The Squares of Shmalifornia

Plotnik is always fascinated by the physical density of Stiletto City, all those people, all those roads, all those houses and swimming pools, all those cars, all that motion and all those geometrical shapes. Now concentrate on that square of the San Fernando Valley that has its lower right corner at the 737's starboard engine, rimmed by shops along its principal boulevards. Its upper corners are at the San Diego Freeway. Do you think that square is the same size, or bigger, or smaller, than one of these?



This photo was taken fifteen minutes later from several thousand feet higher. Plotnik always loves looking at the way they divide empty land into squares, and circles within the squares, and smaller rectangles within the larger rectangles. Unlike the crowded urban valley fifteen minutes earlier, these agricultural squares probably have nothing going on inside them at all, except for pesticides killing off bacteria and fertilizers encouraging growth from cotton or tomatoes or alfalfa.



When you get closer, you see that each square or rectangle is divided up into smaller ovals and rectangles with fluid shapes weaving their way through them, like a pencil line drawn from a compass, carving the squares into polygons. And then you open the door and walk inside and there's one last delicious circle, cut into triangles.