New Jersey’s One Million Acres of Undeveloped, Otherworldly Land

April 21, 2017 1:21 PM

David Kessler spent six years filming the Pine Barrens’ landscape and its inhabitants, capturing the area in every imaginable state and season.
posted by bq (25 comments total)

Did he happen to see a wounded Russian?

(sorry, off to rtfa)
posted by rp at 1:29 PM on April 21, 2017 [16 favorites]

This sounds great! I've been wanting to visit the Pine Barrens ever since I read John McPhee's book. I would love to be able to see this.

Also, fuck Chris Christie. Stacking the commission in favor of approving the pipeline is both totally brazen and totally unsurprising for someone like him.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 1:39 PM on April 21, 2017 [9 favorites]

David Kessler spent six years filming the Pine Barrens’ landscape and its inhabitants, capturing the area in every imaginable state and season.
And in this exciting article you will see literally several pictures, although none of them so large as to make the experience too overwhelming.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:39 PM on April 21, 2017 [7 favorites]

I grew up on the border of the pine barrens. It's culturally very strange. Unfathomably more barren and remote than you would ever expect NJ to be.
posted by Ferreous at 1:40 PM on April 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

I spent so many dark jersey nights cruising through the woods with my friends in a jeep, doing nothing because there was nothing to do, discovering weird abandoned things, stumbling out of the forest in the dawn to get diner food or wawa, removing hundreds of deer ticks from our flesh.

I miss the pine barrens.
posted by Ferreous at 1:42 PM on April 21, 2017 [16 favorites]

This "Pinehawker" escaped the pine barrens in 1954 when an Ocean County juvenile judge said, "Jameburg or the Marine Corps"

Even standing before a judge for sentencing I was an especially dumb smartass. I said, you can't put me in the Marine Corps. I'm only 16.

Heh. Two days later I was on a train headed for Parris Id., S.C.

I guess he somehow saw something in me that no one else did. He saved my life.
posted by notreally at 1:53 PM on April 21, 2017 [16 favorites]

I did NOT know there was any square inch of NJ that wasn't developed within an inch of its life. Sad that the pipeline could ruin the oasis :(
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:09 PM on April 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

I spent so many dark jersey nights cruising through the woods with my friends in a jeep, doing nothing because there was nothing to do, discovering weird abandoned things, stumbling out of the forest in the dawn to get diner food or wawa, removing hundreds of deer ticks from our flesh.

This is so close to being a Springsteen lyric that I can almost hum it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:09 PM on April 21, 2017 [21 favorites]

Never mind the Russian, what happened to Paulie's car?
posted by My Dad at 2:21 PM on April 21, 2017

Here's a link to the trailer
posted by My Dad at 2:26 PM on April 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

I also grew up on the edges of the Pine Barrens. It's beautiful, though not very showy. It's flat, sandy, and full of scrubby little pine trees often no taller than a person. But there are tiny carnivorous plants and noisy tree frogs and naturally rust-colored lakes that are safe for swimming. The first half of the trailer captures it well.
posted by nev at 2:59 PM on April 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

But there are tiny carnivorous plants

That far north?! Now I am intrigued.
posted by indubitable at 3:52 PM on April 21, 2017

Pitcher plants. You'd find them next to the skunk cabbages.
posted by Ferreous at 3:58 PM on April 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

That trailer is amazing! Beautifully shot.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 4:26 PM on April 21, 2017

And in this exciting article you will see literally several pictures, although none of them so large as to make the experience too overwhelming.

It's a film review? Like what are you expecting? There's a link to the trailer in the very first sentence.
posted by wreckingball at 4:46 PM on April 21, 2017

Pitcher plants.

And sundews! Video of the carnage.
posted by nev at 5:10 PM on April 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

Real life experience of the (edge of) the Pine Barrens tells me: Whoa, cool place to explore.

Reading experience tells me: Run away! Many dead bodies and murders here.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:36 PM on April 21, 2017

I'd love to see this movie. Camping in the Pine Barrens was often a surreal experience. In some areas the ground is fine white sand in every direction, like a beach or a desert, but with pine trees poking up everywhere through it. It's a mutant biome unlike any other environment I've encountered.

I often think of Chris Gethard's WTF interview when recalling these areas of NJ. (The Beautiful/Anonymous guy... he used to write for Weird New Jersey.) He regales Marc Maron to some great Pine Barrens lore and makes the place sound really fascinating.
posted by painquale at 6:04 PM on April 21, 2017

I also grew up at the edge of the Pine Barrens (my sister and her family still live there, and my brother-in-law's family goes way back in the area). It is a uniquely moody, almost melancholy, place and I miss it. In my town we either walked or biked to school up through eighth grade (no school buses), and I have many fond memories of solo early morning walks to school with the fog still hanging over the small cedar (tannin) brown lakes, ringed with pine and oak trees. (The poem in my profile is a not entirely successful attempt to chronicle a nighttime walk in the area). Here's a gallery showing Pine Barrens plants.
posted by gudrun at 7:57 PM on April 21, 2017 [5 favorites]

Time to read Crytonomicon for the umpteen millionth time. "pine barrens" is one of my triggers, obvs.
posted by mollymillions at 8:21 PM on April 21, 2017

That trailer is sooooo close to being the trailer to a horror film. Probably a "Found Footage" one.
posted by happyroach at 2:00 AM on April 22, 2017

gudrun: Medford represent! 🌲
posted by nev at 6:03 AM on April 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

happyroach: the horror film you requested is The Last Broadcast (Live! From the Pine Barrens!).
posted by SPrintF at 6:16 AM on April 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Coming back to add, geology of the Pine Barrens.
posted by gudrun at 8:40 AM on April 22, 2017

Previously
posted by BWA at 10:46 AM on April 22, 2017