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Dawn's Highway, or, No Rubber Meets These Roads
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Listening to your ipod on the subway is great and all, but for us there's still nothing that beats dropping the top off the car and flying down the freeway with some White Zombie cranked to 11. That's why we were so intrigued when we saw (thrice named) Steve Luke Hanson's series of rush hour photos.
Daytime joyriding has almost become an oxymoron, but in Hanson's photos even the 405 at 5pm is blissfully free of traffic. With a tripod and a grip of neutral density filters, Hanson has revealed the spare forms hidden underneath our daily drive. Some find the pictures eerie; we find ourselves salivating. In our dreams, the imminent Carpocalypse has come, leaving the city's concrete thoroughfares empty of commuters, minivans, and hippo-like SUVs. We blow our last tank of gas barreling through cloverleaf interchanges, fishtailing across 6 deserted lanes, and jumping ramps over K Rails. In the end we take the 10 to PCH to Malibu. On a deserted cliffside we lay down our last bit of tire tread and sail right off the edge, just like the Pixies song.
At this point things get hazy. Whether we end up flying away ala Grease or drowning like A Star is Born must depend on what we were eating. But you don't have to share our admittedly anti-social gasoline-drunk dreams to appreciate Hanson's photos. Check them out, at least, to see what things will look like after post-Peak Oil has turned the 101 into the world's largest skate park.
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Photo by (of course) Steve Hanson
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