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... Plus vague et plus soluble dans l'air, — Paul
Verlaine |
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Third Edition, 31 October 2011 |
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Cross-Country Reality Check |
By
Louis Martin
 A
NUDGE BEGINS IT ALL
The trip begins in Emeryville, across the Bay from San
Francisco. I came over the night before to catch the
California Zephyr. It runs to Chicago. I was then
planning to take the City of New Orleans train down
to New Orleans.
It is 9 AM. I am relaxed in my economy seat which, despite
the low cost, is large and comfortable. I look around at the
few other passengers settling in. I note the clear weather,
the day; it is a nice one. There is an indeterminate buzz in
the air, like bees in a garden on a day when you don't know
what you're going to do but don't care.
Then I feel a nudge. The train moves slowly out of the
station.
A nudge, not a jolt. A gentle beginning. We are leaving the
city behind. Gladly....
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Putting My Feet Up in New Orleans |
By
Louis Martin
 ORIENTATION:
FELICITY & THE GREEN LINE
When I got to New Orleans, I was so exhausted I thought it was
all over for me; I felt sick and feverish. I was also
sticky-dirty. It was now Thursday evening around 11 PM and I
hadn't had a shower since Sunday. I bought two cold bears from
Anna, who runs AAE Bourbon Street Hostel with her husband, Adam;
drank both of them, took a shower, then slept for twelve hours.
When I woke up around noon I was fine.
I had decided to come to New Orleans for a couple of reasons.
First, I wanted to add an extra city to my regular rounds, which
took me from San Francisco to Paris to Shanghai. Second, I had
had a feeling for some time that San Francisco and New Orleans
had something in common. I felt that both had a laid-back
feeling that other cities lacked, and that both had a spirit of
fun or joie de vivre. Well, I knew that San Francisco had but
was curious if it were really true of New Orleans....
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Swan Lake, Puigcerda |
By
Louis Martin
 GETTING
THERE THE HARD WAY
I'm off at last to Puigcerda but it is not easy.
The woman at the United desk has decided to be a bitch.
"Where's your return ticket?" she asks in a very critical
tone.
"I don't have one because I don't know when I'm coming back,"
I say.
She tries to turn this into an incident but fails with her
supervisor; there's no requirement to have a return ticket.
I'm not your Joe Blow American on vacation. Joe Blow's an
asshole and it's not illegal to not be Joe Blow and an
asshole, at least for now.
It takes two flights to get to Dublin when I don't want to be
there in the first place.
It's 10 AM now and I'm waiting for a 6:30 PM flight to
Barcelona.
I feel like I've been sitting next to an industrial air
cleaner for the last 13 hours. Or in a laundromat with all the
machines going at the same time.... |
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Having Doubts in Berlin |
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By
Louis Martin
 NOT
THE PARIS I KNOW
Paris in August: hot, muggy, occasional downpours.
It is not the Paris I know and like. It is the overpriced
Paris for the tourist with big bucks. Henry Miller—if he could
afford to get there—would be writing his smut on the streets.
That other manly fellow would be drubbing it A
Damned-Expensive Feast.
I'm waiting for check-in time at the Le Regent Hostel
Montmartre on Boulevard Rochechouart. But they haven't
fooled me. It is not in Montmartre; it's in Pigalle where the
ladies hang out. I used to live there and hangout with the
ladies. And I am probably the only Regent "guest" who
can say "Rochechouart."
"Hey, dude, what the fuck, Roche...che ...?"
There's no poetry here, just the expletive-adjective monotony
of bored and boring minds.
I'm tired of the international pub-crawler,
imitation-backpacker, inane conversations. I'm becoming a
self-described recluse.
I'm tired of traveling to nowhere on nothing but a piece of
bread and cheese and watching others eat.... |
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Fact Checking in New Orleans |
By
Louis Martin
 AIR
TRAVEL AT ITS WORST
My next stop was New Orleans but it was not easy getting
there. These days discount tickets send you all over the
planet getting from point A to point B. If only physicist
Richard P. Feynman had lived long enough he could have had a
real challenge doing what he did for explaining the behavior
of subatomic particles: developing Feynman diagrams that
explained the travel routes used by airlines. And had the
great hip Nobel prize-winner lived even longer, I'm sure
corollary A would have been: don't expect convenient
connecting flights.
To get to from Point A, Berlin, I was first routed to
Reykjavic Keflavik in Iceland, where I waited 11 hours for a
connecting flight to New York City. And at New York I had an
8-hour wait for my connecting flight to Point B, New
Orleans. The whole thing seemed like a hoax but not of the
type conservatives talk about these days regarding climate
change and evolution. It was more of a hoax concealing a
scheme concealing a boondoggle concealing ... |
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Going Home & Other Delusions |
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By
Louis Martin
 THINGS
WILL BE OKAY, WON'T THEY?
At last I'm on my way home. But what makes me say "home"?
There wasn't any, hadn't been for a long time.
What did the word "home" mean, anyway? Did the words "my" and
"way" complicate that statement even further?
Home was where it was quiet and I could hear myself think.
Home was where I could afford to buy something to eat along
with a beer or a glass of wine to go with it.
To put it more abstractly: Home was undisturbed consciousness
of self wherever I was.
Home was the mind free to roam. Let the existential
philosophers think about that.
And I didn't need an exotic vocabulary to say it. Just a few
simple words worked.
The train nudged out of the New Orleans Passenger Terminal. It
was a good feeling and a pleasant thought, whatever "feeling"
and "thought" were.
I was tired of the roar of jet engines. I was tired of
meaningless conversations. I was tired, I was tired, I was
tired. And I was tired of being tired.... |
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Second Edition
contact: s.louis.martin@gmail.com |
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