In Between Books
I always ride the train facing the City. In the mornings on my way down to the Mothership, that means riding backwards. Some people can't do that; it throws them off or makes them nauseous. But there are all kinds of balance, and there are all kinds of centering and there are all sorts of ways of finding one's sea legs.
Grounding is probably my favorite—or at least the most-used. It's an anti-dizziness spell, focusing on the horizon, or picking a point on the wall behind the audience when public-speaking (that always worked better for me than the old “imagine them in their underwear” routine, because, let's face it, I'd either end up horrified over-amused or put off or turned on by that spectacle in any audience).
San Francisco is my point on the horizon. In facing it every day, twice a day, I measure distance-from and nearness-to. The mornings are a pull away; the evenings, a hurtling towards. San Francisco is, perhaps over-usedly-so, the “End of the Rainbow” for many. For me, it's the horizon—in studies in perspective in art, also known as the Vanishing Point.
It's a strange thing, living at the horizon, at one's own vanishing point. You might think it impossible, but so many of us do it all the time. Physicists tell us that without Space there is no Time, and without Time, no Space. No Where without a When and vice versa. But when Here meets Now, convention shatters and a sort of gyroscopic balance is found. Sempiternity and Oblivion ride Roman and anything is possible and no base reality can be pigeonholed.
Conventional reality is overrated.
Oddly it's the godly lately who stately claim with territorial pissings the purview of their own Anthropomorphized Absolute, replete with walls and gates and VIP parking, a mad dash to define what's Outside.
In San Francisco, there is no Outside: die Anderen winks in and out, astable, the mundane world shimmering in a way that only the interlucency between pointillism and strange attractor orbits can.
The City is both a potent gravity well as well as the rainbow of bent light it produces. San Francisco is nothing you'll understand well unless you try to stop trying so hard. You can't wish it into existence—and sometimes, don't wish you could stop wishing?
The City is both the destination and the reason to never book another destination again, a library of souls who may, from time to time, in order to travel from place to place, check themselves out of the stacks for a time. But once part of that grand collection, they never really stop possessing and being possessed of, The City.
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Comments
As for the rest, it's definitely something to think about. I've been thinking about the duality of nature, wave/particle and stuff like that.
It's an interesting topic, for sure.
Posted by: GodOfBiscuits | October 6, 2005 02:42 AM
Here's my truth. No matter how far I travel, which is usually most easily accomplished by plane - I feel it the moment the rear wheels touch the runway. My "click" is at that moment. I always have said (for the last 18 years) the day I come back and don't feel the "click" - that is day I need to pick up sticks and go.
Posted by: mark | October 6, 2005 04:27 AM
So you're saying that once someone passes through, SF records an echo of their presence? Or that, in some metaphysical or quantum way, they never leave? Is this true of everyone, or just some? Would you say that others have witnessed the same phenomenon?
I won't argue you on this one. That would be foolish, as I can feel my agreement manifest itself like anxiety in my chest. But I want to know more about your thoughts on this topic.
Posted by: Josh | October 6, 2005 11:29 AM
I would say that those who feel that "click!" of recognition of San Francisco as Home—the "Atlanteans" argument, if you will—feel a profound shift in their own center.
Posted by: GodOfBiscuits | October 6, 2005 11:55 AM
Eloquence is the spittle and slime of this hill-infested city...from the low browed, tweaking, scab infested nomads of 24th & Mission to the polished "face" of society at Pacific & Divisadero, there is always the chance of slipping somewhere, to fall flat on your ass and to proclaim a sense of humor of humanity. I loved Nan Kempton for that..she was a rich bitch but she knew she didn't have enough padding on her ass to cushion the fall. And that, dear friend, is my love of the city. We are all fools of some strange delight, physically, mentally, spiritually and of course, financially. We play the games so well and consume the fringe in the mainstream. I do not know one soul without a kink. We are all flesh and fog bumping up against each other on our rides from 16th & Mission to Montgomery Street knowing full well the chap in the next cubicle is prone to stradling wide the anus of venus for whomever rises to the challenge. Ever Chuck Schwab appreciated the diversity...unfortunately Helen is a cunt and hate everyone. Poor boy, he.
So I would like to encourage you to keep writing. I have only recently discovered your blog but I find my soul nourished by your words.
Thank you.
Posted by: Donald | October 7, 2005 12:29 PM
Although this has very little to do with the meat of your post, the title alone cause me to remember the beginning of Eddie Izzard's "Definite Article".
"It's called...it's called comin' out of a book, and you've gotta do it sometime in y'life. Just *FOOM*: f**king come out of a book..."
I'm presuming that you're some type of Izzard fan, due to the whole "Jeff, God of Biscuits" thing, but if you haven't yet seen Definite Article, I reccomend it highly.
Posted by: The Masked Avenger | October 9, 2005 05:25 AM