The Petrified Forest, Going, Going, Gone - 2011

 

Interstate I-40 East, From Winslow, Arizona to Gallup, New Mexico

     

In May 2011, I traveled from Winslow, Arizona to Gallup, New Mexico. Most of my trip was along Interstate I-40, but I did detour to parts of Old-66 at Holbrook, the Petrified Forest National Park and Gallup.

Whenever I am in Winslow, I stay at the Homolovi State Park campground. Although close to town, Homolovi itself feels like a place lost in time. From its Ancestral Hopi Indian ruins to its often-deserted campground, there is plenty of peace and solitude to go around at Homolovi. Departing at noon that day, I was the only human visible anywhere in the area.

From Winslow, east to Gallup, I-40 obliterated much of old Highway US-66. Side roads to the current interstate highway are the only remnants of Old-66, the “Mother Road”. Taking advantage of a gradual ascent towards Holbrook, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF) parallels the highway on the south side. Following the gentle gradient of the Little Colorado River, this transportation corridor takes the shortest and flattest route available. For those thirty-five miles of travel on I-40, the sagebrush desert stretches almost unbroken to the horizon.

To break the monotony of this stretch, travelers can marvel at the advertising signs along the way. For reasons unknown, most Indian trading post billboards have yellow backgrounds, with hand painted red lettering. Some of the signs harkened from an era when clean restrooms were a rarity, and thus a major draw. Other signs tout “cold ice-cream” or “Indian Blankets - $9.99”. Some of the billboards date back to the heyday of old Route 66. A few billboards were so well built against the wind, if not the weather, that only a trace of paint hints at their original subject matter.

In several places, the BNSF railroad tracks are close enough to the interstate highway for motorists to see the action. Years ago, workers laid a second set of tracks adjacent to the original east/west line. Rather than waiting on sidings for opposing trains to pass, this stretch of track is like an expressway, with trains operating in both directions, and around the clock. Elsewhere in the High Southwest, you might still see trains pulled by old Santa Fe Railroad locomotives. Here, however, there is a need for speed. The raw horsepower required to pull these long trains at 5,000-foot altitudes dictates the use of newer BNSF engines.

Painted in variations of orange, yellow and black, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe locomotives look clean when they are dirty and dirty when they are clean. Even when speckled with their own diesel exhaust particulates, they always look tailored for business. With their yellow lettering on a dull orange background, the BNSF locomotives reminded me of highway billboards advertising, “Chief Joseph blankets - $9.99”.

In Snowflake, Arizona, my friend Kathy Hemenway has a Route 66 vintage trailer stored in her yard. Outfitted to shield sensitive individuals from aberrant radio-frequency waves, its classic single-axle chassis belies its stainless steel interior. From its lonely perch along a High Southwest ridge, the little trailer appears ready to hit the road to high adventure. Although I would not relish sleeping on cold stainless steel, Kathy's trailer might convert well to a mobile kitchen.

Exiting I-40 East at Holbrook, I stopped for supplies at the local Safeway market. While waiting for service in the deli department, I spoke with an old-timer about the petrified wood trade around town. Although just a handful of shops and yards seemed to have the whole business tied up, he assured me that “almost everyone in town” had crates full of the scarce rocks in their garages. If I wanted a bargain on some rocks that had once been trees, he would have been happy to oblige.

Leaving Holbrook, I traveled eighteen miles southeast on US Highway 180. As I turned to pick up the highway to the Petrified Forest National Park, I glimpsed an industrial-sized yard full of petrified wood for sale. To the rear were the manufacturing and sales buildings. Well into the twentieth century, locals and opportunists often ignored bans against harvesting petrified wood from government land. Today, with legal collection of petrified wood from public lands long gone, I wondered who had gathered so many large chunks of our nation’s heritage and placed them in private hands. With so much petrified wood scavenged from the land, would there be any remaining for me to see at the Petrified Forest National Park?

Having turned sixty-three years old a few weeks earlier, I was intent upon buying my “Golden Age Passport” at the first national park I visited. After rolling up to the booth at the park entrance, I paid my ten dollars and received what the National Park Service now calls a "Senior Pass". As it turned out, I had been eligible for the pass since the day I turned sixty-two. With my lifetime pass, I can now gain entrance to any national park in the U.S., free of additional charge. As a reward for all of the federal taxes I have paid in this lifetime, I am happy to accept this federal government largess.

The young woman at the entrance booth reminded me that it was illegal to collect or transport any found item from the park, especially petrified wood. I assured her that I had no interest in collecting anything at all. In fact, it looked like the locals from times past had removed almost all of it anyway. She said that illicit collectors often develop remorse and return their ill-gotten rocks to the park headquarters. Although the park will accept such “donations”, they cannot return them to their natural place in the park since no one knows exactly where that place might be. Once taken from their original place of rest, these rocks become vagabonds within the mineral world, with no home of their own.

To a new visitor, most of the Petrified Forest National Park looks just like the surrounding desert. When we think of a forest, we think of trees standing upright, whether they are petrified or not. Actually, the Petrified Forest was a place where millions of years ago, large tree trunks washed into ravines, and then became covered with silt. Over the millennia, iron and other minerals infiltrated the cellular tissue of the logs, replacing cellulose and wood fiber with stone.

From about 12,000 BCE until 1300 CE, three distinct prehistoric cultures (Anasazi, Mogollon and Sinagua) occupied various parts of the park. As is true with almost all of the Southwestern United States, the climate today is drier and less hospitable than it was during the days of early human habitation. This land was not immune to the Great Disappearance of early tribes around 1300 CE.

Looking for evidence of running water in the park, I stopped at the confluence of Dead Wash and Ninemile Wash. Here, near the Puerco Indian Ruins, a confluence of two meager streams forms the Rio Puerco, which in turn flows into the Little Colorado River. The Puerco River, here flowing under the roadway in a culvert, looks more like a drainage ditch than a river. Although it still flowed sluggishly in May, I doubt that one would find running water here in late summer or fall.

After traveling almost half way through the park, I found the first petrified wood visible from the road. Stopping my rig, I confirmed that there was still some petrified wood left at Petrified Forest National Park. Until I saw tree rings in stone for myself, I had my doubts as to the authenticity of the whole enterprise. Until then, I wondered if the entire national park was perhaps an elaborate hoax.

To document the authenticity of the place, I got both of my Kokopelli and Coney (the traffic cone) out of my travel trailer. Posing them on one of the large petrified specimens, I took their picture as documentary evidence that the place still exists, and so too, do they. Reflecting my own stubbornness, sometimes they are hard to convince. In the second photo of my superhero friends, I unwittingly captured a picture of the Other, casting his shadow across the hard stone. It was late afternoon and I still had many miles to go before camping at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. I ensconced all of my little friends in the cab of my truck and headed for the eastern exit of the park

After passing under I-40, I found myself stopping to stare at The Painted Desert. As a child, I grew up watching old Walt Disney documentaries about the desert, but I never imagined how realistic the Disney artists’ recreation really was. From each turnout, I could see a different view of a pastel colored desert, with subtle hues reflected in late afternoon sunlight. When architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Grady Gammage Auditorium at Arizona State University, in Tempe, critics cried foul at its pastel color scheme. Its exterior seemed to glow, with a pastel pink tone often predominating. Those who claimed that Wright’s colors were not true to any real desert should visit The Painted Desert. There they shall find proof of Wright’s veracity. His vision presaged the contemporary trend toward natural color schemes for Southwest houses.

Before leaving the Petrified Forest National Park, I came across the Painted Desert Inn. In 1947, Fred Harvey brought his famous "Harvey Girls" to the Painted Desert Inn, operating it as a hotel and restaurant for many years. In 2006, the National Park Service completed a major refurbishment of the original buildings, which are open for food service and souvenir shopping today. Gone now, are the only overnight accommodations anywhere in the park. I would not be surprised to find that this is the only national park to close its gates at sundown, reopening again after sunrise each day.

As I exited the park, the ranger on duty at the booth asked if I had collected anything during my visit. I answered, “No, I don’t believe in it”. Carrying with me a copy of Craig Childs' new book, “Finders Keepers – A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession”, I had lost all desire to collect artifacts or natural objects from any public land. OK, I do admit to bringing one souvenir piece of Redrock home each time I drive to Moab. If each of us collects only a few rare items, soon there will be no natural or ancient artifacts for humans to find and contemplate.

Now, when I find a potsherd in the desert, I observe it, photograph it and then return it to its place of origin. Unburied by my boot heel, it shall lay there until it welcomes its next visitor. If the next "finder" is also a "keeper", it shall be, "Goodbye, in-situ potsherd". With the fragility of desert environments, it is best to conduct one's search along established trails or in dry-washed arroyos. There, your boot can do no further damage. And if you do find a piece of hard-baked white ware, with indigo lines painted on to its white glaze, you will know its beauty immediately. Once removed from its rightful place, its value is nil. It may have taken eleven hundred years for our potsherd to make it from its original camp to a floodplain in the desert. I believe that each artifact is imbued with the Spirit of the Ancients. With that knowledge, one can see that the spirit accompanying that potsherd chose to bake there in that wash. Until the keeper found it, the spirit of the potsherd waited patiently for The Flood to carry it further on its journey. Having that potsherd in one's dresser drawer does not further the cause. Simply put, humans should not abscond with ancient potsherds, nor pieces of petrified wood, for that matter.

After seventy-two more miles of driving on I-40 East, I arrived in Gallup, New Mexico. Gallup is a regional center for Indian Country, with a business district that speaks to its long history. Pawnshops, Indian art galleries and trading posts occupy many of the old brick buildings in town. Drawn out over Old-66, the town appears larger than it is. If one drives only a mile north or south from the highway, there is more desert to see than there is city. Still, with Old-66, newer I-40, plus the BNSF rail line all running through town, Gallup is the largest transportation and lodging center between Flagstaff, Arizona and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

As I drove through town late that May afternoon, there were vehicles everywhere. On either side of the old highway and along the center median, I saw huge wicker baskets resting in truck beds and on trailers. Although there was not a hot air balloon in sight, it was obviously a rallying point for hot air balloonists. As if it were a normal occurrence, many balloonists were testing their propane gas jets right in the middle of the highway. Within a few blocks, I had passed the balloon-less balloonists and once again had the road almost to myself.

With sunset about an hour away, the light was low as I pulled away from the corner of Highway 66 and Second Street. On my right was a long block of gritty buildings. To my left, I saw an Amtrak train stopped at the Gallup Amtrak Station. Originally built as the El Navajo Hotel in 1918, the train station now shows a more contemporary front to motorists. After stopping for fuel, I headed east on I-40. With Chaco Culture National Historical Park as my targeted resting place, I hoped for a long dusk to light my way.

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By James McGillis at 07:13 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link

Nuclear Dust Storm Hits Moab, Utah - 2011

 

Nuclear Dust Storm Hits Moab, Utah

     

From August 14 – 19, 2011 I was in my favorite town of Moab, Utah. With several of eight local Moablive.com webcams in need of service and one new webcam to install, I had a busy week in Moab. Other than two brief thunderstorms, it was either warm or hot during my entire visit. When I left Moab at 3:00 AM on Friday morning, it was 76 degrees. Each day, downtown temperatures topped one hundred degrees . At the Moab Rim Campark, away from all of the concrete and asphalt, it was a bit cooler . 

On Tuesday, I visited Andy Nettell, proprietor at the back of the Back of Beyond Bookstore. A month earlier, our bookstore webcam server had failed. Luckily, the spare unit that I sent to Andy via UPS plugged right in and has worked flawlessly ever since. Next time you visit the bookstore, visit Andy’s antiquarian section at the back of the store. There you will see a red light flashing on our live webcam.

After retrieving the broken server from the bookstore, I headed over to Best Western Canyonlands Inn, intent upon getting wireless service connected to their webcam. With help from the friendly staff at the hotel, I was able to bypass their log-in screen and reconnect the Moab Canyonlands Inn “Center and Main” webcam. The webcam is located above the Peace Tree Café, in the new Main St. Suites at Canyonlands Inn. Now that their webcam is working properly, you can watch vehicular and foot traffic any time in Downtown Moab. The best place to watch is on our website.

Next, I headed twelve miles north of town on U.S. Highway 191. My destination was Canyonlands Field, also known as the Moab Airport. There, at Redtail Aviation, we have a live webcam pointing out the window of their hanger. Its field of view includes the arrival/departure area for Great Lakes Airlines, as well as the parking area for visiting private jets. Mr. Chris Bracken, pilot and mechanic for Redtail Aviation was working in the hanger that afternoon. He offered moral support as I taped the webcam back on to its designated window. Using different types of tape, we are still baffled by why the camera will not stay firmly attached to the hanger window. Chris believes it is a combination of cool air from their swamp cooler and high heat on the outside of the window glass. After I left town, the camera fell from the window, but Chris got it back in business the next day.

Thursday, August 18 was my last day in Moab, and I had one new webcam to install. An associate broker at Arches Realty in Downtown Moab had asked me to come in. After quickly deciding on the best view, I began installation of their new webcam. Six hours later, I had the webcam tested and showing a great image of Moab and the Redrocks from their first story window. Alas, a year later, the company asked me to remove their webcam. The image below is the last surviving image from that webcam.

Before I left her office, an associate broker invited me to review all of the MoabLive.com webcams on her computer screen. On the screen we could see a thunderstorm raging at Canyonlands Field, about fifteen files north of our location. A quick glance at our several Spanish Valley webcams showed increased weather activity all around. The Slickrock had clouds, thunder storms cloaked the La Sal Range and the flag flew almost straight up near the Moab Rim. From our vantage point at the computer, we could see thunder storms coming and thunder storms blowing away. Looking at that spectacular sight, we were awed by the breadth and power of nature in and around Moab.

Approaching as it did, from the north; the storm first hit Canyonlands Field, and then moved on towards Moab. As the airport-thunderstorm collapsed, it sent a torrent of cold air south, along the Moab Rim and down the U.S. Highway 191 canyon. There, the venturi effect created by narrow canyon walls accelerated the wind. At the Potash Road, the canyon widens again, thus allowing the wind to fan out over the top and sides of the Moab UMTRA site. The rounded shape of the Moab Pile allowed a low pressure zone to develop over its top. Behaving like a giant airplane wing, wind gusts entering that low pressure zone launched tons of radioactive and toxic soils into the air.

The heavier particles (and presumably the heavier radio-nucleotides) quickly fell back to earth. With the UMTRA's direct adjacency to the Colorado River, I am sad to report that the river received a heavy dose of radioactive dust and chemical toxins, as released by the ensuing dust storm. It is always good to remember our downstream neighbors. In this case fourteen million American and Mexican citizens living downstream rely on the Colorado River for drinking water, manufacturing and crop irrigation. As sad as these facts may be, The Dust Storm of August 19, 2011 did not end there.

Writing later to a Moab friend, I said, “By the time I got to a gas station on the south side of town, a gale of dust and trash swept over me. When I arrived home at the Moab Rim RV Campark, farther south, I went down to the rail fence and took some pictures. From there, I could see wind ravaging the Moab Pile and sending tons of radioactive dust toward Downtown Moab.

From the pictures I took, it is obvious that the UMTRA site is highly vulnerable to winds streaming down-canyon past the Arches National Park entrance. Near that location, the canyon both narrows and deepens. The resultant squeezing of the air creates a venturi effect that is focused on to the northwest side of the pile. Since the UMTRA removal efforts expose more raw soil daily, it easily went airborne and precipitated out as dust throughout the City of Moab and the Spanish Valley.

Simultaneously, a similar, but larger dust storm was tearing up the land in Phoenix, Arizona and all of Maricopa County. Was that mere coincidence, or is there a definable connection between those two dust storms? Only if the DOE and the National Weather Service (NWS) cooperate and share data on such events will we begin to predict their occurrence. In this case, I suspect a weather front that stretched from Canyon Country, Utah to Tucson, Arizona. Perhaps someone of knowledge could check and correlate the timing of regional dust storms throughout the Four Corners Region.

Despite the absence of region-wide information sharing, any actions taken at the Moab UMTRA project on August 18, 2011 were inadequate. Transporting the Moab Pile by rail to Brendel and Crescent Junction, Utah appeared to be their focus. A distant second in importance is the physical integrity of the pile, as it exists today. A local resident told me that telephone complaints about UMTRA's dust bring a canned response from the contractor’s public relations office. Callers, who may be choking on UMTRA’s toxic dust, are told that ‘wind over a certain speed results in immediate suspension of grading and hauling at the site’.”

Even without coordinated dust storm alerts, UMTRA contractors can now monitor nine public webcams situated around Moab and the Spanish Valley. If they were to monitor only one screen provided me as the Moab Live Public Service Webcam Page, UMTRA contractors could see a windstorm coming long before they felt it. Greater Moab has many micro-environments and each has its own unique micro-weather. If Uranium King, Charles (Charlie) Steen (1919-2006) had foreseen the long-term threat that his company created, I doubt that he would have situated his Atlas Uranium Mill (now UMTRA) at its current location. With the ongoing threat from flooding and wind storms, old Cold War fears still haunt the area around his creation. 

The drill rig shown abandoned below the Moab Rim is of the type borrowed by Charlie Steen to make his Mi Vida Mine discovery. In fact it may be the exact same rig. In those days, and for many years thereafter, mining trucks and equipment were often abandoned around Moab. Those who brought this piece of Moab memorabilia to its current location carefully jacked it up on to several railroad ties, removed the wheels and drove away. Now, forty or more years after its derelict arrival, the machine slowly rusts away. At the rate of current decomposition, I estimate its half-life to be about 704 million years, which coincides nicely with the half-life of uranium-235 which it was used to discover. 

I have not read the Department of Energy’s (DOE) charter of the UMTRA Moab Project, but there must be something in there about using every reasonable and cost-effective method of protecting the Moab Pile from flooding downstream or blowing away in the wind. We know from previous studies that deep beneath the Moab Pile there is a large reservoir of contaminated water. In fact, the center of the pile is so wet that the latest Google Earth view of the UMTRA site shows a recently uncovered stream bed.

Water beneath the Moab Pile has only two places it can go. If allowed to, it will migrate downstream towards the Colorado River. In fact, a well-field along the riverside attempts to extract contaminated ground water and spread it atop the pile. As the water slowly dries on undisturbed parts of the pile, it forms a tough crust. With so much of the site under recent excavation, very little of the ground stays undisturbed for long. As a result, much of the UMTRA site is unprotected from another big “blow off”. 

The DOE should require the contractor to take immediate action to design and deploy a far larger array of sprinklers at the site. Ideally, an onsite reservoir would feed the sprinkler system, which could quickly cover the entire pile. With better weather monitoring and forecasting, the contractor could start deploying large volumes of sprinkled water ahead of the next dust storm, rather than afterwards, or as on August 18, 2011, “not at all”.  Whoever monitors the weather and calls for future halts in work at the site should be an employee of the NWS, not the DOE or the contractor. When danger lurks for the Moab Pile, no one should second-guess an early weather-shutdown, rather than a late one. In the current situation, shutting down “on time” is often too late.

Many in Moab grew up with or within the nuclear industry. Despite the toll it took on mine workers and processors, Moab is tolerant to the point of nostalgia about its ranching and mining past. That familiarity may breed complacency, which Moab can ill afford. Even if many residents consider a nuclear dust-bath to be an acceptable occurrence in town, most tourists and visitors do not. The only way to assure the safety of all in Moab is to take immediate measures to change the Moab UMTRA charter, making environmental protection at least as important as removal and transportation of contaminated material.

Email James McGillis

On Any Monday, in Moab...2011

 

On Any Monday, in Moab...

On Monday, August 1, 2011 a U.S. congressional mandate to allow the world to go on spinning was still one day away. If agreement on raising the artificially contrived federal debt ceiling could not be reached by the following day, the sky would fall and the world would revert to being flat. That prospect seemed like a big setback to most conscious humans.

 

However, sixty or seventy Flat-Earthers recently elected to the U.S. House of Representatives seemed to relish in their power to send us all back to the economic Dark Ages. Like petulant children playing with a new chemistry set, “So what”, they said, “If we explode society as we know it?” “Not our fault”, they assured us. “This has been going on for years…” Since I began writing this story, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked by over 500 points and then rose by an unreassuring sixty-points the following day.

That evening, rather than dwelling on such morose potentials, I clicked on an unpublicized webpage, which commands a simultaneous view of all nine Moablive.com Utah webcams. Viewing the scene across my own personal energy bridge, I found myself looking through the front office window at the Moab Rim Campark. Suspended there, over Moab's Slickrock Trail I saw a webcam image of a double-rainbow. Looking in turn at each of five webcams in the Spanish Valley, I could see different slices of the scene. Stitching it together in my mind, I watched a summer storm hit Moab and then dissipate on the slopes of the La Sal Range.

If we are to believe what the mainstream media tell us about our world, it is a sad and dangerous place. If we believe our own eyes, we know that our world is a wild and wondrous place, almost begging for our attention. As heat and drought imperil crops and lives throughout the middle section of the U.S. this summer, Moab has recorded several substantial rainstorms. Airflow from the northwest has vied for position with a strong monsoonal flow from the south. During July 2011, storms from the south followed storms from the northwest. The combination kept rivers running high and replenished the local water table.  

In this world, one Moab was located in ancient Syria, near the Dead Sea. The other, manifested more recently in Southeastern Utah. The name “Moab” means “the far country”, and each Moab qualifies for that title. When we are not there to witness events firsthand, forgotten is the beauty of those wild places. On this page I compiled a slideshow of webcam images captured that evening. Even if our economy grinds to a halt, we can live in hope that such beautiful weather events will continue to sweep through the far country each summer, and forever.

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By James McGillis at 04:44 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

Another Costantino Proietto Painting of the Amalfi Coast is Revealed - 2011

 

Another Costantino Proietto Painting of the Amalfi Coast is Revealed.

   

We recently discovered that the signature on our oil painting of the Amalfi Coast is “C.Proietto”. Since then, I have been on a quest to find out more about, “The Man from Amalfi”, Signore Costantino Proietto (1910 - 1979). Soon after posting my original article on that subject, Ms. Marion Grayson of Belton, Texas sent me an image of her own C.Proietto. It is yet another Amalfi Coast masterpiece.

Although foreground objects differ, and the field of view varies, each painting was of the same place, by the same artist. On the terrace of the hotel from which he often painted, only the potted plants had changed. Even before seeing his signature, my heart leapt. Here was yet another window in time, created by the master in residence, Costantino Proietto.

Soon after we published images of the Grayson C.Proietto painting, Mr. Darold Bennett of Las Vegas, Nevada emailed three images of his own C.Proietto. Displayed by his in-laws in their home of sixty years, the family treasure hangs now in Bennett’s home. Remarkably, the Bennett CProietto depicts the same Amalfi Coast location as the previous two. As usual, the artist depicts the Amalfi Coast, with a view to the sea. Of his own Costantino Proietto painting, Darold wrote, “I had a hard time trying figuring out the name too, but it finally came to me that it is ‘C.Proietto’, not ‘C.Preietto’. My in-laws had this painting about 60 years. Are [C.Proietto’s] paintings worth anything?”

The quick answer to Darold’s question is; historically no, but in the future, perhaps. From the limited biography available for the artist, only postwar tourists to Italy purchased his paintings from their source. Since initial purchases were in the 1940’s and 1950’s, many C Proietto paintings are now passing from one generation to the next. In our case, we are third-generation owners of our painting.

In most cases, C.Proietto provenance is hard find. Current owners often know who first owned the painting, yet few details of purchase remain. Although an artist of note could counterfeit his works, recent auctions value an original C.Proietto at or below $1000.  Short of forensic analysis, C.Proietto’s unique signature is the best test of authenticity. I cannot imagine anyone copying that multifaceted signature and making it look right. In an effort to strengthen their provenance, some later C.Proietto paintings had wax seals and other documentation attached.

Bennett’s is the third C Proietto Amalfi Coast painting to surface on the internet in the past month. With such rapid additions to the artist’s known body of work, we wonder how many more examples may exist. We picture many a living room graced by an attractive oil painting depicting a classical Italian scene. Is that the new owner, staring at an enigmatic signature, executed with blue paint so dark that it looks black?

At least one letter in each of the artist’s signatures will be enigmatic, if not indiscernible. Over time, each owner of a C.Proietto painting shall decipher the signature code, conduct a Google search and find that he or she is among friends. If each who discovers their own C.Proietto masterpiece provides us with information on their painting, I shall publish it here.

In Ancient Egypt, Pharaohs appeared as a blend of human and deity, manifested here on Earth. If their god-side was to penetrate eternity, so too must Pharaoh's image. Even today, viewing one of their funerary masks “in person” can send a chill up your spine. In that moment of mutual recognition, we validate another Pharaoh’s quest for eternal life.

On what date Costantino Proietto lifted his final canvas from its easel and sold it to a tourist for a few hundred dollars, we do not know. All we know is that sometime in the second half of the twentieth century, C.Proietto painted his final masterpiece. Each unrecognized painting waits for its owner to decipher to its signature. Like the mask of an ancient Pharaoh looking back at us through time, each locked Costantino Proietto signature awaits its key. In fact, human consciousness is the key to All that Is.

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By James McGillis at 07:12 PM | Fine Art | Comments (4) | Link

UCLA Student Rampage of 1966 Shuts Down the San Diego Freeway (I-405 Northbound) - 2011

 

 

UCLA Student Rampage of 1966 Shuts Down the San Diego Freeway (I-405 Northbound)

 

News Items for November 22, 1966Rose Bowl, I-405,San Diego Freeway,1966,

•      As luminescent debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle rains down on Earth, the Leonids Meteor Shower ends its first intense display in sixty-six years.   
•       The Rose Bowl snub in favor of USC. Twice, students marched onto the freeway and briefly stopped northbound traffic. On that Tuesday, only days after backup quarterback Norman Dow (in his first and only start) led the Bruins to an upset of USC at the Coliseum, The Times reported, obscenity-shouting protesters “left a trail of shocked and bewildered spectators.”
  
  The year 1966 was my first at UCLA and watching our underdog Bruins vanquish Troy was epic. To Bruin fans, the L.A. Coliseum felt like its counterpart in ancient Rome. After the victory, we left the Coliseum chanting “Rose Bowl, Rose Bowl”.
  Despite the UCLA win and otherwise equal records that season, a technicality bequeathed the Pac-8 title and a coveted berth in the Rose Bowl that year. Later the Pac-8 became the more familiar Pac-10. More recently, the conference morphed into an ambiguous NCAA entity known as the Pac-12. If the original Pac-8, then known as the Pacific Coast Conference had at least something to do with geography, the Pac-12 can make no such claim. Since many saw Arizona as another politically conservative suburb of Los Angeles, it was easy enough to rationalize stretching the Pacific Ocean into the Desert Southwest. However, even the most brazen sports fan would have a hard time making the case for the Pacific Ocean being anywhere near Utah or Colorado, where the 2011 conference additions dwell.
  Major Leonids Meteor Showers occur in thirty-three year cycles. Major closings of the I-405 are rarer still, with this one happening forty-six years later. Since 1998, the Rose Bowl has vaporized like a comet into the mind-numbing Bowl Championship Series (BCS). In January 2011, the TCU Horned Frogs played the Wisconsin Badgers at the Rose Bowl. Only the teams, their diehard fans and inveterate sports bettors know who won that game. Rather than being about geography, history and proud tradition, the Rose Bowl somehow morphed into a financial institution. Whether it is in support of sports betting or cold cash for the Tournament of Roses, it is all about the money now. Still, motorists on the I-405 can rest easy about a recurrence of the “UCLA Rampage” of 1966. Thanks to the BCS, it is unlikely that a victory in any future UCLA vs. USC game will affect commuters as they trundle up Sepulveda Pass toward The Valley. Will anyone in that line of cars chant, "Go Horned Frogs, go".
  On the afternoon of November 22, 1966, word got out on campus that UCLA “had been robbed” of their Rose Bowl berth. Almost immediately, spontaneous demonstrations started on campus.  Using tiredness as my excuse, I declined my friend Leonard’s fervent invitation to join the demonstrations.  Instead, I studied for a while and then fell asleep on an unmade bed in my dorm room.
  In that time of increasing political tension and sporadic campus violence, UCLA students were restive.  Still, our campus had not yet experienced any organized protests, as had happened up north at Berkeley.  From the drumbeat of Sgt. Barry Sadler’s Number one hit of 1966, “Ballad of the Green Berets”, we knew that an American war raged on in Vietnam. Still contested among LA riot aficionados is whether the 1996 UCLA Rampage was larger than the summer of 1966 Sunset Strip Curfew Riots. Those riots, associated with the closing of the nefarious Pandora's Box nightclub became world famous in 1967 when Steven Stills and the rock group Buffalo Springfield released their song, “For What it’s Worth”.  In the late fall of 1966, group consciousness on campus was looking for any excuse to get out of hand.  An unfair ruling by a commission of unnamed sports officials became the flash point for mob action.  
  In the early afternoon, a call to action swept through campus, with students yelling, “To the freeway.  Shut it down”. After the I-405 freeway closure, bonfires had flared into the night at campus demonstrations against the oh-so-important Rose Bowl berth.  Near midnight on November 22, 1966, Leonard came crashing into my room, still red-cheeked and sweaty from a long run uphill to the dorm.  Today, Leonard is a distinguished college math instructor and a published author.  That night, as I listened to his story, I wondered whether he had been one of the provocateurs.
  Interstate 405 is located over a mile from the UCLA campus, but undeterred by that distance; the demonstrators began their unruly march.  Down Westwood Blvd. they surged, and then west along Wilshire Blvd. to the freeway.  Once there, the mob scrambled straight up steep banks, or marched up the on-ramps and off-ramps to the San Diego Freeway.
  In the glare of afternoon sun, startled northbound motorists saw hundreds of young people chanting along the side of the freeway. Soon after their arrival, demonstrators began flagging down anyone who would stop. In the interest of safety, traffic slowed, and then one driver came to a halt in the slow lane. Lane, by lane, the budding anarchists proceeded, until all four northbound lanes of the I-405 freeway came to a complete stop.  Soon, highway patrol and LA Police arrived, threatening to arrest anyone who did not disperse. Like a school of fish, the crowds dispersed, and then reformed and retook the freeway. As more LAPD reinforcements arrived, officers with bull horns herded the crowd back to Wilshire Blvd. and then followed them on their long walk home.
  In my dorm room that night, Leonard was exultant.  Mobs could rule.  People had power.  He had been part of something bigger than himself, even if it was an anarchistic mob.  In an act of benevolent avoidance, my higher self had gently put me to sleep for the duration of events.  In that early version of what we now call a “flash mob”, there were no arrests or criminal charges filed. With impending wide scale protests against the Vietnam War, future demonstrations across the country were often less peaceful.
  With the benefit of forty-seven years of reflection, I believe that something important happened at both the UCLA Rampage and the more recent I-405 Carmageddon closures. Despite the divergent reasons for the closures, in each a bridge captured the public imagination. In 2011, California spent millions to topple half of a bridge, simply to add a carpool lane to the northbound side. In 1966, students discovered an energy bridge to their own future. Did stardust energy from Comet Tempel-Tuttle assist them in their peaceful, if raucous closing of the I-405?
  

  
  Dec. 4, 2012 - Reader Tom Conerly's comment:
  
  Thanks for posting the I-405 freeway photo from 1966. I searched for it to show my son in law. However, you might want to expand your blog...it was not just student unrest. After the announcement picking USC for the Rose Bowl, a bunch of us from Trojan Hall decided to do a victory lap, along UCLA's fraternity row.
  
  I was in the back seat of my roommate's Chevy Malibu SS 396 holding a speaker out the window, blasting the USC fight song. Behind us were at least 20 cars full of USC red and gold. As we made our second lap, hundreds of guys flooded out of the fraternities and chased us down Wilshire Boulevard. I remember running at least two red lights and barely escaping.
  
  Later after being radicalized, I did my best to "burn down USC", and married a UCLA girl, but that day in Westwood still stands out. All I mean from “burn down” was that I quickly lost any rah rah feelings for USC. I spent a lot of time at UCLA (Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee on the Janss Steps at noon for free) and always liked it there.
  
  See if you can find a pic of another of my seared memories-the 500 cop cars parked on the hill by the dorms in 1970.
  
  Dec. 4, 2012 - Jim McGillis' Response:

  Perhaps you are referring to the afternoon that fire alarms sounded almost simultaneously at Dykstra, Sproul, Rieber and Hedrick residence halls. Every police cruiser and fire truck in West Los Angeles headed for the dorms. There was so much apparatus on the streets that they created their own traffic jam. When first responders arrived, nothing was amiss, except for the sabotaged fire alarms.
  
  If we both recall the same episode, I wrote about that in my eBook. To keep the riff-raff out, I charge $.99 for the book. If you are not completely satisfied, the book has a 101% money-back guarantee. Ha!
  
  Although I will not disclose my sources, I knew both of the fire-alarm commandos. Although no one asked me to participate, I did little to discourage those who did. When four alarms sounded, the dispatchers at police and fire headquarters gave us everything that they had. Their heroic, yet futile response left me with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach.
  
  Today, we might refer to such an act as domestic terrorism. Had the plot unraveled, there would have been several expulsions from UCLA that year, perhaps including me. How long is the statute of limitations on a crime like that?
  
  During the Radical 1960’s, many of us perpetrated antisocial acts against the institutions around us, sometimes even our schools. Looking back on it, there is no excuse for such antisocial activities.

  
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By James McGillis at 11:57 PM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link

A Webcam Has Its Run at a Moab RV Park - 2011

 

A Webcam Has Its Run at a Moab RV Park

In late May 2011, I traveled to my favorite town of Moab, Utah. As usual, I planned to stay at the Moab Rim RV Campark & Cabins. For many years, the Campark owners, Sue and Jim Farrell have been my hosts each spring and fall. Earlier, when I had called to make a reservation, Sue asked if I would like my usual spot, down at the south end, away from most of the activity. Of course, I said, “Yes”, having lived in that spot for three months during 2006. The nearly unimpeded view of the La Sal Range from my front door makes that spot special to me.

 

In Moab, it had been a cold, snowy winter and a tumultuous spring. After some good weather in early spring, one after another, storms rolled through Southeast Utah. Rather than a typical spring thaw in the Sierra La Sal, the snowpack held and even grew in May. Upon arrival, all I could see on the mountains was a sea of snow clouds, dumping their moisture on the upper peaks. From across the Spanish Valley, the La Sal Range is one of those rare snowfields where you can actually see the snow falling through the sky.

 

By my second afternoon in Moab, the rain showers at the RV Park ended and the clouds began clearing from the mountains. As the sun made a brief afternoon appearance, it bathed the whole area in golden light. The unexpected sunshine brought campers out from their coaches and tents. On a clear spring afternoon, the Moab sun brings new depth of color to both the mountains and the sky.

 

While I was out looking around, I came upon a two-year-old boy and his father. They and the boy’s mother were first-time RVers, traveling through the High Southwest. The father expressed disappointment that all of the Colorado Riverway campgrounds were full. Since it was still days away from the Memorial Day weekend, I assume that he did not drive down Kane Creek Road to the BLM campgrounds there. To him, a night with electrical, water and a sewer hook-up meant one fewer day spent in a self-contained wilderness experience.

 

The young boy answered to Mikael, or a name close to that. By his playful, two-year-old looks and actions, I supposed he might be the next Archangel Mikael, stopping in Moab to enjoy a three-dimensional, time-space reality. As I spoke with his father, young Mikael romped around in the gravel and even threw his first stone. Up it went, landing gently on his father’s head, where it slowly slid away. Shocked to see Mikael throw the rock and equally shocked by its landed on his head, the father admonished his son, “Not to throw rocks”. Young Mikael listened for a moment and then ran off to play.

 

At the Moab Rim Campark, a cloudless sunset is always a treat. That means that the last rays of the setting sun will find their way to a part of the Moab Rim that I call the Moab Acropolis. My Moab Acropolis consists of two oversized blocks of eroded sandstone sitting at the highest point of the Moab Rim. Both the Moab Acropolis and its namesake, the Acropolis of Athens, rest upon rocky perches. As the sun set that late spring day, it illuminated that crest from Behind the Rocks, lighting up the sides of my twin imaginary buildings.  

 

In my coach that evening, I uploaded that day’s images from my camera to my laptop computer. Next, I burned a CD of pictures for the father and son. Since it was late, I did not disturb them that evening. The next morning, when I awoke, young Archangel Mikael and his parents were gone. I assume that they headed away from civilization and towards the High Southwest campground of their dreams. Perhaps someday, father or son will Google the term “Moab Rim Campark” and find this article. If they contact me, I still have that CD of Moab memories ready to mail.

 

As many people know, Moab is “Jeep Country, USA”. From the annual Easter Jeep Safari to the many Jeep trails within Grand County, a Jeep is the vehicle of choice for locals and visitors alike. If you own a Toyota or a Land Cruiser, they will still greet you and treat you nicely, but secretly they will be wondering why you did not buy a Jeep. In one of my walks around the RV Park, the only vehicles I saw parked there were Jeeps. Then, to disprove my point, along came a converted military Humvee.

 

The next morning, Jim Farrell and I got into his Jeep Wrangler Limited and headed south on U.S. Highway 191. “The color of this Jeep is Mango-Tango”, Jim told me. About ten miles south of the RV Park, we turned left from the highway and onto an unmarked dirt road. About a mile from the highway, we stopped at the Desert Rocks Festival 2011 check-in location at Area BFE. Later that day we would visit Desert Rocks, but now we were on our way to a new house under construction. With unobstructed views of the La Sal Range and Behind the Rocks, Jim told me that this was his final home design project. I was impressed with his talents.

 

Upon our return to the RV Park, I installed our fourth webcam at the property. We feature the three original webcams on the MoabLive.com Webcam Page and on the Campark website at MoabRV.com. The new webcam, I call “Check-in Cam”, as it points directly out the front window of the office. When guests pull in, you will see them and their rig, front and center.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
With new ownership, this mage no longer refreshes.

 

If anyone wants to say, “Hi” to the folks back home, go the RV Park, stand in front of the window and call your friends on your mobile telephone. Then you can mug for the camera. Do not forget that there are 300,000,000 Chinese smart phones online, so you will be mugging for many of them, as well. Bring signs… Have fun. It is free entertainment, courtesy of MoabLive.com and the Moab Rim RV Campark. Be sure to tell the folks in the office that Moab Jim sent you.

 

Author's Note - After the sale of the Moab Rim Campark several years ago, the new owners elected not to continue hosting live webcams from that location. This information is provided for historical purposes only. This website no longer has any affiliation with the Moab Rim Campark

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By James McGillis at 04:52 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

Artist Costantino Proietto and Others Painted at The Capuchin Convent on The Amalfi Coast - 2011

 

Artist Costantino Proietto and Others Painted at The Capuchin Convent on The Amalfi Coast 

 

On July 4, 2011, I posted an article on this website regarding a relatively unknown twentieth century Italian modern impressionist painter. His name is Signore Costantino Proietto, but he signed his paintings “CProietto”. In our article, we mused about our C Proietto original oil painting and asked anyone else who owned one or had information on C. Proietto or his painting to please contact us and provide an image of his or her artwork.

 

Three days later, Marion Grayson of Belton, Texas sent us the image of the Amalfi Coast painting shown at the top of this article. American relatives of Marion Grayson lived in Italy in the mid-1950s and they purchased her painting while there. Please click on the image for a larger picture of the Marion Grayson painting. When compared to my CProietto original oil painting, the similarities are striking. Although some architectural may differ, both paintings feature a single potted plant beneath the pergolato, with a view to the sea. Each painting, however, shows a different perspective; mine includes a view to the Amalfi Coast, and Ms. Grayson’s looks out to sea. Both feature afternoon sun and clouds rising from the horizon, rather than floating above.

 

During my research, I discovered the name of the place from which Costantino Proietto painted the Amalfitan Coast. In Italian, it is the “Amalfi dal Convento dei Cappuccini”. In English, we call it The Capuchin Convent of Amalfi.  Although no evidence of the fifth century chapel originally built on that site exist today, the foundation of the original monastery dates to 1212 CE. For the following 650 years, various orders of the Catholic Church owned and used the property. In 1882, the interconnected buildings and grounds became the predecessor to the Convento di Amalfi Grand Hotel. In 1899, the property experienced a catastrophic landslide, destroying its original cave and some early buildings. Over the next century, reconstruction occurred in many phases, culminating in 2002. Today, the "hotel dei Cappuccini Amalfi" combines enticing luxuries, such as an infinity pool and al fresco dining on the terrace, yet the beauty and tranquility of the original site remain for posterity.

 

Beginning in the 1870s or 1880s, artists of note painted seascapes and landscapes, both from the terrace itself and from locations, below and around the property. Notable among them were Italian artists Giacinto Gigante (1806-1876), Carelli Consalvo (1818-1900) and Hermann David Salomon Corrodi1844-1905). Austrian artist Franz Richard Unterberger (1838-1902) and Danish artist Carl Frederik Aagard (1833-1895) also painted stirring scenes of the monastery and the Mediterranean Sea beyond. Italian photographer Carlo Brogi (1850-1925) captured scenes from the terrace, which appeared on postcards as early as 1904.

 

It was during the mid-twentieth Century that Costantino Proietto stood many times upon the well-worn stonework of the old terrace, painting that classic scene, always from a new perspective.  It is rare in our world to find a place that retains its classic charm over hundreds of years. Destruction and reconstruction in and around classic monuments of the past may leave the monuments themselves in place, but rarely do the surroundings retain their original character. Even since C Proietto’s time, the terrace of the Convento di Amalfi Grand Hotel has changed, yet its columns and pergola echo the 1880 or perhaps the 1580 feeling of that place. Even today, the contemporary coastal scene, oft painted by the masters of old, retains the look and feel of the original place.

 

During our research into original oil paintings by C Proietto, we located or received new and heretofore unpublicized scenes of the Amalfi Coast. One is from Marion Grayson, as mentioned above and another is from the Italian Wannenes Group, and its Art Auctions website. Each clearly shows the unique signature of my favorite Amalfi Coast artist, twentieth century Italian Modern Impressionist, Signore C. Proietto. Although his art becomes better known to the world each week, biographical information regarding CProietto is still scant. If any reader knows more about him, please contact me with the information. Once verified, I will be happy to provide attribution, as requested by the contributor.

 

When I was young, I remember seeing a realistic copy of the sculpture, Michelangelo’s David at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. As David spoke to me across the centuries, his magnificent grace and power struck me. Viewing that sculpture at age ten changed what I believed art could be. In that spirit, I am now writing a parallel art mystery story using my superhero comic characters, Moabbey, Coney, Kokopelli and Silver Girl. You will find them at my website, JimMcGillis.com. Join me there for the exciting story, and be sure to tell the kids.

Ciao

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By James McGillis at 12:19 AM | Fine Art | Comments (1) | Link