Hometown Prose

ALBANY, N.Y. - One fallacy that continues to persist is that when I'm home, I'll catch up on my e-mail. Before arriving here in Albany, I imagined myself typing away at the computer, returning unanswered dispatches from March and reconnecting with lost friends. In reality, you're much more likely to receive a note from me originating in Indiana or France than Albany or Boston.

But tonight, with an extra hour due to daylight savings time, I started an e-mail to a friend in Australia, last seen in Zhengzhou. I decided to write to him because in addition to having an unanswered e-mail, I'm also reading a book that takes place in his current town of Alice Springs.

The book is "The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin, and tells the author's quest to find the meaning of indigenous songs, and more deeply, trying to find a connection between nomadic peoples around the world. It's an ambitious, mostly non-fiction account of a lengthy visit to the area in the late 1980s. The text is fascinating, as it runs from encounters with Russian castaways and priests on the lam. The book makes me pine for a visit to Alice Springs, a desert settlement of 28,000 over a thousand miles from a major city.

I hesitated to mention this in the e-mail, as it seems too obvious. Surely my friend has heard of the travel book largely set in his hometown? A book that is taught in universities, has been awarded several prizes and is considered a masterpiece by important literary critics?

Albany has one famous work of fiction: "Ironweed." The William J. Kennedy book chronicles a down-on-his-luck man's return to his hometown during the final years of the Great Depression. I should say it apparently does, because I've never read the book. I heard of it growing up, but its setting in Albany never made me want to pick it up. I remember it now because in my travels, when people (usually educated people) find out I'm from Albany, they'll ask me if I've read "Ironweed."

So maybe The Songlines isn't being read in Alice Springs after all.

Marie

ALBANY, N.Y. - The "Marie Antoinette" teaser is one of the best. Kristen Dunst runs around Versailles, playing with sparklers and dashing through gardens in the pre-dawn like a teenager on prom night. The montage is set to New Order's "Age of Content," a mix of fast guitar and mournful synths which is now one of my iPod's most played songs. I loved it, and so did several of my friends.

We counted down the moments until "Marie Antoinette" opened in theaters. We cringed when we heard reports that some bbooed the film at Cannes. Roger Ebert said it was just a couple people, and the French like to boo films anyway, we said. We were a tad baffled when a second trailer was released, with more running around Versailles but this time with the god-awful Strokes in the background. We wondered when the reviews were very mixed.

Finally, we got to see the movie.

Sadly, it wasn't great. The plot wanders, and even a wonderful soundtrack of ambient and new wave music (that Strokes song excluded) can't make up for a lack of resolution. The movie's more a mood piece than anything else.

Last week in Scranton, my friend Nazy told me, "prepare to be disappointed," and I was.

If the movie didn't quite work, there were still many scenes that brought out the same feelings of young restlessness that made Sofia Coppola's last film "Lost in Translation," a touchstone for many of my friends. We identified with both the heroine and Bill Murray's character, the uncertainty of what to do with life and also the perils of what can happen if we choose incorrectly.

And that was worth the price of admission.

A Local Tabloid Worth Reading

NEW YORK - One thing I absolutely love about New York (and Madison and Chicago): The Onion in print.



Reading the stories online, without many of the graphics and local content can't compare. Long live New York.

Adventures in Post Industrial America

GARY, Ind. - I'm hungry. I want lunch.

I pulled off Route 90 at this city of 100,000. The name sticks out in my mind, not for any one particular event but as a archetypal Midwestern city. I wanted a sandwich and a slice of Americana.

I got off at the Broadway exit, because Broadway is always at the center of the city. Turning right, city hall and the local court building were in directly ahead. They were both imposing 19th century buildings, now a dark shade of brown from age. I turned on the street next to the courthouse, incorrectly assuming it would lead to an area of restaurants and little cafés. Instead the city ended after just two blocks, replaced by a winding two-lane road and small post-war homes.

"Tammy's Ice Cream Store. Now Open." read a large sign. As I passed the building, there was a much smaller sign on the building. It said "Closed."

I came to a baseball stadium, U.S. Steel Stadium. There wasn't a game today, and the idea of cheering for a mascot as strange as steel seemed prosperous, especially at a time when commodity prices are sagging.

There were no restaurants. There were no cafes.

I saw a gas station on the right side of the road. Unleaded was $2.09 a gallon, the best I'd seen in a while. I pulled in. A homeless man walked in circles in the parking lot, glaring at people pumping gas.

"Toxic Waste Clean Up To Cost $35 Million," the local paper headline read, taking up the entire front half of the newspaper. A man in a wheelchair rolled over to the country. "I want a Butterfinger bar," he said, fishing through a plastic and Velcro wallet for $1.

I went in the bathroom. It was disgusting, a clogged toilet and a sink full of grout. When I returned, the man in the wheelchair was still asking the Butterfinger bar.

I wondered if there was any reason I should stay in this depressed steel town.

Michael Jackson is from Gary, Indiana.

I'm getting out here. Without lunch.

Drove to Chicago

CHICAGO – This blog has had two interruptions of more than a couple days since its inspection this past spring. Both times when I've reappeared it's been here.

The reason is traveling, and the stresses and illnesses that seem to come when one does it. Rest assured I'm feeling better at the moment and will be lingering my way back home. Maybe it'll take three days, maybe three weeks, but I hope either way I'll be blogging about it.