[phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 112: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead ¤ milky moon ¤ • View topic - Swansea
If you're driving from northern California (say, Nevada City) to Death Valley, you'll probably want to end up on the CA-136. It's a state route that goes from Lone Pine to the 190, which will take you into the park. The eighteen-mile shortcut doesn't pass much, and what it does is so small you might miss it in a dust storm: a few mining trucks, the unincorporated towns of Alico and Keeler, and Swansea.
Swansea looks to have a population of around six, though Wikipedia a ghost town. One side of the road has the few lived-in looking houses and a "Welcome to Swansea" sign. The other side has a few abandoned shacks and a historical marker that must be among the least-read of its kind. Who would stop here other than a member of this message board? Strange rocks dot the sand: lavender glass, hunks of ore, rusted hinges.
makes sense here. It's about man's inordinate ambition [1] ("", "And all these beastly bungalows…"), and how little comes of it [2] (All these ghost towns). Swansea is a gold rush town that peaked around 1870. It was once on the shore of Owens Lake. Though it's still called Owens Lake, the "lake" has been mostly dry since its source was diverted to Los Angeles in the 1920s. All the ambition of those who lived here is dust swirling in the desiccated lakebed.
[1] a theme she would revisit more deeply in [2] For more ambition turned to dust, see ----------- Me, excited to be in Swansea
The friends I was on the road trip with. You can get an idea of the terrain.
The historical marker.
Transcript: "The Owens Lake Silver-lead furnace and mill were built here by Colonel Sherman Stevens in 1869 and used until March 1874. James Brady assumed their operation in 1870 for the Silver-Lead Company and built the town of Swansea. During the next few years the output of this furnace and one at Cerro Gordo was around 150 bars of silver, each weighing 83 pounds, every 24 hours."
Abandoned shacks
Calico and Buttonwillow, also mentioned in the song, are near Swansea but were out of our way. Maybe next time!
This is one of my absolute favourite Mender songs, and the pictures are lovely. The landscape certainly does look chewed up, huh? The roughly hewn stone monument, the dust-filled lake, the earth, where sand collides with scrub and shaly soil - the soil is particularly interesting, as it evokes the 'old loam' of the song, the town seemingly 'wreathed' with rubble and debris. All the photographs seem so desolate. I particularly like the one with the pylons passing overhead - as if civilisation is passing the towns by.
I wonder - are there train tracks nearby? I presume there probably are, but are they still operative? One of my favourite images in the song is about the 'freight trains pounding at the wild, wild night' - I just get this overwhelming sense of being in a starlit Swansea, sitting on the stoop of this rotted bungalow and staring across the boundless, dusty landscape as these huge, clattering trains rush blindly past in the distance. It would be nice to know if such an image could be realised
I believe that Swansea is actually named after the Swansea in Wales. When I first heard The Milk-Eyed Mender I thought she had written a song about the original Swansea, so I was quite excited, being a Welshman and all. There is also a Cardiff-by-the-Sea in California, which is named after the capital city of Wales, my home.
They are some great pictures. I'd realised that Swansea was an abandoned (or not quite abandoned, as we now know from the above) mining town, but did not know that Calico and Buttonwillow were, too. Swansea and Cassiopeia have been the least accessible tracks on MEM for me, but I've recently warmed to the latter, and these pictures and Andrewb's text suddenly make Swansea seem all the more apt. Thank you.
@Andrew There surely was a railroad "nearby" to ship the silver, borax, and whatever else was mined, but out west that could mean over a hundred miles. I didn't see anything in particular though.
@zygoticmynci Yes I believe you're right. I thought the song was about the town in Wales at first as well, since it was the first thing Google brought up. One woman from a nearby town pronounced it like "swan see", Joanna sings "swan see-a", and it looks like the one in Wales is pronounced yet a third way.
calling it by the welsh name would be wrong because its a different place, not in wales.
i read that a lot of people from swansea (wales) moved out there because of their mining experience and decided to name the place swansea, i'd be interested to know how those welsh roots developed out there and if any other parts of welsh culture were exported with the people but i dont think it would be easy to find since it was so long ago and it is now so deserted
I pronounce it Swan-see too (of course, since I'm British ), so I always assumed it was just a little vocal inflection to fit the melody. Joanna's pronunciation is fairly unconventional sometimes ('end' in Jackrabbits and 'doggone' in Ribbon Bows are are a couple examples off the top of my head) so the '-yah!' sound could just be a result of that.
I hope it isn't definitively pronounced swan-see-yah, because I'd feel a little ridiculous saying it
I knew there would be tracks somewhere, but if they were visibly operational - even from a distance - it would help my visualisation of the song. I don't really understand whether the narrative is about coming on down to swansea (with your bones so bright) to watch the freight trains, then moving on, or whether Swansea is a more transitory stop on the road trip, with the place they 'come on down' too being a different scene altogether (or even a solely metaphorical scene), perhaps the destination or where they start from. It's a little cryptic!
Also, if you ever go to Assateague island, perhaps you could take pictures there!
ah fair enough! I've heard of the welsh speakers in PA, and ye, it is a bit crazy, i think the language thrives more in some places outside of wales than it does in some places here, especially swansea and the south-east. theres at least one place known for keeping the language alive outside of wales, i think its somewhere in Argentina
There was a big migration of Welsh people to Argentina when that country was in need of the mining expertise possessed in Wales, and I believe a similar thing happened with Cornish people going to Central America. I haven't checked this, but knowing California had its gold-rush era, perhaps it was the same there.
I believe the Welsh-speaking community continues to thrive in Patagonia, Argentina, and I recall hearing of some gnashing of teeth when a number of its inhabitants were required to take up arms against the UK during the Falklands War.
havent got time to read it properly now, skimming through i notice its not all in great detail but it does mention a lot of things i didnt know, and i noticed in a list of place names that it lists 6 different swansea's in america (i dont know how many are still about)
also while skimming i saw that apparently the roof of the whitehouse was made in ponterdawe
Thanks for that. That was really interesting. According to Wikipedia, there have been at least eight US Presidents with Welsh ancestry, including Obama. I live in Cardiff, by the way. The home of Doctor Who.
@ Steve
Yes, there's a large Welsh community in Patagonia, who speak Welsh with a Spanish accent. Would love to hear that!
Two more tidbits: - The Welshmen who named Swansea, CA may have done so because it was "coastal" like the original - JN mentions salt flats in Only Skin. This image may have been influenced by the ones she saw in Death Valley. http://www.nps.gov/deva/naturescience/salt-flats.htm