The physical changes of aging don't especially upset me. Neither does death or dying. What is pulling my heartstrings is seeing how my *unconsidered* sense of time and place is slipping away. The scent and texture of life lived in a specific historical moment. What details of the physical world have changed over the course of my life? How will they continue to do so? I suppose this can produce simultaneously a keen sense of poignancy over the gone past and a keen sense of interest in what is coming to displace the unconsidered present. What is coming to make Graco infant transport systems look as vintage as perambulators? What will candy wrappers be like in twenty years? What will candy be like? What about the future of bar soap?
This is a sort fun place to be balanced right now. And I'm not even fifty....
Showing posts with label the past. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the past. Show all posts
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Steampunky Non-fiction!
Okay, so maybe I am the last person on the planet to finally read *The Devil At The White City* but I did. I quickly followed this up with another Eric Larson book, *Thunderstruck* about Marconi and this time only one murder, but a really grisly one.
Yup, I think Mr Larson just might have done it, he may have come up with "steampunk nonfiction" How have changes in technology and culture influenced eachother in the past?
Any other suggestions for what other *contemporary* works may qualify for this genre?
Yup, I think Mr Larson just might have done it, he may have come up with "steampunk nonfiction" How have changes in technology and culture influenced eachother in the past?
Any other suggestions for what other *contemporary* works may qualify for this genre?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Down by Fourth
The other day, since I was already down by Angel's Flight, I cut through Grand Central Market--still all the grand sensory overload I remember it being, with that noodle stand that always put me in mind of that one we see Harrison Ford at in the beginning of *Bladerunner*, even though it doesn't really look so much like it. I'm not sure the goat meat taco place is still there, but how could it not be?
Having thought of *Bladerunner*, and being *right there*, I have to poke my head in at the Bradbury Building. Which everyone has seen, whether they know it or not. It was built by a fellow who supposedly did it with no great knowledge, inspired by a ouija board experience and Ralph Bellamy's book *Looking Backward*. It was completed in 1894 and I don't know who it was who described it as "a fairytale of mathematics." You've seen it in movies and fashion shoots and the like forever--that place that is all light and air and spare lovely ironwork and handsome wood. International Style may be looking as dated as mantuas, but the Bradbury Building is as fresh and lovely as ever. I can't for the life of me figure out why it isn't ringed by purring steampunks. Perhaps security lures them away with scones and clotted cream....
So of course by the time I come out of the Bradbury (don't you love that the delightful writer and the vintage modern building share a name?) I'm right there by the cut-through to Spring St, so I have to stop by the Biddy Mason wall.
If Los Angeles were an Orthodox Christian town, Biddy Mason would be the patron saint of the city. Biddy Mason (1810-1900) came to the area as a slave, trained as a midwife, and in the narrow window of legal opportunity, won freedom for herself and her family. She promptly settled down and saved enough money to buy a parcel of land where her memorial now stands. It served as a base of economic operations for herself and her family, and "urban homestead" as one writer put it. She delivered babies all over the city, in all walks of life. She set up an account at the store that used to be at 4th and Spring for flood victims to use. First A.M.E. was started in her home. She lived long enough to see her children and grandchildren be a credit to her, and respected and successful members of the community All in all, the sort of person who would be a superb patron saint, for any city let alone this one.
I have never been out of the country, so I don't know what it is like in places where the current culture has been in the same location for millennia, but this day I stood in the same general area where Biddy Mason had lived and walked, and I wondered about that. What had it been like then? What had it been like to be her, living through so much and constantly imagining good works to do? What was it like to watch the Bradbury go up practically next door, and taking far longer than planned to do so? I stood on the south corner of 4th and Spring and wondered which corner that store had been on where Biddy Mason kept the account for flood victims to use. I was standing where they had stood, on their way to the place where they could get food and clean clothes and household goods, because of the kindness of a woman born into chattel slavery in the opening years of the 19th century, who had walked halfway across the country behind a wagon, who had seized that brief moment around the Dred Scott case to free herself and her children and her sister and her sister's children. Who had been trained to a profession and was good at it, and used her earnings to help not only her own family but these flooded-out immigrants too.
Maybe part of what interests me is that there is comparatively little history on this spot, for the culture that is here now. Okay, Biddy Mason was born two hundred years ago next year, but she only died a little over a century ago. Historically speaking, that is the blink of an eye. When I was standing by her memorial wall, we were separated only by some time, and not at all by space. It would have been wonderful to have stood there and have read any writings of hers. (Are there any?)
After all this pondering and exaltation--(that building on the north side of Broadway still displaying a red and gold mural of the hands raised as though in blessing, showing over the tops of the buildings to the south, where I stood, having visions of this street and mixing my poetic references freely--)--I continue my meandering toward Metropolis Books, I swear not two blocks away from all this. A bookstore is full of voices dependant upon our eyes to be heard. I did not hear Biddy Mason in there, but I could have asked.
I don't really know why chronos time thins out so easily and kairos shines through when I am downtown, but it does for me, and I will keep going back.
Having thought of *Bladerunner*, and being *right there*, I have to poke my head in at the Bradbury Building. Which everyone has seen, whether they know it or not. It was built by a fellow who supposedly did it with no great knowledge, inspired by a ouija board experience and Ralph Bellamy's book *Looking Backward*. It was completed in 1894 and I don't know who it was who described it as "a fairytale of mathematics." You've seen it in movies and fashion shoots and the like forever--that place that is all light and air and spare lovely ironwork and handsome wood. International Style may be looking as dated as mantuas, but the Bradbury Building is as fresh and lovely as ever. I can't for the life of me figure out why it isn't ringed by purring steampunks. Perhaps security lures them away with scones and clotted cream....
So of course by the time I come out of the Bradbury (don't you love that the delightful writer and the vintage modern building share a name?) I'm right there by the cut-through to Spring St, so I have to stop by the Biddy Mason wall.
If Los Angeles were an Orthodox Christian town, Biddy Mason would be the patron saint of the city. Biddy Mason (1810-1900) came to the area as a slave, trained as a midwife, and in the narrow window of legal opportunity, won freedom for herself and her family. She promptly settled down and saved enough money to buy a parcel of land where her memorial now stands. It served as a base of economic operations for herself and her family, and "urban homestead" as one writer put it. She delivered babies all over the city, in all walks of life. She set up an account at the store that used to be at 4th and Spring for flood victims to use. First A.M.E. was started in her home. She lived long enough to see her children and grandchildren be a credit to her, and respected and successful members of the community All in all, the sort of person who would be a superb patron saint, for any city let alone this one.
I have never been out of the country, so I don't know what it is like in places where the current culture has been in the same location for millennia, but this day I stood in the same general area where Biddy Mason had lived and walked, and I wondered about that. What had it been like then? What had it been like to be her, living through so much and constantly imagining good works to do? What was it like to watch the Bradbury go up practically next door, and taking far longer than planned to do so? I stood on the south corner of 4th and Spring and wondered which corner that store had been on where Biddy Mason kept the account for flood victims to use. I was standing where they had stood, on their way to the place where they could get food and clean clothes and household goods, because of the kindness of a woman born into chattel slavery in the opening years of the 19th century, who had walked halfway across the country behind a wagon, who had seized that brief moment around the Dred Scott case to free herself and her children and her sister and her sister's children. Who had been trained to a profession and was good at it, and used her earnings to help not only her own family but these flooded-out immigrants too.
Maybe part of what interests me is that there is comparatively little history on this spot, for the culture that is here now. Okay, Biddy Mason was born two hundred years ago next year, but she only died a little over a century ago. Historically speaking, that is the blink of an eye. When I was standing by her memorial wall, we were separated only by some time, and not at all by space. It would have been wonderful to have stood there and have read any writings of hers. (Are there any?)
After all this pondering and exaltation--(that building on the north side of Broadway still displaying a red and gold mural of the hands raised as though in blessing, showing over the tops of the buildings to the south, where I stood, having visions of this street and mixing my poetic references freely--)--I continue my meandering toward Metropolis Books, I swear not two blocks away from all this. A bookstore is full of voices dependant upon our eyes to be heard. I did not hear Biddy Mason in there, but I could have asked.
I don't really know why chronos time thins out so easily and kairos shines through when I am downtown, but it does for me, and I will keep going back.
I Saw Angel's Flight In Motion...
Having gone upstairs from the Pershing Square station by a different escalator, I saw the little railway car moving. I didn't know which car it was I saw, and I could not remember which car had crashed years back. At this moment that knowledge seemed important. The cars are called Sinai and Olivet, I could remember that easily enough.
So of course I scamper over with a cry of joyful surprise, seeing finally two cars moving--it is a funicular railway after all--and they stop in the middle of the tracks, side by side on the double-tracked part. I am suspecting the somewhat eccentric people sitting around in the sun are used to these outbursts by visitors. I run over to the gate, already planning the page in my journal where I would glue down my ticket stub from having finally, finally ridden Angel's Flight again. Would they still be selling the packet of five tickets? The cyclone fence still blocked the sturdy old orange and brown gate. The sign on it still gave no indication of when Angel's Flight would open again. A place to donate money toward it was listed. I did not care, my heart still rejoiced to see Angel's Flight in motion. I'll ride it again someday.
Years ago one of the cars crashed, I believe killing a passenger (the second fatality in all its history, which is a long one.) This was due, as I recall, to faulty maintenance and faulty inspection. But I could be remembering this incorrectly.
This little dab of rail helped people scale the short steep hill from Hill St to Olive, and was, I believe, the most heavily used piece of track in the world, due to its short length and long long history. It stands about half a block down from its original location, as I recall. I used to love riding it. As I recall it now, you could buy a slip of five tickets for a dollar, single rides 25 cents, and from gate to gate, I don't think the ride took more than five minutes, if even that long. The cars were all stairs and brass rails and windows, and wood that rattled--pleasantly then--as I sat and watched the centuries meet, the last century (?) meeting the current one. It was so much more enjoyable than an elevator.
Time, technology, Who-knows-what; I don't know what is holding up the reopening of Angel's Flight but I hope it opens soon.
So of course I scamper over with a cry of joyful surprise, seeing finally two cars moving--it is a funicular railway after all--and they stop in the middle of the tracks, side by side on the double-tracked part. I am suspecting the somewhat eccentric people sitting around in the sun are used to these outbursts by visitors. I run over to the gate, already planning the page in my journal where I would glue down my ticket stub from having finally, finally ridden Angel's Flight again. Would they still be selling the packet of five tickets? The cyclone fence still blocked the sturdy old orange and brown gate. The sign on it still gave no indication of when Angel's Flight would open again. A place to donate money toward it was listed. I did not care, my heart still rejoiced to see Angel's Flight in motion. I'll ride it again someday.
Years ago one of the cars crashed, I believe killing a passenger (the second fatality in all its history, which is a long one.) This was due, as I recall, to faulty maintenance and faulty inspection. But I could be remembering this incorrectly.
This little dab of rail helped people scale the short steep hill from Hill St to Olive, and was, I believe, the most heavily used piece of track in the world, due to its short length and long long history. It stands about half a block down from its original location, as I recall. I used to love riding it. As I recall it now, you could buy a slip of five tickets for a dollar, single rides 25 cents, and from gate to gate, I don't think the ride took more than five minutes, if even that long. The cars were all stairs and brass rails and windows, and wood that rattled--pleasantly then--as I sat and watched the centuries meet, the last century (?) meeting the current one. It was so much more enjoyable than an elevator.
Time, technology, Who-knows-what; I don't know what is holding up the reopening of Angel's Flight but I hope it opens soon.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
More from the Recent Doctor
As I wrote previously, the new Doctor has for years been mentioning all manner of interesting things, and one of these was the Parthians. Ever heard of them? Maybe alittle if we paid close attention while studying the eastern edge of the Roman Empire but other wise, probably no. They had a huge long lasting and mighty empire to rival Rome's.
The Parthians disappeared for many of us not by *mis*-direction, but by our attention being fastened to the Roman Empire. But there the Parthian Empire was, "invisible" and shaping the eastern edge of The Glory That Was Rome. (Oddly enough, that is how a number of close up magic tricks work. Scale of the effect is all...)
So I'm left to wonder about what the Parthian Empire was like. (another item for the list of cool stuff to find out about) Human history alone, to leave natural history to one side for a moment, not to overwhelm the imagination, is TEEMING with times and places, circumstances and viewpoints. A literature somewhere between science fiction/fantasy and travel narrative could end up producing the most accurate record of human experience.
Years ago, when I was in college, a perfectly delightful professor emeritus told me about a rooftop ballroom that was atop a fancy department store that miraculously enough still existed in the downtown area. When he was a student at this same school, before WWII, it was the height of elegance to visit this place. The great big bands played there, and it was strung with lights, and it was high enough to be cool and free of bugs. When he was telling me this story, he was a kind witty palsied old man, a world expert in his specific field within English Literature, and I will always remember the way his face fell into repose as he said--"and when you were up there...you saw nothing above you but the starry sky..." It was something eternal, at least something that hadn't changed much over the decades that separated the young student from the old lion, and it lodged in my memory, that ballroom I could never see, beneath the summer stars.
After this, I had the opportunity to go downtown to the old department store. I discreetly made my way up to the very top floor and found the door to the roof. Something about violators being prosecuted was on a sign, but really, I didn't care. At the time, I felt like all would be well if I simply explained about the rooftop ballroom, and the professor's story. So I quietly shoved the door open, and peeked. It was mid afternoon of an early spring day, with clouds scudding across the sky. The roof was an expanse of gravel, level as I could see, with no suggestion of ever having been other wise. It seemed smaller than I imagined too, but isn't that always the case.
I thought of all of this again when the Parthians came up again in the defense. A similar impulse, a similar interest. A question, again, of *scale*. I like to imagine Parthians on that rooftop, the ghost of the former ballroom around them, and I like to imagine the Doctor chatting with them, getting to ask all the questions and draw out all the stories she wishes for. I will be at another table, chatting with that professor emeritus, now long dead, about matters closer chronologically but just as gone (or not) as the Empires. Maybe it would be Benny Goodman's band playing, and maybe we would all dance together eventually.
The Parthians disappeared for many of us not by *mis*-direction, but by our attention being fastened to the Roman Empire. But there the Parthian Empire was, "invisible" and shaping the eastern edge of The Glory That Was Rome. (Oddly enough, that is how a number of close up magic tricks work. Scale of the effect is all...)
So I'm left to wonder about what the Parthian Empire was like. (another item for the list of cool stuff to find out about) Human history alone, to leave natural history to one side for a moment, not to overwhelm the imagination, is TEEMING with times and places, circumstances and viewpoints. A literature somewhere between science fiction/fantasy and travel narrative could end up producing the most accurate record of human experience.
Years ago, when I was in college, a perfectly delightful professor emeritus told me about a rooftop ballroom that was atop a fancy department store that miraculously enough still existed in the downtown area. When he was a student at this same school, before WWII, it was the height of elegance to visit this place. The great big bands played there, and it was strung with lights, and it was high enough to be cool and free of bugs. When he was telling me this story, he was a kind witty palsied old man, a world expert in his specific field within English Literature, and I will always remember the way his face fell into repose as he said--"and when you were up there...you saw nothing above you but the starry sky..." It was something eternal, at least something that hadn't changed much over the decades that separated the young student from the old lion, and it lodged in my memory, that ballroom I could never see, beneath the summer stars.
After this, I had the opportunity to go downtown to the old department store. I discreetly made my way up to the very top floor and found the door to the roof. Something about violators being prosecuted was on a sign, but really, I didn't care. At the time, I felt like all would be well if I simply explained about the rooftop ballroom, and the professor's story. So I quietly shoved the door open, and peeked. It was mid afternoon of an early spring day, with clouds scudding across the sky. The roof was an expanse of gravel, level as I could see, with no suggestion of ever having been other wise. It seemed smaller than I imagined too, but isn't that always the case.
I thought of all of this again when the Parthians came up again in the defense. A similar impulse, a similar interest. A question, again, of *scale*. I like to imagine Parthians on that rooftop, the ghost of the former ballroom around them, and I like to imagine the Doctor chatting with them, getting to ask all the questions and draw out all the stories she wishes for. I will be at another table, chatting with that professor emeritus, now long dead, about matters closer chronologically but just as gone (or not) as the Empires. Maybe it would be Benny Goodman's band playing, and maybe we would all dance together eventually.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Airship Dream
Last Saturday the beloved and I were keeping our usual hours at The Press (a restaurant in Claremont. That's what people did before phones, "keep hours" in public places) when a fellow at the bar was telling us, that in west Texas, the little abandoned railroad towns are being revived by artists and other likely characters. Some place just big enough to have a post office will have three art galleries. Suddenly I was dazzled by the very idea of captaining an airship for commuter travel between them all. (And some freight too, sure.) The beloved brought up airship rides over the Grand Canyon. Yum!
Well what did I dream of Saturday night but of being an airship captain running a commuter line among little towns abandoned by the railroads! I don't think it was west Texas, it was too green. I had great fun in the dream, sipping coffee from a mug as I stood at the wheel, like an old sailing ship's wheel, like old airships had. The sun shown gently, the breeze was fresh. People moved back and forth between towns and we were all happy to see each other. I hope I dream of that again.
Imagination, and Steampunky implications...
A travel supplies catalog. I won't say which one it was I looked at today, but, well, *really.* It seemed to my eyes to be full of gear for the anxious and paranoid traveller. Heaven's sake, if you *really* think you are that menaced by leaving home--then don't go! Hire someone to go for you with all the money you would have spent on theft-proof luggage, bacteria-killing lamps, poop-deodorizers and wearable air filters and water-cleaners. (But golly now, all, all of it IS *portable.* I'll admit I'm a mild sucker for miniaturization.)
What really put the cap on it all for me was when I found the special case to keep all your credit cards, that would block--I wasn't quite clear on this part--either high-tech super thieves from stealing information off your cards, or would keep a chip in your card from broadcasting, uhm, stuff. I went all steampunky there for a moment and decided that the most fiendishly diabolical way to thwart today's super-thieves and their cutting edge naughtiness is to go as low-tech as possible.
At the Magic Castle this week I was fortunate enough to see a particularly solid ole' trouper who knows his business as a performing magician better than plenty of people. His act was a complete pleasure, being a compendium of classic effects presented superbly. I was wildly privileged to chat with some of the audience members after the show, and listen to their complete bafflement over what they had seen.
Now these were reasonable adults, not too drunk or anything of the like. They had never seen most of what the magician presented, and spun out somewhat plausible, invariably high-tech ways for the tricks to have been done. I nodded and listened and intuited that I really didn't need to instruct their imaginations/be a sanctimonious jerk about any of this.
I was intensely fascinated by it all. I see often enough people unconsideredly assume a magician is presenting all-original material, and, they don't really consider that there may be certain principles at play that are the same since the disputed images were painted in Egyptian tombs. For *me,* this makes it all the more magical. This may not be the same for everyone. What strange power and possibility lies in being able to function outside the ordinary bounds of some peoples' imaginations. I'm not quite sure how to phrase that....
Friday, May 29, 2009
Steampunk right in the midst of the era in question, and another window to be made into the past
Well if you like this sort of thing, and if you have not heard of this yet, let me tell you of it. *Tomorrow's Eve* by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, translated by Robert Martin Adams (1982). University of Illinois Press, first paperback edition, 2002. It was first published as a volume, in French, in 1886. Thomas Edison and a sensitive young English nobleman make a rather Faustian pact to create a female android. Zowie. The translator's introductory notes are engaging, and so far I have read through "Book One" of the novel. The most dedicated pastiche writer could not sustain the evenness of tone that an actual old novel has. Like many old products, plenty of this novel has aged greatly, but plenty is still disturbingly current. It can be perhaps playfully regarded as a superb steampunk novel, all the more so for being written in the period and not intended as such. So far, I've enjoyed the long discourses upon what modern humanity has come to. Anyone who has been a cubicle-denizen will get a shiver reading it. More on that as I finish it.
An idea that hit me a while back--using Moleskine City Notebooks for historical and literary notes on the place. Yum. Has anyone tried that yet?
An idea that hit me a while back--using Moleskine City Notebooks for historical and literary notes on the place. Yum. Has anyone tried that yet?
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Steampunk and Fear
Bruce Sterling wrote in an essay about steampunk (What Is Steampunk?") "The past is a future that already happened." I am not clear if this is his statement or if he was quoting, but I like it. I think it is true. The past *can* be our best laboratory for how the future *may* play out, if looked at carefully.
That's the dratted thing about the future, how utterly unknowable it is. All we can know about the future *is* the past. If certain things are done, the result tends to be thus-or-such. No extraordinary divinatory powers needed. Now of course a great many factors can be put into the analysis, and that can be a donnybrook.
What this all can add up to is a great antidote to fear. Fear is a great bother, outside of its salutatory function as the way to keep us from getting killed. Past that, it is a great enemy of hope or problem-solving. So this is part of what I like about steampunk. It has nothing to do with "recreating" an era, but rather skipping through what has come before to find possible solutions for current issues. It saves time and effort to do so, time and effort that may be spent on yet more creative pursuits. How's that for using the modern demon of "efficiency" to good purpose!
That's the dratted thing about the future, how utterly unknowable it is. All we can know about the future *is* the past. If certain things are done, the result tends to be thus-or-such. No extraordinary divinatory powers needed. Now of course a great many factors can be put into the analysis, and that can be a donnybrook.
What this all can add up to is a great antidote to fear. Fear is a great bother, outside of its salutatory function as the way to keep us from getting killed. Past that, it is a great enemy of hope or problem-solving. So this is part of what I like about steampunk. It has nothing to do with "recreating" an era, but rather skipping through what has come before to find possible solutions for current issues. It saves time and effort to do so, time and effort that may be spent on yet more creative pursuits. How's that for using the modern demon of "efficiency" to good purpose!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
the Human Size of Historic Charleston
So I was in downtown Charleston, South Carolina over the weekend. It dates back further than any city I have been in before, as I can recall. The streets are narrow to a modern eye. The buildings are right against the sidewalks, which are right against the streets, so everything is close. The houses tend to present a narrow edge to the street, then a long high gallery to meet the sea breeze. A great deal is very close together, easily walked--an open air market, the oceanfront, restaurants, parks, the works. Horse-drawn vehicles and trollies ferry people about. Plenty of trees provide shade where the close buildings don't do the job.
If I didn't know better I would have thought it was a Modernist experiment in environmentally sound, revolutionary urban design. (What the heck was all that awkward, badly-adapted-Corbu-flavored "International Style" crap attempting to produce? I may be getting my design lingo confused here I admit.)
Heehee. Forward into the past. But let's avoid as much of the icky stuff of the past as possible. Sure, chattel slavery is outlawed all over the country, but a permanent underclass is being created. Will it end up serving much of the same functions as chattel slaves did?
I suppose I'm back at the old question of how does design influence the lives lead amid it, and how does the technology available affect it all? I've long been intrigued by what connection may exist between domestic violence and domestic architecture. Looking at Charleston had me wondering again about what the unforseen fallout can be of the spaces we build; what is one generation reacting to from the previous one, only to have that hated feature picked up and valorized by a latre generation who saw how the reaction played out...
If I didn't know better I would have thought it was a Modernist experiment in environmentally sound, revolutionary urban design. (What the heck was all that awkward, badly-adapted-Corbu-flavored "International Style" crap attempting to produce? I may be getting my design lingo confused here I admit.)
Heehee. Forward into the past. But let's avoid as much of the icky stuff of the past as possible. Sure, chattel slavery is outlawed all over the country, but a permanent underclass is being created. Will it end up serving much of the same functions as chattel slaves did?
I suppose I'm back at the old question of how does design influence the lives lead amid it, and how does the technology available affect it all? I've long been intrigued by what connection may exist between domestic violence and domestic architecture. Looking at Charleston had me wondering again about what the unforseen fallout can be of the spaces we build; what is one generation reacting to from the previous one, only to have that hated feature picked up and valorized by a latre generation who saw how the reaction played out...
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