Claren Grosz in “I love the smell of gasoline”, Photo by Raf Antonio

Clearly, I’m not the only one experiencing cognitive dissonance. My relationship to the products of industry, my instinctive acceptance of capitalism’s deceptively reassuring hug, my enthusiastic gathering of all things petroleum—these aspects of life paradoxically comfort and disturb me in equal measure.

Claren Grosz gets it. She knows how and why we cling to our limited resources, understands how painful it is to imagine the lifestyle disruption necessary to pivot away from our current course, but she acknowledges how dismal our collective fate is if we don’t. In her whimsical and informative I love the smell of gasoline, a Pencil Kit Production presented by Nightwood Theatre (in association with Aluna Theatre), she gives us lots of numbers and factoids, but frames them in a heartfelt narrative that is both cosmic and intimate. Continue Reading