Words’ End

Ah, Denver. I am sitting in a funky coffee shop with ‘net access. I’ve decided not to kill myself driving, so will attempt to cover less ground today and tomorrow, and sleep in real beds.

Want to call me on the road? Reception has been spotty, but then, I was in the mountains. It should be more reliable now — and in any case, if you call and leave a message, I’ll be glad to call you back. The number is eight-eighteen, nine-fifteen, V-I-K-A. Yes, I am a dork. What?! They did ask me if I wanted anything specific for the last four numbers!

Off to Burning Man in 8 hours. Before then, shower and sleep. See y’all in a couple of weeks, when I regain access.

Untrue, of course. In 28 hours, I’m driving out from Los Angeles toward Reno. There I pick up friends and, after a shopping stop, we drive on until Burning Man.

To say I’m excited doesn’t begin to cover it. This is my first, and likely only, time there. I’ve been told to plan nothing, so I’ve planned nothing — except for making an extended trip to a copy shop, and packing survival gear. I’ll be there with friends who matter.

I am oddly more sad about leaving here than I ever thought I would be. Mom and I will miss each other; overall we had many more good days than bad.

I’ll miss granny, too, and am sad to think that she may not recognize me when I see her again in a few months. Memories will keep me company, though, the most recent among them from yesterday. Driving over to the doctor’s for what turned out to be a four-and-a-half-hour visit, I was flipping through radio stations and eventually settled on one playing classic rock. Grandma was indifferent to the music… until I noticed her tapping her fingers along to Sunshine of Your Love.

All the cool kids are doing it, especially of late. Looking at others’ photos, I realized that the 381 diigtal pictures taken by myself and Talan on this summer’s Providence –> Los Angeles road trip are still sitting around mostly unsorted. That’s just the digital, too: haven’t developed the Real Film yet, so no count on that.

Here’s one, anyway. I was playing with the macro feature on Talan’s camera, and got into photographing flowers. The light specks in the center of this one are… well, I’ve my own theory as to what they are; but wild speculation is encouraged. Click on the image to get a larger version.

Hello, technology! After years of stereotypically resisting, I finally got hello-technology: a mobile phone. I’ve claimed lack of need for ages; but the need has become very real, what with driving across the country alone in September, so what the hell. Family plans are a sound financial investment, and peace of mind (not to mention convenience, and the fact that I might just turn off telephone service in my home later on) is worth the cost. Plus I get to play with cool beepy talking machines. After a few days of testing out the equipment and service, we’ll be sure whether we’re keeping this set-up; then I’ll publicize the number to those who are likely to want it.

But this isn’t even what I’m writing about. Today, a certain scholar-at-large left a comment on one of my previous posts gently prodding me to write up a trip report on ACH/ALLC 2003. That François Lachance is reading my Web log at all is flattering and unexpected, so now I am giddy and finally eager to summarize this year’s experience. For the record, I’ve been meaning to do this every year, if not in blog then over on Humanist. But I’ve always found it difficult to write a coherent account of everything important – there’s so much. This below, then, is an entirely personal perspective which will never approximate the actual experience. If you’re a computing humanist, make plans and go there. It’s worth the trip.
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Brainstorm, word game, internet cafe with expensive pricing…

Yield on the interstate, eventually, when Louisiana cars politely keep their distance until you can fuckin’ free up the passing lane already. Drenched down to the essence, linger not in the hotell room, escaping into the nighttime streets. Bouncers full of vigor to allow no-cover access to Toulouse St. bars with overpriced onion rings. Slapstick blooze wench transports you back into the northeast, with Tracy Chapman covers. Her little orchestra is so chill, you forget your road-rage.

Me, I will wake tomorrow to find opalescent sky and restrained registration desk clerk endearing himself to me with.

No decisions before chickory coffee, our noggins soaked in the torque of humidity. Intending to take in all aspects of N’awlins life, we entertain our ignoble, transparent minds by paying religious attention to caffeine intake and investigating the possibility of a nap. Deliberately avoiding enamelled, saccharine tourist-trap taverns, intense in our lack of nativity to this town, we anticipate the totality of this idiosyncratic, ominous negation of access to lucid archives of memory’s bias. Anarchy masters all, in New Orleans. Yet we yawn, writing this epic travelogue.

Did you know I’m road tripping? Talan and I took a couple of days to drive down to ACH/ALLC 2003. After it ends on Monday, we’ll drive on ’til Los Angeles. I’ll write up the conf itself later.

Blinky rocket, and poppies along the highway thirty by 120. Can’t pick or photograph because nowhere to stop — but a butterfly in the Smoky Mountains will vainly follow you up and down a mountain and pose for the camera. Thistles also, one in full bloom one just awakening, and three daisies twisting white petals into sign language. Two days later, with a mistaken press of a button, the brilliantly crisp flowers are gone, nothing to do but look for others to capture.

Stuck in a car together for hours on end, recipe for a nightmare? Miracle of, no. Ella Coltrane everything but the girl, postal service, David Matheson, Moloko. Darling Buds.

Half-comatose, and the passenger’s nodding off too. Stop at a gas station which sells corn dogs and “broasted” chicken and proudly announces its neighboring high school to be the “home of the fighting cocks.” Walk a mile and a third up a mountain, to see a waterfall and not fall off a cliff. Eat cheese and crackers and potato chips, and nod back at the Kinder Surprise toucan rocking on his perch on the dash board. Try not to get coffee from insta-Nescafe machines, and fail. Watch the sky get farther and farther away laterally, flattening you mentally until you’re belly-down like a snake. Except in a car, bless his mechanical soul, who’s running better than ever at 130K.

Mustafa, the kind Azerbaijani doctor of the sunniest disposition, hosts us in Roanoke. We eat fish and chukhurtma and drink beer and tea. We listen to Tom Waits, sleep in a deep quiet, and reminisce about old Russian movies in the morning.

Southern hospitality in Huntsville, Alabama comes in the form of a beautiful salad and chicken cordon bleu and great conversation and luscious bedding. All of this is provided by lovely people I’d never met live (though Stephen and I had known each other from ifMUD). Bisquits and sun and house finches in the morning, and we drive again. Six hours away, Georgia is practically next door.

Sudden sun! South!

Athens has an Espresso Royale Cafe, I purchase an iced mocha and write this. Then I purchase an espresso with whipped cream, and stir a packet of raw sugar into it. Besides Talan, there are three people in here, plus the invisible cashier counting out coins. Duran Duran and Blondie and Tears For Fears and bitter stretchy time. Two hours last forever on this day off from the conference, when most others are on a plantation excursion and we take off our name badges, blending into the surroundings. Blue sky and red brick out the window, and a whites-on-black painting of a naked boy on the cafe wall.

Off I go to read Cunt a bit. Colleen lent it to me before I left, thinking I might enjoy it. It’s an interesting read, intentionally horrifying in some places and suspiciously us-vs.-them about men in others; but mostly sensitive and passionate and tenderly, intensely true.

[...]

Here’s a passage from Cunt that reflects my thoughts not merely in general, but specifically with regard to the [in]effectiveness of the anti-war demonstration in Boston a couple of months ago.

[T]he fight for human rights does not take place on some bureaucratic battleground with a bevy of lawyers running from congressional suite to congressional suite, sapping resources into laws. The war for peace and love and other nice things like that is not waged in protests on the street. These forms of fighting are a reaction to oppression, giving destructive power that much more energy. The real fight for human rights is inside each and every individual on this earth.

Reading things like this re-affirms my lack of desire to go shout on the streets. That’s ineffective. I cannot change the entire world, so I build my community and educate my children and learn from the people I admire. There’s an awful lot of those people here at the conference. I’ll write more about them later; meanwhile, I will just tingle in my spine and grin like a fool.