WorldChanging The Second

Turner's second column is now up at WorldChanging.com; this one talks a bit about Crystal Waters, the Australian permaculture community we visited north of Queensland back in July. As it happens, this column used one of the photos I included in the Nine show, that One Lane/One Planet shot I put up in an earlier post.

See the new column, here.

Categories: Ash | GeoHope | Turner

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Turner At WorldChanging

Hey hey hey. This is to announce a new GeoHope collaboration with the illustrious and definitive WorldChanging. Turner has been brought on board to do a monthly-ish column on his work, The Geography of Hope, climate change, hope in general, and etcetera-type-stuff. I have a tiny role as the contributing photographer to his columns, the first of which has now hit the site. See it here.

This photograph was taken down in Taber, Alberta in September 2007. I was originally down there to do a shoot for the Globe & Mail at the big Enmax wind farm south of the town. (For the record, this was indeed the same site shoot during which I lost my shit, spooked by the giant scary wind turbines whooshing high above, and I had to hide in/shoot from the car, with the radio on full blast.) This photo was taken out the passenger-side window, and of course the text on the mirror reads, "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear".

Enh! ENH? Symbolism, see? Metaphor! Wind turbines, wind power, sustainable and renewable energy are... CLOSER than we think! Get it?

Turner's blog posting about his new WorldChanging column, here.

Categories: Ash | GeoHope | Turner | Work work work

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The Geography of Hope: Nominated!

Turner's been nominated for the 2008 Governor General's Awards! Woooot, way to go Turner!

Categories: GeoHope | Turner

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Earthship Nation

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Michael Reynolds on THE COLBERT REPORT last night!!! (Warning, really slow load. Cue it up, push pause, and come back in five minutes.) Looks like dudes who made Garbage Warrior finally went and hired Reynolds a publicist.

Go Earthship, it's your birthday...

Categories: GeoHope | House

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At Turner's Presentation

Also from a few weeks ago: we were invited to spend a few days up at the Banff Centre, enjoying the views and dinner buffets, courtesy of the Festival speakers' series.

Sloane was surely Turner's most charming audience member. When we came into the auditorium Sloane saw the screen and pronounced for all the hall to hear, "Oh Dada! Look! It's your book, Dada! That's your book!" Twitters and smiles all 'round.

Categories: GeoHope | Sloane

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Turner Rabbling On

Categories: GeoHope | Turner

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Unlimited 3.0

This month's issue of Unlimited magazine features a multi-excerpt from The Geography of Hope, accompanied by my photos. Cheers, Malcolm!



Split-level Earthship at the quarry "subdivision" in the Earthship Greater World Community, outside Taos NM.

I love this photo, and was thrilled to see that Malcolm decided to use it. The original shot has a lot of very very blue sky with amazing puffy clouds, above. It looks fake, it's so beautiful. The house itself is symmetrical and unusual to the pink-suburban-box-ized eyes many of us come with to the notion of "housing", and so it immediately flips you into another world to think about living in one of these things. The domes are undeniably "futuristic" and the solar panels flared beautifully blue in the midday sun. But what I like best is the stark landscape - evident in the sandy foreground and hardscrabble bushes trying to take root on the desert - punctuated by the weird abandoned appliances and kicked-in old cardboard boxes. It's anyone's unanticipated backyard garbage. The owner of this house didn't know I'd photograph her yard and then publish the picture all over the place 18 months later. In this way the Earthships give back as "real": it's not a Hobbit hole or a hippie hideaway. It's just some dude's house and he hasn't gathered up the yard trash this week yet. I love it.



Dr. Soontorn Boonyatikarn's amazing biosolar house, in the suburbs of Bangkok, Thailand.

Categories: GeoHope | Photography | Turner | Work work work

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Globe n' Mail

Today Turner's sustainability column premieres in "Canada's National Newspaper", the Globe & Mail. This first one was titled "The Secret Greening of Calgary", and talked about the city's quiet commitment to sustainable energy solutions, despite the larger city's love of sprawl, SUVs and all things bling.

I was contracted to do the photos, which took me to southeastern Alberta to shoot the Taber wind farm (colour, Focus section cover photo, below the fold) and to the Erlton Ctrain station (three times, with three different children, to try to get the b&w ctrain-and-pinwheel shot they chose for page F9).

Categories: Ash | GeoHope | Sloane | Turner | Work work work

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Cryptic Moth In Flight

Many of you know the handsome and fine man we call Ian Connacher. Do you know that we're staying at his place in Toronto? Yes, we are. A lovely, lovely place it is, too. A sanctuary for us in the city.

But where is Ian these days that the Turner-Bristowessesses can arrive en masse with our bags and camera equipment and travel playpen and Green Eggs & Ham books, and just set up shop in his Annex coach house? Well well well.

Did you know Ian's off shooting what will likely be the most important film ever made about plastic? He and the trusty Gad have spent the last half year and more circumnavigating the globe filming all the newest and greatest and most inspiring innovations in the world of plastics: research, applications in agriculture and infrastructure, recycling, impacts. Australia, Japan, Europe (Turner and Ian hooked up for some co-"research" in Germany in May), the US... I think India's up next, later in the fall.

Our Toronto peeps screening Alphabet Soup, the plastics documentary Ian made last year; the frontrunner for his current project that documented the accumulation of plastic in the Pacific ocean. From left: Turner, Beau Levitt, Angela Pacini, Adam Pasquella (aka "AGP"), Julia Chan, Joey DeVilla, Wendy Koslow, Anne Yourt, and the mysterious... "Paul".  

It's been in my blogroll for a while, but as we're here ensconced at chez Connacher, and since their blog has also recently hit a superb stride, I thought I'd point you in the Cryptic Moth direction.

Live, from the front lines of real change, check it out: http://www.crypticmoth.com/blog.html

Categories: Friends | GeoHope

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Woody Creek Tavern

On our way out of Aspen we stopped at Woody Creek Tavern, best known as Hunter S. Thompson's drinkin' hole when he was at home in Colorado. So a'course we had to make the pilgrimage - for lunch. We knew better than to come after dinner when the locals are getting lickered and passing around mescaline. (For a Google maps satellite image of the area, click here. You know, because a satellite image is educational.)

Woody Creek Tavern behind-the-bar cooler. The surly owner/barkeep guy was too famous and important to stay in the shot, it seemed.

Carla, 12:30pm, pissed on their signature lime margaritas. No, just kidding... it's just a funny photo.

Original Thompson for Sheriff poster, from Hunter S. Thompson's 1970 run for sheriff of Aspen, CO. The encumbent had a brush cut, so Thompson shaved his head bald so he could refer to his "long haired opponent" in the public debates. One of his platforms was to change the name of Aspen, then undergoing aggressive gentrification at the hands of upper-class American ski connaisseurs for the first time, to "Fat City". Thompson lost by only a narrow margin of votes.  

Turner ponders the place's gravitas, etc.

So now this one has more context: Sloaner with one of the Woody's Tavern resident dollies - they have a whole bookshelf full of kids' toys... obviously an establishment that has hosted hoardes of wee ones in its time.

Ralph Steadman's memorial to Thompson, the original, signed to Woody's Tavern and framed by the door; the latter's will requested RS to build a giant cannon in the shape of the Gonzo fist, and to fire his (Thompson's) ashes out of it as a final salute. In the lower right corner Steadman has portrayed himself, confused and grieving, carrying a gas can away into the desert. Above, Thompson flies to the heavens.

In the restaurant-recommendations category of things, we thought the guacamole was AWESOME, and they had on special Canadian crab quesadillas which were superbo. Also of note was the Caribbean salad, which had amazing huge shrimp. The margaritas weren't bad, either.

Categories: GeoHope | Turner

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That's A Molé!

Turner loves mole. I didn't know this until Brucio arrived, a few days after Sloane's birth, bearing giant bags of Mexican food. He'd driven past some random restaurant in a strip mall on Macleod Trail and, noticing the character wearing a sombrero on the sign, apparently thought to himself: "Ah, Mexican food. The kids [that's us] like foreign food." He peeled in there and walked out with half the menu in takeout boxes. Including, and this is the point, a whole pint of mole sauce. I think it was meant to be poured over one of the dishes.

Turner's love of mole was either born, or rekindled, I don't know which. He ate all that mole single-handedly, days later dipping toast and pita into it, guarding it like a scurvy-sick sailor with the last orange at sea. When it was finally gone, he talked about it in dreamy tones for weeks. Finally we went to find the place - a truly uninspiring exterior in a faceless drive-up mall on the east side of Macleod, north of the bridge after Heritage Drive. I can't remember the restaurant's name, but maybe Turner can weigh in and tell you. Anyway, it promptly became our official favourite Mexican place in Calgary. (And for the record, Salt and Pepper, further north on Macleod and most people's 'favourite Mexican place in Calgary', has nothing on this joint.) We take people there to demonstrate our amazing backalley understanding of Calgary's eating scene.

Postscript: I've been informed that it's Los Mariachis, 1 - 7400 Macleod Trail SE. It's near Tom's Pizza, a local landmark.  

So the mole. Turner has been on a quest for the perfect mole ever since. Tells me about these burritos he had at some birthday party in grade 2, when he was living in St. Louis, MO. Begins scheming about making mole at home. Sniffs out recipes on the internet. And mostly, can't wait to get to the US Southwest, because vats of mole, here he comes.

So it was no surprise when, upon our arrival in Taos, Turner was keen to try out the various Mexican food places around town. For the mole, you understand. But we were never able to do a proper and scientific blanket survey, because the first place we stopped was the best, and we became slavishly devoted and never ate anywhere else. It was humble in terms of appearance - west of town by the 64 turnoff. Rather dust-bitten and windblown. The door would slam and the menu was on one of those old each-plastic-letter-gets-individually-inserted-into-the-white-plastic-background-frame-lines concession boards. But.

The tamales were amazing. The chile relleno was ridiculous, though we had to put ourselves on a ban from it after a few times - too. much. goodness. I thought the Frito pie was a great deal better than it sounded; apparently a regional specialty, it's basically a taco salad involving Frito chips sprinkled in to provide the crunch. And the mole, according to Turner, was the best he'd ever had. Carla and I were deemed unbelievers, but then, we'd never claimed to be mole enthusiasts in the first place.

Our place in Taos, Toribos!

Yes, it really was this bright out. It's the desert, you know.

Hopping on one foot, hopping-hopping, never stopping, hopping on one foot!

Tamales.

Frito salad: before trying it.

Alas, I never got a photo of the mole.

Crossposted to The Geography of Hope blog.

Categories: GeoHope | Turner

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Overheard

The rest of our stay in the Denver area has us investigating Lakewood, an inner suburb of Denver that includes the new development of Belmar, a successful retrofit of a large old mall site into mixed-use housing and commercial development. Last night we stayed downtown to get a feel for Denver's core, but the fancy conference hotels always cost an arm and a leg. So we jumped on the king-sized bed and used up all the towels and revelled in the high speed internet and strolled along the pedestrian mall with the other tourists and it was grand. But today we had to shove off and have now decamped to much more humble accommodations, closer to Belmar.

You have to love true 'middle America'. This is very obviously the sort of place folks come when they've been caught cheating, and are waiting for their wife to let them back home. Or for the divorce to go through. Either way, overheard at the Extendistay America hotel off State Hwy 6, in Lakeview CO:

"Well, the Hooters is handy." [Right next door, in fact.]

"You know, telling me you 'have to take a big dump' is a completely different piece of information than, 'If you take more than 30 seconds with the bags I'm going to shit my pants' "

And last but not least, our man Turner adding to the local colour, yelling out our door into the parking lot, this gem: "You hear that, Aspen?! Even the Meth Lab Motel on the Interstate bypass has internet! Wireless! For $4.99!"

Categories: City Planning | GeoHope

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Photos Up On Flickr

These are mostly from the first few days of the trip... just getting organized with this internet access here in Denver, I should be able to punch up a whole whack in the next day or two. But for now, a sampler, here.

Categories: GeoHope

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Howdy Howdy, Quick Update

We're in Boulder, Colorado. We arrived in Denver about ten days ago, met up with our pal and old India hand, Carla, at the airport. Thereupon we rented a car (uh, a minivan), and headed south into the wilds of downcountry Colorado.

We're on a research trip for The Geography Of Hope, and our first stop was Taos, New Mexico. We rented an Earthship (photos in this link to our GeoHope blog) outside of Taos and spent a few days exploring. Then last weekend we attended the June Earthship seminar with visionary architect Mike Reynolds, out at the Earthship Biotecture headquarters on the bald mesa west of Taos. We were inspired, we were amazed. We took a whole whack of photos, which will eventually go up on Flickr. But we were also pretty convinced that between the drought and the blistering sun and the giant shiny spiders, New Mexico was gettin' set to kill us. So it was time to pack up and head north, back into Colorado.

We stopped at a weird little community off the highway north of Alameda, where everyone was very obviously growing pot as their livelihood because Hoo Boy were they paranoid. Asking directions to a community garden we'd heard about, someone demanded to know if I was FBI. Note to the citizens of that weird little town (name to come): There's a list of twelve different special soils for sale, up next to the cash register at your little grocery. Do you think you're fooling anyone about the "We all work in construction" thing?

Then it was Snowmass, and some time in Aspen, and a visit to the Rocky Mountain Institute. Then Nederland where we visited an alpaca ranch, and now we're in Boulder. This morning I took Carla to the airport.

I know this is a shitty update, I'm writing under a big time pressure and with only half a crappy sauerkraut hot dog in my tummy, so it may not last in the long run, but that's it for now. I'll leave you with this photo from our hike up at Maroon Bells, above Aspen:

photo by Carla Bellamy

Categories: GeoHope

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