Petroleum & Plagues
Spindletop Gusher
(The Can-Can)
On January 10, 1901, in my home town, the world changed with the discovery of an enormous oil field in East Texas. The Spindletop well gushed for nine days, creating a lake of petroleum that caught fire and exploded hundreds of feet into the air. Ignoring this warning, prospectors poured into the area, creating an Oil Rush that dwarfed the Gold Rush of California. Suddenly petroleum was cheap, and internal combustion engines were everywhere.
In the dance halls of booming Beaumont, Texas, the can-can was a popular entertainment.
Texas Maypole Dance
Only China, Germany, India, and the U.S. overall produce more wind power than Texas!!
Petroleum Polka
The temptations of oil are many.
COVID Beach Rave
This one's for everyone who ignored the lockdown of April 2020 and headed to Fort Lauderdale for spring break.
Bubonic Plague
The European Danse Macabre dates to the Late Middle Ages. This version pays homage to the French printer Guy Marchant, who published a series of woodcuts on the theme in 1485 and 1486. (These were based on a 1424-5 mural in a Paris cemetery.) Here a Queen and a Witch reluctantly join in the dance under the evil omen of an eclipse.
Malarial Plague
Commemorating the arrival in the Americas of Europeans carrying malaria and other diseases that led to the deaths of perhaps 95% of the indigenous population of the two continents.
Here in the infamous moment of their meeting, Moctezuma and Cortes are drawn into the fatal dance. The comet was one of eight evil omens foretelling the conquest by the Europeans, as recorded in the Codex Duran.
