Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

(... after "Get Away"...)

Everyone goes everywhere in crisscrossing arcs, zip the over under, place bets, ping off peaks, react, refract, rays multiply and go everywhere, go there until it’s here and must get back to there. Go back, young man! Here is closer than there, intermingled in closing air, and he’s rhyming again, repeating himself. Moments after launch he fussed over its terminus, how little time to return, escape drained from nascent sojourn, and the other arcs too, limitations of skin no doubt, here-there strain, fuel, cargo and time. Otherwise we’d travel at will, over a moon’s dark ice, or boiling lava spine, rollers crash on sunny atolls in a trade wind eye, or even three feet from John the Baptist in the Louvre, near a perpetual crowd around Mona Lisa, where here-there recedes, breathless propulsion of non-state. We could hang there, write papers. Rembrandt was stellar, but Leonardo? Leonardo. But Europe took itself seriously for centuries; rip it off a wall!

When itinerary jams a journey to bursting, get-there sprint, what then? More here and less there, less then, more now. But he breaks his own wisdom running here-there, there-here. How many gorgeous back eddies did he pass in a backwash along a long, long dashed line? Yet it registered more than a jet. If we grant for a moment 480 miles in a day, you cannot appreciate the distance except by wheels. You can’t help but notice countless bluffs, creeks and peaks, the small world vastness of it. You can’t get on a plane and fly 480 miles, or 10, 480 miles to a summit and have any sense of the ups and downs of rock-space. If we grant for a moment 480 miles, it is most real where rubber meets road.

Someone stole his TV in the city last year. People giveth and taketh away; he won’t debate the pros and cons. He has a sweltering motel room and cable again—something about that first night away, you need some sort of tie in, a wire perhaps, but sweet Jeezus those commercials, a machine or pill for every ill. The weather chick said, “the air you can wear,” referring to the South. Are thunderstorms predicted in bare hills south of town? First night: Burns, Oregon, 80-degree afterglow at eleven, toes sun burned on a crescent moon. Shit the lawyer ads are starting, must be the middle of nowhere. Why is the damn box on? The weather chick said, “some temperatures are going up, some down.” Wisdom. Everyone on the Weather Channel is a “meteorologist.” Do they all put on reading glasses and pore over isobars? Tomorrow: 97 degrees and no tornado. It seems wide open, everywhere.

I read this once and noticed myself staring out the bank of windows facing south... the skies beginning to light up to the left of me, I keep going back to the bank of clouds, blueish-gray but not darkly so, the whole scene at seven a.m. makes for a silent Saturday morning.

I read this once more and again I stare out to the clouds. Damn! I love looking at clouds, especially the theatrical ones, the ones that reach up so high birds are surely jealous. The sunlight has broken thru the clouds now and the skies to my left have dramatically changed colors... almost a spirituality about it as if this old land is having a religious awakening in a silent repose that defies logic ... and that's what makes it fascinating for me... a mystery of sorts that one has to grasp quickly or it will do what it always does... change. How we dislike change when it is what we live for that changes.

I read another paragraph in your piece... not any particular one, mind you, but what one may call a random choosing. TV commercials, weather chicks (who always look nice and proper as if they would never lie about something so important about the weather), and the barrenness of a motel room whose only connection to reality is that cable... without which we would never know, for chrissakes. We'd be living in some kind of imaginative darkness, bumping into our ideas and fears, knocking over the occasional belief that gets in the way. What did "they" do only 100 years ago without cable connecting everyone to everything. Were we all clueless dolts that could never survive today's world where everything wrong is shoved into our faces three times a day leaving us with a helplessness that mankind surely never witnessed on such a globular scale that dwarfs us, making us more scared and witless than any other time in our short history on this planet we are fucking up everytime we try to do good.

"It seems wide open, everywhere," and we just keep getting closer and closer to each other so afraid of that openness, everywhere where the wild things are...

Thx, Mark, for the morning ride... no tickets needed.

two months of almost daily storms made me already be forgetful about weather pronósticos, umbrellas and mud everywhere!

very beatle title!


But Europe took itself seriously for centuries, so rip it off a wall. that made me smile!

Wow, great scene, or interlude, Cec. I'd rather the world be "wired" than not, but of course the downsides are the propaganda effect, or the information glut, or stolen time, or variations on these themes. Borrowed from my road trip last summer in this one. I seem to be injecting more rhythm and (gasp) rhyme into my prose. Not sure why.

Thanks Arcadia. Beatles is right! I had that song going through my head all day yesterday. It's still there in fact!

--revised... (sorry to kick it back up)

Everyone goes in crisscrossing arcs, the over under. Place bets, ping peaks, react, refract, go there until it’s here and get back to there. Go back, young man! Moments after launch he fussed over its terminus, how much time to return, escape drained from nascent sojourn, a limitation of skin, the here-there strain, fuel and time. Otherwise we’d travel at will, over a moon’s dark ice, or boiling lava spine, rollers crashed on sunny atolls in a trade wind eye, or even three feet from John the Baptist in the Louvre, near a perpetual crowd around Mona Lisa, where here-there recedes, breathless propulsion of non-state. We could hang there. Rembrandt was stellar, but Leonardo? Leonardo.

Travel alone, lest you be pulled around in circuits, to plaques and museums, various itineraries of European artifacts, exalted masterworks, colonial ruins and such. Europe took itself seriously for centuries; rip it off a wall. You are the anti-itinerary: more here, less there. In theory. But he broke his own theory. How many fine back eddies did he whoosh past along a long, long dashed line? You can’t appreciate 480 miles in a day except by wheels; you see countless bluffs, creeks and peaks, the small world vastness of it. You can’t get on a plane and fly 480 miles, or 10, 480 miles to a summit and have any sense of the ups and downs of rock-space.

First night: Burns, Oregon, 80-degree afterglow at eleven, toes sun burned on a crescent moon. Someone stole his TV last year; debate the pros and cons. Now he has a sweltering motel room and cable—something about that first night out, you need a tie-in, a wire perhaps, but sweet Jeezus those commercials, a machine/pill for every ill. The weather chick said, “the air you can wear,” referring to the South. Are thunderstorms predicted in the bare hills? Shit the lawyer ads are on, must be the middle of nowhere. Why is the damn box on? Everyone’s a “meteorologist” on the Weather Channel. Do they put on reading glasses and pore over isobars? The weather chick said, “some temperatures are going up, some down.” Wisdom. Tomorrow: 97 degrees and no tornado. It seems wide open, everywhere.

Travel alone. Years ago she insisted we visit Spanish ruins in New Mexico. We ran from ruin to ruin, tensely, diligently—crumbling 17th Century missions, your basic Euro-subjection vignettes—convert random savages to the Church at sword point. There’s so much history in New Mexico! Well yes. And a wandering mind between pressure points as well, a now ocean dotted with then. somewhere between get there and back. Seems a little history goes a long way in open space, depending on your angle. Travel alone.

Spurn airports, self-replicating wings paved with acres of linoleum sheen, especially the ones they never use. You get only a diffused clicking of distant transit, muffled language like anesthetic wearing off, an occasional jet creeping and miles of aluminum window systems. Mystery doors and stairwells appear and reappear in patterns if you hike sterile gleam; there is no end. Certificates and plants hang in some of them, but nothing passes through except vaporous, shuffling echo from other planets. He could set up a freezer and microwave beside sheen and echo, watch weeds sprout on the tarmac.