Last week I was driving out of Tehachapi headed east toward Barstow, and eventually to Big Bear, when I spotted hundreds of gigantic white windmills spinning their massive propellers and generating power to support our technological infrastructure. They were dotted across the fields and up the mountains like white splatter on a Jackson Pollock painting. My first reaction was that they were out of place . . an idyllic landscape, to die for, being invaded by the sharp edged, white propellers and towers. Seemingly out of place but somehow pleasing in the whole.
My mind drifted back to Paris. The Eiffel Tower, built between 1887 and 1889, is a beautiful landmark in Paris. It was constructed as the entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair. It’s in all the history books and, to most people, it is Paris. It is at the west end of the Champs du Mars, a beautiful park which has Petanquers, picnickers and tourists consuming billions of pixels of photos every minute. The gardens to the South are beautiful, and Nancy and I are digitally enshrined in front of the gardens in full bloom. The reds and oranges of the garden set off the rather drab gigantic supporting arches of the Tower.
Vendors of all types are selling tchotchkes of all kinds. During our last visit we saw small, whirring umbrellas that spun, took off, and parachuted to the ground, inconveniently surprising pickpockets as they plied their trade to the unwary tourists.
But, in the beginning, the Eiffel Tower was considered ugly and the French tried to stop its construction . . and they almost did. I am glad they didn’t.
As I watched the windmills of Tehachapi quietly doing their job, I was strangely pleased, comforted.
Maybe Jackson Pollock had a point.
Better the windmills would be covered in glitter and bits of crystal – where are my emojis?! And the whirring umbrellas were little police drones…..Yes, we’re related!