Places That Are Lost

Yesterday I took a hike with my family to a waterfall that exists near where I live. Throughout my life, this place has been one of my most sacred places; even as a six- or seven-year-old I used to simply sit and admire it and the cool green pool at its base. I imagined fairies living in the mossy grottos of its rocky cliff; I saw a whole underwater world in the moving depths of the pool, where crayfish roamed under the shadows of the great rocks, and the sandy patches twinkled with fools' gold. The water fell with a sort of awesome finality down a hundred feet or so, and we would crane our necks looking at it and the trees clinging to the canyon all around.

Yesterday was the first time I had been there in nearly twenty years. There's been a flood since then, which pushed some of the great logs and large rocks around. The waterfall has worn deeper into its niche, and the shape of it has changed ever so slightly. But it's still the same canyon, the same deep pool (crayfish and fools' gold intact), the same sound and feel. The sun still slants through the trees and lights up the depths with magical fingers. It is, simply and finally, as sacred as it ever was.

There was an unnamed and unexpected comfort I gained by my visit, though, which had nothing to do with sacredness. On reflection, I think it had to do with the fact that, of all the meaningful places that existed for me in childhood, this is one of the few that still exists. There are so many, many places I have loved and lived with that are simply gone, torn down or washed away or unfindable. The barn, for example, on the ranch where I grew up: the floor and walls full of holes that we could climb in and out of; creeping around in the open space underneath its great structure; the owl pellets strewn on the floor with tiny mouse-bones and skulls in them; the wide, hand-sawn boards; the things that were stored inside.

This barn was at least a hundred feet long and thirty feet wide down the middle (not including hip roofs). It was built on two-foot-square redwood beams, sided with eighteen-inch-wide planks. It was amazing. But when the roof blew off in a freak windstorm, our landlords decided they couldn't afford to fix it. They took the whole thing down. Poof: no barn. As we used to say when my children were young (with hands held out helplessly), "All gone!"

Sometimes I wonder if I simply made up my childhood. No one seems able to corroborate it completely. There are a few photos of the barn, though.

Curiously, as these things always happen, I was already thinking about something similar before the waterfall. I had been reading BLDGBLOG, which I sometimes do, and he had a post about Gunkanjima Island, a coal-mining island off the coast of Japan that was essentially built on its own slag heap. The island had a whole town on it, of workers and their families, complete with shops and bath-houses; and the photos, taken by Japanese artist Saiga Yuji, are simply unbelievable:






I was so taken with these photos that I followed the link back to the source, Mr. Saiga's own website. Mr. Saiga, luckily, has whole portions of his site duplicated in English. I found more pictures, all beautiful and eloquent, but then I looked further - and found that Mr. Saiga had actually been there in the 1970's just before the people were due to be moved off the island, and he had taken pictures.

It is these pictures which truly caught my imagination, especially when compared with the later ones. The place is already in a state of decay, as if it was already forgotten and the people living in it were strange, living ghosts. And yet people continued to live, going to school and the bath-house, working and gossiping, running through what would soon be ruins, even while they chose what to pack for their departure. I found myself asking: how did they feel, knowing their home was already a ghost-town? What was it like, knowing they would soon leave for parts unknown, their old home crumbling to ruins behind them?


Both series are extraordinary, especially if seen backwards, with the later, abandoned images first. The photographs of hasty departure, long decayed, linger in your mind as you look at the images of people occupying the very same decay. It gives me the oddest feeling in the pit of my stomach to see the people laughing, the children playing, in what seems already to be a graveyard. It is fascinating and full of pathos.


Mr. Saiga speaks of coming to the island in the knowledge that it would soon be empty, and having one of those rare experiences with one's art where one is possessed, and must capture everything. He says:

"It was just since the previous year that I had decided to pursue photography seriously and started taking photographs. The crudeness of this series is obvious. Sentimentalism also lurks from behind. When I see the pictures now, I feel, before everything, embarrassment. But however unskillful the pictures might have been, I honestly feel that my desire to take photographs then was stronger than it is now.
I saw, at close range, islanders in pain for leaving, while I was, myself, at a loss because of the difficulty in taking photographs. I plunged myself into photography, while asking the meaning of life. In those days, photography was everything for me."


I can see why he was captivated. Places that have been lost but aren't gone have a peculiar attraction, perhaps, in my case, because of my own experience with loss of place. Pompeii, for example, or Bodie; Petra and Palmyra and Angkor Wat. Places that are both lost and gone, though, are even more mysterious, more terrible, because they live on only in the minds of the people who saw them or heard about them - or in obscure photographs which make no sense without someone to decipher them. Think of Dresden, of Ur. Memory is the only place they truly exist; memory and legend. But most lost places only leave a hole in the world for some people, and when those people are gone (an all-too simple and easy thing with our flimsy little bodies), their places will dip below the surface of history without a ripple.


It must be odd growing into an old person, watching one's world become more holes than not. I think of my rapidly-growing sense of a slipping existence, a past which exists only in my mind, and it seems like a form of insanity. I clearly see, clearly know about things and places which are patently not real. Sometimes no one else even remembers them: so are they real? Were they ever real?

I was always one of those weird people who were conscious of things going away, I don't know why. I liked to listen to old peoples' stories, because they were stories, and described things to me in ways that left traces against the things which were there for me, enriching them and informing them. But now many of those people are gone, themselves, leaving yet more holes. And their stories? I wonder sometimes if for some of them I was the only person who ever did listen.


Which is why, perhaps, I work so hard to keep my Cabinet. Like the people in Gunkanjima, I know there is not much time before I am asked to leave, so I will pack as much as I can while I wait. And save what I can of others' stuff, too.

Intellectual? Me?

I usually try to stay focused and avoid meme-like posts, but Bioephemera has kindly tagged me (along with four fine others) for the Intellectual Blogger Award, so I'm attempting to follow up on the meme by naming a few good possibilities myself. Unfortunately, she seems to like some of the same blogs I do, so I will do my best, naming three others that I can think of who should be included:

Language Log does a wonderful job of looking at how modern English is developing, and the developments in the field of linguistics as they apply to language in popular culture. They manage to write with humor and intellectualism at the same time, using everything from comics to memes to talk shows to demonstrate their point. Quite amusing and instructive.

BLDGBLOG is about "architectural conjecture, urban speculation, [and] landscape futures." I love this blog because not only does the writer, Geoff Manaugh, find the most amazing pictures, but he then riffs on them, either describing a world-that-could-be or making some connection to something apparently unrelated that is quite dazzling in its logic and application. For example, there was a post recently connecting an underwater neutrino detector with HP Lovecraft, complete with pictures of terrifying undersea creatures. Very nice.

And of course, there's Bibliodyssey, who indundates us all with amazing pictures from old books and then often talks about them in interesting ways. Just looking at the incredible feast of images is worth its weight in gold; but I like the research put into the subjects that are written about. One burning question always follows me as I read the posts: where does peacay (the blogger) find all this stuff?

If you're interested in reading the description of what the Intellectual Blogger Award is all about, check it out here. I think it's a great idea to make note of people for thinking on their own. Thanks, Bioephemera!

Day of the Dead

Let's face it: some cultures are better than others at shrine-making.

Luckily for me, the area where I live is a hotbed of shrine-ism and, in fact, an intensely rich deposit of Dia de los Muertos celebrations. Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is not the same as Halloween, or All Hallows' Eve. In the European tradition, All Hallows' Eve has its roots in the Gaelic holiday of Samhain (pronounced Sow-wen), which came after the harvest, at the end of the year, just before the world died for awhile. It was a liminal time, when spirits came close and magic was strong; and it had the shadow of the dark behind it.

Dia de los Muertos, on the other hand, comes from the indigenous peoples of Mexico, who celebrated the deaths of their ancestors for nearly a month each summer. Perhaps because it is less associated with autumn, with the beginning of the dark and cold, it has an entirely different feel from Halloween. In Mexico, it is a time to rejoice in your loved ones and your ancestors who have passed on to another life. Offerings of food, toys, blankets (so they can rest after their long journey), flowers and so on are put out, in specially-built household shrines or on tables in the yard, for the dead to enjoy. Graves are cleaned and hung with flowers; in some places whole families spend the night at the graves of their loved ones, picnicking and singing, with candles and colored lights.


Children stay up and run around the streets, sucking on sugar skulls. Little statues of skeletons, grinning madly and doing all manner of humorous things, can be found everywhere. Death, in Mexico, does not pall. In fact, it is to be celebrated. Dia de los Muertos is a joyous occasion, full of music and food and lights in the darkness.


There are so many cultures who enshrine. European enshrinement seems to happen largely inside or around specific places of worship, which I find fascinating but ultimately somewhat limited (pictures of one's dead mother/father/brother/etc. next to/under a household cross being a small exception). In some cultures, if there is any reason whatsoever to build a shrine, they will do so.

In Japan, for example, the Buddhists build big temples, and not so many shrines (though there are always examples out there which will prove me wrong; I'm speaking in generalities). The older and more shamanistic Shinto, however, which coexists side-by-side and simultaneously with Buddhism (in other words, sharing worshipers), is a religion that is suffused into the countryside. It is everywhere, celebrated in nature and in the shapes of the landscape, and cannot be separated out. Therefore, small signs of Shinto are everywhere: in little roadside shrines and rocks, in the paper or rice-straw ropes tied around significant trees. True, you can nd large, church-like Shinto "shrines" as well, but even they have an odd quality where the outside seems as important as the inside, and often center around an important landscape quality.


But the best are the tiny shrines, the little places that are used and loved by local people, who believe in kami, little mythical spirit beings, who live in the world with us and think and feel much as we do.

What makes a shrine really a shrine are the offerings, the attention. The loving bits left for whatever spirit dwells there. Without this care, this consciousness of its specialness, it is nothing. The mindfulness is the thing.

Bali has exquisite offerings, made with care and an asthetic eye out of flowers and leaves, and sometimes a sprinkling of rice. Bali is probably one of the most mindful places I've ever been; there is this daily routine to the beauty, the delicate and conscious handling of daily devotion. Everything, everything is carefully, beautifully done: the washing of the steps, the morning laying out of offerings, the care with which people dress. And the festival offerings are really works of art.


One of the reasons, as I said, that I love California is the intense Central American influence. There are many Day of the Dead celebrations to be had - more and more as time goes on and it becomes more ingrained into the culture. I remember the first American Day of the Dead thing I went to, a parade in the Mission District of San Francisco, years ago. I was annoyed with the way that it was politicized, probably for good reason - mourning the U.S.'s transgressions in Central America, perhaps; I was young and didn't pay enough attention. There were a lot of European Americans involved, all wearing sort of Grim Reaper attire. It was heavy and dark, and not very celebratory, and it made me unhappy that such a marvelous holiday - no, festival - could be reduced to such a grim and feeble remnant.

It seems especially reprehensible when you consider the traditional U.S.-based Central American mode of expressing political dissent: the murals. They have colors, they are intense and bright and full of life. They are not heavy, grim, or dark. They are all about empowerment and celebration. They are shrines to what should be. If you like these ideas, and if you are ever visiting San Francisco, take a walk down Balmy Alley, in the Mission district. It's a continuing tradition which is worth a visit.

Now, however, people are catching the idea of Dia de los Muertos. Not only has the cheerful nature of the holiday taken hold, but the color, the joy, and hopefully the thinking of death in a new way, has begun to infiltrate the California culture.


In Oakland, for example, there is a whole weekend devoted to the Dia de los Muertos festival, with a section of 14th street closed and stalls, bouncy castles, sugar-skull decorating for the children, crafts, candles and flowers. People who live there set up shrines. It's a Thing. It's still looking through an American end of a cultural telescope, but it's real, and, well, they're getting the hang of it. And folks love it. Children make little shoebox shrines to their ancestors in school, regardless of race. Chrysanthemums are sold on street corners.

And if you're ever driving down the road and see a small, flower-covered place - a little box full of flowers and/or toys, or a bouquet tied to a phone pole - stop for a moment and look. Because that is the place where a person died. And someone who loved that person made a special place, just for them - not only to comemmorate them, but to give their spirit some place to come, and know that it is loved.

Star Trek Translated into Gorey-ese

What can I say? You must read this, by Shaenon Garrity, to believe it.

Weird thing is, I was actually a young teenager visiting Massachusetts in 1980 when Gorey's Dracula was being put on nearby (see the link, they discuss it). I was dying to see it, but couldn't get a ride, and was too young to find another way - it even had Frank Langella, who had starred in Dracula: a Love Story, and on whom I had a massive crush at the time. I have regretted it ever since. Moral: spare no expense to do something you will regret not doing for the rest of your life...

Animation About Clockwork Freedom

Check out The Cags, a stop-motion-and-CG animation from Alexei Petrov. Very cool. I love the endless lines they draw, and the sound they make when they touch.

NaNoWriMo et Moi

Who knows? Perhaps it will become a masterpiece

Okay, I signed up to do a stint on NaNoWriMo, so bear with me in November while I attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I'm going to try to keep doing the blog thing too, if only as a collection of interesting bits I come across along the way. I want to try the palimpsest-world-building idea (at the end of the post, below) beforehand: I'll write a flash fiction thing every day, hopefully, so that I'll have this pile of interesting glimpses into my new novel's world by the time NaNoWriMo starts on November 1st. Maybe it won't all be crap when I'm done on November 30th.

I'll be there under the username Heatherdoodle. Wish me luck!

Anyone else want to write a novel and get it over with? Go to the National Novel Writing Month webpage and join the insanity by clicking on "sign up".

PS. I'm posting my efforts here...

Palimpsests As Metaphor

Photo courtesy of Lou

I recently came across a reference to an "architectural palimpsest", and was fascinated, not only because the term is so interesting and apt but because the way it was used could apply to so many different ideas. What a mental find! My mind went crazy with the different possibilities for a few days. What about the marks that pictures make in the places where they used to be on the walls? What about the dry spot on the ground where a car was parked during the rain?



Historically, palimpsests are parchments made of animal hide which have been scraped "clean" again so that new works can be written on them. Generally, a ghost of the original(s) remain behind the new writing, leaving traces of what once was. Sometimes, the deliberately destroyed work (parchment being more valuable than writings, at times) is the only remaining copy of an old document, and many otherwise lost works have been recovered this way.

So an architectural palimpsest is the ghostly remains of other buildings or parts of buildings that are still apparent on existing buildings. And, it turns out, there are tons of other kinds of extended uses of the term. The art and philosophy worlds are, of course chockablock with them. Archeologists extend the idea of architectural palimpsest into their own study of layered structures, to mean "accumulated iterations of a design or a site, whether in literal layers of archaeological remains, or by the figurative accumulation and reinforcement of design ideas over time." It is a good word for structures or traces which have obviously morphed over time but which defy specific dating.

Photo link

The term is also used by forensic scientists to describe how objects at a site are layered on top of one another, showing the order of events. That in itself is fascinating. Forensic science can be incredibly dull, but in its basic form - the study of the laying-out of objects to see what happened to make them fall that way - it reeks not only of Sherlock Holmes, but of Miss Haversham, that perfect example of creepy time-stoppage.

In more theoretical discourse, palimpsests appear in relation to psychology, culture, and even mythology. Baudriard, that inimical but required author we had to slog through in graduate school, discusses the way modern culture is simply a layered miasma of images of images of images - a totally mediated experience - until we no longer know where or what the original once was. Myths and rituals get worked over by time and human creativity until the originals show through only in glimmers; fairy tales gain and lose characters, nastiness, and motif depending on the era in which we live. Our whole existence could be seen as a long progression of palimpsestic reality, where the old cultures, the old ways, are stripped away but continue to shine through in the ways we do things: our superstitions, our celebrations.

Photo courtesy of Lou

Historians are, in fact, beginning to use the word more and more, not only to describe revisionist histories and how they never work, but to describe history as a whole, in the way people experience time. We all, in fact, wake up every morning with the memory of yesterday all ready-scraped for us to write the new day on. Our whole experience of the world could be said to be like a palimpsest. I could go on and on - it is a lovely metaphor.

And what about technology? My friend Gwyan is interested in virtual ruins, the remains of old websites that linger around the internet, out-of-date and unused. They are archeological artifacts, echos of earlier information which have not yet faded. To some extent hypertext itself is a bit like a renewable palimpsest...or hard drives! Now that's what I call a palimpsest. And, in a cyberpunk future of endlessly re-used technological junk, can't you see old circuitry being re-fitted and re-programmed for new uses by junk-diving scavengers? Talk about re-use. You never know, I might be talking about reality for us all, in the future. The gods we know now and in the known past could be replaced by scraped-over versions at any time.

Sometimes, I get a fleeting glimpse of an idea, and long to make it real. I wonder, in fiction writing, if it might be worth literally creating a type of palimpsest for world-building. What if a writer wrote stories about other stories about other stories, and then used that as a jumping-off point for the real story? Wouldn't the end result be deeply enriched? Wouldn't that writer's built world then take on the patina of a real, true place with actual thickness, rather than that of a stage set or a newly-built suburb? This does happen, to some extent, with fan fiction and with writers who write about the same world throughout their lives. But I'd like to try it as a really disciplined experiment, a rigorous exercise, a buildup of reality for the history of my world.

Ah, well, maybe in that other lifetime I keep saying I'll live. If only we could write over ourselves and live many, many times, with the old self showing through...oh, sorry, I forgot: they do that in India, don't they?