Passage des Panoramas, Paris (built 1799): photo by Remi Jouan, November 2006
Trade and traffic are two components of the street. Now, in the arcades the second of these has effectively died out: the traffic there is rudimentary. The arcade is a street of lascivious commerce only; it is wholly adapted to arousing desires. Because in this street the juices slow to a standstill, the commodity proliferates along the margins and enters into fantastic combinations, like the tissue in tumours.
Walter Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk / The Arcades Project, 1927-1940, ed. Rolf Tiedeman, 1982, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin, 1999: Convolute A: Arcades, Magasins de Nouveautés, Sales Clerks
Hotel Chopin, Passage des Panoramas, Paris: photo by SylvieLeBars, 3 June 2009
Don't make me forget: Passage des Panoramas, Paris: photo by bEbOpix, 4 December 2009
One knew of places in ancient Greece where the way led down into the underworld. Our waking existence is a land which, at certain hidden points, leads down into the underworld -- a land full of inconspicuous places from which dreams arise. All day long, suspecting nothing, we pass them by, but no sooner has sleep come than we are eagerly groping our way back to lose ourselves in those dark corridors.
Walter Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk / The Arcades Project, 1927-1940, ed. Rolf Tiedeman, 1982, trans. Howard Eiland & Kevin McLaughlin, 1999: Convolute C: Ancient Paris, Catacombs, Demolitions, Decline of Paris
The Sea Life caverns at West Edmonton Mall, Alberta (largest shopping mall in North America, built 1981): photo by Longdistancer, 3 April 2010
The innermost glowing cells of the city of light, the old dioramas nested in the arcades, one of which still bears the name Passage des Panoramas. It was, in the first moment, as though you had entered an aquarium. Along the wall of the great darkened hall, broken at intervals by narrow joints, it stretched like a ribbon of illuminated water behind glass. The play of colors among deep-sea finery cannot be more fiery.
Walter Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk / The Arcades Project, 1927-1940, ed. Rolf Tiedeman, 1982, trans. Howard Eiland & Kevin McLaughlin, 1999: Convolute Q: Panorama
Blue Thunder Wave Pool (world's largest indoor wave pool) at World Water Park (world's largest water park, built 1985), West Edmonton Mall: photo by Lake Nipissing, 17 May 2006
Maze of waterslides (Howler, Twister and old chute of the Blue Bullet) at World Water Park, West Edmonton Mall: photo by Rootology, 24 May 2008
Waterslides (Nessie's Revenge [purple] and the original Sky Screamer [red]; also visible, Tropical Typhoon [the blue slide] and the Corkscrew [the green slide behind Nessie's Revenge]) at World Water Park, West Edmonton Mall: photo by Rootology, 24 May 2008
Enclosed and open waterslides at World Water Park, West Edmonton Mall: photo by Rootology, 24 May 2008
Thunderbolt and sled slide at World Water Park, West Edmonton Mall: photo by Rootology, 24 May 2008
Slides at World Water Park, West Edmonton Mall: photo by Qyd, October 2006
For a dreamed water world with no pipes or slides and no artificial ceiling (equal time for the "natural"?):
ReplyDeleteIn Water World
And for those who've been waiting patiently all these years for this:
ReplyDelete"me" going down the toilet bowl
Tom,
ReplyDeleteThe Blue Thunder Wave Pool is great stuff no doubt, but I'll take the channel, thanks ---
1.5
light coming into sky above still black
ridge, pink line of jet trail by branch
in foreground, sound of wave in channel
“being driven” toward being,
being there concealed
in its place, the picture’s
matter of fact, scene
orange circle of sun rising above ridge,
white clouds in pale blue sky on horizon
Diorama
ReplyDeleteIn the safety of the diorama there is never
any trouble. Across from the Hope Diamond
(reproduction) I’ll get married. To myself.
Lay naked on the crushed velvet and slowly
paint tattoos of leaves all over my shoulders.
My new married hair. My eyes will never leave
the Hope Diamond in its case. I crouch by the stream
in the High Plains Diorama and take a bath
lick the lint off my back. Turn this way
and that. In the safety of the diorama
there is no wind. After hours I will close my eyes
like a bat’s. Sleep like a baby. The air is the same air
night and day. For food, my friends will help.
The Jaguar With His Prey. The European Hedgehog.
The Fish Eagle.
Out in the middle of nowhere near Nome,
out in an acre of wind, there was an old cabin
with a greenhouse out back. Dirt in the small boxes
but no glass on the roof. Just the frame.
The wind was like a person with frozen mossy fingers
who brushed and crushed the dirt. Sent it over
the rolling tundra. The dirt ended up
in the Nome Public Library in the form of a huge gold nugget.
It had its own case. Right next to the Nancy Drews.
I consider it to be the first diorama I saw
and also the last. Because I took the gold
and never looked back. I have been safe ever since.
I'm going to print this out and carry it through my travels today. The photos evoke vivid thoughts. I would love to hear Benjamin speak about the Edmonton facility. I love the shopping arcades and walking in them really does get the mind and imagination going, although I think the top Benjamin quote is possibly a little too exercised. Possibly not, though; if I ever possessed the "shopping gene," I've lost it, although I can easily journey in my imagination to the Burlington Arcade in London and select some new shirts and sweaters. I really could use some. As you probably remember, the most direct path to the underworld in Manhattan is through the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Curtis
ReplyDeleteI can't stave off the image of little Wally B., in small baggy swimsuit, encircled by inflated plastic float, being flushed down the Tropical Typhoon.
ReplyDeleteWhoooosh!
Just getting over a bout of vertigo, these images are spinning a little . . .
ReplyDeleteI love Susan's words!
Nin,
ReplyDeleteVertigo, yes, not to mention fear of drowning. (Where did I leave my water wings?) I neglected to represent the rollercoaster inside the mall. Three fatalities famously occurred on that amusing feature of the amazing Kanadian Kitsch-o-rama... but, as they say, the shlock-and-awe must go on.
About Susan's poem, me too. I'm afraid to bring it back down to earth by saying anything too specific about it -- like blowing on fairy dust, or picking the petals off a flower in hopes of finding its name.
I'd love to go down those slides in my brand new reles.
ReplyDeleteRobb,
ReplyDeleteWasn't there a movie in which Raquel Welch went down those waterslides, and only later was informed that they were actually the internal organs of Godzilla?