Moving Earth (Deborah Goodwin)

[Tace]

Exacavator

Sept. 26, 2011 (ShapeShiftas) -- There have been giant Tonka Trucks and prehistoric-looking excavators driving up and down Stony Brook Road for many days now, it's almost as noisy as mid-town Manhattan would be this Monday morning. I don't care about the environmental implications of burning all this fuel and moving gravel from there to here, just to get our road fixed before it snows. All I want to know is -- can I drive one???!

It must take some real skill to operate these huge machines. Those claw arms can pick up boulders and then almost daintily lay them in precise spots. They have put Stony Brook back (almost) where it was and lined the banks with the eponymous stones that washed down with the rest of the road. It's still hard to realize that our picturesque mountain brook wreaked such havoc and destruction, and it's been really cool to watch them put it back together. They are terraforming our ruined landscapes.


Spiral Jetty

(Terraforming is a word I have learned through all my science fiction reading, most notably the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, I think he called it "areoforming" since it's Mars. A great read for you sci-fi heads out there.)

Watching these machines at work, I understand the inspiration for Spiral Jetty, the famous earth-artwork by Robert Smithson. Seeing this work is a long-held desire of mine, especially since it has re-emerged from the Great Salt Lake in recent years due to drought. (I wonder if Mormons believe in climate change?) There is a lot of debate as to whether it should be restored, shored-up for the high-water times. I kind of like that it disappears & reappears as the Earth changes. To me, that is the art in the work.

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