equipment.
Today, someone who saw my film asked me about fracking and how the technologies developed during the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota made drilling for oil even more efficient. I wanted to write more about the parallels between fracking innovations and Pelton's turbine, but I've been having some connectivity issues here—my phone barely works and there's no Wi-Fi at the otherwise charming place where I'm staying.
At first I was annoyed, because how could I post about my film festival experience on Instagram, hah?! And how would I get The Windfall Dispatch out today? But I'm leaning into being just a little off the grid this weekend. I'm taking in other people's work. I'm watching nature and science and climate films and chatting with people about them. It's been inspiring for my next project. Turns out that maybe I needed to be a little disconnected for a few days.
One of the cool things about the Wild & Scenic Festival is that they take their film selections on tour all over the country. So far, I’ve loved Losing Blue, Algorithms of Beauty and JoJo - A Toad Musical. If you have a chance, check them out. You may even catch To Be Rich on the bill!
Until next week,
Erika