True Grit

Thursday is Sandcastle Day. With 1,100 miles of coast, California is perfect for this one, right? Well, the record was set this summer in South Carolina, where a 32 {dagger}-footer with turrets and gargoyles was built with 2 million pounds of sand. It’s standing, but Theda Jackson of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce points out: “They don’t last forever.” Joni Mitchell, at right, understands. She wrote “Song to a Seagull” in 1968: “But sandcastles crumble/And hunger is human/And humans are hungry/For worlds they can’t share/My dreams with the seagulls fly/Out of reach out of cry.”