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Monday 21 February 2011

Recursion: Infinite Loops


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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/CTA_loop_junction_edit_4.jpg

CTA cross junction, northwest corner of The Loop, Chicago; control tower 18 guides north and southbound Purple and Brown lines intersecting with east and westbound Pink and Green lines and looping Orange line above the Wells/Lake Street intersection (edit 4): photo by Daniel Schwen, 2007

File:CTA train NE corner.jpg

Green line train approaching Randolph/Wabash station, northwest corner of the Loop: photo by Daniel Schwen, 2007

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Chicago-Loop-SEcorner.jpg

A Brown line train and an Orange line train contend for the intersection at the southwest corner of The Loop, Chicago (taken from crossover walkway of Adams/Wabash stop on the Green, Orange, Brown and Purple lines)
: photo by Kelly Martin, 2005



leaving downtown: photo by tripp, 2006


Turning Left on Van Buren: photo by Alfie Martin, 2006
 
Datei:CTA Night.jpg

Northward view from the Adams/Wabash station at night
: photo by Daniel Schwen, 2009


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I imagine these vivid scenes, which remind me of "real" memories, movie memories and passages in novels recounting train scenes and things seen from trains, replicate many people's dreams. They certainly do mine.

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

purple and brown and pink and green and orange lines (blond boy will love this) . . . .


2.21

sunlit white cloud above still shadowed
slope of ridge, robin calling on branch
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

even past as present, ‘now’
that belongs to thing

presented here, e.g., below
observation of object

sunlight reflected in windblown channel,
still whiteness of snow on top of ridge

Julia said...

Is amazing to find the beauty in utilitarian things. Like this post do.

curtisroberts spoke my mind. I felt/had the same memories.

TC said...

There was writing that originally went with this, but the text came to seem redundant -- a loop within or around a loop, perhaps. In any case the kinetics of the pictures could be neither duplicated nor matched.

I do know what you mean about those dreams, I think, Curtis and Julia.

In the period 1956-1959 I rode these trains (earlier, obviously, but not dissimilar models) through the Chicago Loop to and from work, and in later years never quite did get over the persisting memory, a kind of half-dream ("even past as present, ‘now’") of the always-scary downtown cornering -- those tight angles, taken at what to most earthlings might have seemed dangerous speeds, with the train hanging out there so precariously over the street, nonchalant humans inside, eternity seemingly so near, business hurtling on as usual.

Stephen, snow on top of the ridge is what I recall as a Major and Rare Event. A few weeks ago at A's birthday I was looking at a marvelous diary she kept in B. forty years ago, and it's touching to see the momentous aspect given such local "events". As of course they were and remain significant moments in the history of the or at least a world.

No snow here, but shivering. (My cheerful poem for the day: "Cold in the earth...")

Still... hello, Johnny!

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

Thanks and yes, snow on the ridge a major event, I've never seen so much of it -- snowing when we drove back over the ridge Friday night at 8:30, real whiteness Saturday morning and the road up from Pan Toll closed so we walked up from below there (no parking there) and soon enough there were patches along the road, then on the road and hillsides, clouds opening to show Bolinas point and the ocean all grey below grey clouds, and whiteness of snow on the ridge, 3-4 inches at Rock Springs, still up there when I went on my hike up the Willow Camp trail on Sunday, still patches yesterday, gone this morning . . .