Seventy-five miles going 75 mph with the dome light on in a drizzle, dodging road construction after a back-and-forth basketball game that ended in a loss for the local team was a harrowing adventure.
It was a trip through the heart of darkness with Kurtz riding shotgun, swearing at a computer on his lap and playing tape recorded comments while pounding at the keyboard.
Driving without a map in unfamiliar territory at the beginning of the rainy season: it was like being in the Parrot’s Beak in 1970. Instead of landmines there were potholes, Jersey barriers and deer looming in the mist.
It was a close basketball game, essentially a draw that became a win at the charity stripe with .1 of a second remaining: not enough time for even a last-ditch, full-court heave.
The site was an opulent school is an affluent aberration of the Rust Belt. Penne Pasta and $2 hot dogs at the concession stand and a gym filled with banners celebrating tennis and lacrosse championships.
This was dinner-jacket territory, beyond white collar and making even this valley’s white collars seem blue.
A wrong turn out of the parking lot twisted me around and caused minor panic before I righted the course, then battled dome-light blindness the rest of the way.
No cigarettes and nothing to drink. Nothing to say to the colonel beside me, it was a wild time, alone with my thoughts spinning out of control.
Waking night-driving dreams of Conrad and Apocalypse Now wrought by the resonance of the Nelson Demille pulp fiction I’m reading.
I felt like a caterpillar crawling across a razor blade.
Now, 90 minutes after a safe return, the present keeps blurring by: I feel like I’m still moving as Bob Dylan sings about “Marching to the City” and I think about marching from the city.
I’m thankful I made it back in one piece, met deadline and now am safe at home, if home is indeed safe.
Tapping a keyboard like a maestro, taking the surreality of the world I wrought and turning it into words.
Words can redeem us. In the beginning was the word and come the apocalypse the word will be said.
Alas, the word will save the world if the world will let it. The word will fill the hollow men with substance and define the absurdities of the digital life in the next world.
Now that’s a load of nonsense and it’s time to stop the words and get back to the world.
The dreams should be vivid tonight!
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Fahrenheit 450
So this is what it’s like at Fahrenheit 450.
We’re almost at burning temperature, we almost have walls that talk and we almost don’t have to talk to each other face-to-face.
Every person is a newscast now, a live wire in this war called life. Everyone’s boiling with commotion and I’m steaming.
They might as well discontinue the pencil, it’s gone the way of the abacus: an entry between Penchi and pencil pusher.
My dictionary’s smoldering as I take the time to look it up: “the individual style or ability of an artist”
Do we need individuals anymore?
Join a group, make friends, comment in a 100 characters or less. Throw all those spelling tests into the fire and
Soon it will be burning bright. Paging Guy Montag: spring forth from the yellowing pages, sir! Here’s the order:
“Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.”
It’s getting hotter by the day, burning heat and we keep getting dumber.
“I want to see everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it'll all gather together inside and it'll be me. Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it's finally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get hold of it so it'll never run off. I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning.”
It’s 450 degrees and I’m sweating. My books are brown and I feel like a pencil getting chewed up in an electric sharpener.
Getting chewed up before being thrown into the fire.
We’re almost at burning temperature, we almost have walls that talk and we almost don’t have to talk to each other face-to-face.
Every person is a newscast now, a live wire in this war called life. Everyone’s boiling with commotion and I’m steaming.
They might as well discontinue the pencil, it’s gone the way of the abacus: an entry between Penchi and pencil pusher.
My dictionary’s smoldering as I take the time to look it up: “the individual style or ability of an artist”
Do we need individuals anymore?
Join a group, make friends, comment in a 100 characters or less. Throw all those spelling tests into the fire and
Soon it will be burning bright. Paging Guy Montag: spring forth from the yellowing pages, sir! Here’s the order:
“Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.”
It’s getting hotter by the day, burning heat and we keep getting dumber.
“I want to see everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it'll all gather together inside and it'll be me. Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it's finally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get hold of it so it'll never run off. I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning.”
It’s 450 degrees and I’m sweating. My books are brown and I feel like a pencil getting chewed up in an electric sharpener.
Getting chewed up before being thrown into the fire.
Welcome to the land of the living dead
“Welcome to the land of the living dead.”
- Ruby in “Brownsville Girl” by Bob Dylan and Sam Shepherd.
The Rust Belt is teeming with life this week as light-jacket weather has arrived. The snow is melted and the debris of autumn and winter is exposed to the eyes: leaves that haven’t completely decayed, sticks and stones and litter including half-crushed beer cans, empty, faded cigarette packages and thrown-out-the-window butts that had been buried beneath a dirty-white tundra of snow and ice.
Puddles have formed in the low spots and potholes, creating mirrors to reflect the welcome sunshine and making some street corners sparkle despite the grime.
There’s beauty in this Shenango Valley, splendid sights to see if you take stop time and take it in: Aging houses and neighborhoods full of old stories told by busted-out windows and sagging porches. Old men are sitting on front porch furniture that was bought in the 1980s, kids playing in the streets, moving out of the way of cars blasting music that adds to the booming vitality that blooms in the sun.
The WPA-laid red brick streets are filled with life in Farrell and even the dogs seem happy to just be outside without shivering.
There’s hope in the air that still has a bite of cold; hope that things might improve this year; that bigger and better things are around the corner for this neglected corner of America.
It’s been a long time coming; a wait that’s been punctuated by false-starts and pipe dreams that didn’t come true.
It’s left a weight on the shoulders of the bread-winners that’s eased for a moment by the thaw and sunshine. Troubles can be forgotten for a moment and hope prevails.
There’s a quiet dignity that comes from enduring tough times, a dignity that hasn’t yet disappeared, even with job losses, crime epidemics and drug problems.
There’s hope yet for this place that we call home.
- Ruby in “Brownsville Girl” by Bob Dylan and Sam Shepherd.
The Rust Belt is teeming with life this week as light-jacket weather has arrived. The snow is melted and the debris of autumn and winter is exposed to the eyes: leaves that haven’t completely decayed, sticks and stones and litter including half-crushed beer cans, empty, faded cigarette packages and thrown-out-the-window butts that had been buried beneath a dirty-white tundra of snow and ice.
Puddles have formed in the low spots and potholes, creating mirrors to reflect the welcome sunshine and making some street corners sparkle despite the grime.
There’s beauty in this Shenango Valley, splendid sights to see if you take stop time and take it in: Aging houses and neighborhoods full of old stories told by busted-out windows and sagging porches. Old men are sitting on front porch furniture that was bought in the 1980s, kids playing in the streets, moving out of the way of cars blasting music that adds to the booming vitality that blooms in the sun.
The WPA-laid red brick streets are filled with life in Farrell and even the dogs seem happy to just be outside without shivering.
There’s hope in the air that still has a bite of cold; hope that things might improve this year; that bigger and better things are around the corner for this neglected corner of America.
It’s been a long time coming; a wait that’s been punctuated by false-starts and pipe dreams that didn’t come true.
It’s left a weight on the shoulders of the bread-winners that’s eased for a moment by the thaw and sunshine. Troubles can be forgotten for a moment and hope prevails.
There’s a quiet dignity that comes from enduring tough times, a dignity that hasn’t yet disappeared, even with job losses, crime epidemics and drug problems.
There’s hope yet for this place that we call home.
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