I'm back

Blogging is slowing down, but running in the background my brain is humming with things to write about. It’s bad being out of practice because what I want to remember runs away from me like mercury. I still haven’t written about our trip to the Forest Haven Asylum this past Sunday. And the task of putting up the website is also an adventure. The photo website is up, but still in need of some major cleaning up. I can't tell you where it is yet, but as soon as it's a little cleaner we'll have a little coming out party.

second law I

Marshall McLuhan’s laws of media, the second law of thermodynamics, and the poet William Butler Yeats collide where things begin to deteriorate. McLuhan’s second law tells us that all new technologies dispatch a contemporary technology to obsolescence; the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, suggests that the universe moves from order to disorder. Here at the crossroads of obsolescence and entropy, things definitely fall apart.

The arrival of the automobile sent the horse and buggy to the pages of history; the compact disk (and finally the MP3) sealed the phonograph’s demise. Mr. McLuhan’s other laws explain in lovely symmetry how those older technologies reappear. But here I’m concerned with only the second law – the one saying that new technologies always obsolesce an older technology. And the second law of thermodynamics: all systems break down. And Yeats’s Second Coming: the center cannot hold, the anarchy of the inanimate overtakes us.

Each abandoned site was once a humming, functioning, part of American culture.

reality TV

Dancing with the Stars, Tabitha’s Salon Takeover, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style, The Amazing Race, Top Design, Food Challenge, Top Chef, Design Star, Next Food Network Star, So You Think You Can Dance, Last Comic Standing, and of course Project Runway. Am I a reality competition addict? Some of them aren’t even competition shows, they’re just plain reality television. At least I’m learning something from the shows – about dance, about cooking, about designing, about the world, about dressing. As the reality shows improve they get easier to watch, especially for those times when I’m sitting in front of the TV doing something else, they’re excellent for that because they do not require complete attention. Everything important is repeated and the regular format always lets you know when you need to look up. Hosts and competitors evolve and viewers form relationships with them and with their tasks. It’s reality heaven.

aliens a-comin'

There’s a pretty entertaining discussion going on on a list I belong to. Someone posted a link to a couple of You Tube videos about a visit from extraterrestrials we should be expecting this Tuesday. Here they are, if you’re interested:
UFO on October 14, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DKI93lBMI4
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Blossom Goodchild clarifies October 14th
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFyK2N4RG_o&feature=related
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Proof that Blossom Goodchild is right about October 14th UFO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFyK2N4RG_o&feature=related
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Oregon SkyWatch » Blog Archive » Mysterious Sky Phenomenon ...
http://oregonskywatch.com/bluesky/?p=814

Someone replied saying that 10/14 wasn’t good for him, could we contact them and see if they could come on 10/15. The someone else chimed in saying that 10/14 was OK for him, but he’d like confirmation of the appointment.

Then, for some reason, there arose some semi-serious discussion about why they were contacting only one person (why not everyone on earth), why insist they’re coming in “love” (are they disgusing their true motives?) and why send the message in English (frankly, I think it’s more that the person channeling them speaks English, not so much that they speak English), and finally – if they don’t show up on 10/14 will “these people” admit they are wrong and that this is their own fantasy.

I’m not sure why this message started to wander into serious consideration, but the next response was from a person refusing to change his existing plans for October 14 because “too many times in the past I have moved heaven and earth only to be disappointed.” He suggested the last poster be the one to make first contact so the aliens wouldn’t “hang [him] out to dry yet another time,” and ended by suggesting that the “if the aliens aren't prepared to buy up all of our toxic mortgage securities as a gesture of their good will, then they shouldn't even show up.” I am in definite agreement with that.

Maybe in the land from whence the aliens hail banks are liquid, mortgages are made to people who can actually afford them, credit is easy to come by, and scratchings on paper don’t drive the economy. I wonder what the world will look like when we emerge from this final coda in the truckload of failures that has been the Bush presidency.

power plant III

Today, Yom Kippur, the numbers of the date are in descending order.

To complete our trip to the Power Plant. Through many twists and turns at the top of the long coal shoot we found our way into the main building. Coal shoot land was also pretty enormous, shoots shot off in several directions and at one point when I’d retuned to get some gear I’d set down while searching I twice went into the wrong doorway.

As with most entries, the way in we’d found was a door where someone had already knocked in the bottom panel. This is our normal mode: finding a door or window that’s already been busted in. The moment a structure is abandoned, kids, nature, and other photographers start invading. By the time we arrive, it’s usually only a matter of locating that entry.

Inside everything was beginning to look pretty large. I walked across an open grate section of the floor, like crossing the ocean, and arrived at a series of enormous engines. An engine house sat between each one. The doors to most engine houses were locked, but the small windows in every door were broken. Massive semi-circular pipes swept away from the engines in different directions. Everything was a monochromatic shade of white-beige rust. It looked like every engine house, every wall, every floor had been covered in a soothing layer of chalky white, almost as if the place had been painted that way when they closed it down. It gave this part of the plant a theatrically odd look, as if it was preparing to be a Keith Herring photo backdrop.

Finally, after shooting engines (and waiting for my partner to return from her long trip to retrieve the gear she’d left it at the bottom of the coal shoot), we continued our quest for the main engine room where we knew the working machines were far more massive than what we were seeing here. The “room” where we finally found those machines could have housed an indoor football field. The stunning architecture, clearly from another era, was filled with intricate and caring detail – even in an industrial building. The arched roof swept down to every corner in a series of gentle curves. It stood eight or ten stories above the floor of the building; all in between was air.


I’d never seen machines this large; they looked, at once antique and futuristic. No wonder Transformers II had recently filmed here. It was a perfect backdrop for a science fiction movie that wants a retro-fitted past. We spent the rest of the day in this cavernous place finding both tiny and enormous things to preserve in camera. I was happy to have my new, wider angle, lens. Every time we approached the front part of the building we saw security immediately outside and we had to remember to keep our glee in check. At one point I was ducking down just inside an open window at the end of a long hallway, trying to get a shot of fifty feet of doors standing open as if everyone had just run out of their rooms. Not fifty yards behind me, outside the large window through which I’m certain my tripod was visible, security stood around chatting.

As the golden hour began to pass, that brief time as the sun sets and casts a glowing ethereal light, we made our way out of the main building and back across the ocean of grated floors. First, to retrieve our gear, and then to find the way we came in. It was clear there would be no easier way out. All first floor doors were welded shut, they wanted no sightseers in this plant. Egress was simpler though, the crew working on the power outage had gone and the security detail seemed down to one man sitting near his truck a football field away. As we emerged from the wooded path that led to the fence several people were fishing in the stream leading to the river; they’d brought metal folding chairs and plastic coolers.

The fishers had parked where we wanted to park but were too nervous to. Instead where we had parked seemed like the poorer choice at this moment. A man inside a BMW sat just behind the gate we’d parked in front of. Since we’d been doing something wrong we were certain he knew that as we loaded our gear into the trunk. The moment we pulled out a police car was behind us. Whether they suspected what we’d been doing we never knew. The man remained in his car behind the gate and the police car turned off away from us, but not before stopping a long while and watching us drive off. It was slightly unnerving. But at that moment, we were just industry tourists down by the river. These days, officials are particularly cautious about people with cameras around power plants – we didn’t want to get reputations as terrorists. We’re just simple photogs, explorers with camera. One more site conquered.

commission hearing

A break from the power plant story for an update on the death penalty commission hearings. Today that toad Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger gave his own testimony. He spoke at great length about why Maryland’s death penalty is different from all those other state’s death penalties (we’re carefuller), why Maryland’s death penalty is not racist or jurisdictionally discriminatory (his jusridiction, accounting for 75% of death row although only 8% of Maryland’s homicides, just happens to have more white victims), why cost is not a factor (admitting for the first time that it does cost more), why Kirk Bloodsworth’s case proves that the system works (even though he’s alive only because a few people made fortuitous mistakes), and why he needs the death penalty (because we have the most frightening defendant he’s ever sat across from). He spoke from a sheaf of papers and went on forever. He pretty much just wants the penalty for use as a bargaining chip, totally unethical – plead guilty or we’ll kill you. I sat two rows behind him and, having had already one run-in with the State Police because I’d forgotten my ID to get into the building (a delegate had to come vouch for me), wanted to knock his block off. He and his bad haircut were still answering questions when I left.

Before Shellenberger spoke the current Secretary of Public Safety gave information about prisoners in the system – how they decide where people are incarcerated and what kinds of crimes people inside the system have committed. His information did not support those fixated on the possibility of lifers who kill in prison. We know that lifers usually behave better than most other inmates and instances of lifer crime represent a miniscule proportion of prison crimes. The Secretary’s testimony supported that. And the one MD case of someone who did – Kevin Johns – was able to commit a homicide because the police who were transporting him seated him next to someone he’d threatened to kill. And then they were shocked.

power plant II

We got across the road and into the building, but this was only the beginning of a long obstacle course. A door was wide open and room we landed in had been a maintenance shop, although it was now empty save for two fire carts. As we searched for our way in to the main part of the building we encountered our next big obstacle. Every door was covered with heavy iron plates, welded in place. Removal was impossible. A few interesting shots could be had in the maintenance shop, but mostly it was an empty room. My partner was beside herself with frustration. We ate our sandwiches and started shooting.

At some point we noticed a man standing outside. At first he was looking over the river in seeming reverie. But after a little while he turned to face the building we were in and jus stood there, arms akimbo. We were sure he had heard us and was just going to wait us out. But eventually, after many minutes of hiding at opposite ends of the room, we peeked out and he was gone.

But still, there was no way to get into the building. Out on the pier, a football field away, a coal shoot terminated in a small building. We thought if we could get to the building, we could walk up the shoot and we were certain it must connect with the main building. But to reach the small building on the pier we’d have to cross the open parking area where we could be seen by the workmen whose cars were a football field to the right, and get by the fence on the pier.

Again, we made a run for it across the open concrete. Crouched down like spies, we ran across the lot and climbed over a large pipe. Keeping our bodies ducked down behind the pipe we moved ourselves and our equipment along to the fence at the pier. The fence blocked the entrance to the pier, but because we were behind the pipe, we were almost behind the fence – we only had to step across the right angle made by the pier, over the water. Which we did.

We dodged and ducked down the pier to the end and finally, around the other side of the small building, we were safe from being seen. The door here had also once been welded over, but someone – almost certainly another explorer – had somehow removed the iron panels. The were still welded together and served us as a small stepladder to get over the bottom half of the door and in through the window. Several flights up we found the shoot and started our hike. The hill was steep and l o n g. Finally at the top it looked a lot like the Huber Coal Breaker in Wilkes Barre, PA. It was definitely coal conveyor belt. We set off in search of the place where this terminus connected with the big building and after some searching – we were certain it was there – we found it.

power plant I

OK, I’m back. I needed a few days of non-blogging to test the development of my blogging muscle.

Yesterday we shot photos at a decommissioned power plant in Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Electric Company. For the first time it seemed as though we really might not be able to get in. Located down by the river immediately next to a live power power plant and a sanitation truck nest, the plant was surrounded by a fence that had obviously been breached several times. But unlike so many other places we explore, the first three holes we discovered had been patched – in ways that were difficult to undo. One had a heavy rusted chain woven through the patching, another was sewn back together with thick metal cable. Oddly, the hole we finally found was the largest and closest to the building.

Security was watching the entrance to the empty plant and one of the cars we’d seen earlier was now gone. Obviously people were coming and going – not exactly what you want when you’re trying to sneak in somewhere. Slipping through the hole, we followed the fence line around behind a knoll to a thin treeline. It felt a little like a military maneuver and before the day was over that feeling would only increase. We ran, ducked down, from the fence line to behind a large aluminum structure a few feet away from the building we wanted to be inside. Between us and the building was the entry road to the plant; at the other end of the road stood the security booth.

“Let’s just make a run for it.” For some reason – I assume because we wanted to believe it – we thought we’d make it across the street without being seen. Just as we gathered up all our stuff again and prepared to make our run a pickup truck appeared on the road in front of us. Busted.

We fell back on our two middle-aged women with photo equipment position, with just a tad of honesty for zest. “We just want to take some photos of the outside of the building.” Yeah, yeah, that’s it. He asked if security knew we were there. “No, we snuck in,” came our sheepish reply. He considered himself for a brief moment and said “I never saw you.” Then he volunteered more information: a power outage in the city had brought a full crew to the working plant next door; he warned us not to go around to the other side of the building. We politely promised we wouldn’t and he drove off. Amazing.

This bathtub in the staunton prison facility was used during the time the place was an asylum to discipline patients who'd gotten out of hand. Of course they didn't consider it discipline -- they considered it calming. Next to the tub is the temperature gauge, not too hot, OK?

debate

I’ve blogged every day (missing only six) for six months. Took a little break yesterday just to see what it’d feel like. I will no longer be blogging every single day – weekends are tough because they’re heavy workdays for me. So don’t always look for new entries on weekends (and maybe not on Thursdays). I’m dialing back to 3-5 times a week.

Right now I’m watching Sarah Palin and Joe Biden do a pretty good job of debating one another. So far the Senator has acquitted himself well. Not running over, not being patronizing. He calls her Governor each time he refers to her and he keeps within his time limit. He focuses his criticism on McCain and calls him John. She’s called her ticket “A team of Mavericks” twice, and she’s using her folksy voice (dropping lots of g’s at the ends of words, saying “doggone it,” “I betcha,” and “gosh darn it”). She does much better when she’s on script, when she strays her voice weakens and she begins to lose track of even the generalities she’s trying to deliver. With the very low expectations, she’s doing well. Biden is doing a good job not being a blowhard going on and on. Pretty much all that can happen in a VP debate is harm, you’re not going to convert voters with a number two. So far it doesn’t seem they’re losing votes for their guys.