Wednesday, July 12, 2006
The Machine
The automatic check-in machine at the airport asked me if I would like 5 more inches of leg room.
It told me that this would cost me 44 dollars.
I was to press one of two buttons, but neither read "fuck you", so my response was meaningless.
The automatic check-in machine at the airport asked me if I would like 5 more inches of leg room.
It told me that this would cost me 44 dollars.
I was to press one of two buttons, but neither read "fuck you", so my response was meaningless.
In TV Blue
Midnight on the plane.
The girl next to me reads a bible by the light of the TV screen on the bulkhead wall.
I am angry about lost sleep.
It takes a lifetime for someone to discover what is most precious to them.
I've learned from my own angry biology that sleep is close to my soul.
Midnight on the plane.
The girl next to me reads a bible by the light of the TV screen on the bulkhead wall.
I am angry about lost sleep.
It takes a lifetime for someone to discover what is most precious to them.
I've learned from my own angry biology that sleep is close to my soul.
4 Am.
I have a camera that sits unused back at home. Black and white film in it. A gift from the folks.
I took one roll at the levee; bad focus through rusty fences, the diamond inner geometry of a radio tower.
Potential, the hopes and imagination of my parents.
This sits dusty, with my instruments, my bike - so many things to have and not to use fully, not to use right.
There is a ghost watching me from my left shoulder - the oblong one - recording these failings. He tells me things sometimes, as I sit alone in the night air with Logan on my back porch, watching the willow-wisp lights glide lazily towards LAX...
... Or here, in the thin, recycled air - breathing other people's breath, their sweat, their shampoo and their shoe shine - 37000 feet above Kansas at dawn, he tells me things.
And he does this because sitting still above cloudtops can make you forget, just for a moment, who you are.
I have a camera that sits unused back at home. Black and white film in it. A gift from the folks.
I took one roll at the levee; bad focus through rusty fences, the diamond inner geometry of a radio tower.
Potential, the hopes and imagination of my parents.
This sits dusty, with my instruments, my bike - so many things to have and not to use fully, not to use right.
There is a ghost watching me from my left shoulder - the oblong one - recording these failings. He tells me things sometimes, as I sit alone in the night air with Logan on my back porch, watching the willow-wisp lights glide lazily towards LAX...
... Or here, in the thin, recycled air - breathing other people's breath, their sweat, their shampoo and their shoe shine - 37000 feet above Kansas at dawn, he tells me things.
And he does this because sitting still above cloudtops can make you forget, just for a moment, who you are.
Pilot's Joke
Over the intercom, the pilot makes a joke.
People begin to laugh, and at that moment a screw fails in the hydraulic array of the left wing, just above the massive inner engine mount, and we lurch downward with a groan of cracking metal towards the earth.
Or
The screw holds, the girl next to me pulls the shade up, and the sun cuts my eyes and pulls hotly at my skin like melting plastic until once again, I am fully awake.
Over the intercom, the pilot makes a joke.
People begin to laugh, and at that moment a screw fails in the hydraulic array of the left wing, just above the massive inner engine mount, and we lurch downward with a groan of cracking metal towards the earth.
Or
The screw holds, the girl next to me pulls the shade up, and the sun cuts my eyes and pulls hotly at my skin like melting plastic until once again, I am fully awake.
Customer Service
At the ticket counter in Chicago, Old men in polo shirts mutter as their leather-tan wives fiddle with gold jewelry and drink coffee.
They ask eachother loudly, in words that connect them in ways that they lack the capacity to describe, "what ever happened to customer service?", as if capitalism had ever had a fundamental relationship with this concept.
At the ticket counter in Chicago, Old men in polo shirts mutter as their leather-tan wives fiddle with gold jewelry and drink coffee.
They ask eachother loudly, in words that connect them in ways that they lack the capacity to describe, "what ever happened to customer service?", as if capitalism had ever had a fundamental relationship with this concept.
Scientist at the Gate
Chicago.
Airport, gray morning.
Lines at the McDonalds, wrinkly faces and metallic air.
The Guy in the seat to my right at the gate is a scientist.
Wears glasses. Wears a "Little Mermaid" wristwatch.
He is dictating into a tape recorder, softly pulling the pages of a report open and checking the lines against hushed, terse, rewound statements from his machine.
Chicago.
Airport, gray morning.
Lines at the McDonalds, wrinkly faces and metallic air.
The Guy in the seat to my right at the gate is a scientist.
Wears glasses. Wears a "Little Mermaid" wristwatch.
He is dictating into a tape recorder, softly pulling the pages of a report open and checking the lines against hushed, terse, rewound statements from his machine.
Jesus Bible X
Guy to my left has a leather case, full of pens. It looks like an artist's case.
He pulls out a book and highlights passages for half an hour.
The book is called "Jesus Bible X"
I guess that the "X" isn't meant to be cryptic or apocryphal.
Nothing about the shimmering red and gold design of this book is a secret.
"X" hasn't been new since I was twelve.
It is a commercial symbol. It is a loaded icon, meant mostly for niche culture pseudo-sports , or for characterizing a particular candybar's potential for a more-than-average-experience.
With this in mind, I can only imagine what parasitic connotations circulate within the pages of Jesus Bible X.
Guy to my left has a leather case, full of pens. It looks like an artist's case.
He pulls out a book and highlights passages for half an hour.
The book is called "Jesus Bible X"
I guess that the "X" isn't meant to be cryptic or apocryphal.
Nothing about the shimmering red and gold design of this book is a secret.
"X" hasn't been new since I was twelve.
It is a commercial symbol. It is a loaded icon, meant mostly for niche culture pseudo-sports , or for characterizing a particular candybar's potential for a more-than-average-experience.
With this in mind, I can only imagine what parasitic connotations circulate within the pages of Jesus Bible X.
NOLA Bible X
40 minutes later, Jesus Bible X strikes up a conversation with me. He is going to Moline.
Where?
Part of the Quad Cities, he says; 300,000 people.
I believe him.
He's got a job interview there. Open position for a Pastor. He's sick of his life in Arizona. The wife agrees.
He asks me questions, we talk about writers, and I fail at communicating anything meaningful.
They both ask a lot about New Orleans once they learn where I grew up.
They care.
It becomes a real conversation.
It comes quickly, naturally - I'm slurring a little from being sleepy, but I understand the universal weight that this subject carries.
New Orleans is a muddy history, an abstraction, a tragedy; it is a name for things with evil names and no names at all.
It is a Tumor that drags along behind me, and people always want to know about it.
I tell them that I do too.
40 minutes later, Jesus Bible X strikes up a conversation with me. He is going to Moline.
Where?
Part of the Quad Cities, he says; 300,000 people.
I believe him.
He's got a job interview there. Open position for a Pastor. He's sick of his life in Arizona. The wife agrees.
He asks me questions, we talk about writers, and I fail at communicating anything meaningful.
They both ask a lot about New Orleans once they learn where I grew up.
They care.
It becomes a real conversation.
It comes quickly, naturally - I'm slurring a little from being sleepy, but I understand the universal weight that this subject carries.
New Orleans is a muddy history, an abstraction, a tragedy; it is a name for things with evil names and no names at all.
It is a Tumor that drags along behind me, and people always want to know about it.
I tell them that I do too.
Back in a Plane
Waiting in the prop-plane on the tarmac.
1 hour flight to Cedar Rapids.
Everyone from the last flight still around me, still fat and happy, pushed a little bit closer ontop of eachother, talking about the floods on the east coast and generally drowning out the part of their minds that wonders what it might be like to fall to earth at 600 miles per hour in a 10 foot wide aluminum tube.
Waiting in the prop-plane on the tarmac.
1 hour flight to Cedar Rapids.
Everyone from the last flight still around me, still fat and happy, pushed a little bit closer ontop of eachother, talking about the floods on the east coast and generally drowning out the part of their minds that wonders what it might be like to fall to earth at 600 miles per hour in a 10 foot wide aluminum tube.
The Iowan
An Iowan started talking to me before we boarded. Old guy, in his 70's, with camcorder in tow. He asked about me, and I made it easy. I'm headed to the university for Literature. We kept talking, and soon we were friendly.
He's a farmer. Volunteers at a collective. His group has been in LA visiting strawberry farms. 4 Days in LA was too long for him.
He says I should get credit for taking agriculture courses while I'm at the university. He says I should study "egg culture". He keeps saying a lot of things like this - stories that don't quite connect, opinions that trail off before getting to the point. It feels like he is sizing me up.
"You look like an Iowan," he says, "with your ripped jeans and your t-shirt. That's what kids wear out here."
He also likes my decomposing baseball cap, which is the color of an unwashed bloodstain.
He tells me how PETA runs campaigns that hurt his business. He spits a story about activists doing undercover work at a slaughterhouse upstate where "the Jews cut the cows' throats". This caused a lot of problems for everyone.
What do I think of this?
His smile, which is half with me, half against me, would like to know. I change the subject.
He's also a vet. I tell him my dad was a sergeant in Korea.
The Iowan was Army National Guard, staying stateside in North Carolina. He spent time quelling riots in D.C., New Hampshire, and Connecticut during Vietnam.
He smiles as he tells these stories, and I am nodding stupidly, feeling like I am listening to a wolf remember his glory days.
The airline lady comes on the intercom and saves me from saying much else. We part company on the tarmac and head single file to the plane, he videotaping the rest of his group and I wondering why my instinct with people like this is always to blend.
An Iowan started talking to me before we boarded. Old guy, in his 70's, with camcorder in tow. He asked about me, and I made it easy. I'm headed to the university for Literature. We kept talking, and soon we were friendly.
He's a farmer. Volunteers at a collective. His group has been in LA visiting strawberry farms. 4 Days in LA was too long for him.
He says I should get credit for taking agriculture courses while I'm at the university. He says I should study "egg culture". He keeps saying a lot of things like this - stories that don't quite connect, opinions that trail off before getting to the point. It feels like he is sizing me up.
"You look like an Iowan," he says, "with your ripped jeans and your t-shirt. That's what kids wear out here."
He also likes my decomposing baseball cap, which is the color of an unwashed bloodstain.
He tells me how PETA runs campaigns that hurt his business. He spits a story about activists doing undercover work at a slaughterhouse upstate where "the Jews cut the cows' throats". This caused a lot of problems for everyone.
What do I think of this?
His smile, which is half with me, half against me, would like to know. I change the subject.
He's also a vet. I tell him my dad was a sergeant in Korea.
The Iowan was Army National Guard, staying stateside in North Carolina. He spent time quelling riots in D.C., New Hampshire, and Connecticut during Vietnam.
He smiles as he tells these stories, and I am nodding stupidly, feeling like I am listening to a wolf remember his glory days.
The airline lady comes on the intercom and saves me from saying much else. We part company on the tarmac and head single file to the plane, he videotaping the rest of his group and I wondering why my instinct with people like this is always to blend.
Tranquility Base
The clouds give way.
Brown becomes green with patches of brown.
Green with patches of brown crystalize into squares.
Sqaures subdivide, their borders taking shape, making cell walls from 2-lane highways, cyclone fencing, and hedgerows.
The temptation from above is to think that there aren't enough people out here to fill all of this space. Our broad-winged shadow cuts across a truck lot and I know that the oppsite is true. There's never enough concrete, and always enough time.
One hundred years from now, this will be the moon.
Hello, Iowa.
The clouds give way.
Brown becomes green with patches of brown.
Green with patches of brown crystalize into squares.
Sqaures subdivide, their borders taking shape, making cell walls from 2-lane highways, cyclone fencing, and hedgerows.
The temptation from above is to think that there aren't enough people out here to fill all of this space. Our broad-winged shadow cuts across a truck lot and I know that the oppsite is true. There's never enough concrete, and always enough time.
One hundred years from now, this will be the moon.
Hello, Iowa.
