Comentamos #Allegiant (Leal), la recién estrenada tercera parte de la Serie Divergente.

The Divergent Series: Allegiant  País: Estados Unidos Año: 2016 Género: Aventuras Duración: 121 minutos Elenco: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Miles Teller, Jeff Daniels. Director: Robert Schwentke Guión: Noah Oppenheim Basado en: "Allegiant" de Veronica Roth Música: Joseph Trapanese Dirección de fotografía: Florian Ballhaus  La tercera parte de la serie, sitúa la historia de Tris, Four y sus…

On September 27, 28 and 29 the TSES was lucky enough to be one of the invited participants at the 2013 DUMBO Arts Festival, an annual celebration of art, music and culture in the DUMBO neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York. Our parking spot in the Pearl St Triangle afforded us a great view of the bridge, immediate access to amazing food vendors and heaps of visitors.

In popular media, the Tri-State area is depicted as rich mecca of culture, jostling with bodies, ideas and creativity. As someone who lives outside New York I always wondered about the accuracy of this representation and half-assumed that the epic tale of NYC was an accidental exaggeration that had grown over time. After encountering a mere fraction of New Yorkers* at the DUMBO Arts Festival I am delighted to report that I will be eating a side of hat with my ketchup chips. My assumption about the greatness of New York woefully under estimated the amazing people who make that place possible. Visitors to the TSES at DUMBO entered the space with inquisitive and open minds. While some had heard of tar sands, many had not, but all were uniquely willing to discuss their thoughts, explore the van and engage with difficult topics. Nearly every person we met (including the remarkable younger visitors who came by) asked smart questions and provided us with useful information, references and anecdotes. To say were were overwhelmed by the support for the project would be an understatement.  We left the festival exhausted but regenerated,  ready to tackle the continuing discussion about the Keystone Pipeline, oil sand and the future with renewed gusto and knowledge.

-Allison Rowe

It was pouring rain when the TSES arrived in the Byward Market to participate in Supernova, Ottawa-Gatineau's all night art event Nuit Blanche. The show was scheduled to begin at 6:20 but the instant we opened the doors to start setting-up the visitors began to arrive. Like the deluge of rain that pounded down upon us on all night, the guests to the TSES continued in a constant flow until we closed our doors 10 hours later at 4:20 am. Due, perhaps partially, to the precipitation, our inviting interior and welcoming awning, there was a seemingly endless line queued to get into the van. At first we were a little startled by our popularity. It seemed that everyone in the city of Ottawa from teens to politicians, business owners, bus drivers, club goers, tourists and families wanted to hear about oil. The vans windows steamed with the warmth of the bodies crammed into the space, talking about oil, investigating the samples and debating the Energy East pipeline- a proposal put forward by TransCanada to modify a gas pipeline to carry tar sand bitumen from the oil sand fields of Northern Alberta, across the Prairies, through Northern Ontario, through the Ottawa Valley into Montreal, Quebec City and ending in Saint John New Brunswick. While some were pleased that there might be a chance for Eastern Canada to get some more financial benefits from tar sand mining, others were apprehensive about the impacts of pipelines passing through their neighbourhoods. Like the rain, the perspectives on the issues seemed endless. Many mulled the metaphoric importance of tar sands actually coming to, and directly impacting Ottawa, its citizens and the federal government.

Have you fallen prey to the Game of Thrones book series? If you haven't read them yet, you really should. If you have, you'll know that the expression, "winter is coming" is a Stark family saying that refers both directly to the actual approach of cold weather but also metaphorically to the unavoidability of winter. In a sense, if refers to the circularity of weather, the endless inevitability that it is always coming.

I have been thinking a lot about how closely this saying mirrors the fictionalization of fuel. Peak oil is conceptually hashed out in the media every time gas prices go up. The pundits bicker about the availability of oil and the looming possibility of scarcity. In a sense, peak oil is positioned, like weather to be inevitable. It is not a matter of questioning if we will run out of fuel, but rather when. 

Like many Northern creatures the TSES is finding these colder winter days a little hard to handle. We opened our doors a few weeks ago on a blustery day in the hopes or coaxing visitors in with tea. Instead we discovered everyone was marching so briskly towards their destination that not a single person even poked their head into our cold, bust cosy interior. Though we are sad to admit it, we too became a little frosty as opening all the doors of the vehicle ensured that the meagre amounts of heat pumping through the vents dissipated into the icy air in moments. 

This slow, cold day was compounded by a recent discovery that we have sprung (another!) leak. After a quick rain and flash freeze I poked my head into the TSES to discover a small pool of ice forming on our maple hardwood floor. Sure enough our luxurious ceiling fan/window had responded to the cold by contorting into an odd shape that ensures a steady drip of water has a perfect sized gap to squeeze in through. 

In short we have realized that after two years in California we are woefully ill-equiped for a Canadian Winter. We consulted one another, the van, the Farmer's Almanac and pondered. Could we handle a seasonal hibernation? Was it appropriate to allow the TSES to close shop at a time of such invigorated debate about oil sand and the keystone pipeline?

With reluctance we finally realized that like a bear or squirrel, the TSES needs to hide away for the winter in a warm dry place if it wanted to ensure continued good health in the Spring. The threat of water damage and the potential destruction of vegetation samples are risks we are unwilling to take. Given the fact that attendance at TSES stops has declined in tandem with the temperature, we are somewhat confident that you, our loyal supports will understand this difficult choice.

When we left you last the van was newly repaired and the team and I were taking a much needed break. We spent some time in Colorado recalibrating ourselves and decided not to head North to the newly discovered Colorado oil reserves but instead to move South. This choice was based largely on feedback we recieved from you.

We hit the road with our eyes on Texas. Though still sweltering  in the non air-conditioned van, we remained cool by drinking lots of water and listening to hours of NPR podcasts. We kept the van cool by driving at the pace of a horse-drawn carriage and frequently stopping to check-up on his insides.

By the time we reached Amarillo Texas it was Memorial Day weekend. As we crept into town a pick-up loaded with teens in the back shouted as they roared past us. Based on my in-depth knowledge of Friday Night Lights I assumed their enthusiasm was related to some sort of small-town festival centered on the holiday. I quickly began to fantasize about the TSES pulling up alongside a group of football players and sharing intense celebration and conversation with them and their families.

We searched town for the "parade." After an hour or two with little sucess we decided to refuel with a quick lunch at Olive Garden. Outside we walked past another truck- this one featured celebratory writing in grease paint all over the vehicle. It said; I heart you Boo!, We Did It, Take that! and 4ever and ever. I was puzzled by the mixture of statements and assumed it was somehow related to a reccent marriage held on bizare terms. 

Once inside I discovered the source of both mysteries. There was no parade, nor newly-weds present in the restaurant, just heaps and heaps of graduating high school students. We inquired with our server Steven about where the students would be celebrating, hopeful of the possibility of meeting up with the festivities. Sadly, Steven was unsure exactly which field everyone was meeting in. We then chatted with him about the project and he suggested we head to the Amarillo Museum of Art and open the van in the parking lot. He assured us they would be busy on a long weekend.

The Amarillo Museum of Art parking lot was peppered with a car or two when we arrived. We skeptically set-up the van and awaited the few people who seemed to be in the gallery. Instead, a man leaving the police station across the road got into one of the vehicles and drove away without even glancing at us. Ten minutes later, another did the same.

It has been a very busy week at the Tar Sand Exploration Station! Following an incident with a malfunctioning water pump in San Francisco, the TSES hit the road (albeit 2 days later than planned)  confident in the mechanical soundness of our vehicle. 

After a harrowing drive to Las Vegas on what was possibly the most poorly planned route of all time, we arrived to the sin city on the verge of overheating. Though we made every effort to pull over and set-up shop, the proliferation of valet's and casino security ensured we moved along before we even rolled out our carpet. Feeling bitter we loaded the van's propane tank and began our voyage onwards towards the Grand Canyon.

This is where things began to get interesting. I'll spare you the mechanical details, dramatic pit-stop engine poking stories and simply describe how our trouble began to manifest in smell. Smell you say? Yes smell. The van began to first smell slightly, then overpoweringly of the area surrounding the Canadian Tar Sands. It was a light pungent odour at first, akin to rotten fruit. As we travelled on under the blistering sun the smell grew into a monstrous stench of rotten eggs and dead animals. We stopped, examined the van, enlisted others opinions, removed propane, cleaned the fridge and wondered if somehow the van had become so invested in the tar sands that it was becoming them. We could not use any of the vans amenities for fear they would cause a spark and explode. Subsequently our camera gear and phones slowly ran out of batteries and abandoned us as we became consumed by heat, worry and a terrible smell.

The van finally made a clear declarative statement yesterday and refused to start up again after being refilled at a Chevron pump. A man with a huge truck and freedom declaring lisence plates pulled us to the parking lot and jumped the vehicle. He then even generously followed us until we got to an auto-parts store to ensure that if the van gave out, someone would be there to help us.

More friendly faces met us at the store and basically offered us free mechanical advice. It turns out the smell was not in fact the vans poetic metamorphosis but an overheating battery. Darrell, the TSES's #1 volunteer, then replaced the battery and regulator in the parking lot. When we went inside to say our thanks the kind store employee wished us on our way and reminded us to say a little prayer for the vehicle.