Deep Horizon Reconsidered

It’s been three weeks since we left New Orleans, and while things change, it seems little has changed. BP is coming closer and closer to the truth in reporting the flow rate of the underground leak. NOAA has confirmed the presence of widely dispersed subsurface oil plumes, but with the few vessels they have, it will take a while to get a good estimate for the quantity of that oil. Plaquemines parish is getting absolutely thromped by encroaching oil slick. As the crude works its way into the coastal marshes, the remaining hurricane protection provided by them becomes even more precarious. In a twist of fate, the network of oil pipelines and infrastructure in the marshes already endangered by changes in silt deposition patters of the delta, are further jeopardized by the death of the native wetlands (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100525-gulf-oil-spill-pipelines-science-environment/). The loss of the bayou to the sea is bound to leave a watery world even more watery, the bayou has always been barely above the sea, miles and miles of marshland are all that the eye can see, where oil rigs and raised houses are often the only relief in the landscape.

The initial images available through google have become sparser as MODIS quality images have been hard to get. The slick has danced back and forth, washing over the Grand Isle area and swinging to the Alabama coast. Nobody knows what the long term consequences will be in particular, but its sure to be devastating. It’s pretty much assumed that BP’s rationale behind using massive amounts of the toxic dispersant Corexit was to minimize the visibility of the spill, including allegations of providing profits for some of its own subsidiaries. One thing is for certain, the flow of the underwater leak is at least 15,000 a day, and easily double, or triple that; nobody ‘legitimate,’ a term that has become increasingly loaded, seems to have anything definitive. The independent assessments made by Prof. Wereley at Purdue University, using particle tracking on video provided by BP (source NPR), of a 40,000 to 90,000 barrel a day range now seem the most appropriate. Given the variability in flow and natural gas composition, its hard to get an exact number, but given the seeming unstoppability of the leak, and BP’s continued ability to extract marketable raw petroleum, it seems they tapped into something way bigger than they were technologically able to handle, much less control in the face of disaster.

An increasingly disturbing phenomenon, dead, un-oiled wildlife has been washing up on gulf beaches. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Both Corexit 9500 and 9527 (the older ‘more’ toxic version) have been banned in the UK due to their acute toxicity to all levels of animal life in the marine food chain. The Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS sheets required under federal law commercially available chemical substances) for Corexit list its acutely toxic effects as causing damage to the central nervous system, and chronic exposure can cause kidney, liver and red blood cell damage. Corexit 9527 contains between 30-60 % butoxyethanol (otherwise known as ethylene glycol mono-butyl ether), similar to pure ethylene glycol which has been discontinued for use as an antifreeze due to its danger to human health. A peer reviewed study from the Journal of Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety authored by Michael Singer and others (1996), showed no significant difference between Corexit 9500 and 9527 in terms of its acute toxicity, measured by LD50 (Lethal Dose at which 50% of the test organism dies), in controlled laboratory experiments. The fact that the MSDS sheets for Corexit 9500 do not include these data (they state that no ecotoxicological studies have been performed) also seems a bit fishy.

What to do then? BP’s PR oriented response, and the slowness of its final ‘effective’ response, in terms of drilling relief wells which will allow plugging the original leaking well, displays dangerous ineffectiveness of the regulation of these companies. How is it, that in Norway, where deep water drilling is a common practice, companies are required to drill a relief well before oil extraction can take place? Also, how is it that these dispersants are banned in the EU? The wild cat era of oil exploration in the States aside (an era where development rights fell to the discover of ‘black gold’ with little or no government regulation), it seems we are teetering on the edge of a global crisis in terms of the lack of regulation on a highly destructive extractive industry.

The little publicized fight of indigenous peoples seeking reparations from Texaco’ (now Chevron’s) oil drilling operations in the Ecuadorian rain forest (http://chevrontoxico.com/) is also signals our failure as a market (a role secondary to that of Americans, or any nationality for that matter, as a people, a fact that we often forget) to demand minimal environmental and social standards for companies that sell their wares in the US. Likewise, oil drilling in the Niger Delta (a significant percentage of which is managed by Shell Petroleum), has led to an estimated 100 million barrels of oil being leaked between 1960 and 2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_the_Niger_Delta), an amount approximately twice the middle of the road estimate (3 million gallons a day) of the to date estimate (July 7th) for the Deep Horizon spill. Many local people in the Niger Delta have joined or are in support of a loose coalition, or ‘idea’ known as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a militant organization that often kidnaps foreign oil company workers and ransoms them, though their connection between hijackers of pipelines is not clear in the general chaos of the delta (an evolving story on the current state of the conflict can be found here: http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/38005 and here: http://www.dawodu.com/okonta2.htm)

As a species, we tend to focus on the real visceral consequences of environmental disasters, earthquakes, oil spills, volcanic eruptions, burning rivers etc… But even when these visceral examples exist, of blatant mismanagement resulting in environmental and social catastrophe, why does so little change? Is the old Dead Kennedy’s maxim, give me convenience or give me death, more powerful than any existing sense of social ethics? Could we really have become so crass as to ignore the environmental and social damages associated with fossil fuel extraction, and mining of many types, or can we blame the lack of well-publicized information of our inaction? Has the mythos of the necessity of constant economic expansion so pervaded the social consciousness that is simply not cool or valuable to care about where the raw materials of the economy come from?

In the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine he writes on the efficacy of three brother physicians: “the first brother would often leave his province to perform complicated surgeries on great rulers, his name was known throughout the kingdom and he was thought of as a great physician. The second brother prepared herbal concoctions and potions, and would practice acupuncture on imbalanced people to prevent the acute emergence of disease, he often left the house in his work and reached some renown in the town and province. As for the third brother, he sought harmony in his own life so as to prevent the disease far before its emergence, through wu wei (which can be interpreted as action at a distance, or as correct living, or both) he kept the healthy healthy, no one knew his name.” Our sense of drama attracts us to disaster, and it is difficult to praise those, or even find those, that keep us out of disaster that is not yet visible to the human psyche. Oddly enough routine discharges of oil from its consumption (including land based consumption and refinery losses) is on average three times more than any accidental discharge of oil (http://oils.gpa.unep.org/facts/sources.htm). This little known fact says something important about our psychology of disaster. The scarier thing is the uncertainty associated with the NRC estimates, their total range being 3,431,000 to 61,320,000 barrels of oil discharged into the sea yearly. Even though these discharges are distributed throughout the oceans, they contribute significantly to the general stress of the oceans via agricultural runoff, dumping of toxic waste, human waste, household trash, you name it, not to mention overfishing, nursery destruction and alterations to patterns of fresh water inputs to estuarine systems, the damages read like a litany.

At its current lower end estimate, the spill is approaching .5% of our 19,498,000 barrels/day national oil usage. Our motor gasoline usage in the states, amounts to some 8,989,000 barrels/day. The amount of refinable gasoline in a barrel of crude runs from 5 to 28 gallons on average (remember a barrel is 42 gallons), the rest being used to produce various needed organic molecules and other industrial products. Secondary refining is the bread and butter of much of the region that spans far eastern Texas to New Orleans.

Driving to a beach north of Malibu, we used up maybe 5 gallons of gas, or about 1/8th of a barrel of gas. On the way back we were in stop and go traffic for upwards of an hour, the gasoline fumes rising around us as fuel efficiency dropped precipitously. Earlier, at the beach, I uncovered a small pancake of of tar, which according to a friend of mine, is a phenomenon becoming more common in recent weeks on the LA beaches. It could be he’s just started to notice them more, or the spill in the gulf intensified drilling activities on the California shelf, in either case it is there, the palm sized sticky spot on the beach having washed in from far out to sea.

DC to Louisville

[February, 12]

After a few days of playing in the homeland of Sara and the DCians, including cross country skiing in the park, in the street and through yards, we’ve got a date to make: it’s Poppy’s (Sara’s Grandfather) birthday and we’re to make BLTs and cake. Aya la vida. The federal government has been shut down for a week and the streets are finally being cleared into all their nooks and crannies.

We bound out of the three foot snow drifts of DC, snow tires spinning like a cat out of the bag. We are headed west, to the gateway of the west really, home-turf of William Clark and Daniel Boone. Our journey was relatively uneventful, we stopped in cumberland for some din din, and caught up on the century old tale of the steamboats that used to provide partial service to New Orleans from Maryland. We’ve crossed over the subcontinental divide.

Its all downhill from there, but there is a long way to go. Its ten or so, and we’ve just hit the border of KY. I can’t remember the rest, except for the refineries you hit when you pass through Charlotte WV and again coming into Kentucky. This is coal country, and these are the tail ends of mountain top removal.

Terrebonne Parish

“Disasters like these are a form of shock treatment social networking,” Polik said at the end of the previous post. Besides the visit to Grand Isle, our days in the bayou were spent in Terrebonne Parish with a social network of artists who have been creating a mythical disaster for nearly three months. This past week their world collided with the growing presence of networks struggling to document, survey and control a disaster that is tragically real. 

The town of Montegut and greater Terrebonne Parish is the staging ground for a Court 13 film tentatively entitled “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” ”Beasts” expands upon “Glory at Sea”, a Court 13 short that won an award from Wolphin (journal of digital media put out by McSweeney’s). The general trajectory of both films involves tragedy, disaster, deluge and salvation. While unspecific to any particular time or place, both films’ scenery clearly evokes the hurricane-damaged landscape of coastal Louisiana. “Glory at Sea” also references New Orleanian cultures in accent and aesthetic and music. The city’s destroyed and abandoned Six Flags amusement park shows up in the background of one shot. Watch at www.court13.com.

Terrebonne Parish is a county of fisherman and shrimpers and oil rig crew. Montegut is nothing more a couple of gas stations and bars, surrounded by neighborhoods of trailer homes and small suburban brick structures. As you head south towards the marsh, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell where one person’s land ends and another’s begins. Multiple RVs and trailers clutter one lot. Quite a few fishing boats sit half-sunk and filthy, still tethered to the side of the channel. Many people keep chickens, some have horses. Fishing is a way of life here — everywhere else I’ve seen few women fishing, but in Montegut I spotted a group of young teenage girls sitting in a row along one of the canal’s foot bridges, each with a pole in the water. Beyond the Points Aux Chenes marina, a long single-lane causeway of eroding concrete leads out to a barrier island crowded with forty structures cobbled together from parts of trailers and RVs and weather-worn wood. One of the film’s sets is under construction out here, and it is barely distinguishable from the debris and ramshackle structures surrounding it.

On Wednesday, Andrea Sorrenti and her husband Jaime unloaded over a ton of hair at the dilapidated old gas station that serves as the film’s headquarters. A stylist with her own salon that uses only petroleum-free products, Andrea has been amassing the hair donations of her clients for years. She used to send them straight to Matter of Trust, a California-based organization that stuffs the hair into nylon hose (donated by the thick-legged community of San Francisco transvestites who stretch the hose to the ideal girth) and then uses the natural sponges to sop up oil on beaches. BP’s crisis response department had originally led Matter of Trust to believe that they would be brought into the fold of the clean-up effort, but then its media department publicly denied collaboration. As the organization’s materials and nation-wide volunteer network sat idle, Andrea took out a storage space in a warehouse and kept on collecting hair, spending hours and hours stuffing the hair into nylons to get it ready for transport and use. 

Meanwhile in Terrebonne Parish, the oil offshore continued approaching and the booms BP promised to the Native American tribe at Point Aux Chenes remained undelivered. One of the film’s fifty+ crew got in touch with Matter of Trust to offer them local contacts and boat access in Terrbonne Parish. Suddenly a new network was born: a flurry of emails passed among strangers far-flung across the country, rapidly congealing ideas and intentions into plane tickets and plans. Andrea and her husband loaded up their truck in Naples, Florida and embarked the fifteen-hour drive to Terrbonne. The head of Matter of Trust brought yards upon yards of recycled plastic mesh that would reinforce the long nylon hair booms on his flight out of California.

In a shady corner of the film’s chaotic compound, Polik and I helped Andrea and Jaime put together the stuffed nylons and plastic mesh casings. A strong anticipation hung in the air, ad hoc hopes injected with the adrenaline of others sharing them. But there were many unresolved issues — the flotation method for the booms had yet to be finalized, definitive local permission was pending, and the fact of BP’s cleanup jurisdiction threatened legal action against unilateral measures. The idea to physically obstruct the bayou from the oil, using the idle labor, boats and booms at hand, seemed so simple, yet so immensely complicated at the same time. In attempting to wrap my mind around our place in it all, our ability to enact change, I was reminded of the days leading up to my grandmother’s death ten years ago. Perhaps everyone else knew she was dying but I remember furiously preparing mashed potatoes and chocolate milkshakes, convinced that she was dying because the hospital would only give her Ensure and she didn’t like it. The situation seemed so simple to me; I didn’t want to rely on the hospital, I wanted to take her home and nurse her myself, but that thought trajectory was always overwhelmed by a feeling of utter defeat in the face of institutionalized medical knowledge.

With the booms finished, we headed to Grande Isle. The goal was to document some of the oil’s visible effects, which we did (see Polik’s post below), but I think the overarching impulse was to grasp at a reality beyond that filtered through the institutions of news and government and BP.

The beaches were empty but the inns said “no vacancy.” The army corps of engineers was everywhere and that explained why. Still, the island felt strangely abandoned in the mid-day heat. Nobody stopped us from wandering down to the public beaches and photographing the blobs of oil washed shore. We were magnetically drawn to others with cameras and notebooks, looking for answers. Polik and I had finished reading Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” just days before the spill, and I struggled to reconcile the novel’s late-1800s images of the Grande Isle resorts with the tree-less landscape and men in bright orange hazmat suits down on the beach.

We left Montegut that night after returning from Grande Isle. Andrea left the next day; she had to get back to work at the salon. There were no answers regarding the future of the booms, but she felt strengthened by her trip. I was struck by her feeling of  solidarity with all Gulf coast residents; while I projected anger and assigned blame, Andrea expressed profound sorrow. Her journey to Terrebonne was not just about action — it was taking time to grieve.

Matter of Trust’s website reports no progress in placing the booms of human hair; stockpiles of the booms sit unused all over the Gulf coast. Perhaps the handmade lengths of nylon and hair sitting in Terrebonne Parish will be absorbed into one of the film’s sets. They are already part of its scenery. As dead birds and fish continue to wash ashore, the filmmakers need not create disaster but merely record it as it unfolds around them.

Grand Isle, May 25th

*can’t do videos here without shelling out some clams, so another post is at www.pureinteractions.blogspot.com which contains some of todays footage.

After making 150 feet of homemade boom from prepackaged hair in nylon stockings that Andrea Sorrenti and her husband Jaime brought up from Naples Florida (see www.naplesorganichairstudio.com for Andrea’s site, and www.matteroftrust.org for the greater coordinating organization for the hair and natural fiber based booms), we decide to take a ride out to Grand Isle to see some slick. Jordan Fish, who is making a documentary on the oil spill with VBS.tv, came along for the ride, and we subsequently gathered some footage, got our feet wet in oil slick and learned how to be part of the independent media.

Grand Isle: 3.30 pm
At a public beach access point we pull off and go over the dunes. Another older local man is down the beach, but otherwise we see nobody. As we approach the water, a line of oily sludge, about six inches wide appears at the high tide line. Where the water is receding, more crude oil residue, including a sort of granular tar, is building up. Plovers, Whimbrels and Sandpipers are foraging amidst the muck, and farther out to sea, Pelicans are diving amongst the light slick. The layer of oil stretches as far as the eye can see, and appears light but uniform.

From the current NOAA observed spill data (available online at http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/oilspill/#earth), Grand Isle isn’t even being hit, but it is well within the zone of uncertainty surrounding projections for the spill. The Sawdust Bend Bayou, southeast of Venice, LA, is getting absolutely hammered. The whole situation is a mess that I can’t encapsulate here, but things will develop.

Out at sea, I count more than 30 offshore rigs within a mile of the beach. This is oil country. Boats move amongst them, apparently the ocean isn’t closed.

State Park: 4.00 pm
The woman working at the gate named Linda was initially very nervous when we said we were doing a documentary on the spill and its effects. She calmed down when we started asking about what the park had to offer, as well as the bird list for the park, and she happily showed us pictures of birds she had seen, as well as the encroaching oil slick. Linda’s maiden name is Boudreau, and her family’s been in the Bayou for generations, live oaks on Grand Isle saved her great grandparents from being washed out to sea during the hurricane of 1893. Those live oaks are absent in the stick village of modern Grand Isle, where the houses seem to be getting higher and higher, and the trees, fewer and farther between.

The state park does have a nice observation tower, from where you can get a good look up and down the beach, as well as out to sea, into Barataria Bay and across the inlet, where the Grand Ecaille side of land is just visible through a heavy haze to the Northeast.

On this Friday, the 28th, the Grand Isle Beach will have been closed for two weeks, making it 13 days that oil slick has been washing up on shore, some days more and some days less, but there, nevertheless. This Friday will also be the day that Obama visits Grande Isle.

Grand Isle residents seem to be sleeping, and largely absent as their beach is closed. Shrimp boats idly dance across the sea, passing back and forth, some are returning, boom hanging from their trawling arms. High powered golf carts make their rounds over the beach, patrolling for people and oil.

Outside the main staging area in town, we ask two men where the state park is, they say they don’t know, they’re not from around there. I ask if they’re involved in the cleanup effort, they reply “yeah, something like that.” They tell us to ask some folk down the way, and we drive past the main compound, where men are coming in off of boats, and where a bit further on, there’s a van marked Jefferson Parish Temporary Command Center.

At the state park, men in white suits with neon green hats are unloading plastic bags loaded with what looks like sandy debris and oil into large dumpsters.
Four of them sitting underneath a shade canopy. They count them off as they toss them in the dumpster, about six of them working at a time. There’s two dumpsters there, one may be full, the one being loaded is about half full. When they are done they cover them up and cinch them down. The dumpsters have an EPA permit on them as Non RCRA regulated watt for oil spill cleanup licensed to BP Exploration and PRoduction, 299 Westlake Blvd. Houston TX, 77079.

From the observation tower we can see thick inflatable boom covering the mouth of the lagoon that goes into the state park, where a lone great white egret stalks its prey. Other scraps of boom are arranged at the end of the beach, in a fishhook shape that may be there to capture oil, the efficacy of which is unknown.

The general impression I’m getting is that they are trying to minimize visibility of the slick on the beach.

There a culture of stifling the independent media, where only “legitimate” news organizations receive authorization to get on the beach, conduct interviews and have access to information. When we asked the folks loading the dumpsters, some of them completely ignored us, while their crew boss started to answer questions in a friendly way, but quickly clammed up when we became even more inquisitive. Part of his terseness could be his 12 hour workday, but there seemed to be officialdom at work when he said he’d really like to answer questions, but he’s got orders not to.

We did manage to meet some folks working for the blog www.firedoglake.com, as well as some other indie media people, Nathan and Lindsey, who make up www.18thstreetmedia.com, also working on documenting the spill. Disasters like these are a form of shock treatment social networking, with exchanges of contacts, business cards and other information is rampant. Its an exciting time to be alive, but just on the media side of things, its frustrating to watch this disaster unfold and just be able to document document document.

Locust Grove

Surrounded by highways in her little patch of woods, Jennifer McCormick does what she can to keep the privet and japanese honeysuckle from overrunning the trails of Locust Grove. Amidst the fructuous shrubbery, Cardinals in their winter regalia dance and squawk, squabbling over berries and realizing their life goals; making more cardinals. Once the home of George Rogers Clark, of the famed Lewis and Clark duo, and founder of Louisville; Locust Grove now serves as a dogwalking and nature park, housing a large garden, historic buildings and museum. A hopped fence will take you to wideopen crosscountry skiing fields, if you can lift your dog over that is.

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During its recovery from cattle farming in the mid 20th century, Locust Grove was planted with the privet by local do-gooders following the recommendations of the KY Dept. of Environmental Protection. Echoing similar uses of exotic plants nation wide, a few key criteria, such as known forage for native wildfowl, dominated the idea of  successful ecological restoration.   While the takeover by invasive species may be an inevitable consequence of insensitivity to native species assemblages and  higher level disturbances in geo-chemical cycles (i.e. climate change, nutrient enrichment and/or depletion), it is increasingly difficult to restore landscapes once they have crossed over certain thresholds of species dominance and disturbance regimes. While fire played a large role in both pre-historic peoples management of North American ecosystems in general, its effects have strong regional and local significance for species assemblages across taxonomic groups. Eliminating fire from the eastern landscape undoubtedly has long term repercussions on the type of landscape we live in. Moreover, changes in atmospheric conditions, increased availability of nitrogen and phosphorous and deep disturbances in animal abundances and balances all contribute to the feeling of an unsettled nature.

Not to say that such a nature is not vibrant in its own right. Sporting groves of buckeye, pawpaws and even a few osage oranges, Locust Grove serves as a perfect example of a thriving nature amidst a suburban habitat. Dominated by invasive, in need of a burn and choked with woody debris, the processes of soil development and niche packing guarantee that the local ecosystem displays some sort of long term stability. Stability for the sake of stability, while preferred by some individuals, may not be the most preferred state for all. The founder of Lousiville’s estate may provide respite from the stress of urban life for many, but the sound of the highway serves as yet another reminder that today’s Locust Grove is irretrievably different from the one first encountered by the famed explorer. Had we listened and observed a bit more of the original inhabitants complex practices of preserving the landscape, perhaps this situation would have been avoidable. A recovery of that knowledge may bring some solvency to the invasive species impasse, now all thats left, is that we care. I mean, what the hell? The cardinals don’t seem to mind.

Four Days and Nights In Alabama

We’re bound for Biloxi and New Orleans, national forest camping again in the De Soto National Forest, where we’re free to chop down dead trees and cook bootleg okra tomato pasta. Alabama is full of friendly people and a special kind of light-blue golden light that illuminates everything and makes life feel translucent.

We passed amongst sandy Pine forests that made me think of northern Poland. After a nice night in Lake Payne campground, in the Talladega National Forest, we headed to New Bern to check out Auburn University’s Rural Studio (http://cadc.auburn.edu/rural-studio/), speak to gardener Ellis about composting (a forgotten art for some), and some students about their massive thinned tree constructed bridge project.

The counterpoint to Lake Payne is Lake Lurleen: a mega RV type park, 20 dollars a night, complementary drunken screaming of wife to husband, punctuated by what sounds like sledgehammer strikes to a pickup truck and inaudible murmurings of husband to wife, tough love.

Gordo AL is where we’re headed, searching for the elusive famous Amos Kennedy (kennedyprints.com), and instead  discover the amiable and gracious Jessica Peterson (http://www.papersouvenir.com), Glenn House and his wife Kathy, who fed us delicious turnips, fried chicken, bona fide corn bread, cabbage, and blueberry dump cake. We were given some history of Kathy’s mom, Miss Edna, age 93, born and raised in Texas of the hardy stock. Glenn’s mother was born five miles away, and was best known for her roving museum of curiosities, including the one headed two bodied fetal pig.

Glenn and Kathy are steadily buying up buildings in downtown Gordo, home of Peco Chicken, and injecting artistic life into the community, rather than letting the town die like so many others have in rural Alabama. It’s quite a state, one where the small town still exists, not having been replaced by strip mall culture which is so prevalent elsewhere. Unfortunately, all it seems to take to kill a town is time and a Wal-Mart within 30 miles, as the post high school crowd most often skips town looking for work, farming having gone steadily down the tubes since NAFTA.

We spent the night in the studio after a frenzy of post card printing, handprinted on a Vandercook.

Day 3 had us headed to Tuscaloosa, and on to the 100 foot birding tower behind the Alabama Center for Aquatic Biodiversity in Perry Lake Park, on top of which we spent the night. The park itself seems to get very little use, besides those who travel out to Bartram’s Beach to drink beers and leave behind their empties, along with a few birders. The general feel is of a place that had grand designs, but was neglected by the community, which, unfortunately, seems to be the fate of many of the rural studio projects. Its a common conundrum in the community development field, that outside influence is rarely tolerated in the inner machinations of a given group of people, real change comes from the inside and is organic. Sometimes it seems the best we can do is create good models from where we are and hope that others draw inspiration from that example. Other than that, give help when it’s asked, rather than assume that its needed based upon our preconceptions of what it means to be needy.

Day 5 in Alabama had us cruising down highway 5, doing a cool 65, when a cop going the other way spotted the CT plate and hit the brakes, and pulled over to turn around. Rather than deal with this infringement of our rights, I pulled a quick turn onto a back road, bumped over the railroad tracks, waved hello to the Sunday morning contingent, and disappeared around the bend. Fortuitously, we found ourselves on the way to Gee’s Bend, home of the famous quilting cooperative there.

Times there have been strange since they blew up in 2005, with many trying to cash in on the phenom of found folk art, though it seems the only ones who really made any money were the art dealers who were cagey enough to market the stuff correctly. The quilt trade has brought in some money to the community, but nowadays the ladies of Gee’s Bend mostly make their quilts at home. The community center is slowly falling apart, no longer filled with the songs of their forbears.

We took the historic ferry across the Cahaba River, which was our earlier bath, and passed a state visitor center, a lonely new building on highway 28. Heading south is mostly pine trees and curves till you hit struggling small town America head on. In Mobile you can see Talladega’s trees stacked and ready to ship, in exchange for gasoline and the cornmeal that comes from who knows where. Peco’s chickens all go to China, and China’s knicknacks come to Talladega. When local ceases to mean anything, we’re left with a nightmare of trade networks, few of which make sense.

Antecedents, Precedence and Continuity

Greetings Blogosphere and Beyond!

P: this here marks our entrance into the digital world beyond the f-book, henceforth we shall escape into the realm of the shared, less restrictive and less corporate. Our adventures across America have led us far and near, astray and back again, into hearts of darkness, of our own and others. We’ve broken trail on the AT, witnessed wildfire, survived burglary, swam with dolphins and dealt with pointlessness. The journey has become more than a journey through time and space, we’ve embarked on a quest for fresh air, for purity, for history, disaster and rejuvenation. Along the way, we’ve crafted a few stories, learned a few things, and gotten to know a lot more about this place called America.

S: It’s so easy to explain, “we’re on a roadtrip,” but as this journey has unfolded, I’m not sure exactly what a roadtrip is. I’m coming to understand that it is something with a life of its own, a collective concept fed more by imaginations than experiences. I get the impression that the quintessential roadtrip would be something much more carefree than what we are doing now, a stoned ramble from party to party, but because we are constantly striving to reaffirm why we are on this trip at all, there is a bittersweet feeling to our journey — as we enjoy family, friends and the outdoors, and then once again confront the staggering amount of concrete and shit industrial food that is America, criticizing it all but then participating simply by being on the road. I hope that what we are learning about this country — this world — and our place in it can justify the gallons.

By being enmeshed in this mess, we’ve seen so many sides to the American story that things have begun to crystallize. Ultimately, that’s where we stand now, at the brink of possibilities that marks our departure West. The summer beckons, and our snail’s pace trip through the Southeast and Florida is morphing into one of flight. In this venue, we’ll first recount some notable spots, trips, experiences and stories, and then proceed into the rolicking present.

Enjoy!

Sara and Polik