Holy Water

A guest post, by David J. Marsh

Knowing how nearby Walden slept, I had gone to bed the previous evening like a grade schooler – hopped up on the stimulant of an impending field trip – the pillow proving an obnoxious barrier between myself and wonder. Late into the night, I had flipped from one position to the next like a fish in the grass. And having no memory of having found sleep, I was shocked to consciousness by the blare of my wife’s cell phone alarm. Unlike that little kid, I had a most miserable time getting out of bed, and a foundational need for strong black coffee. Tall Americano. No, make it a grande – big day today.

Sunlight flickered across the dash, pulsating within and slightly warming the cabin of the rental car as we made our way up Route 126, having left Marlborough after a light breakfast an hour or so before. I was drowsy, relaxed and happy.

If my map reading skills and recollection prove trustworthy (you’ll not risk insult by checking), Route 126 becomes Concord Road just south of Concord, and before reaching the Pond transforms itself into Walden Street, preparing to meld into lovely Concord, Mass. At some point a few miles south of town, nestled in-between spacious lawns, is a lush community garden plot. It must be several acres, announcing itself with a sort of arch, lettering painted or pinned to it, declaring its purpose. As I anticipated the day ahead, I found this to be especially quaint, as we don’t see this sort of thing so much in the Midwest. We read about it in progressive magazines, but somehow we fail in the execution. I suppose I may have over-reacted a bit in response to this cultural artifact. Forgive me, for I was by that point brimming with the anticipation that I surely must be within only a few thousand yards of the hallowed kettle. I should mention that we were on a family vacation, a road trip. The back of the car was packed with our three offspring (our very greatest legacy), and all the trimmings. Our final destination was Cape Cod. I had lobbied long and somewhat hard for this detour in the itinerary. The stop was for me. Sure, someday the kids would come to recognize where they had been, and my wife had a passing knowledge of the importance of the place, but it was I who felt the urgency to visit this cathedral of American letters.

I knew little of what to expect. I had read the book, of course, and had been to the web site, sparse though it is. As we drove, I could not recall if his cabin was still there. That would certainly be an embarrassing question to ask. (I did ask. I asked an overly youthful attendant at the bathhouse. I figured I may not know about the cabin, but I had read the book…more than once. Surely the scoreboard would favor me.)

We arrived well ahead of many other visitors. I wondered what other visitors would mark such a milestone in their lives with a visit today. The bookstore was not yet open. All the cars in the lot could have parked in my driveway. Crossing the road and descending the incline, my first view of Walden Pond saw not a human in sight. She lay in the clear morning, a diorama, not a ripple, still – like one of those fake ponds behind the stuffed bear in a state museum, made out of some sort of epoxy that slowly fades into a landscape painted on the wall. The Pond is large – much larger than you think. Where I call home, northern Indiana, such a body of water would be termed a lake. Ponds are tiny and overgrown as far as my kin are concerned…certainly not large enough for a boat, and in no way suitable for human contact.

What a fine job of preservation she had enjoyed. Many women, I know, would delight in the opportunities she has enjoyed at being aided in retaining her youth. Either a diligent conservationist had been through the evening before, or there was a sacred understanding that littering here would bring existential turmoil. (Allow me to prefer the latter, won’t you?) The site is pristine, an outdoor, interactive American original. No discolor, no odor, no scum…would that I had a vat of her in which to soak my feet at the start of this New Year, or better, I suppose, a winter visit to see the bubbles trapped under the edges of her icy skirt.

As I reviewed the map, I thought, how fortunate is Walden. There seem to be others who could have stolen her glory. HDT could’ve set his compass on Flints or Farrar. If he’d desired less H2O, there may have been Crosby, Goose, or any number of others vying for his attention. Walden, however, was easily accessed; it was on the rail line, fell nearly due south of town (remotely at the time) and was only a short hike from his parent’s house. Location, location, location.

The morning saw us hike the entire circumference of the pond, taking the better part of a couple of hours. All along there were small places to sit – enough of an easement for only one or two – a few steep steps made of rock to lower you to water’s edge – a promotion of solitude. At one point was a pass, a land bridge just enough to separate the pond proper from a marsh…such a marsh as could’ve been a watering hole to mammoths, so untouched.

The sun overhead, we returned to the car to grab our swimsuits and change. It was here, that a graceful old gentleman, with an accent that sang a tune under his words, gave my son a beachball he had found. He was careful to explain that he would have had to either take it home or bequeath to another, as to leave it to the elements would not be an option in such a place. My son was delighted. I imagined myself living closer to the Pond, balding, retired. My respect even greater than it is now, I would come each evening and carefully inspect her shoreline for foreign objects and clear her eyes of splinters. I would tell no one. It would be my contribution to her office, my way of rubbing elbows with the ghosts who rest just a few miles hence in Sleepy Hollow.

Late afternoon, I climbed up out of the water, past the many other bathers and sat down in my lounge chair, to warm myself in the sunshine. I had just gone swimming with my kids in Walden Pond. I turned to my wife, and said (borrowing from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.),

“If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is”.

This week's To-Do List, with pictures

To Do List:

* Get to airport on time. [Just barely.] a

* Make difficult decisions, such as:

Walk North a


Walk South a


* Take lots of naps.a

* Hug some trees. [metaphorically] a

Palm trees...

Swamp fig on cyprus

Cyprus


* Swim in the sea. a

* See the sun kiss the water. a



* Eat plenty of seafood (Grouper, Flounder, Shrimp, Oysters...) a

* Go to my favorite Audubon Sanctuary, Corkscrew Swamp and observe nature. [alligators, birds, anoles, frogs, plants, spiders, racoons. Heard a bear growl.] a

Red-Shouldered Hawk
Green Tree Frog (hiding)

* Ignore Blackberry. Let others work. a



* Stop and smell the flowers. a
Water Lily

Narrow-leaf sunflowers

Orchid

Alligator Flag Blossom
White vine


* Lie on the beach under the full moon and stare at the stars. a

* Work on personal projects, not work projects a

* Observe two birds I haven't noticed before [Black Skimmers, Common Yellowthroat] a

* Read. a

* Favorite line of poetry this week:
...from what we cannot hold, the stars are made -- WS Merwin Youth

* Take pictures. Relax a

Old trees hold many tales....

If I Lived on this street....

.... I would have to smile every time I looked up at the building with these wonderful creatures:

But would I notice them every day? How many times have I walked by these and not noticed them? Do they tell me the true character of the building? Do they reveal or mask the likely lives of those that live in the building or those who pass by each day?

A few weeks ago I had a car service pick me up at the airport. It was the same service I use frequently. Yet, had I never used them before, my impression would have been that they weren't very good. The driver was late. He went to the wrong terminal. He complained. He drove without his seatbelt, the alarm buzzing seeming only to irritate me. It was the dirtiest limo I have ever been in. I told him to take the Queensboro to Westside Highway to Canal and the Holland Tunnel. He insisted he take the BQE to the Midtown Tunnel, across Midtown to the Lincoln. I rolled my eyes as we merged onto the BQE and I spied the worse mid-morning traffic jam I'd ever seen in New York.

But, he did know to get off the expressway and take city streets to get me to my destination on time. I saw a part of Queens I probably never would have been in. "What a different city than Manhattan" I thought. Later, after I arrived at my meeting (on time!) I marveled at his bizarre brilliance in taking a most unlikely route: through several sidestreets in Queens to 59th Street Bridge (for all of you readers over 45 who remember the tune....hum a few bars of the Simon & Garfunkle song and feel groovy), north a few blocks, then east to FDR, past drab Lower East side buildings and past the skyscrapers in the Financial District, south to the very end of Lower Manhattan, through funky Tribeca, and then north on West Side Highway.....to Canal and the Holland. The quickest LAG to NJ trip I've ever made! Sometimes the quickest route is not a straight line between two points.

So what do apartment-building statues that look like the offspring of gargoyles on the Gothic-styled cathedral around the corner, an old song from the 60's, and a dirty car/effective driver have to do with anything other than they all made me smile in a small way on the same day? And what does this have to do with books? (Yes, books... this is a quasi-book blog so this lazy blogger should talk about them sometime!) Well, they all seemed to fit with the book I was reading the same week -- Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.

One gives nothing away to say that Invisible Cities is about Marco Polo explaining cities he has visited to Kubla Kahn. And one doesn't divulge a plot spoiler by saying that all of the cities described are the same place. Kubla Kahn knows Marco's deceit, and he plays along with the game, even describing his own cities, pointing out the obvious features that Marco has overlooked. It doesn't even matter that the city is Venice -- Venice, Italy, or Venice, California, or Venice, Florida, or some Venice that only exists in your mind. Or that it is in the 11th century, or the 16th, or some century yet to come.

The chapter titles bemuse and bewilder: "Cities and Memory", "Cities and Desire", "Cities and Signs". "Thin Cities". "Trading Cities". "Cities and Names". "Cities and Eyes". "Cities and the Dead". "Cities and the Sky". "Hidden cities". "Continuous cities" . . . . All describe a city that once existed, or never existed, or exists now and will exist in the future.

I can't tell you any more about the book without it sounding like a dry compendium of cities and their social ills. I can only tell you that it is a truthful description of a place that is familiar and people you know even if you've never met them. I can only tell you that it should bring a smile to your face or a tear to your eye. It might make you think that you'll pay closer attention to your city the next time you take a walk, or drive, or hurry somewhere. It might make you look for the city that was and the city that is and the city that might be, if only on maps in your imagination.

Of Islands and Oranges

My job took me to this island, the island of the City Like No Other, many times over the last 6 months:

As much as I love New York, I was more than ready to spend some time on a different type of island:

When I logged into Blogger this morning, I was surprised to realize just how long it had been since I posted to this blog. I composed dozens of vignettes this summer, mentally thought of writing about different scenes, sights, sounds and smells in NYC, but few have made it to paper and none have been posted here. Perhaps they will be posted in the future.

For now, I'm enjoying my time at the beach, listening to the surf pound, the birds squawk, and the occasional squeal with delight as the waves break around a child's ankles; feeling the warmth of the sun absorbed by the sand as I walk at the shoreline, watching the coral and pink skies at sunset, eating fresh seafood, drinking fresh squeezed orange juice, and -- what else? -- reading!

On impulse the other day, I picked up a copy of John McPhee's Oranges. How many books can you think of that are categorized as both 'Food' and 'Literature', as this one is?

Oranges is a thoroughly delightful work of non-fiction that seemingly describes all there is to know about the luscious orange (at least at the time it was published in 1967): where they came from and how the introduction around the globe of this succulent, sweet fruit has followed the courses of history; how oranges have inspired poetry and wars and been used as religious symbols in art and influenced architecture (think orangeries); how they have have been coveted as objects of beauty; how crop failures due to insects and freezing weather have wrecked havoc on the economy of towns; how the engineering inventions to make concentrated orange juice almost destroyed the market for the fresh fruit, and how an adequate mechanical means for harvesting had yet to be invented. After finishing the book this afternoon, I read a bit on the web on oranges. Consumption of oranges has decreased in the last few years. The acreage of orange groves has decreased since McPhee wrote his book 40 years ago although the number of trees and yields per acre have increased. Brazil -- the originating place of the navel orange -- is now the leader in orange exports, exporting almost twice as many as the US. But, apparently, oranges are still hand-picked in the field, a difficult task described by McPhee when he profiled the 'Orange Men' of the Florida groves.

One curiosity spawned by this book is the origin of the word orange. McPhee writes about the origin of the English word, evolving from the Sanskrit, then likely, after many linguistic transformations, being confused with the Provencal place name for the town that eventually became known as 'Orange'. In many parts of the world, there are two words for oranges, differentiating between sour oranges (like the blood oranges of Seville that are so delicious in marmalade) and sweet oranges. Sweet oranges in many languages are known as "portugals" because they were developed in that country. But -- and this is my curiosity -- what about the derivations of the word for the color orange? The fruit can be a range of colors. The word orange to represent the color wasn't used until the mid-1500's. In Thailand, oranges are as green as limes. Yet, the Thai word sohm is used for both the fruit and the color.

Did Western Europeans have a word for the color orange before oranges were brought to Spain by the Arabs in the 12th century? Or did they need to invent a word for the color of the fruit that grew in the luxurious gardens of the Alhambra? Apricot, bittersweet, coral, peach, red-yellow, salmon, tangerine, titian are all listed as synonyms for the color orange. Three of them, interestingly, are names for other types of fruit. In some languages (e.g., Dutch, German, Russian) the word for orange has a similar origin to the word for apple, as oranges were once called 'Chinese apples' by the Romans. As different as apples and oranges: whether fruit or hue, they are very different things on my mental map.

I started to read McPhee's In Suspect Terrain about 15 or 20 years ago. I never finished the book, although sometimes, when I travel through northern Indiana and southern Michigan, I think about the theoretical existence of undiscovered deposits of diamond pipes under the Great Lakes that I learned about from McPhee's book. After reading Oranges I think that I will read other books by McPhee. Looking to read "Literary" nonfiction? McPhee would be a good choice.

Fear Stretched Thin: Some initial thoughts about the horror genre in fiction

"It's the other side" I had corrected my friend a few days earlier, not the "wrong" side of the road. But, as I rounded the bend and saw that the car coming towards me on the narrow Welsh road was not passing another vehicle, I realized it was the wrong side -- at that particular time. I was in the wrong place. The "other" was the wrong.

The adrenaline rush sent my heart racing and every muscle in my body was shaking uncontrollably. I was clammy from the sweat, a result of the near collision, not the sweltering 95-degree heat. And, then, after skidding to a stop, the parched fields returning from a green-and-fawn colored spinning blur to a crisp clear focus that showed not just the fields but each planted row, while the putrid smell of burning rubber still lingered in the air, I noticed a slightly jarring, almost eerie, sound: crickets. Song birds. A gentle rustling of leaves from a slight breeze.

It took a few seconds to catch my breath, to realize that, despite the heightened sensory awareness, all was okay. But the fear stayed with me for awhile. I trembled as I thought that I might have died alone, in a strange country, my loved ones helpless to comfort me. And that I might have been responsible for ending the lives of the man and his young daughter on that lonely country road where one would rarely expect to pass a car, and never expect a head-on collision. "They didn't see it coming around the curve" people would have said at the funerals. And others would shake their heads in agreement.

There was no damage to the car, but I had already been having mechanical problems. When I reached my destination, rather the exchange cars as intended, I left it at the rental shop and headed for the train station. Four and a half hours on a hot train seemed a better choice than three or more hours of additional stress in traffic on the M4. The train pulled into Paddington at rush hour. I made my way through the crowd and headed to the hotel. Fatigue had so settled into every bone of my body that I didn't have the energy to complain about the ground floor room, or about the closet-door style lock that would not have stopped any would-be intruders. The air conditioner worked -- and worked well -- so cold that it seemed to mist the air, microscopic water particles hitting my body as I collapsed on the bed. I didn't notice until I woke several hours later that at regular intervals, there was a muffled rumbling as the trains, just a few feet below my room, slowed on approach to the Underground station nearby. I felt like I had a hangover, a preferable state to being dead.

That was the last time that I felt real fear. Fear isn't always met on the highway, but it is something that lurks around the corner ahead. We don't know when we will encounter it, but we expect to at some time. We know the adrenaline rush, the ancestral fight or flight response. And we want to think that we will come out on the other side. The Other side -- the right side -- as if fear resides in a parallel universe, crossing over at unlucky times to inhabit our space.

I once heard anxiety described as "fear stretched thin". Anxiety is fear's half-sibling, twilight to fear's night. It bears similar characteristics, a familial resemblance, a safer variety like a quickly moving stream that you think you can surely navigate although you know there is a slight possibility that you might slip and fall into the unswimable rapids. It is the feeling, rather than the knowledge, that fear is around the next bend of the road, on the other side, waiting for us to cross the center line.

I am not a reader of the horror genre. Yet, when Carl V suggested the RIP challenge, I couldn't resist. What is this genre? I thought. What do I expect? Is it all the creepy zombie/vampire/blood-n-guts stuff of late-night B movies, the kind that we watched as kids on Nightmare Theatre with Sammy Terry, designed to scare us out of our wits? Does horror fiction only function on that juvenile level or is it something more?

It's fitting that the RIP challenge is timed to coincide with the Halloween season. All Hallow's Eve, the Christian version of the Celtic holy festival Samhain, is the acknowledgement of the other side of life, a time when souls can return to this world. I see it too as a recognition -- perhaps a recognition of the associated fear -- that not all souls are settled in the after-life, that sometimes death is not a finality bringing balance, peace and oneness in a spiritual hereafter. In its origins, All Hallow's Eve involved customs meant as means to frighten away the unsettled and evil spirits, to conquer those fears and overcome the horror of an eternal unsettled life, before honoring the eternity and the presence of All Saints and All Souls in the following days. "Trick or Treat" is a way to laugh at our luck in escaping that unsettledness of our anxieties and fears. To feel some semblance of control over that which we cannot control -- the unexpected and the unknown.

I don't think that horror fiction's intent is only to scare us. It provides us with a vicarious experience of anxiety, echoing fear by showing us the other side that we know is there. The side that isn't quite what we want to experience, but that which we cannot look away from. We understand the adrenaline rush. We imagine the pounding heartbeats, the clammy skin, the shortness of breathe when we have escaped and overcome the fearful. We know the heightened sense of awareness and enjoyment in our known world afterwards, having sensed what it might be like to lose it all.

Horror fiction may be the embodiment of fear stretched thin, wound around like a rubberband ball, ready to be catapulted across the page to the other side and into our souls, and then released in laughter and affirmation of life as we approach the final pages of the book. At least, that is what I expect to find as I begin reading some creepy, terrifying horror books for the RIP challenge.

Worth a 6 year -- or 26 year -- wait? L'Orangerie

The last time I was in Paris was in May 2000. I had previously tried to see the Monet Nympheas murals installed on the curved wall of the L'Orangerie 20 years earlier, but didn't make it to the museum before it closed on my last day. So I had wanted to see them on that trip 20 years later. One morning, I set out for L'Orangerie, but was disappointed to find on arrival that the museum had closed a few days earlier for remodeling. Little did I know that the next time I would be in Paris would be only a few months after the building reopened after numerous complications and delays in the remodeling.

Fast forward 6 years. This time I had only a few hours layover in Paris and was with my son who had never been to Paris. On a day so hot you didn't want to do anything, especially if it involved taking a subway, we went several places at his request: l'arc de triomph, Eiffel tower, wandered near the fountains at Trocedarro, rested our weary feet at a sidewalk cafe, saw Napolean's tomb -- and with only a few minutes left, rushed to L'Orangerie at my insistence just before they closed the doors.

The building is washed in light: bright white walls, a roof of skylights letting in the sun, reflecting off the curved walls at the entrance. You cross an open walkway giving view to the floor below and enter the first room. You are greeted by more curved white walls, an antechamber that may -- or may not -- exist for future exhibitions. You wonder what waits beyond the next doorway as you process through the figure-eight hallway of rooms, considering whether the smooth curves leading to the paintings isn't some sort of architectural hyperbole, an attempt to build up expectation for the murals installed on the curved walls beyond. But, entering the first room with the paintings, I dare anyone not to gasp!

Ahhh! The giant Nympheas murals are overwhelming! Simply framed, one on each stark white wall, your eyes dart from one explosion of color to another. Each is of waterlillies, but so different from the others that it is difficult to believe at first that they are of the same subjects. Looking at the paintings I could understand what Monet was attempting to do with light. Waterlillies in the morning, at dusk, under the hot summer sun, late in the season just before the final blooms fade.

Each painting is too big to have only one focal point, yet the various parts of the lengthy murals do not seem to compete for viewing, but to gently guide your eyes from one part to another. While it's true that the air-conditioned building would have been a respite from a blistering hot day even if there was nothing on the walls, sitting in the rooms looking at the Monets seemed to naturally cool you.

I don't know that I have the vocabulary to describe the murals adequately in artistic terms. I will post pictures later after I return home and hope that those can at least give a hint of the magnificence of these paintings. I can say that I am sure that if I had made it to L'Orangerie in May, 1980, or if it had not been closed yet in May, 2000, I would have seen an entirely different set of artwork. It is hard to believe that these paintings were cloistered for years in a building with a second floor without any natural light. Harder still to believe that the building was reconstructed around the works without bringing any harm to them.

Was it worth the wait? I think so. I'd suggest to anyone visiting Paris that you make the effort to see these --even if you only have a brief 6 hour layover.

Hay-on-Wye, Poetry, and Poetry Thursday

Just a quick post on my trip yesterday to Hay-on-Wye, Wales, the "Town of Books". Hay is very small (maybe 2 American city blocks wide by about 4 blocks long), with 35 - 40 second-hand bookstores. It is definitely a place to get lost in. Paul Collins, in his book about living in Hay (Sixpence House), wrote that you don't find books in Hay, but rather, they find you. This is not an exact quote as I don't have the book handy, but I think I've captured the essence. And is it true! I could have spent hours -- maybe days -- in Hay.

I only had a few hours to spend due to some soon-to-be-laughable mechanical problems with the rental car that necessitated changing my itinerary (a clutch pedal that kept sticking when depressed wasn't too laughable at the time when driving through the mountains!). So with limited time, I had to be selective about where I went browsing. The signs for the Poetry Bookshop immediately caught my eye as I walked into town. I knew that books that were looking for me were waiting there. I think every volume in the small shop with a huge inventory of poetry and poetry criticism was a likely candidate to find it's way into my backpack.

My haul: a first edition of William Carlos Williams' The Broken Span, a Poet of the Month Series published in 1941. A copy of Williams' I Wanted to Write a Poem: The Autobiography of the Works of a Poet, first published in 1958, and a book of poetry by Margaret Atwood (regrettably, I can't think of the title, and it isn't with me at the moment). And, since I also pick up cookbooks when I travel (typically the only souvenirs I lug home), I picked up a small book titled A Book of Welsh Bakestone Cookery. I don't think it includes anything with leeks in it, which is too bad. Leeks are the national vegetable of Wales (or so I was told) and I do like them!.

For readers who are hikers and bikers too -- it's a wonderful area to play in. It reminded me a lot of the Eastern Tennessee/Western North Carolina area, although the elevation is probably lower. I'm guessing the Dorothy and BikeProf would like this area! I would love to come back here sometime when I can stay a few days, browse the bookshops and do a dayhike on Offa's Dyke Trail. Think Welsh equivalent of the Appalachian Trial, though not as long. It traverses Wales from North to South coasts.

Since I seem to be on a William Carlos Williams thing here, I will post this link to "This is Just to Say". This week's writing prompt for Poetry Thursday was to post about food. And this is, on one level, about food, although like his other poems, about so much more. I haven't had time to check out I Wanted to Write a Poem, so I don't know if he writes about the origin of this one or not.

So long for now -- I'm off to the Modigliani exhibit at the Royal Academy and then to the Tate Modern. Inside musuems seems a fine way to spend a very hot day in London!

Travel guides and travelogues

Yesterday, Danielle at A Work In Progress and Dorothy at Of books and bicycles wrote about the nature of the essay as compared to other genres of writing. While I had been not been thinking about essays, I had been contemplating various forms of non-fiction writing as most of my reading has been non-fiction for the last few weeks.

On the work front, I've been reading an informative but dry book related to project management. In my real reading life, I've been immersed in travel books, which led me to thinking about the various types available for both the "armchair traveler" and one planning a journey, as well as books that are not guides, but capture in words an unforgettable feeling of place.

There are travel books that provide useful, practical information that a traveler needs to know: transportation, museum hours, eating and sleeping options. There are several imprints available, and each tries to distinguish itself from others by appealing to a certain sensibility. For example, the Rick Steves' guides, popularized by the PBS series, appeals to the "backdoor" traveler, someone looking for an authentic, less Disneyfied experience while traveling frugally. The Cadogan and Michelin guides tend to be very heavy on background information. These are the types of guide books that I want to read before I go, and refer to later if I want more information, but they tend to be too heavy to tote with you. Rough Guides fall somewhere between the two -- placing in context various sites, but giving tips on best values for the independent traveler.

Then there are travel guides that are glossy, picture books featuring highlights of various areas of a country. While beautiful to look at, most I've read tend to not give you things in context. Featured sites may be miles apart, or inaccessible to the casual traveler. These are the kind of books I like to peruse when I'm considering a trip to a certain destination: what might I see if I go there? where in a country should I travel? I find that these are great for fueling my wanderlust but I'd never plan the logistics of a trip with one.

I have a variety of each of these kinds of books in my library and use all types when I plan a journey. Last December, a holiday gift for a family member was an assortment of books on Ireland for planning her next trip: an "ahh! Look at the pretty pictures; I want to go there!" type, a practical guide listing B&B's, restaurants and golf courses throughout the Emerald Isle, and a book that I skimmed while in the bookstore that made me laugh aloud -- Round Ireland with a Fridge about a man who hitched around Ireland with -- you guess it -- a refrigerator! That's the kind of book that I think can be most valuable for learning about a place, whether you ever travel there or not. Being careful to not break the bindings, I couldn't help but skim through each book before I wrapped it in gift paper, even though I have no plans to travel to Ireland in the foreseeable future.

Which brings me to my current reading: The City of Falling Angels, by John Berendt. The first few pages captured me, painting a picture of Venice that no travel guide could. In the first few pages of the prologue, Berendt retells a conversation with a Venetian:

Everyone in Venice is acting...Everyone plays a role, and the role changes. The key to understanding Venetians is rhythm--the rhythm of the lagoon, the rhythm of the water, the tides, the waves....

The rhythm in Venice is like breathing...high water, high pressure: tense. Low water, low pressure: relaxed. Venetians are not at all atuned to the rhythm of the wheel, that is for other places, places with motor vehicles. Ours is the rhythm of the Adriatic. The rhythm of the sea. In Venice the rhythm flows along with the tide....

Do you see a bridge as an obstacle--as just another set of steps to climb to get from one side of a canal to the other? We Venetians do not see bridges as obstacles. To us bridges are transitions. We go over them very slowly. They are part of the rhythm. They are the links between two parts of a theatre...We cross from one reality to another reality. From one street...to another street....

Sunlight on a canal is reflected up through a window onto the ceiling, then from the ceiling onto a vase, and from the vase onto a glass, or a silver bowl. Which is the real sunlight? Which is the real reflection?

What is true? What is not true? The answer is not so simple, because the truth can change. I can change. You can change. That is the Venice effect.

Then, with an air of finality, he said, "Venetians never tell the truth. We mean precisely the opposite of what we say.

In the next 20 pages Berendt not only describes the physical aspects of Venice, but also writes about it's history, the burning of its famed opera house in 1996, politics, the canals, Murano glass-making, rats (both human and animal varieties), and its fall to Napoleon, while reminding the reader that Venice is just barely twice the size of Central Park. While I could gather this information in a guide, Berendt is attempting something other than just information. He writes that his interest is "...not Venice per se but people who live in Venice, which is not the same thing. Nor apparently, had it been a comon approach in books about Venice". Yet, he can't separate the people from the place and writes that he chose Venice because it "is uniquely beautiful, isolated, inward-looking, and a powerful stimulant to the senses, the intellect, and the imagination....And, because, if the worst-case scenario for the rising sea level were to be believed, Venice might not be there very long".

I've only read about 40 pages of Berendt's book, so I can't say whether he lives up to his stated purpose, but it certainly has captured me and perhaps I'll find time to finish it before I board a plane for vacation in a few days. In flight, I'll have time to think about the differences between the kind of book that provides you with useful, factual information and the informative writing that goes beyond journalism, beyond description, to provide you with much more.

Real and Fictional Travels

The New York Times ran an article in Sunday's Travel section on books that evoked wanderlust. I find it amusing that I was reading it while Matt Lauer was interviewing the curator at the Louvre regarding increased tourism due to The DaVinci Code. (No, I haven't read the book.) Say what you might about the confluence of pop culture and high culture, but I agree with the curator who said he thought it was great that people who wouldn't otherwise come to the Louvre were doing so. Isn't that what engaging writing will do: inspire the reader to explore ideas, places, cultures, whether in person or from the armchair?

A few years ago, I sat on the sands of Copacabana and looked towards Pao de Acucar, realizing a dream I had had for over 30 years, inspired by my 4th grade Geography book. Reading Camus and Saint Exupery made me want to travel to northern Africa; Hugo planted a desire to see Notre Dame and the catacombs of Paris; Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey, T.H. White's Once and Future King, Barrie's Peter Pan, and a host of other writers' works lead me to travels throughout England; Hemingway to Paris, Italy, Spain, Cuba (maybe some day I'll get there) and Key West; Bradbury to planets beyond my capacity to travel; Shakespeare's The Tempest to the Green World.

Reading Jessamyn West's Massacre at Fall Creek when I was a teenager made me think about events that happened nearby years before I lived. Sometimes I look out my window and look at that sometimes a trickle, sometimes a torrent of a creek and wonder about that massacre 200 years and 10 miles away and what it taught me about pioneers, justice, how disrespectful people can be towards other cultures.
Writing can both inspire and inform one's travels, both before and after one visits the actual locality. Give me an engaging piece of writing and there will probably be something in it that will make me want to experience it in person, whether it exists or not.

As Steven Colbert (who just isn't right, is he?) was quoted in the Times article regarding his travel inspiration:

"Lord of the Rings." I always wanted to travel to Middle Earth. And now wherever I go, I am always on the lookout for Hobbits."

Yeah, Steven, you're right!

Remembrance of Books Past

Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books, Paul Collins, Bloomsbury: 2003

Sixpence House was one of those bookstore serendipity finds: a mis-shelved book that suddenly caught my eye, demanding to be purchased despite a strong possibility of being doomed to languish in the 'to be read' pile for months. I no longer recall when or why I decided to purchase this book. Perhaps it was the blurb claiming "a bookworm's answer to A Year in Provence"; it would have been the 'bookworm' that enticed, not the reference to Mayles' memoir. More likely, it was the idea of a 'town of books'. Having never heard of the Welsh village of Hay-on-Wye, I must have been intrigued by the idea of a small village with 40 bookstores.

Collins' memoir retells the story of his sojourn in Hay-on-Wye with his wife, Jennifer and infant son Morgan. It was a journey that began with a grand idea to live in an "old, old house with old, old books" in the countryside where one could live a writerly life. And buy books. Lots of them.

Collins is a good storyteller, but he doesn't so much tell the story of his life in Hay as much as he tells the story of books he has read. Interspersed with the tales of daily life in Hay -- being trapped in the lesser-frequented pub unable to make a polite exit without offending a lonely bartender, searching for an old house to buy, meandering through the many bookstores in Hay -- is Collins' homage to the many obscure books he has read throughout his life. There is an aptly quotable book suited for almost every occasion. A walk through a cemetery leads to a passage about 19th century burial practices. Peering in the window of a small, eclectic shop on the street takes the reader into a description of a novel about a man exhibited at a zoo. A visit to a bookbinder provides the opportunity for Collins to muse about books worth saving and books remarkable not for their content but for the stories of their existence -- the faked memoirs, the book made famous for the pornographic text bleeding through the marbled endpapers, the poorly written stories unworthy of the intriguing titles given by editors.

The books that populate Sixpence House are as much a part of the town as the people who live there. In describing a 'town of books', Collins lovingly describes a universe of reading and writes a book that many bibliophiles would enjoy.