Trespassing the Future by Lincøln
March 3rd, 2009 5:00 PM / Location: 34.324609,-118.4712I hopped two fences to get into a small mobile home community that was lost in the fires last year. I geotagged this praxi, and I would like it if you'd click on that link and see that map and make sure you see it in satellite view, so you can see what this neighborhood looked like before the fires. I don't know what this place is going to be in ten years, but I guarantee that it won't look anything like it does right now.
Listen to this while you look through the pictures. I know it's a good video, but come back and watch it later. Or watch it now, and when it's over play it again while you look through the pictures. Actually, yeah, do that last part. Because this song gives a little bit of insight to the severity of this completion and the pictures taken here.
Death Cab for Cutie - Grapevine Fires
Trespassing
The present as well as the future. Notice the horrible mean cutty spikes on the top of that fence? It takes a skilled trespasser to get over those bad boys.
Private Property
Really? I wonder whose property this is? I mean now.
Charred tree
A neighborhood gone
Lot after lot of ruin. Families that lost everything. It's a bit heartbreaking to think about.
One more lost
Backyard fence
Half burned fence
Burninated
Burnt out car in the driveway
Lawnmower
Frame
This is the frame of one of the mobile homes.
Dish
Even DirecTV wasn't spared.
Shovel head
You can really tell how hot it was when all of the wood burned completely out of the shovel head.
Washer dryer
More ruins
Car
Looks like it was a pretty nice car at one point.
Tire
The steel radials are still there.
Walkway
What a cute little walkway leading up to what I'm sure was a cute little house.
Roof
That's the roof sitting on top of the frame of that house.
Office
Somebody's office.
Melted glass
More melted glass
Even more melted glass
Washer dryer
They look like a couple of drunk frat boys trying to make it home.
There used to be a floor there.
Knick Knack Rack
Ironic?
There is a broken ruined ceramic house on that rack. Now it is destroyed just like the home it was displayed in.
Propane
I'm amazed this didn't explode. There were a lot of propane tanks all over this place that were unharmed.
Stove
Entrance
Devastation
A whole neighborhood devastated.
Have a seat.
Tool box
Driveway
Big help
Olive & Elm
Stop
They had a nice view once
Car interior
Garage
This must have been inside of a garage.
Files & files
Look at all of those files. What was in there? Work? Art? Taxes? Comic books? Old photos? Whatever it was it's all gone now.
Mailboxes
Still standing.
Kitchen
Hose
Burnt trees & car
Footprint
I wonder if anybody'll notice all of the barefoot prints all over these ruins and wonder how they got there. I hope so.
Toppled palm
That a fireman's burnt firehose in the background there.
Under
This is the underside of a house.
Melt
I don't know what this was but it's art now.
Back window
Newspaper boxes
Wall
Dining room
Garage door
Front gate
Complete with fleurs.
Files
Well, not anymore they're not.
Shoes
Nails
This was something that was common at every home I went into. Nails everywhere, all of the wood had burned away and left the nails and staples intact. I hear people would do this in the old Wild West days when they moved. Nails were so hard to come by, that they'd burn down their old home and sift through the rubble the next day and pick out all of the nails. Nobody's picking through these.
Furnace
Cabinets
Back to back
Rifle
Half burned bike
Another bike
It too, is half burned.
There goes the neighborhood.
Lantern
Cool mug
Paint cans
I hear those can be highly flammable.
The night of the fires.
View from my home.
This is the neighborhood in question
This is a photo I got of the neighborhood I would be rummaging through in the future on the night of the fire.
Day of the fires
This was taken on the day of the fires and I was trying to get closer to the scene.
Day of fire
I couldn't get any closer than this. The emergency crews had the place locked down, but good.
View of the fires from behind.
Passing close to the fire
All of the exits on the freeway were closed, but some freeways were open, and we were allowed to drive through the smoke.
26 vote(s)
- Colonel Kerbstomp
- PDØ Clementine
- teucer
- lara black
- susy derkins
- Rin Brooker
- SPJ
- Cookie
- Fiona
- Loki
- rongo rongo
- Jellybean of Thark
- saille is planting praxis
- Tøm
- GYØ Ben
- Sombrero Guy
- Minch
- The Found Walrus
- Burn Unit
- artmouse
- Michael Bend
- Charlie Fish
- Kara Thrace
- Bastard
- Not Here No More
- Amoeba Man
Terms
disaster, votelater, fire, abandoned, crozzled11 comment(s)
The Death Cab for Cutie track finished exactly as I finished reading this comment - perfect timing.
Oddly enough, that's not the first time I've heard that.
I got really upset looking at these pictures to this music. I kept thinking about Australia drying out and burning up.
Also made my feet cringe. I walk around barefoot a lot but all that rusty metal and stabby hazards. Very frightening.
Excelent praxis my friend.
Yeah a lot of those pics look very much like pictures of the subburbs around where I used to live a few years ago and the images taken after the Victorian Fires.
It's quite amazing that the grass and gardens of many homes stay green and manicured yet the home, cars and occasionally people are utterly destroyed.
It's why every year during fire season warnings on what to do to prepare are televised and many people break environmental protection laws to protect themselves from being surrounded by forest-fires.
Some of those pics are brilliant btw, and looked forward to the comments.
When my minion M was a kid she lived in a region that was volatile for bush fires specially during the dry season. Your praxis reminded her of that time. And how her fears changed depending where she lived, to what was the common preceived fear. Until she learned that why spend energy worrying about an unlikely or likely event in the future, when the most you can do is a few sensible precautions and then deal with the event if such a time ever comes. Further more there is a saying about "Painting devils on the walls". How M interprets it is that if you expect or fear something to happen individually or en masse, you will involuntarily aid future taking that path. This is also the same reason M doesn't visit fortune tellers. Have a Cookie!
What I like most about the concept here is that you were thinking about this place, and how it would be totally different in the future, at the time of the fire. And then you visited, and thought about how it will be different again.
But what I like most about this praxis is that you showed how the absence of residents and the missing sense of home-ness was emphasized by the shadows they left behind.
looking at these pictures made me concerned for your feet
That's a new word for me. I like it. We could change your name. Crozzled Corp? Crozzled Integer?
I've been catching up on old praxis to use up all my vote points, and you get my last two.
This deserves more though, so I'll have to get tasking again.
I still haven't read/voted for the praxes between November 7th and March 3rd. Wow, that's a lot of vote points I have to earn.
I've often heard it said that Los Angeles has four seasons: earthquake, mudslide, fire, and riot. So near to tinsel-town though, the media coverage I saw of it was inevitably sensational, every reporter trying to get the scoop on some aspect not discussed elsewhere (I remember fierce competition to best report on the ongoing evacuation of horses for instance), but never really about the people or the lives left behind. Even living here, having seen and driven through those smoke clouds, I never had a context for the stories of those evacuated. The song and the praxis do this well, they are very contemplative, and I appreciate both.
Many visually striking shots. The Stop Sign for me in particular is astonishing, how hot and high and fast those flames must have struck.
As an aside, an exemplary study of facts #1 and #2 about fire.