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Other things it's about: - a 30 year old Washington Post piece - postmodernism - oh yeah, the NJ Turnpike

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Man-Writer Against Nature

On the New Jersey Turnpike, someone has always been there before you. That's what it is: the rut left by civilization marching onward, over and over. In June, I caught a ride home with some colleagues down the Turnpike, during which I read essays in environmental studies.

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Anonymous

You're poetic in your own way about the (irony and tragedy) of the turnpike.... 1. As a non-driver you are probably unaware that in Jersey one is not allowed to pump one's own gas, so gas stations along the turnpike are a dreaded interruption, rather than a quick stretching of the legs. 2. As a young person you probably don't remember the enormous toll plazas that used to be on the turnpike, rather than just off it. A friday evening drive out of Manhattan, DC-ward, took much longer than it ought. I hated the turnpike.

Anonymous

Oh no the porcelainberry. Constant battle. We have a nature preserve at the foot of Lookout Mountain that's always seeking volunteers for privet burns. Have you ever ridden around Moccasin Bend on I-24? It's achingly beautiful in the morning, when fog rises in swirls off the Tennessee River and the sun and shadow turn the pines gold and black. I left the DC Metro, with no horizon and a stink that burns from 30 miles away, to come back to a place that feels like living on planet Earth instead of living on a concrete pad. I'm so afraid of seeing these things I love be choked and smothered in the decades to come.