tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post501127622686508472..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Russell Lee: Uses of Water (Idaho, 1941)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-26715008134511530042012-03-11T06:25:50.937-07:002012-03-11T06:25:50.937-07:00Thanks for getting that, Terry. It was indeed mean...Thanks for getting that, Terry. It was indeed meant to trickle down. <br /><br />As for that matter wasn't money once in mythic times thought to do?<br /><br />But as with money too, the diversions and catchments and bottlenecks along the way...TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-67299584645268854712012-03-10T16:41:27.994-08:002012-03-10T16:41:27.994-08:00I love that poem, whose own flow subtly suggests i...I love that poem, whose own flow subtly suggests its subject.tpwhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05909239000589253931noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-24874840378996840162012-03-10T05:53:56.626-08:002012-03-10T05:53:56.626-08:00Thanks very much, Curtis. There come times one can...Thanks very much, Curtis. There come times one can't keep from pondering upon the water, where does it come from, and where does it go...TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-67608567083603907782012-03-10T03:20:12.325-08:002012-03-10T03:20:12.325-08:00For all that this is long and flows and develops, ...For all that this is long and flows and develops, the poem and pictures really "snap" together. You can feel and almost hear that snap and this makes "Russell Lee: Uses of Water (Idaho, 1941)" powerful art. CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-66029948804313821492012-03-07T03:08:51.396-08:002012-03-07T03:08:51.396-08:00Vassilis,
Thanks for bringing your sagesse to wat...Vassilis,<br /><br />Thanks for bringing your sagesse to water this patch of dry sage.<br /><br />A bit of geography and history perhaps helps with this one.<br /><br />The main stem of the Payette River in southwestern Idaho flows west into Black Canyon Reservoir. Below the reservoir's dam, the river flows past Emmett before emptying into the Snake at the Oregon border.<br /><br />Water is diverted at the <a href="http://www.usbr.gov/projects/Powerplant.jsp?fac_Name=Black+Canyon+Powerplant" rel="nofollow">Black Canyon Diversion Dam</a> by gravity into the Black Canyon Main Canal on the south side of the Payette and by two direct connected turbine-driven pumps, located in the powerhouse, to serve the Emmett Irrigation District Canal on the north side of the river.<br /><br />The results can be seen from high above in this view of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Payette124d.jpg" rel="nofollow">lower course of the Payette River, below Black Canyon Diversion Dam</a>.<br /><br />Historical water management in this region is responsible for the red patch in the lower left on this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Idaho_population_map.png" rel="nofollow">Idaho population map</a>.<br /><br />Lee's shot of that mailbox in the arid landscape here (chosen to show the "before" to this "after") is graphic evidence that before water management, this place was a desert.<br /><br />The logos of Swift, Union Pacific & c. show that water management paved the way for big time agribusiness.<br /><br />Over in the southeast corner of the state, near the Wyoming border, as the pop-map shows, there was, on the other hand, little water to be managed. The 1930s droughts brought farm failures and poverty; the FSA entered the picture to assist farmers in turning to grazing instead:<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/arthur-rothstein-dry-land-grazing-idaho.html" rel="nofollow">Arthur Rothstein: Dry Land Grazing (Idaho, 1936)</a><br /><br />And by the by, as you have asked -- at the time Russ Lee took these pictures in the early summer of 1941, I was less large even than that ambitious water-fountain tyke, and living out on the West... side of Chicago. <br /><br />Ed Dorn, a fellow native of Illinois (the farm country downstate), who showed up in England in 1965 direct from Idaho, called me, at that time, a "Chicago buster" -- the "country" way of suggesting that the big city, for all its alleged big shoulder-ism, in fact had no sod left to bust.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-22241151104278720582012-03-06T22:45:01.784-08:002012-03-06T22:45:01.784-08:00Tom,
Love that milk can mailbox and the tyke on h...Tom,<br /><br />Love that milk can mailbox and the tyke on his tiptoes at the fount; the photos and the poem take me back to my brief I-90 passing through Idaho in 1976 on my way east—by the way, where were you in 1941? :)vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.com