Observations on the Symbolic Nature of the Arches National Park Landscape
Filed Under: My Writing, Photography
I believe Utah, or at least Moab, should appropriate the tourist tag line “Moab is for Lovers.” What’s sexy about Virginia? Because it has the word “virgin” in it? Are they the world’s capital producer of novelty condoms? Moab, and Arches National Park in particular, is inherently a very sexually symbolic place. It’s for lovers with the sense of humor of a 4th grader. And I think that’s all of us.
Look, you’ve been reading this blog, so you’ve seen the pictures. The phallic nature of many of the sandstone formations is undeniable. Some of them are quite explicit in imitating the shape, and aren’t simply taller than they are wide (the Men’s Club standard requirement to use something as an allusion to a penis is defined as simply as that). I double-checked this observation with my wife to make sure that it wasn’t simply a trick of the masculine mind. No, no. There are penises everywhere in Arches National Park.
But Arches National Park is anything but phallocentric. It’s got plenty of vaginal allusions in the landscape as well. Its very namesake evokes a certain female organ. Not quite so elegantly, I suppose, but if you really squint and stretch your metaphorical brain, it kind of makes sense.
I don’t want to say that the landscape acted as an aphrodesiac, but– the landscape acts as an aphrodesiac. For uh, other couples that, we, uh, saw doing it?
Moab is missing out on an entirely different tourist tactic. “Moab is for lovers–huh huh, it totally looks like a giant penis.”
Call me, Moab Tourist Board!
A Modest Proposal for the Automobile Industry
Filed Under: Speculative Fiction
I believe that the solution to the woes of the American automobile industry is to finally make explicit what is implicit in American culture. We are car owners. Especially out here in Fly-over Country. So my solution is quite simple. Rather than just give billions to the automotive industry to do… whatever and trillions to the finance industry for… who knows, how about we just pay for every single American to receive a $25,000 car allowance every 10 years from the time you turn 16 until you are deemed unsafe for the road.
That’s right, socialize the automobile industry! You get a car and YOU get a car and that homeless guy down the street gets a car and single moms get a car! Everybody gets a car! Let the companies make their various models and compete with one another, but most people will be picking out cars with a $25k check in hand. Oh, I guess you probably should limit the voucher system to American-made cars. But hey, screw the global economy, right? America first!
No citizen of America will be without a car. It’ll be great! Where I live, you would be foolish to not own one anyway. Imagine all the people it will put to work to sell these things and move them around and to make them. It’ll be like the 50s all over again!
This has a cascading effect with some ancillary costs of course. First we spend all that money on new cars, now everybody is on the road. Well, I guess we’re going to have to spend more money road construction and improvements. That puts a whole bunch of people to work as a matter of course. Now we’re revitalizing two industries at once. Bonus!
But what happens if gas prices double or triple again, you ask. The market will sort it out! With so much money dumped into the auto industry, we’ll see green technology auto startups all over the place, because not everyone on the planet is as dumb as the people running GM and Chrysler. They can see what’s coming. I predict Tesla comes out with a $25,000 4-door all-electric sedan thanks to the market demand a couple of years after the program goes into effect.
I call this a modest proposal, but is it any more ridiculous than giving buckets of money to companies and not receiving anything in return for the American taxpayers? Is it really any more nuts than what’s been coming out of our Adminstration? And hey, on the up side, when we’re all evicted from our homes, we’ll at least have nice new cars in which to sleep.
And the best part? No six-figure-salary-earning bankers will get a dime of it. Let the financial industry shrivel up and die for all I car (er, care). I’ll have a new Camero! Who needs a job when you have a hot new car and the open road, anyway?
Photo: Curvy Passage
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Another shot from Antelope Canyon, this time an HDR. I already want to go back and shoot here again. I wish it wasn’t so far away.
Photo: Grand Canyon Watchers
Filed Under: Photography
The Grand Canyon was crowded. That’s how I will remember my first experience there. The Moab parks had visitors, but it was possible to see parts of the park without being surrounded by a dozen people. With the Grand Canyon park, you were rubbing shoulders at every single overlook. I can’t stand being around other people in the wilderness. They talk loudly on cell phones, they stomp all over everything, they feed wildlife, and generally do absolutely everything they should not, and it disgusts me.
The view of the Canyon was amazing, though. I just don’t think I want to spend much more time there during the tourist season. What’s even worse is that it was really hazy, so the pictures didn’t turn out great.
