containers. (tropical resort hotels.)
Sep. 17th, 2011 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
duccioOn the BART before diving under the bay, you see these containers stacked up at Port of Oakland - hundreds of them. A sign on the other side of the track from this group says they are for sale. It's too expensive to ship the empties back, and we don't manufacture enough to fill them up here in good ol' #1, so they are sold off. I hear many are used for homes and for storage facilities. I've seen them out in the valley agricultural fields with doors cut into them, being used for migrant farm worker dwellings.
About twenty five years ago, agricultural workers from some unnamed locale "south of the border", who were working for Stanford University were discovered to be living in caves provided for them by the University - very embarrassing, even to the Hoover Institute. I suppose these 'colorful' containers are better image-wise than caves.
I wonder if the cave rental agents at Stanford permitted and encouraged the painting of farm animals on the rocky walls and ceilings by their cave dwelling tenants? Such a practice if continued in the new deluxe container dwellings could lead to profitable resale of the containers to museums and collectors abroad: a new export growth industry with zero labor costs. *We're #1*! Of course, they couldn't dictate what the artists should paint, this would bring up sticky First Amendment and labor exploitation issues - not to mention the potential for union organizing - those "commie thug" painters. Maybe the artists would paint guns and revolutionary scenes, and people in suits being hanged, and shot by firing squads. There are always unplanned and unexpected blips in new capitalist, neo-liberal schemes.
About twenty five years ago, agricultural workers from some unnamed locale "south of the border", who were working for Stanford University were discovered to be living in caves provided for them by the University - very embarrassing, even to the Hoover Institute. I suppose these 'colorful' containers are better image-wise than caves.
I wonder if the cave rental agents at Stanford permitted and encouraged the painting of farm animals on the rocky walls and ceilings by their cave dwelling tenants? Such a practice if continued in the new deluxe container dwellings could lead to profitable resale of the containers to museums and collectors abroad: a new export growth industry with zero labor costs. *We're #1*! Of course, they couldn't dictate what the artists should paint, this would bring up sticky First Amendment and labor exploitation issues - not to mention the potential for union organizing - those "commie thug" painters. Maybe the artists would paint guns and revolutionary scenes, and people in suits being hanged, and shot by firing squads. There are always unplanned and unexpected blips in new capitalist, neo-liberal schemes.