The Crystal Land by Robert Smithson- Questions

1. Robertson values developing land, that are friendly to middle class- where we can feel people's countryside-friendliness. Traveling to abandoned area. "The highways crisscross through the towns and become man-made geological networks of concrete" (p.8) Highway- what defines New Jersey- car culture, in contrast to NY's subway culture. "What vegetation there was seemed partially demolished" (p.9), "Fragmentation, corrosion, ... everywhere in evidence" => Destruction of nature by nature and humans' integration to the destruction. A sense of waste is defining the space. *ENTROPY*

2. He values the ordinaries: "we went to Bond's Ice Cream Bar and had some Awful-Awfuls..." He also values nature, and human architecture molded with nature such as railroad. He considers earth science things- mud, decomposition of waste(p.9), Jersey Swamps (p.9), minerals. Orders and patterns, organizations of the nature, visualizing the naturally laid objects as art.

3. The listing helps the readers to get the sense of the place. On page 8, Smithson lists '"middle-income" housing developments"and it adds to the reality of the space he is describing and how different the place is as opposed to the city where you do not observe that many estates. From the names like Babbling Brook Ranch and Colonial Vista Homes, we get the idea that the place is a small developing suburban area. The different color names adds to the familiarity and a homely feeling to the houses. A sense of conformity with multiple reproduced new houses, pointing out the things that are not in order to accentuate, or take out the less ordinary from the ordinary. We get the density of the objects as Smithson lists things.  

4. There's a few geologic descriptions. Smithson lists the names of the rock in their geology names on page 8, and the metaphor of Great Notch Quarry to Moon.(p.9) There are detailed description of decomposition, "spilled sediment, crushed conglomerates..." etc(p.9)
5. To make the comparison between New York and New Jersey. more room for intervention, more engaging with land