Cosmological definition of entropy: "A hypothetical tendency for the universe to attain a state of homogeneity, in which all matter is at a uniform temperature." Like the Big Box theory of culture, the great parking lot oceans, or maybe back roads on Pluto, or vistas like a silent earthquake out in crushing absolute zero. Never heard it coming. Out in the new West the maps are a little too detailed now, dotted with late model Jeeps perched on viewpoints over old pioneer death trails and mythic reach.
They found water and the trouble soon started. Ideally, the desert should have no water. But you can still find the edge of town there, unlike endless patchworks of people hiding from each other in the trees up north. I wanted a place on the edge, yet hooked on the idea of pavement, where random strips and rows of empty stucco and glass march out to pierce the indeterminate bright curves, attempt to box them up, in a continual percussion of pneumatic construction equipment. Big Box entropy sweeps across the West.
In this long August trudge, the universe has indeed settled on a temperature-- a hundred-ten Fahrenheit, give or take-- and I rarely catch a vista, though it's just over the next rise. The swamp cooler rattles and bobbles on bad bearings in my place on the edge, as the edge pushes out farther in a creeping dust cloud of bulldozers and heat-impaired speculation, and I hole up on a shrinking sunspot where Joseph Campbell's book fell open, consumed in wobbling swamp cooler rhythms and grail legends and all those different trails up the same mountain-- the boundless myth, dust storms into ink. Enjoyed the climb. My neighbor calls it New Age hooey. This is a company town.
Joseph Campbell, part 2
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hester_prynne
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