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There is a quiet revolution amongst the trees. They are abandoning their bark clad trunks for sturdy columns of bricks. They are abandoning their photosynthesised leaves and replacing them with durable cement dabs and a bit of a terracotta tile canopy. The trees themselves are clumped together with the odd double glazed glass glimpse through the tree trunks and a forest path is weaved with gravel driveways.
This is what the modern contemporary wood looks like.
From the first of these new 'woods' that cropped up in suburbs and housing estates and city apartment blocks it always did seem rather false and silly. A bunch of boring red brick houses labelled something exotic like "Honeysuckle Woods" or "Acacia Grove" or "Royal Terraces" or "Rose Gardens".
There are to my mind some problems with this concept. For starters Acacia Grove doesn't have a single Acacia tree let alone a 'grove' of them, there are no honeysuckle vines, or rose bushes and there certainly isn't a wood. And as for things like "Avalon Greens", well putting mythology aside for a minute, can a small strip of grass plastered between the double brick garage and the artificial mock greek columns really qualify as rolling lush "greens"... and as for the mythology, well the myth is only in the building itself, spruced up wonderfully and labelled a "unique opportunity", well its obvious that thats just garbage...
Wood has become a common favourite to prefix to place names especially for housing developments, and the latest one been built in our suburb is called "CroftWood".
Now first of all there aren't any trees around for it to be a wood, especially considering that they've pulled them down to build it including a grand old gum. Anyway Australia has bushland, not woodland... but then I suppose they think "CroftBush would just look stupid.
But have they thought about how stupid all the woods are as well. Its so fake for starters, even when it begun it stank heavily of falsity, no one can be fooled by a boring red brick house being anything romantic like a proper "Honeysuckle Woods" replete with honeysuckle and woodland as the name suggests. I wonder if they've looked up a dictionary of late as to what the word "wood" means. Maybe I'm just delusional in thinking that it means an expanse of trees, usually well established with old oak trees and squirrels frolicking.
I also hate these housing development projects, with their pimped up brochures, the one for "CroftWood" features high fashion clad girls walking in stilletto boots with shopping bags down a street. Now Beecroft is hardly the fashion capital of the world and frankly its just the local shops and fashion, let alone high is definitely not included. Unless you want to parade around a fine pair of lamb chops from the local butcher. Then there is also the image of the cafe's filled with beautiful people kissing each other, the local cafes are filled with fat middle aged women with crying toddlers and old age pensioners. Anyone whose young and beautiful goes to the train station and into the city to kiss other such people over their Cafe Latte. And their pretintious names of romantic natural vistas when all it is, is bricks and mortar and gravel and cement and bitumen.
I would like to see a bit more honesty in archicture, design and advertising, none of this bullshitting, perhaps a little bit of self-depreciating irony and a genuine honest look at what your flogging is needed right now.
Oh and as for the bark clad trees with the photosynthesising green leaves. They've suddenly become known as an "ecosytem development and sustainability project" which gets thrown around with other terms such as "deep ecology" and one that really makes my eyes roll "ecofeminism" which is how the struggle for feminist rights is akin to that of the ecosystems struggle for rights and how the two share spiritual bonds. Well fuck that, the trees just want to exist and I don't think the trees think much of these women bickering over how in tune they feel with them, and as for the blokes, well can't they like trees too.
So what is the prediction for the future. Well in maybe 30 years time the housing development projects will start being called "EcoTiger" or "Ecology Towers" and the trees will be flogged on the antique collectors market filled with "nobleminded raw-foodist crusadors" who want a slice of whatever life remains.
And advertising, well it will still be bullshitting us around with completely and utterly stupid things that surely no one could ever fall for.
Or am I just giving humanity the benefit of the doubt here.
