The LA Times news stories time out after 7 days, but their latest printed story and much more about Mono Lake can be found at the website of the folks who rescued it, the Save Mono Lake Committee: http://www.monolake.org There's a documentary called The Battle for Mono Lake (1998) available. "Krakatoa: East of Java" -- If you stand at the edge of the lake and look through binoculars at the small mountain on the larger island, you'll see that much of the face is actually false, a Hollywood set-maker's fake surface hiding chambers from where fake lava was poured out of smoking holes as the top blew off the peak. Enlarged, it served as the set for the eruption in the South Pacific in 1883. I think a normal tourist is not permitted on the islands. (According to North Dakota scholars, the 1883 Krakatoa event all by itself caused a global warming season that raised temps 1.2C degrees, the effect lasting 5 years before the world's temp returned to "normal." (http://volcano.und.nodak.edu) Twain certainly witnessed the unusual skies, but I don't recall if/what he wrote about them.) (The featured 1883 eruption was a piker, though, compared to the greater Krakatoa (Krakatau) one of 535 A.D., which was credited in a PBS special with bringing on the Dark Ages, and at least partially causing the defeat and ouster of the Celts across Europe, among its other victims. Find more in (http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/history/535ad.htm)) Mono Lake's watershed is the northernmost source of water for the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which stole much of the Sierra Nevada east slope water, subject of Roman Polanski's "Chinatown," but wasn't part of the filmscript. The lake today sits 34 feet below its level when LA started the grab. By court order, it will gain back 8 of those. A minor film that featured Mono Lake was a feature-length art/narrative film named "Shoot the Whale," by San Francisco/Oakland filmmaker Philip Makanna. A lonely, un-named man pursues a red-haired, attractive chimera-like female at Mono, Death Valley, Hoover Dam and a range of great sand dunes in Nevada. The music & satire group East Bay Sharks kept popping up in all unusual spots, Mono included. I played the lonely man, and damned near drowned in that alkali lake during a storm while rowing a leaky boat to the island. The film, though entertaining and deep (at least to Philip) never found a distributor. It did have a lot of good footage of the lake and its islands. Film schools here and there bought prints, I believe. From what the locals told us, the Hollywood people did so much damage during the Krakatoa shooting they wouldn't ever be invited back. There must be other films and music videos that have used the gorgeous Mono scenery. Now there's an almost live webcam, updated every 5 minutes, for those who long for a look at the lake, on the monolake.org page. There is a Mono County film commission that should know of any other filming at the lake. Richard R, in San Francisco.