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Friday, December 16, 2005

Strangercrombie: Final Day!

Posted by on December 16 at 7:47 AM

Woke up this morning to a gorgeous sunrise and an astoundingĀ $28,500.43 in bids! AllĀ $28,500.43 (less eBay fees) go to Northwest Harvest to aid them in feeding needy people this winter.

A friend told me yesterday that when she walked by the Thursday morning food bank near Madison, it was heartbreaking to see that the long line waiting in the freezing weather consisted almost entirely of elderly people.

What can we do about it? We can all take a few minutes today to bid on any of Strangercrombie’s 93 unique and amazing gift packages. The auctions end at 5 pm today.

This is the view from my bed right now:
dec162005.JPG


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This sublime cityscape is utterly marred by the archaic means of electricity distribution. As a Certified Arborist I'm constantly involved with trying to make urban trees accommodate both views, and the overhead power grid. Just look at that! Jesus.

I'm sure you were looking beyond the power pole to the skyline and moon. But if that creosote soaked wood pole was still a living tree your neighbors would demand its removal to preserve their view, or else the power company would hack it up to protect their precious copper wires strung from toxic dead post to toxic dead post.

Do you think I'd get anywhere demanding removal of that pole? Actually, I like the entire view, wire tangles, construction cranes, and all. Thanks for your thoughts.

It's funny that every time I take a picture in Seattle I get the film back, and I haven't taken the picture I thought I was taking at all. Rather, I have taken a picture of WIRES AND POLES.

These are almost invisible to me in my daily life but almost anyone who visits me from the east or southeast asks about them. Are electricity poles and wires a particularly west coast experience?

I think they're charming for the most part but also wonder how lovely and clean things would suddenly appear if they were gone.

By the way I am very jealous of your view.

What about instead of a tunnel to replace the viaduct, we do a much less expensive wide surface boulevard and bury all the wires in the city? Who's with me?!

For the Wire and Pole fans out there, I suggest Jason Lutes brilliant "Jar of Fools."

The URL needs fixin' for us non-admin types -- replace admin with www

AMYKATE:

I think that you have shared a delightful photo of a lovely view. But the power pole is just one example of the things in our lives that we stop seeing. No, I don't think that you as one person would get anywhere demanding the removal of that one pole. Just as no one person can set the agenda for our transportation projects.

The construction crane also adds something to skyline: an image of growth, change, and the future.

I don't think that the power pole takes away from the photo, just that the photographic image brings into focus one of the items of urban design that is so present, and hideous, that we stop seeing it at all. Once you look at it you can see nothing else. It is, of course, linked to all the glistening lights of the city and the season.

That pole is made of wood, it used to be a tree. The dead tree is dipped in creosote to preserve the wood in the weather. Unless you live in a toxic waste dump the power pole in your neighborhood is the most toxic thing that your kids will touch. The technology of overhead wires has not changed much since the first telegraphs. The clean, sharp lines of the city contrast with the power poles listing off plumb, bubbling with toxic ooze. Overhead power also contrasts with wild landscapes. It seems alien to all but the most industrial cityscapes.

When you have an appreciation for architecture and urban design, for trees and unpolluted neighborhoods, and for wilderness, it becomes more difficult to look at power poles and the web of wires. Try the view from Wallingford to downtown, for example. Or the view up the Cedar river towards Mt. Rainier.

"Ohmgod," you're my neighbor. I love that view. And find the old-fashioned American wiring tangles charming. All lopsided, frequently looking overburdened, and made of nearly archaic materials. A support to pigeon flocks gently swinging in unison. Enjoy them now before they're gone.

Not to undermine the above--I will always love even the old-fashioned smell of creosote, whether on urban telephone poles or hot rusty railroad tracks lined with poison ivy and deer bones--but I wish I could supply a link here to a wonderful 1990's wiring photoessay for which the Sueddeutsche Magazin sent a photographer and a stolid German electrician to India. (The explanations made the photos even scarier.)

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