{"id":2212,"date":"2011-01-07T01:47:13","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T05:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/\/?p=2212"},"modified":"2012-11-18T10:15:43","modified_gmt":"2012-11-18T14:15:43","slug":"texas-ranging-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/o-matic.com\/blog-archive-2022\/blog\/2011\/01\/07\/texas-ranging-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Ranging 01. Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am in TX — in Houston for the week. It is balmy.<\/p>\n

Jan 04 I flew from NY in an extra legroom three-seat row, next to two enormous men (one wide, one tall).\u00a0 Aisle man pushed into middle man, leaving me a minuscule (standard) patch of space next to the window.\u00a0 The aisle guy looked like a student; the middle guy was an oil exec for Schlumberger<\/a> (I know bc I read all his email). All three of us were reading about geology: The student was reading Bill Bryson\u2019s “A Short History Of Nearly Everything<\/a>” the oil exec, power point docs about noise reduction in fluids dropped down wells, and I, John McPhee\u2019s Basin and Range<\/a> (the poetics of geology).<\/p>\n

Jan 05 Texas City<\/a>. This morning I got stopped by private security for photographing the refineries from the road. (Are you following me?<\/em> I ask.\u00a0 Yes!<\/em> with a smile; I\u2019d stay put, Ma\u2019am, we have your plates. The police and FBI are coming.<\/em>) 10 minutes later, the policeman took my drivers license, looked at my photos – the first dozen of which were pretty abstract – and then called his FBI contact from his iPhone. You have a smart phone? <\/em>I ask. It’s my personal phone. <\/em>He’s sweet, actually. I’m thinking, Why’s he calling FBI from his personal cell phone? <\/em> The policeman believed me,\u00a0 I’m nothing more than an artist and so the FBI doesn’t have to come make me delete everything<\/em>… And he really was a very nice policeman. He suggested that instead of continuing my photography of the refineries, I should go look\u00a0 at the dolphins down at the end of the dike: Our pod is back.<\/em> I would like to do some testing of their pod’s bioaccumulation<\/a> (not to mention the people who live in the little sleepy town of Texas City and eat their catch from the 5 Mile Dike.<\/p>\n

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Texas City, from the 5 Mile Dike.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

***<\/p>\n

Jan 05 Galveston, The Ocean Star Offshore Rig and Museum<\/a>. Everything you always wanted to know about offshore drilling but were afraid<\/em> to find out<\/em>. Fantastic. A working rig, fully labeled; costumes to try on (\u201cso you want a job in offshore?\u201d; personality tests; brass plaques; miniatures; a dizzying derrick; 3D displays of seismic geological detection; an extensive \u201clife on the offshore rig\u201d display; and a corner of the 2nd floor devoted to environmental consciousness and care.<\/p>\n

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The Ocean Star Offshore Rig and Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

***<\/p>\n

Jan 05 Peak experience of the day: driving back from Galveston along the service road of I-45. Just before the causeway back to the mainland, one passes a series of wetlands, called the John M O\u2019Quinn Estuarial Corridor.\u00a0 pull over, as I see birds paddling about. Texas is the #1 birding state apparently. And they are everywhere, squeaking, cawing, peeping, singing, wading, flapping, drying out. But here… so poetic: just beyond the meandering estuary is a long line of freight cars, all oil tanks, and beyond that, the refineries of Texas City. And up in the sky is something pink, the color of sunset (really), I am thinking flamingo, it\u2019s so pink. It\u2019s a roseate spoonbill, it\u2019s exquisite, alone, and flapping its pinkness across the late afternoon.<\/p>\n

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The John M. O’Quinn Estuarial Corridor, Roseate Spoonbill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

***<\/p>\n

Jan 06 Went to The Center for Land Use Interpretation<\/a>\u2019s (CLUI) exhibition down on Buffalo Bayou. They have an exhibition and workspace trailer on the Buffalo Bayou Partnership <\/a>land, next to a \u201csymphonic\u201d scrap yard. The aerial HD video that CLUI made for \u201cTexas Oil: Landscape of an Industry\u201d is stunning. And\u00a0 in the last CLUI’s newsletter, <\/a>the essay “Going With The Flow, Flowing Through Texas’ Liquid Petrochemicalscape”<\/a> reads like adventure fiction.<\/p>\n

On the exhibition site at the Blaffer<\/a>, CLUI writes<\/p>\n

A petrochemical system integrates the country through a continental network of facilities and pipelines. This network, assembled over the last hundred years, moves crude, gas, and chemical feedstock, from\u00a0coast to coast, production areas to processing plants, tank farms to\u00a0tanker ports, touching every state. It is a circulatory system of the American Land, moving the lifeblood of the economy, in this Petrochemical Age.\u2028\u2028Though the complexity, scale, and forms of the industry resemble those of science fiction fantasy, they are real and present.\u2028\u2028If the oil industry has a heart, then it is Texas. And Houston is its aorta.
\n— The Center for Land Use Interpretation<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

CLUI: http:\/\/www.clui.org\/pro_pro\/exhibits\/txoil.html<\/p>\n

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Also –<\/p>\n