The Giant sequoia, the tree of fancy at the moment, rises only on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada at 4,000-8,000 feet. The sequoia grows in groves, 75 in total, all within Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. It constitutes the worlds largest living tree. The growth coined "General Sherman" is the largest. And by largest, I mean the most mass (Coastal redwoods reach higher heights, but procrastinate in girthiness). And to be more specific, General Sherman has accumulated 311 feet in height, weighs 2.7 million pounds, has lived some 2,200 years, and at its foot, is more than 40 feet wide. Many of the other worlds largest live in the same neighborhood as the general. These monsters can last over 3,000 years. They are insect and fire resistant. They refuse to die of old age. Their shallow root system, lack of a substantial taproots, and plain old gravity have brought forth the toppling doom of most sequoias.
Starting at the feet of Whitney, the Kern River runs from the high sierras down into Bakersfield where it becomes agriculture food. Carrying some 165 miles, it's the longest river in the Sierra Nevada. A sign at the southern gate to sequoia national says: the Kern has taken 265+ lives since 1968. I drove a mile and pulled off to check out an auto beaten bobcat.
The first good bit of park, from my vantage, ran up the winding Kern from Bakersfield. A "rolled earth fill dam" helped the river to puddle up as the 11,400 acre--Lake Isabella. The purpose of the big puddle as they say is "flood control and irrigation."
After another salami lunch, I made a walk through my 1st sequioa grove, "trail of 100 giants" they called it. $5 for parking for 20 minutes in the woods. I walked and photographed like the rest of them then drove on north randomly through the pudgy and sparse tree hills of the western edge of the park.
I saw cows, coyotes, and a guy from Minnesota on a bicycle. He said he had kids in the school I currently attend, and that he himself went to school in Indiana. He told of the famous fruit bearing murals of small town Exeter, of what he called "the most beautiful remote sections of sequoia and kings canyon national P.,"and he told me a great route for foot climbing to the top of the United States.
I did what he told me. I drove on into Exeter, scoped out the murals, bought a bag of 8 oranges for $2, then drove up the winding mineral king mountain drive to a secluded sequoia grove campspot where I would change my mode of travel for 6 days.
Exeter sat where the hills flattened. The irrigation canals wound round and the yellow turned to green.
Through the orchards, up 198, past three rivers, along a flooded out recreational reservoir, and up the winding drive to my camp where I met more Giants and the 1st of three brown bears lapping water and chewing yellow flowers.
I've stuck in Chapter 19 from Steinbeck's Grapes... to acknowledge a powerful taste of his take on the central valley farmland of California during the depression era.
You'll likely have to click each individual page for a larger, legeable, crisp read.
The main office/gallery/document library of the CLUI exists one door over from the MJT.
The center documents various loci of interest in the American landscape in a non-opinionated, straight-forward fashion. The center has a few satellite locations and an artist residency in Utah. They host a state by state online database where one might explore documented locations with images and descriptions. www.clui.org
The current exhibition in the space is titled: Texas Oil--Landscape of an Industry, An Ariel tour over the nations petrochemicalscape. And also A smaller exhibit, Elevated Descent-the helipads of downtown Los Angeles.
The exhibitionsconsisted of a few perpetually clicking slide projections, informative panels, and a few sitting benches. The Texas oil exhibit flipped through Ariel photographs of various landscapes enabling the acquisition of oil, and/or oil-related manufacturing facilities through out Texas.
The LA helipad exhibit browsed the multitudes of helipads on the tops of Los Angeles buildings (A city code states that any building rising above 75 feet must supply a helipad). The show pamphlet refers to the symbolic shaped helipads as "semaphores for mechanical angels, falling on the city, from above."
The center maintained a bookshop mostly filled with books concerning land uses in the U.S. I grabbed a book about wasted land in America, a book of old panoramic birds eye lithographs of American cities, their yearly newsletter-The Lay of the Land, and a few pamphlets from their brochure wall by the door on my way out.
The Getty grounds I walked the Getty Museum insides and and outs and pleasantly departed the auto thickness of the city.
"...guided along as it werea chain of flowers into the mysteries of life." *
23. The MJT
The MJT seems a modern day wunderkammer, or “cabinet of wonder” in the city of Los Angles. An eccentric man with an accordion and great interest in early-modern natural history collections founded the Museum in 1989.
Upon taking a course concerning "the age of curiosity" in early-modern Europe, reading Lawrence Weschler’s book, Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder, and watching the Leonard Feinstein film "Inhaling the Spore 'A journey through The Museum of Jurassic Technology'," I decided to travel to the MJT as a focal point.
The MJT lies on Venice blvd. between the beach and the downtown. A fold up street sign explains that this peculiar little facade might open up to a museum. I parked across the way a little sickly and wired on coffee. I went inside.
The heavy windowless door opened into a windowless gift shop which lead to a winding windowless expanse of rooms.
To explain is difficult. The Weschler book, the inhaling the spore film, the website, the museum publications, even the museum itself doesn’t really explain the goings on. And prior to my visits, reading material on the museum only more aroused my curiosity and desire to visit. I might call it intellectual inspiring beautiful and exhausting entertainment. Which sounds a reasonable definition for decent art.
The museum is dark, very dark. Subtle lights are cast onto the objects, onto the walls, onto tiny mirrors. All the text is backlit-white on a shiny-black background that fuzzes your perception as you blink making you conscious of your each eye click. Audio devices are activated with push buttons or the picking up of telephones. Small seats and benches are arranged in front little video projection screens. Nearly each room has a unique welcoming flower bouquet. Each video and each didactic is a bit too long, overly wordy, confusing. I watched and read them all and left feeling a little washed out and confused but interested nevertheless. I was interested in the existence of this place, the feel, the straight face-ed-ness of the employees.
The first encounter beyond the gift shop, is colorful flower arrangement sitting impeccably atop a gray pedestal. The MJT logo sign glows behind the flowers through a gray enameled surface.
I first watched a short film about the museum. I walked toward barking sounds to find a decapitated coyote head mounted on the inside wall of a ten-gallon aquarium. An elaborate device allowed me to look right into the eye of the animal where a tiny mustached man sat in a school chair barking hysterically. The floor of the aquarium was of dusty dirt, a bone, pine cone twigs and a potato bug perpetually crawling out off the lip of a walnut shell.
I have quite a bit more to add about the MJT, I visited 3 times in 4 days, so let this be an introduction to my first visit. This post will be soon updated.
*this quote borrowed from the MJT website, www.mjt.org
