Posts from — June 2006

Big businesses, especially those with their eye on the oil and hands around our throats, and corruption in government are just controlling us like crazy. I just came across this movie (thanks, Logan!) trailer. Watch it. It’s crazy how oil controls the future of all of us and the future of this planet that we’re borrowing (and destorying in the process). Check it:

SYNOPSIS from the movie’s website:

It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors
crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert?

WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? chronicles the life and mysterious death of the GM EV1, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business.

The year is 1990. California is in a pollution crisis. Smog threatens public health. Desperate for a solution, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) targets the source of its problem: auto exhaust. Inspired by a recent announcement from General Motors about an electric vehicle prototype, the Zero Emissions Mandate (ZEV) is born. It required 2% of new vehicles sold in California to be emission-free by 1998, 10% by 2003. It is the most radical smog-fighting mandate since the catalytic converter.

With a jump on the competition thanks to its speed-record-breaking electric concept car, GM launches its EV1 electric vehicle in 1996. It was a revolutionary modern car, requiring no gas, no oil changes, no mufflers, and rare brake maintenance (a billion-dollar industry unto itself). A typical maintenance checkup for the EV1 consisted of replenishing the windshield washer fluid and a tire rotation.

But the fanfare surrounding the EV1’s launch disappeared and the cars followed. Was it lack of consumer demand as carmakers claimed, or were other persuasive forces at work?

Fast forward to 6 years later… The fleet is gone. EV charging stations dot the California landscape like tombstones, collecting dust and spider webs. How could this happen? Did anyone bother to examine the evidence? Yes, in fact, someone did. And it was murder.

The electric car threatened the status quo. The truth behind its demise resembles the climactic outcome of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express: multiple suspects, each taking their turn with the knife.

WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? interviews and investigates automakers, legislators, engineers, consumers and car enthusiasts from Los Angeles to Detroit, to work through motives and alibis, and to piece the complex puzzle together.

WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? is not just about the EV1. It’s about how this allegory for failure—reflected in today’s oil prices and air quality—can also be a shining symbol of society’s potential to better itself and the world around it. While there’s plenty of outrage for lost time, there’s also time for renewal as technology is reborn in WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?

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Hearing your voice, maybe it was just the vibrations from your chest,

I felt the wind gently blowing my hair, a long skirt stirred by the breeze.

Hot and dry and lovely it whispered to me.

A life not lived, the dream of simplicity.

Wow, it’s been quite some time since I’ve participated in an Illustration Friday topic. I did most of this today and then saw the topic and figured I could make it work…I just had to transform the sunny dance into the rainy dance.

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I’m on another Beth Orton kick. I heard her live on Sirius Disorder yesterday and her voice just blew me away on the few songs she sang in the studio. Especially Shopping Trolley from her latest album. So Beth is on repeat on my computer. I think I’ll just listen to her all day.

From Shopping Trolley…

Words are but dust of stars
When they collide
I get lost in the sparks
Explode into the dark
And move like light on the sea

I think i’m gonna cry
But i’m gonna laugh about it
All in time
I know i’m gonna cry
But i’m gonna laugh about it
All in time, all in time

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Sometimes it’s so easy to get wrapped up and embedded in what we think someone is insinuating when none of it is based in reality. It’s so difficult at times to let go of these thoughts that feel like reality. I find myself holding on to them so tightly sometimes that they manifest into reality just from squeezing too hard and thinking too much and analyzing to a fault. Who knows if this makes sense. I need to really practice…well, I think I have in the past year or so…sitting with a feeling and letting it pass instead of picking it apart and dwelling in it and making it bigger than everything else surrounding me. When I feel like something is off or when I hear a tone in someone’s voice that makes me question their feelings toward me I need to just sit. I guess this is just a reminder to myself. Feel. Sit. After a while it will pass and it won’t even really mingle with reality. It will just be gone.

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Flappp… flappp.
She heard the sound echoing around her.
Flap flap.
The sound was heavy and commanding,
A prehistoric bird perhaps, swooping in
To snatch her from herself.

Opening her eyes, enveloped
By white light
And a heavy vibration in
Her empty chest.
White light shrouded by impossible
Wings above her.
Magnificent grace.

She could see no face.

Flapp flap.
She opened her mouth;
Everything
Was wrong.
She tried to scream.

Flapp flap.
Was the only sound.
Slow and pregnant.

Tilting her head and searching around her
All she could see was
Endless wings.
The empty chests of countless girls
Like her.

A wing reached down and covered her.
Grace reformed to heaviness and darkness.
Taking her breath as she gasped one last time.

This is just a very rough first draft still…inspired by an interview with poet laureate Billy Collins heard on NPR yesterday.

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