The other day there was a storm gathering over the lake.<\/p>\n
The sky was a curtain of slate, more mineral than meteorological and the lake itself was a luminous turquoise with a periphral glazing of lead-grey. It was stunning. Even the red light at the intersection was a perfect chromatic contrapuntal. (There is a well-situated stoplight where you emerge from a tunnel on a downward slope and are face to face with the lake.)
\nI briefly considered sitting out the green to see if the orange worked as effectively as the red but reconsidered, as it would likely have meant sitting out a few cycles, since the orange isn\u2019t near long enough to judge properly in one pass, not to mention doing a fair degree of explaining to those stuck behind me.
\nLater on I was able to pull over and watch properly for a while.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong. I am a fully functional (well, more or less) and operational adult with most of the regular features and options, and the rational part of me holds the fort convincingly while the other portion is out admiring sunsets, musing over the shape of pebbles or the angle of falling rain.<\/p>\n
Now, all this is well and good, but I\u2019m sure the world is filled with like individuals. Thus, I have decided to take action. I\u2019m getting some t-shirts made. On the front: \u201cFully operative, relatively normal adult\u2026<\/em>\u201d and and the back \u201c…but admires sunsets, muses over the shape of pebbles or the angle of falling rain<\/em>\u201d. (Or something of that nature – my slogan needs some work, but that\u2019s the idea. I draw the line at bumper stickers, by the way.)<\/p>\n I\u2019m already imagining an altogether informal and fluctuating community (t-shirts do require washing occasionally, and one is not always in the right frame of mind) of sunset watchers, pebble shape musers and rain angle measurers, sharing passing nods and knowing smiles. Exchanging top-secret vantage points for heightened appreciation of landscape, trading hints on where to best watch a good storm or tips on standing in the ends of rainbows. (In-the-end-of-rainbow standing requires two people and cell phones, but can be done, albeit vicariously.) No fomenting of revolutions, no plotting what\u2019s best for others, no dogmatism, sectarianism or other unsavory -isms, nothing but a little mutual reassurance on a few fixed points in an unstable universe. A sort of Foucault\u2019s Pendulum for the discernable compendium of the sublime.<\/p>\n I recently stumbled across a CD entitled \u201cThe Return of the Wanderer\u201d by Puirt a Baroque (I say \u201crecently stumbled across\u201d because the majority of my music purchases subreptitiously migrate upstairs to my son\u2019s lair; I of course entirely forget I bought them and they are rediscovered when they unexpectedly reappear in the car stereo) which contains an admirably lyrical and deeply moving eponymous track in Gaelic composed by Cape Breton singer\/songwriter Archie Alex MacKenzie (1907-1995) the night before he left for Scotland. This \u201creturn\u201d to a land he had never seen was a lifelong dream.<\/p>\n So suddenly I thought, well yes, that\u2019s what this business of making pictures is all about. Returning home, not only to places which one has never seen, but which don\u2019t even exist. Pushed by the same essence of nostalgia exiles feel, but for places from which one was never banished. Nevertheless, every act of creation is a step on the return voyage to where one has never been, and where it\u2019s likely impossible to arrive. All the things that stir some emotion on the way ( get a t-shirt, we can talk about it if and when we meet) are signs that the path chosen is the path choosing. Nothing geographical, chronological, or even simply logical, just the urge to keep finding one\u2019s way. Have recently participated in a couple of radio and TV shows, an exercise which I enjoy, especially the days following the recording, where I think up ALL the things I SHOULD have said. (I am currently lobbying for the implementation of retroactive hindsight and the rescinding of linear time in certain circumstances.) LES DICODEURS<\/strong>
\nToday the lake was the same incredible turquoise, with a wash of grey and salmon. See? There\u2019s no time to dawdle.
\nON THE AIR<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nThe shows are all in French, so of limited interest to a non-francophone public (especially the radio show) but here are the links:<\/p>\n
\nA totally hilarious and difficultly describable 1-hour show that airs on the Radio Suisse Romande la 1\u00e8re<\/a>\u00a0 Monday to Fridays from 11 a.m. to noon.
\nThe first broadcast: May 28th – so you\u2019ll have missed it by the time this is sent out, but you\u2019ll be able to listen to it
\nhere<\/a>.<\/p>\n