sunday, may 27, 2007
Another eccentricity
The following is my new desktop picture from Wikipedia, where its contributor described it as “The typical car wash view from the inside of a car. The ride can sometime compare to a theme park joyride.” The main car wash article is detailed but leaves out that second part.
Yesterday Doug’s truck went through an exciting car wash at a gas station, where the arch of power zoomed back and forth over us inside of it, spraying water and soap and hot air on the ceiling and windows, noisy and enthusiastic and perfectly automatic with little signs flashing the name of the wash stage, like a dishwasher or washing machine. The arch looked like this, but inside a small structure instead of nothingness:
On the right, the little green sign says markvii.net, and there’s a relevant product page with excellent bits such as “It’s not about the carwash, it’s about the carwash business”, turbo nozzles, and the AquaJet GT showcase video. I love the informativeness of this website, hinting that a smallish dorky business owned by a German conglomerate hides untold corporate horror behind another convenient component of life.
Too bad it didn’t make the truck very clean.
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thursday, april 12, 2007
Oil wells, containerization, trains, love
When I saw Edward Burtynsky’s pictures of oil fields and containers a couple years ago, I knew that he had taken the pictures I’d been thinking about since I was a little girl staring out the car window at oil wells that looked like dinosaurs. Doug likes odd industrial things too, so we went to UCSB’s screening of Manufactured Landscapes, which turns Burtynsky’s pictures and picture-making process into a quiet and wonderful narrative.
A few days later, we visited the Goleta Depot railroad museum, which has one real exhibit: a neat old caboose. Next door, you can buy reproductions of lemon packing labels, homemade persimmon jam, and little xeroxed pamphlets that explore Santa Barbara County history.
Then we wandered around California and looked at oil wells.
