Biosphere...

I live but a few miles away from Biosphere II, which appears as a giant white jungle gym nestled in the blue shadows of the Catalina Mountains. Many ask if Biosphere I refers to the experiment in which several members of a quasi-scientific incipient religion failed to sustain themselves inside a hermetically sealed replica of earth's many habitats. It does not but rather refers to the planet Earth itself. Biosphere II was the offspring, which would have allowed us to develop human colonies in uninhabitable terrains .. such as one finds on Mars.

The experiment failed because no one predicted the extraordinary output of carbon dioxide produced by all the human and plant life inside the giant glass shell. It also failed because the Village Voice, having gotten wind of the fact that it was the brainchild of a cult funded by a family of Texas billionaires, launched a campaign to destroy its credibility in the public eye. After the experiment's demise, Biosphere was taken over for a time by Columbia University, which developed it as a research and educational facility focused on studying the impact of global warming .. abetted by the original carbon dioxide problem.

In spite of its various failings (including political), the structure that was built to contain Biosphere II was a monumental feat of engineering relying on a high degree of scientific ingenuity .. perhaps parallelling that of the Egyptian pyramids. Its aim too was not implausible — namely the recreation of self-sustaining habitats independent of external geologic or climactic forces (sunshine being the one sine qua non).

Biosphere and the Grand Canyon are perhaps the two Arizona locations with the greatest name recognition world wide. Nevertheless, there is a strong likelihood that the Biosphere campus will be razed. It should be pointed out that the Fairfield Development Corporation has already been granted rights to develop a contiguous 1,200 acres of pristine desert foothills with heart-rending views and so wonders at the necessity of levelling Biosphere's mere 3 acres.

If and when the Biosphere is torn down, it will be done so in order to make room for that other extraordinary (and parallel) Arizona experiment in superimposing artificial inhabitable environments on a disinterested terrain, namely, the planned community.

Of concrete lakes...

Tempe. The sight of swaying palm trees inspires the hallucination that there must be water nearby.

There is a man-made lake. After the young mayor gutted the downtown, drove out the types of small and quirky establishments one is apt to find in college towns and invited the big franchises to settle the city's newly antiquated tree-lined streets, he decided that Tempe was in need of a large lake. So he built one.

The lake itself is bound on all sides by freeways and giant asphalt parking lots, the convenience of course being the ability to launch a powerboat directly from the tarmac. I have somehow missed signs of discernible shade while passing overhead on the 102.

The lake was much heralded in the local press. In spite of the emergence of several University institutes nearby whose research focuses on the (un)sustainability of desert megapolitans — due largely to the increasing population load on limited water resources — none thought to question the purpose or need of a lake.

But then again Tempe — the city itself — voluntarily floods its residential lawns every day at 4 p.m.

Roasted chiles...

One waits all year for the fellow from Hatch, New Mexico to come round to our small town with his truckload of chiles. He comes three weekends in a row and sets up a roaster by the side of the road. This contraption looks to be made of a steel drum cut length-wise in half, which is rotated above a propane-fuelled fire. He doesn't like to sell half bushels so we splurge on the full satchel, which weighs about 20 lbs., later passing off the extras among friends and neighbors, after skinning, de-seeding, bagging and freezing about half for ourselves.

There are already a number of cars parked and people standing in line when we arrive. An older woman, perhaps 70, asks if I will make tamales. I tell her I haven't yet learned but once helped a friend. I asked her if it is very hard to prepare the masa, as I had heard that it must float in a glass of water to be just right (another friend wrote an entire poem in fact on the subject). She said no, no, you must use lard and pat it into the corn meal so that it doesn't stick to your hand. Also she said only the finest part of the corn is used for the masa.

More flipping birds .. or other people's road rage

Below are verbatim postings from "My Hood and Your Bumper" off of Craig's List (in chronological order). As part of my efforts to document the vagaries of people's lives in Arizona (is that my purpose?), I stumbled on these under the Missed Connections section. Reading them over, I now wonder when trucks harass small cars, is this a form of flirtation? Do cars make passes at each other? Is road rage a foil for thwarted desires? And are people reduced to this kind of suicidal signalling of interest because of the car anomie in which we live? I would point out that when the truck driver finally responds, he envisions himself both creating car carnage and then emerging as a saviour in the end.

(1) MC: my hood and your bumper. w4m. - 21
Date: 2006-07-20, 4:04PM MST
well aren't you enticing? you're so MASCULINE, aren't you? you have a HUGE...truck. it's a gigantic lifted monument to your virility that would put all other trucks to shame. and when you're five feet above everyone else, you're pretty much safe from collisions so you didn't bother to learn how to drive. which is probably why, in an effort to get my attention (me in my little gray four door sedan with stock tires), you turned right in front of me.

now, i really must admire your thundering testament to testosterone. because if your giant monolith of a truck hadn't been so darned enormous, i don't think i ever would have seen it. so thank you for driving on tires the size of small houses. if it hadn't been for those, i never would have seen you turn in front of me while i was going 50 miles an hour westbound on saint mary's.

i'll bet that the tires aren't the only *big* things in that truck. i'd wager that the gas pedal is damned near impossible to push down on account of it being so incredibly massive. that would explain why, after turning in front of me, you slowly but surely accelerated to 35 miles an hour and stayed there. but hey, what drivers need to speed past when *you're* there to look at? so just like you wanted, i slammed on my brakes to match your snail's pace and got a nice long look at your lucious tailgate.

this missed connection that i lament was between your bumper and the hood of my car--and the cop that surely would have come to give me a ticket. how romantic that would have been; seeing my car all crumpled and smoking, your rear bumper would probably not have a scratch on it, and the cop would dutifully hand me a citation for "failure to maintain the distance between my vehicle and that of the one in front of me." and we mustn't forget the missed connection between my insurance company and yours. doubtless i would have caused you chronic whiplash, back pain, emotional distress, and the inconvenience of being late to no where. and myself and the tow truck....AND between myself and considerable debt...

well, sir, i don't know how our lives would have been different if we had met. maybe i would have found out if your truck's colossal size was compensating for something or not. it's just so enticing to fantasize about! please, if you're reading this, meet me again out there on the road somewhere. i know you may not recognize me so just do your best to turn in front of someone everytime you get the chance and maybe, just maybe, it'll actually be me again. i'll be sure and ignore my brakes and thrust right into your backside ever so coquettishly. i'm sluch a flirt! or maybe i'll just lay on the horn to get your attention. i do so love playing hard to get!

(2) Re: MC: my hood and your bumper. w4m. - 21
Date: 2006-07-21, 3:12PM MST
I've been stuck behind that jackass before, on St. Mary's. I recognize the passion with which the post was written. He's usually on his cell phone too, talking to other similarly endowed phallic driving epitomies of evolution, no doubt.

But then I smile, thinking of him paying to fill that monstrosity at $3 a gallon. Karma be thy mistress.

(3) RE: MC: my hood and your bumper. w4m. - 21
Date: 2006-07-22, 12:12AM MST
You rock.

(4) RE: MC: my hood and your bumper. w4m. - 21 - 32
Date: 2006-07-22, 4:12AM MST
now you know how i feel out on my bike, to us on bikes you lil four door cars are just as dangerous, the complete idiotic bs i see on the road every day makes me fear for my life every yime i ride.

i have been in an accident because some jack ass with a 3ft bong in his back seat refused to check his mirror when changing lanes he said " sorry dude i was in a hurry to get to my moms house to get drunk".
and he wasn't even on the phone or reading, trying to eat a damn taco, putting on make up or any of the other crap it seems everyone else on the road does. so to you all who has never thought of it till now .. WELCOME TO THE SHITTY ROADS OF TUCSON. and please remember to look around for bikes. and before you you bitch about our loud exhaust... listen for it.. when you hear it .. LOOK FOR US!!! thank you

p.s. i see more and more women riding everyday ... love the harley mommas

(5) RE: MC: my hood and your bumper. w4m. - 21
Date: 2006-07-25, 1:59PM MST
I just wanted to applaud that girl for speaking out, I would have followed him and raised some hell. if he would have hit you, there would have been a good legal battle and most likely you would win. visibility in those things isn't very good, especially when you're in a much smaller car. there are motorcycles and bicyclists out on the road all the time and they're even harder to see in a truck that big. I've been almost hit on a bike before, it's not fun i sympathise! Don't get me wrong I'm a big truck fan, but have some f***ing curtosy, the road wasn't paved for just you (ass in the truck). Learn to drive it before you buy it. Next time let him hit you, if he can afford a truck like that and the gas to put in it he can afford to pay for all costs.

(6) e:RE: MC: my hood and your bumper. w4m. - 21
Date: 2006-07-25, 8:18PM MST
Do not let that truck hit you or vice-versa. Too risky. Matter of fact, it's also too risky to be doing 50 MPH on St. Marys, eh?

(7) re:RE: MC: my hood and your bumper. w4m. - 21
Date: 2006-07-25, 9:30PM MST
do you sit on a train track as the train is headed for you? then why do you sit in my blind spot, matching my speed for miles on end, then bitch when i cut you off. you all want respect on the road? then give some up to the big truck as well. quit racing in and out of traffic and trying to play leap frog...... or keep doing it! sit in my blind spot, try and race around me. your gonna be the spot on the road, not me! as im helping you out of your smashed up geo metro on st marys, im gonna be telling you i told you so.

That faint sound of water running in a very dry bush..

We all periodically come across rattlers. The trick (according to the fates) is to stay still until you have located the source of the rattle, and then back off. You will want in the verdant seasons to avoid tall stands of grass .. meaning one should stick to the ubiquitous cow paths that meander along the ridges or walk along the washes.

The first time I encountered a rattlesnake I was by myself. It was summer and approaching 4.30 or 5 in the morning (the best time to set off, as the temperatures soon rise). Suddenly there was a sound not unlike anything I'd ever heard before .. like water trickling over a brook, but somehow extended by the fact that it was occurring inside a vacuum cleaner. The first encounter is uncanny .. thereafter, the sound to my ears is much drier and unremarkable, but that morning it occupied the whole of the air.

I have trained two enthusiastic terriers, whose natural wont is to attack all manner of creature, to avoid rattlers. This is effected — upon sighting a rattler — by screaming full pitched and then running away. For myself, I'd be happy to hang around and look on the rattler a little bit further as their markings, as those of most deadly creatures, are quite beautiful if somewhat subtle. Subtlle in the sense that they so closely camouflage the terrain upon which they sit ..


* * *


No one is ever bitten in this little pocket of southeastern Arizona. And rarely do people die of bites, except one unfortunate German tourist last year. The few stories of people being bitten deserve recounting. Here goes. The first concerns a fellow who, as a youth growing up in Florida, was keen on killing rattlers. Years later, on a dark moonless night, he was bit as he headed to his pick-up truck in his flip-flops. The local sentiment expressed was that this was pay-back.

The second story is better. There is an outcropping called snake hill .. basically because that is where everyone has traditionally brought their rattlers (once caught in garbage cans) to be released. Recently, many new houses have sprung up (in a fashion we call "wildcat"). Residing in one is someone who is reputed to have slaughtered up to 12 snakes over the course of the past couple of years. His most recent effort however was less than successful. The fellow was attempting to beat a snake with a long stick that kept breaking off as he struck. The last strike was of greater benefit to the snake than the attacker.

The story I want to tell...

This is the story I really wish to tell. It is someone else's story .. a sad story at that. A very twisted story. There is too a real family attached to the story and they are no doubt deserving of some kind of sympathy. But what sort of tales would Doesteovski have written if burdened by the obligation to cushion the sensibilities other others? Or Dickens?

Here is an outline — or perhaps a misinterpetation or reorientation — of the story. It most certainly does not reflect the perceptions of any actual participants and as such cannot be said to resemble reality, but exists merely as a simulacrum, i.e. that thing (according to Deleuze) that corrupts the original.

Many months ago, there was a fatal car accident in the affluent Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale involving a well-respected if somewhat taciturn government employee, who was known primarily for arriving each day to work in pressed slacks and starched shirts with sleeves rolled down (a notable achievement in Arizona where the uniform consists of shorts on all occasions). He had worked in the government sector for many years and was generally respected by co-workers.

One night after work, as he drove down the very busy Camelback Road (a main drag of Scottsdale), he was suddenly compelled to put his car into cruise control, climb onto the car roof and stand with his harms outstretched — like Jesus on the Cross — before either jumping or tumbling to his death. The incident immediately raised quite a media furor.

Interestingly, the wife (in a statement made to the press) claimed that he was not depressed. She faulted instead a rare medical condition that often masks itself as severe depression and is known to even bring on delusional episodes .. a mysterious worm had invaded his brain. This was not just any worm mind you, but a worm picked up in Mexico during vacation. The family physician soon released his own diagnosis, verifying her claims and explaining that the worm was nearly impossible both to detect and to cure. In fact, the most common prescription for afflicted patients consisted of anti-depressants.

A worm picked up in Mexico. Not of course Mexico the nation-State with whom we share a common border .. but that other Mexico, a confabulation of our dark imaginations as all vacation destinations must be.
...

Flipping the bird...

In the Tucson area, it is a general rule that giving someone the finger is likely to result in physical harm. Perhaps this is the last tradition in force as so many others have waned over the last 10 years, including the dictum that one should always be polite. While large swathes of the population still manage a certain zealous friendliness, an exception to the rule is the gauntlet one must run on route 77 as it passes through Oro Valley and Marana. These townships are johnny-come-latelies .. incorporated in the mid-70's, there are no traditional neighborhoods and most of the housing stock, built in the last 10 years, is gated. Most residents too are new arrivals from elsewhere. As far as I can tell from visiting one or two houses and from noticing the preponderance of sparkling new churches and shiney SUV's ... denizens are devoutly religious and devotedly materialistic, if such a thing is possible. Perhaps entitlement is conflated with being blessed.

On route 77 north of Tucson, one notices aberrations in behavior on the roads and in the shopping centers, where people are likely to butt you with their shopping carts or steal the parking-lot space you are angling for with nary a backward glance. On the roads, aggressive tailgating, honking, straddling lines between lanes and sharp swerves without signalling all constitute the norm. This litany of complaints is perhaps borne in part by the fact that I am a new (and nervous) driver. I must confess too the litany is simply a prelude to excusing my own undecorous act the other day. Yes, I gave someone the finger. Never do that.

The details of such events are seldom interesting but what happened is this: I was driving with my husband down the right lane of a 55-mph road signalling to turn into a recycling collection facility. There was a bicyclist ahead so I didn't immediately pull onto the shoulder (as one often does). As I started to pull to the right just before the turn, a maroon truck honked as it swerved around us in our lane. Mind you, there were no cars in the fast lane and he had ample occasion to pass. Somehow the New Yorker in me lost all patience. For a moment, I was once again convinced that there is nothing so worthwhile as letting someone else know what you think of them but cars offer little chance for such effective communication. So I flipped the bird.

Before I knew it he had pulled ahead and in front of me, screeching to a halt in order to block the way and missing the bicyclist by inches. Luckily there was a sliver of space between the rear of his truck and a gulley to the right, so I squeaked through thinking I am not sticking around for this. He had meanwhile jumped out of the cab and was headed round to the back. He was in his thirties perhaps fair hair that was too neatly slicked back, as if pomaded with furniture polish, and opaque eyes. "Hey!" he cried as we drove off, "Where are you going?" sounding disappointed.