DAY 09 28112017
Part 1: The Call
It's 12:30 pm, and about an hour ago I was wrapping up yesterday's post (I've fallen behind again). I was going to prepare lunch before heading out when I noticed a missed call from a 701 area code. Having left my note yesterday, I was hoping it would be from whoever lives at that farm. I play the message and my phone dies 5 seconds in. It was from a person named Beth, who indeed received my note. I frantically get my jacket and boots on to retrieve the charger I had left in the car overnight, immediately realizing as the room door closed that I had locked myself out. I get the charger, get a new key at reception, plug my phone in, and wait that insufferable amount of time for the phone to restart. I grab my recorder and listen to the message below:
The first thing you may notice is that, despite all odds, she fucking nails my family name. Play it again - I did, several times, that "K" sound music to my ears. Unbelievable.
I grab a note pad and write down some of the info I was given:
"Beth"
"Little Yellow Farm"
"Bateman"
(My first thought was Patrick Bateman, of American Psycho, and the Bates Motel, from Psycho, neither of which are encouraging given the secluded nature of the farm, which I had previously likened to Leatherface's lair in Texas Chainsaw Massacre - this new info tying a neat ribbon around my twisted associations)
I call her back immediately with no plan of action other than to speak to her. I've uploaded that call in it's entirety, failing to mention that she was being recorded, this time certain in the illegality of my actions. I'm posting it mainly because I thought a written transcript would fail to convey just how absurdly friendly and accommodating she was. If this website goes public beyond the small group I've shared it with, I'll remove the recording. As for any ethical clearance concerns for thesis work, Don can help me navigate those later.
Some notes and takeaways for those who can't be bothered (understandably) to listen to all 10 minutes:
1. I'm so damn awkward.
2. She's so damn nice.
3. The lands around the tower don't belong to her family. They belong to some consortium. Apparently they were sold off more than 50 years ago. I had asked because so far I limited myself to roads and ditches when capturing the tower, and wanted to wander into the fields, unsure of whether that was frowned up (North Dakota having little-to-no gun legislation preventing any nutcase from owning a firearm, I didn't want to get shot for trespassing).
4. Her mother married into the lands only after the tower was built, though the she was in the area around that time in '63. I awkwardly ask Beth if she had been born then. She laughs at my fumbling question, and answers that no, she was born a couple years later.
5. I ask her about any fanfare surrounding the Tower's construction, and Beth replies with probably the most important take-away from my time here:
"How do I say it... folks around here are a little more practical-minded. It's not like 'oh we got the biggest...' It's more like 'Oh, this is going to help. Put it up.'"
(found at 5min35s)
And with that I question my obsession, fetishization of the Tower. Suddenly those kids I thought about on that first day below the tower vanish. What the fuck am I doing here? She goes on to describe a man she met who told her that in the late 60's or early 70's, high-school kids used to climb to the top and base jump off the tower (she clarifies that this was before it was even called base jumping, and though I sound awed on the recording, I find the whole thing hard to believe. But I supposed part of what attracted me to the Tower and part of why I'm speaking to her in the first place is to uncover these myths, of which I'm sure this object holds many).
6. She offers to ask her mother, who lives with her at the house, if she remembers anything around the time of the Tower's construction, but the mother is still asleep (she admits later that they're both late risers). Amazingly, she then invites me over to speak to the mother myself. Or if it's more convenient, she could meet me in Fargo during their weekly grocery trips. These people, man.
7. The last thing I ask of her is to clarify the name of the farm, as Little Yellow Farm didn't quite match the partial I.D. I got off barn. She was actually just describing the farm, not stating the name, which is Elm Bend Farm (named after Elm River over which you drive when turning on to their road).
I thank her and we end the call. I expect to hear back from her with a date and time. I'm still smiling from the whole exchange. Friendly people, the Batemans.
Part 2: The Rest of the Day
It's technically tomorrow and I'm writing this after being woken up by a phone call from my Mom. I had gone to bed late last night after riding the 46 for nearly 5 hours, returning to my motel with an empty tank and too many photos right around 1:30 am. She had texted me a brief "All Good?" last night at 8 and I forgot to reply. She called to tell me of a movie she watched called Population Zero, about a theoretical "Perfect Crime" committed by a North Dakotan in Yellowstone National Park. I mumble something like "yeah huh no I'm fine yeah don't worry yeah ok bye", and lie half-asleep in bed for a minute. Damn it, now I'm curious. I get up and start Googling.
Apparently, there's something called the Vicinage Clause (as in vicinity) in the 6th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Basically, a jury pool must be selected from within the State and District in which a crime was committed. This means that, like in the case of certain corners in Yellowstone National Park, with official populations of 0, the crime could, theoretically, not go to trial - not even for murder.
This makes me feel something like comfort when I recall that Streeter is home to 166 potential jury candidates. I could have used that sense of security last night, when, as I drove through those dark fields and empty towns, I couldn't help but feel like my presence was unwanted. And maybe that's part of the appeal. A lot of what I've been doing here makes me uncomfortable. This whole thesis makes me uncomfortable. To quickly address the issue without getting bogged down in it, sure, I could have designed a building and been done by now. Not sure why I didn't, but I do know that I'm having way more fun out here, on the road, with my car and my camera.
Last night, I kept my set-up minimal, and the drive started to feel like those drives around Cambridge that I would take to clear my head. Maybe it was the dark. Maybe it was the seclusion. Though the roads were surprisingly busy at 8pm (the crops have been harvested and the earth tilled - I'm drawing a blank as to what the fuck these people are up to from 5 am to 8 pm), they were quickly deserted by 9. Twice, during that busy hour, cars pulled up next to mine to make sure I was fine, that I didn't need help. These people are friendly to a fault. I stood there, camera in hand, awkwardly insisting that I was fine, stopping just short of having to explain my whole reason for being there; they just couldn't believe that I'd stop on this road simply to take pictures.
Still, despite having not a single negative thing to say about any of my encounters, I still felt uneasy. I drove through the following towns, recording their names as I arrived: Kindred (pop. 755), Enderlin (pop. 868), Gackle (pop. 291), Streeter (pop. 166). In each, off the 46, you will find a church and a gas station. You'll find a sign pointing to the main street, which is rarely the 46. Driving down those streets, you'll find a brightly lit USPS office (closed), a town hall you'd be hard-pressed to identify as such without the sign, a few local businesses (closed), an old-folks community center (these are all dying towns with declining populations), and a bar (open, except in Streeter, though I did get there late). If you want to find the bars quickly, look for parked cars on Main street - they'll be as close to the bar as possible. I considered going in to grab a coffee, as I was more tired than I expected despite the preparatory afternoon nap, but I saw locals drinking beer and watching sports and thought I'd draw too much attention to myself. So I didn't.
In two of the towns, I notice a gathering of pick-up trucks at the church. In both towns, I could have sworn I was being followed by one of the trucks - maybe just curious, but maybe suspicious, my German car and foreign plates unmistakable even in the sodium glow of the street lamps. I would, in those instances, drive back to the highway, not wanting to confront anyone.
As the hours passed, the roads grew more lonely, but I never felt alone. Maybe that's by design. Along the road, your headlights pick up reflective orange signs warning against trespassing. Those country road staples (the barns and silos) are always lit-up, as if someone is out there working. There's always at least one car far-off ahead or behind, their high-beams blinking in and out sporadically as you ride the rolling hills. You scan the horizon, and it's dotted with floodlights, even at midnight. You think you're alone, that everyone is asleep, that you're the only watcher in the dark, but you can't be sure that you're not being watched yourself.
I took a lot of photos, using my tripod and 70-200mmm lens to get as close as I could without drawing suspicion. Sometimes I'd use my high-beams to light something up, other times letting the moonlight do the work. The photos all fell into 3 categories, as there are really only three things to photograph out here: industrial/farm buildings, dark houses, store fronts. We'll see how they turn out.
A couple of practical matters to address:
1. I can't upload photos from my mom's camera. The Sony A9 is an absolute beast, the most responsive camera I've ever used, and though I've been mostly using it for it's impressive high FPS video capabilities, I have been taking a lot of photos with it too. Unfortunately, Adobe (those crooks) have stopped offering updates to Lightroom CS6 and their RAW format compatibility list, insisting I pay for their subscription based version if I want to upload pictures taken with the A9. It's a shady-as-fuck tactic, if I'm being polite. The Camera RAW update could easily be pushed to their older software. They just fucking hate that I paid 150 for Lightroom CS6 once, and refuse to pay 10 a month for the rest of my life for Lightroom CC. Fuck 'em. I know how to deal with this, and if the wifi here were any better, I'd already done so.
2. I've written enough by now to meet the minimum requirement for a design thesis. I don't know if any of this will work its way into the final book, but I thought that was interesting. At the very least, this website has forced me to practice writing. I'm easily banging out like 1500 words a day. Actually, maybe I should slow down...
Marco Chimienti
28.11.17
P.S. My unease about those towns was eerily vindicated when, upon my return in the night, swinging by the front desk to move the bi-weekly cleaning time, Schantel asked me how I was liking North Dakota. I responded positively, saying I was pleasantly surprised, that I was most struck by how friendly everyone was. She frowns and says, ominously, "Not everyone here is friendly", and leaves it at that.
P.P.S The plan for tomorrow (today? The 29th...) is to drive the 46 one last time, recording the whole drive out my side window, one continuous shot. This will be my last excursion on the 46.
