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The Petriverse

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The Petriverse of Pierre Jardin is a xeriscape in the California Heights neighborhood of Long Beach, California, where many residents have taken advantage of a city program that subsidizes the conversion of grass lawns into drought tolerant landscapes.  It earned the designation "a rock garden where nothing is written in stone" due to two distinctive features: 1) rock displays are always changing and 2) rocks are used to form words. Yet  the Petriverse's larger purpose and meaning remain obscure.  Consequently, conjectures abound around this astounding suburban plot, depending on what is on show any given day: is it a Bobo zen garden? a stoner's outsider art environment? a landscape oriented page for petric poetry? an essay in geophilosophy? a playground for spiritual exercise?  a slow time zone for relaxation and aeonic contemplation?

Similarly, Pierre Jardin remains a shadowy figure of indeterminate origin. Garden and gardener were seeded by coincident conception: the Petriverse is Jardin's brainchild; Jardin is the Petriverse's brain-child. A rock gardener who has made a spurious name for himself, Jardin ekes out a precarious persistence as an imaginary figment fleshed out in petri-textual fragments. Clues found in Petriverse blog posts and Slow Times newsletters suggest possible precursors for Pierre, including Mr. Palomar, an Italian cosmic-comedic contemplative, and Kai-Wa, a Franco-Chinese ex-surrealist specialist in stone speculations.  

Let us leave idle speculations aside, and enter The Petriverse of Pierre Jardin.  Beware; you can contract lithophilia with even a casual screening contact with the Petriverse.  

This page has paths:

  1. Introduction Paul Harris

Contents of this path:

  1. The Petriverse Garden, Page 1

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