unknown, unmatched, only dreamt
at the dawn's first kiss.
and made this:
I'm also not thinking of college, or the snow, or the parties, or the football games between the radio and television crews (who were quite interchangeable, in fact). I'm not longing for the days of classrooms and papers and school projects and grades and all the awkward missteps that made up such an integral part of my personal growth.
And I'm certainly not missing Orlando, though some of my greatest and closest friends are from that time. After all, most of them have gone away, scattered to the winds, to at least three corners of this country and, in at least one case, on a continuous journey because of the nature of her career.
No, when I say I'm homesick, I'm thinking of a place I didn't grow up, a country of which I am not a citizen, a city I didn't set foot in until after my thirty-third birthday. I have no idea how, or even if, I'll be able to return long-term, though that's my intention. For the moment, though, that's in the distant future. Presently, it's enough to say, when I'm feeling homesick (and M agrees), it's for Sydney.
He decided against. Too messy. He hated needles. Reminded him of doctors and flu shots and...well, the last time the flu nearly killed him, sent him to the emergency room, and racked up a good thirty thousand dollars in medical bills.
He thought he’d try the bullet to the brain. Back of the head, execution style, though that meant getting around to the back of the head. He didn’t want to clean up the splatter.
He thought he’d try a plastic bag. All those warnings, kids choking, poor defenseless infants. The thought made him shudder, and cry. So no, it couldn’t be a plastic bag.
He paced, and shouted at the moon, and stared off into the woods wondering if he could perhaps lure a pack of wolves.
He thought he’d erect an elaborate booby trap, but the word booby made him laugh.
He thought a thousand paper cuts, but decided he didn’t have the patience.
Then it struck him. The perfect method of delivering death. Swift. Simple. Hardly any effort. Just a stroke of the pen, and he’d bypass this little bump in the story, move the plot, get back to the main character (who would suffer, yes, but not die, not here, not like this guy).
He rushed back to his desk, swept pen into hand, scribbled the next few lines.
And then a tree in the woods fell on his house, through the roof and wall, crushing the author, Haringa, beneath its heavy trunk, and impaling him upon many branches.
(If you're wondering why, check here)
This is not great literature; however, this book was fantastic fun. You don’t need to be a big football fan. I’ve never been. You don’t need to know a lot about Italy. I know a lot more about quite a few other places. The story is, basically, this one-dimensional (intentionally one-dimensional) football player still living in his college and high school days discovering a whole part of the world he’s never known.
Grisham goes into exquisite detail when describing the food and wine, and even opera, as the main character learns not just about this particular section of Italy (Parma), but also quite a bit about himself.
What this novel accomplishes more effectively than anything else--and this is not a criticism--is it makes you, the reader, want to go to Parma. You want to eat at Filippo’s (assuming it really exists). You have to catch the Parma Panthers in action. Sure, the details pull the story into historical bits, sections of travelogue, and diversions into food, wine, and Italian culture that maybe don’t best serve the story. There are weaknesses in the story, and a few things that don’t get the attention they need. But mostly, those things that are missing further deepen the allure of this part of the world.
John Grisham has convinced me I need to schedule a trip to Parma, Italy. And he did so with an enjoyable diversion called Playing for Pizza.
NEXT: Food
(The bridges theme continues, yes.)
Rain Graves is a wonderful author and poet, and has an upcoming book of poetry, Barfodder, which might interest you.
She was kind enough to create this:
Our Lady of the Golden Gate
Because they always want to be burned,
I light the fluid in a blue vein; a single flame.
It maps something – spitting neurons:
Truth on the mountainous Marin side.
Lie on the San Francisco skyline.
Everyone treads this path,
But more do during tax season.
The only message from god is posted
On a call box dial-tone frequency;
A hotline for Suicide, those give-ups,
And the roar of a thousand minds
Nudge a sour, soft mind to flight.
On any given night
Any given night that gives.
Those veins, twisted and orange and tethered
People paint them end to end, all year
A target for quaking nature; our great terrorist
And great gray-white teeth of blood and impulse
Want to eat my flame, my burning dream, my me.
I'm only a tourist of death, though.
Inferior voyeur plans, have I, and sadistic.
A stake-out artist for the real snuffing,
Those lights going out in the world
Under Gold, under a Gate.
And it's not pearly one
Nor spiny, hot with mire.
On any given night
Any given night that gives.
Rumbling fish, cold and clammy, scale the skin--
The dirty surface, the only way to cross over.
I'm picking up random thoughts, crushing
And pinching their heads between my fingers.
I don't want them to know what I know.
I'm heaving anvils from my chest over the side,
Stoking the vein-flame with envy and pride.
Bright yellow-reds making paint, twisting me, cabled,
Fidgeting my anchor, skin to concrete to asphalt, a bleed,
Wind a-flight, burning, branding my cheek.
It knows I won't go over.
It knows my alien wonder.
On any given night
Any given night that gives.
I live.
The Harbour Bridge (also known as the Coathanger) is too big to get entirely within the frame. But I tried. There goes the train, too.
Looking up.
( Nine more photos await! )
Therefore, I must return.
I hope you enjoy these little visits.
Next, however, we'll have to cross an entire ocean to get to another bridge.
Maybe it’s not one of the largest tourist attractions the world has ever seen. It’s not a particularly large museum, either, and it’s a good climb to reach it up in that pylon.
You can only get there by walking, from either Milson’s Point (north side of the harbour) or The Rocks. It’s a fantastic walk, too, with some of the best views of the Opera House, and the views only get better as you climb.
(I’m not talking about the Bridge Climb, which is a fairly popular tourist attraction, which leads you over the arcs.)
There are four pylons. From the Sydney side of the bridge, the museum is in the first pylon you see. It’s called Pylon Lookout, and from the top you can see as far away as the Blue Mountains, and much of the harbour and inlets, as well as the Opera House, Circular Quay, and the north face of Sydney.
Apparently, it’s only closed Christmas Day, and will run you less than ten dollars (Australian).
Once in the pylon, your climb includes the “Dangerous Works” display, as well as artifacts and plenty of interesting informational tidbits. There’s even a film.
The next level includes a souvenir shop and a few lookouts on the side of the pylon.
But it’s all the way at the top that you’ll find the grand, glorious view of Sydney, Kirribilli, the Opera House, and the harbour. Well worth the climb, and the few bucks. You won’t be the first person up there; not only have I climbed to the lookout, but I’m told even the Cookie Monster has made the journey.
The bridge officially opened on 19 March 1932, with floats, marching groups, and bands (and people--as many as one million--walking across the main deck, which was not permitted again until its 50th anniversary). Now, it’s eight lanes of highway, two rail tracks, a pedestrian path and a separate bike path (from which you can get a great view of Luna Park).
The pylon was converted into a museum back in 1934, but taken over by the military in 1939. A new exhibit opened in 48, but again closed in 71 when the lease expired. Reopened for the 50th anniversary (1982), it closed briefly in 2000 during construction of the Bridgeclimb. Today, it waits for you.
Next: Pictures!
Seven seas: one night reflecting the sickle moon, yet by dawn, utterly dry.
The seabed overflowed with suffocating fish still flopping about, the skeletons of lost sailors, coral that now made a forest of sharp bushes, orange and yellow and red. Octopus, ready to be fried. Sharks.
The boy who found the stranded mermaid was Peter. Despite fearing the water might as suddenly return, he’d ventured into the labyrinthine new world with all his courage and imagination.
The scales below the mermaid’s waist, though glistening like emeralds, shed flakes of dry, green dust. Her breasts were bare and beautiful, unlike anything Peter had ever seen except in his most secret dreams. Her hair was yellow, not golden, her eyes the color of sky.
“Please,” she pleaded.
“But what can I do?” Peter asked.
“The Leviathan,” she said, “that most fearsome creature from the old stories, yet exists.”
But Peter had never heard of such a thing.
“It can be killed by neither sword nor fire,” she said, “and lives alone in the deep.”
“Then how?” Peter asked.
“It must be drowned.” Which, of course, befuddled Peter. Still, armed with only his courage and imagination, he went deeper into the dry sea, passing wrecked ships and bulbous squid. Crabs and lobsters scattered from his path. The sandy floor felt hard, tough, and he wondered what could have taken all the water so suddenly and completely.
He met the ghost of a pirate, whose hand was a hook, whose eye was an empty socket. Colorful anomie swam within his gnarled, translucent beard. “No further, landlubber.”
“But something strange has happened.”
“Aye, something strange indeed,” the pirate ghost said, “and it has freed me from this shadowy grave.”
“Then go,” Peter said, “and walk the earth, as I seek the Leviathan to bring water back to the seas.”
Peter then ran into a Spanish Dancer, a tiny, boneless creature stranded upon the dusty sea. From its indigo body, flamenco images filled Peter’s head. But he recognized this as a mirage, a trick, which meant he neared his goal.
Onward, so deep now that he passed whales that could swallow him whole, had they not been beached. The day’s heat faded as night neared, but the sun had drawn no sweat from Peter’s pores and no clouds filled the sky. Already, a thousand stars were visible.
And there, ahead, the massive Leviathan waited.
With only his courage and imagination, Peter approached. “You are stranded,” he said.
“I have drunk the seas dry,” it answered, “so as not to drown within its depths.”
Peter smiled at the creature, moved by true pity. “How long have you lived under the surface of the sea?”
“Many an age.”
“And how many times have you drowned?”
“Many a time,” the Leviathan said, its answer a surprise.
“But have you died?”
“Again and again, yes.”
“Yet still you breathe.”
The Leviathan nodded.
“But you merely breathe,” Peter said. “You cannot swim any longer, nor can you drink, or see your friends.”
“I am Leviathan. I have no friends.”
Peter considered this. “I will be your friend.”
Overcome with sorrow or joy or both, the Leviathan wept. From its ducts, the waters of all the seas spilled forth. The sands drunk deeply. The mantas sailed again, and also the barracudas, and the sea dragons.
But Peter, he could not swim, and he could not breathe under water, and the Leviathan died once more beneath the swell of its own tears.
Peter never again walked on dry land, no, but he did not die; he had rescued the mermaid with all the creatures of the sea, and she returned to rescue him with her kiss.
Some are obvious sunset shots, like this over Darling Harbour.
This barely falls into the category of silhouettes,
but how often are you going to get seven wild cockatoos to pose for you?
( Eleven more photos await! )
There are thirteen of these. (I'm cheating; there are fourteen, and I'm holding back the last image for another day.) I had given thought to putting them together as a calendar. Haven't made any effort to do so, and it's too late for 2008. (Yes, the originals, although all digital, are much larger than above. The only thing I may have done to these photos is re-size and/or crop; no filters, no special effects, no Photoshopping magic.)
(For stealing this part of my youth, I hope everyone who lives there--and has ever since the first houses went up--is haunted by children riding roller coasters all night.)
I have a habit of riding roller coasters multiple times. When I was even younger, and smaller, the guy at Great Adventure (6 Flags in New Jersey) let me go five, six, seven times or more on the kiddie coaster, round and round and round, as no one else seemed to be waiting for it.
At a party one night at DisneyWorld, in Orlando, in the much more recent past, I rode the then-new Aerosmith coaster four or five times. I had to go all the way around after exiting each time, but it was a small, after-hours party, and I had my choice of seats every time. I learned a very important lesson that night: on the fast, fast metal coasters, you want to sit closer to the front. Sitting in the back will smash your head from side to side enough to give you a headache.
One roller coaster I never got a chance to ride was the one at Luna Park, in Sydney. Their Big Dipper, erected in 1930, had been beset with problems. In 1979, long before I ever set foot within 10,000 miles of the coaster, thirteen people were hurt when two trains collided. One had apparently stopped because of a loose steel runner. The park closed in 1990, and the original wood-tracked Big Dipper demolished.
Joyfully, it reopened in 1995, with a new Big Dipper, but there were noise level complaints and, apparently, sour businessmen who had wanted the land for some other development. Coupled with inclement weather leading to lower than expected attendance during its opening season, it closed again in 1996.
Joyfully (yet again), the park reopened in April 2004 (after much political and business-related wrangling, the details of which would probably bore you), but without its Big Dipper. As luck would have it, this was the month before I arrived in Sydney. I have ridden the Wild Mouse roller coaster, but it’s not the same.
The Sydney Big Dipper, the second one, that steel contraption which had caused the noise complaints, was renamed Cyclone and relocated to Dreamworld in Australia’s Gold Coast.
A number of roller coasters have been named Cyclone, though I doubt anyone would argue the most famous of these is in Coney Island. It’s over 80 years old now, and I’ve never seen it except in pictures (despite that I lived oh so close). The Cyclone even has a place on the National Register of Historic Places (which allows the owners a 20% investment tax credit for rehabilitation projects). The Brooklyn Bridge and Carnegie Hall are also on the list, as is Central Park, the Chrysler Building, the Flatiron Building, the Holland Tunnel, the USS Intrepid, and numerous other landmarks--and amazingly enough, there are also a whole bunch not in New York.
Obviously, I’ve had Coney Island hot dogs (or at least, I’ve had hot dogs from Nathan’s), but I’m obviously missing something.
(The Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor league basement team, stole their name from the roller coaster, in case you were wondering, though I believe this doesn’t count as theft so much as homage.)
I know a guy who travels the world, with a group of other guys and gals, for the sole purpose of experiencing different roller coasters. Some of these people might argue for days about the merits of wood coasters versus steel. Personally, I haven’t got the experience to make a definitive statement in favor of one over the other, but I can say this: the one coaster which I most remember enjoying throughout my life, and I have been on numerous coasters, had to be Great Adventure’s Rolling Thunder.
But these are some of the things I remember:
Alleys. On 54th Street. Couldn’t say if they’re there now or not, but they were like courtyards (or maybe they were courtyards), some were wide and expansive and often brick or concrete, and filled with so much possibility. So much promise.
These were playgrounds, or passageways to playgrounds. They led to tiny fenced-in backyards, little squares of grass.
There was one behind Auntie Joan’s apartment building, virtually inaccessible, with ivy covered fences.
Another was wide enough for baseball. I don’t remember ever playing stickball, but if I did, it would’ve been there.
Another, this one several steps down and covered, was a long tunnel from the front of the street to someplace else.
Trains rumbled by on elevated tracks.
St. Sebastian’s was a cathedral, and also my school, and Mrs. Sharky lives in my memory mostly for the day she punished me for something I did not do. This, I remember vividly. During lunch, I was made to stay and clean up all the crayon that had been ground into the classroom floor. She left me alone. At recess, I took my lunch and ate with the janitors in the cafeteria.
I remember the school playground being behind wrought iron.
This was different from the park, which had a pool and also a huge sprinkler field--all cement, with water being sprayed about. But it was more likely solid gravel than a concrete slab. And nearby, a copse of trees. Looking back, I can’t call it woods, though it certainly seemed so to me at the time.
I recall a Ferris Wheel on the back of a truck that sometimes rolled through the neighborhood, and how my mom never wanted me to ride on it. Said it was dangerous. Maybe she was right, as I don’t believe such things still exist. And maybe they didn’t even exist then. I was only four or five. How accurate do you expect my memory from that age to be?
I believe Lao-tzu said this first, and I understand (and accept) the inherent truthfulness in those words.
I wish to go on a journey.
Where might I go?
It’s true, the point of the journey is not, as Rush sang, to “arrive”; yet there can be no journey without a destination, or a quest. It’s not just the steps you take, but the steps you are made to take--even if the maker is you.
Where might I go?
Anywhere at all?
How might I get there?
By any means necessary.
Will you join me on this wondrous journey?
I don’t need to find myself, or test myself. I merely wish to experience, learn, and grow. Overcome the obstacles I face, savor the joys, and the victories, meet and understand the mysteries.
Where might I go?
Not merely anywhere. Everywhere.
In the most basic sense, Fluidity is my attempt to explore the world. It’s interactive, so your responses and your own explorations are encouraged. Indeed, necessary, else my horizons are limited by my eyes--and your horizons are limited by your interpretations of my own.
These explorations will take many forms. Essays. Photo studies. Opinion pieces. Articles. Reviews. Autobiographical bits. Interviews. Any form whatever. Sometimes, a single theme will be explored in multiple entries or by multiple methods. Sometimes, I won’t even be the author.
What Fluidity is will, necessarily, change and grow with time. Don’t think of it as an explanation of this world or our journey on it; these are merely snapshots.
What can you expect to find? Three to five entries per week. Insight. Questions. Meanderings. Ramblings. All the stuff that makes up all the stuff.
I hope you enjoy.
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darkfluidity- John Urbancik
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