"Tuesday, 9:00 AM . . . Now, sitting in 'Wild Bill's Cafe' on the edge of Las Vegas, I saw it all very clearly. There is only one road to L.A. — U.S. Interstate 15, a straight run with no backroads or alternate routes, just a flat-out high-speed burn through Baker and Barstow and Berdoo then onto the Hollywood Freeway straight into frantic oblivion: safety, obscurity, just another freak in the Freak Kingdom."
— Hunter S. Thompson, 1971
   Fear and Loathing Las Vegas [see bibliography]

If McLuhan is right, this technology which is not obsolete, the interstate highway system, should be invisible to us. I for one find it hard to look at and see. Major traffic jams or fiery crashes make it temporarily visible, like paint thrown on an invisible man.

I remember an episode of the old 1950s TV show The Twilight Zone, in which a pioneer crossing the desert in the 1850s comes over a rise and sees an interstate, and is almost run over by an 18-wheeler as he marvels at the asphalt. By assuming this alien, time-traveler's point of view, I begin to make freeways visible to me.

Last update 12:39 PM Fri. 27-Feb-2004 by ABS.