HAVE never stood at the mouth of a volcano or watched one erupt in real time, thank God, but whenever I come across footage of one at its best, which is to also say at its absolute worst and most destructive, I am in awe. At well over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit, that river of lava flowing down a mountainside is beyond scorching hot, destroying everything in its path, leaving only rubble and char in its wake—and yet, how beautiful? An incandescent hellfire, pulsating
