Expedition and tundra
by Bob on October 24, 2007
Expedition and Tundra. Sounds like a journey into upper Siberia. That's what it should be. But not quite in the context I am thinking of.
I am thinking of full-size SUVs and vans by these vainglorious names.
Everyday I ride into a train stop on the highway in a bus and see morning commuters driving these huge vans and SUVs, like they are going on an Arctic expedition in the real Tundra, in vans and cars called "Expedition" or "Tundra", but, alas, they are only one little person in the van and are going into town. So it looks surreal and bizarre. In addition, it's a horrible self-statement of bombastic worth and a waste of gasoline which is, in theory, in short supply.
Why do they do it ? I'm on a bus with a lot of other people. They are one little person inside a van meant for a National Geographic Society expedition. Why ? Well, it's their "space", their little world, their box of ego, as they slip and slide into work or town where they might even pay a small fortune everyday for parking it in a garage in town.
I mean, when I lived in Southern California in the early 1970s, you were what you drove. I was from New York City, Manhattan, the "Big Apple", where you were what you lived in, namely your apartment. But in LA, you were what you drove as a car. A little Volkswagen might have been a prudent choice, but it was bad for the ego and image. So one went for a Corvette or Mercedes if one wanted to be ritzy about it. One day a strange phenomenon occurred in Pasadena. It was someone's birth day at work, and he had a birthday cake in his car at lunch with a piece for everyone on our project. One by one, we would get into his Porsche, two seater mind you, and shake his hand, wish him a happy birthday, get a piece of cake, and say what a cool sporty car he had, and then get out so the next person could get in and repeat the ritual. As a native New Yorker who had just moved to the LA area from Paris, France this was touchingly bizarre. But it was Southern California, home of the weirdest social customs I have ever seen.
But the lesson is therein contained. In a commuter or car culture you are what you drive.
It is equally bizarre to see one little person inside a huge SUV or van on the expressway in Massachusetts, which is hardly Southern California. The suburbs are everywhere now and the car culture ubiquitous.
Car pooling of workers or people going into town just never seemed to have caught on. One's ego and freedom was too wrapped up in the car or over-sized van.
And we seem to be fighting wars over oil.
An Architecure professor of mine from England was lecturing in my native NYC in the 1980s on Sacred Architecture and spaces and Sacred Geometry. One day he said that there was just too much agressive and hostile metal in NYC. He said cars were a good example. Road rage. Honking. Hot tempers. He said it wasn't healthy. They were all the wrong metals from an alchemical viewpoint. I understood what he meant. The car motors and motorist in an urban setting produced huge amounts of stress and negative energy.
So it goes. People feet in our modern world are becoming vestigial. Sad that, as the BMI escalates. Oh, that is the Body Mass Index, in case we should forget.