2 F or like a quilt, the surfaces of the city, its structural pieces, are not seamless. They must all meet in adjacencies. No material melts into another continuously. Old concrete against new, asphalt against steel curb against stone, there remains a void, a space, a joint, an interstice between the two materials. These joints, as do the materials they buffer, eventually open as the result of successive waves of weathering. Form follows tempo. Asphalt unravels, concrete frays, metal shrinks, and glass tumbles. Edges are created. And into these small openings, the hereness of the city, the wild and crazy roots and shoots of nature break forth, ripping open ever-larger seams. The bed has assaulted the quilt. (Innuendo intended). Sex, sex, sex, rampant seeding, fruiting, pushing, shoving, thrashing, tum- bling, clasping, unclasping, bursting forth.The edges of the city that are everywhere are alive with a voracious beauty, possessed only by the wind, the sun, and the rain. Enemies of good design and moral order, they are not the right plant in the right place. Instead they boldly and promiscuously push themselves outside of, inside of, on top of, and all around the gates of paradise (the walled Garden of Eden). They are called many names - mulleins, lambsquarters, eleusine indica, mugwort, goosefoot, and soldago, to name a few. But the name everyone knows them by is …weeds.
Webster’s Dictionary defines a weed as an economically useless plant of wild, obnoxious growth and unsightly appearance whose presence either excludes the growth of more valuable plants or contributes to the disfigurement of the place. That is the landscape definition of a weed. But not mine. Rather these incredible beings, these shimmering threads of stubborn desire are the city’s true connections to the fertile, chaotic bed of organic creativity lying just beneath us. The fabrication of the mind, this urban fabric is, in fact, rent by a deeper fabrication. An earthy, prowling subconscious whose initial manifestation — a bumpy rosette of tough knotted stems — represents the continuing presence of nature’s irrational behavior. And our failure to destroy it. To weed : to free from something noxious, offensive or superfluous. It is not surprising, then, that weeds are described as growing in disturbed areas. For we are greatly disturbed. They dare invade our gridded neighborhoods, unthread the brocade of our tidy streets and gardens. Hanging around at all hours of the night they just , it seems, appear overnight. And now in broad daylight, there they go, strutting their berries, wiggling their tiny flowers, their erect panicles indiscriminately casting seeds to the winds.They colonize every raveled edge, every joint, rooting themselves in, uprooting our stuff out. It’s criminal. Call the cops. Weeds should be charged with disturbance of the ’piece’.
Goosegrass (Elusine indicaa) at the corner of Washington and Desbrosses Streets.
tout comme le matériel qu’ils protègent, s’ouvrent éventuelle- ment à force d’être exposés aux vagues des intempéries. L’asphalte se défait, le béton s’use, le métal rétrécit et le verre s’effondre. Des bordures se créent. C’est dans ces petites ouvertures que les racines sauvages et les rejetons de la nature prennent racine, déchi- rant ainsi davantage ces fissures.
seule étincelle de beauté car, tout comme un piquer, les surfaces de la ville, ses pièces structurales, ne sont pas uniformes. Elles doivent toutes se joindre en contiguïté. Du vieux béton contre du neuf, de l’asphalte contre une courbe d’acier, blottie contre de la pierre. Il reste un vide, un espace, un joint, un espace interstitiel entre les deux matériaux. Ces joints,
Le massif vient ainsi agresser le piquer.
avec leur beauté vorace, possédés seulement par le vent, le soleil et la pluie. Ennemis de toute bonne conception et de l’ordre moral, elles ne sont pas les bonnes plan- tes au bon endroit.Au lieu, elles se propulsent avec audace et promis- cuité vers l’extérieur, l’intérieur, par-dessus et tout autour des portes du paradis (le Jardin d’Éden enclot de murs). On les connaît
Du sexe, du sexe et encore du sexe, des semences déchaînées, la mise à fruit, ce poussage, ces bousculades, ce tassage, ce cul- butage, ces étreintes, ces dégra- fements et ces éclatements. Les bourgs de la ville que l’on retrouve partout sont vivants
S ewing
O n S ite review
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