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Monday 29 November 2010

Signage (I): Motel


.

photo

Star Lite Motel sign, Dilworth, Minnesota: photo by railguydust, 2009



In winter
as in summer

our heritage
here

in the motel

room mirror

we see what is
to come

evaporating into the thin
air of what was

once
expected





File:Trees and Motel.jpg

Star Lite Motel, Dilworth, Minnesota, view through trees in front of the motel, with neon sign in background
: photo by Tadija, 2010

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

intimate lovely thoughts!

TC said...

Well, I see that they appear to be still evolving... if not evaporating...

aditya said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
aditya said...

The second fragment was a great thing to say. My first comment was not.

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

And so as the world turns. . . . Could that be the same car parked there, both winter and summer?


11.29

light coming into sky above black plane
of ridge, silver of planet next to leaf
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

this where there is a thing,
interior which itself

is thought at the same time,
that experience, “or”

silver of sunlight reflected in channel,
waning white moon in cloudless blue sky

John B-R said...

Funny, this made me think Lolita, and then the first Ruscha reads I Pleade Insanity Because I'm Just Crazy About That Little Girl ....

TC said...

Well, Steve, for the sake of business volume, let us hope it is not the same car. But...

this where there is a thing,

one never knows.


Yes, John, you've Venn'd-together the original pieces of the diagram: the original segue went from Crazy About That Little Girl to Lo in the Mo... but then I thought perhaps I ought to be bringing something new to the party at the hygienic heritage locker.

Also, the Nabokov swing did not take in the mid-northern-tier border states, in the crystalline frigidaire season, as I recall. (Things at any rate always seemed a few degrees warmer and steamier than this.)

And while on the subject: if you click on the top image the right side of the screen should reveal a lovely frosted Christmas tree, evidently touched by the brush of Mother Nature herself.

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

Thanks for this, I was thinking the same thing (about that car) -- not the same customer but maybe owner? or maybe someone who's decided to stay the the last 6 months? or Nabokov w/ "that little girl" (here channeled through Ruscha), stopping off on the way from here to there?. . . .

11.30

light coming into clouds above shadowed
ridge, motion of black leaves on branch
in foreground, sound of wave in channel

side concealed in the sense
of not known, horizon

of things, view but part of
or, to be almost that

silver line of sun reflected in channel,
waning white moon in cloudless blue sky

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

When this page first opens it's to just the top of that first photo -- cloudless blue sky, darker at top and lighter below -- here too today, with faint white of moon across from even fainter planet (earlier, now gone), but trees here green, not white of MN winter. . . .

12.1

orange edge of sun above black branches
of trees, white curve of moon by leaves
in foreground, sound of wave in channel

equation formed by addition
of equal, for example

in relation to it, physical
form, the same system

silver line of sun reflected in channel,
waning white moon in cloudless blue sky

TC said...

Steve,

Blue and green, cold and clear, here too, this morning.

About that car, I've been thinking.

The way in which the shadowy Claire Quilty figure -- Humbert Humbert's guilt, or is it an actual detective -- haunts the novel, phantom cars turning up in motel lots, who knows what is real and what is not?

Is it really winter, then, or simply a frosted summer??

As I consider these mysteries, in the back of my head a tiny voice with a folksy Oklahoma accent keeps telling me, We'll leave the light on for ya.