Landscape: Memory by Matthew Stadler, Columbia University. Writing Division
Book: Landscape: Memory by Matthew Stadler, Columbia University. Writing Division
Read Free Book Online
Tags: Young men
Ads: Link
time and again as our work has proceeded, but she pays me no mind.
"It looks right," she insists.
"But it isn't right," I tell her. "You've been fooled by the flat surface. It's all in the book."
"But if it looks right, pumpkin, it is right. We mustn't quibble over aesthetics." This was her accustomed retreat.
"This isn't 'quibble,' Mummy. This is fact. You're the one who said to use the book."
"Art cannot be explained in a single book, dearest. We mustn't become slaves to our teachers."
'' You are getting lazy, that's all," I concluded. "A true picture is drawn through attention to detail. Geometry. Hidden structure. All else is just fancy, vapors of the mind." This was a phrase from my parlor play. It made her mad.
"The pot ought not call the kettle black, tenderness. A neutral judge would have no trouble selecting the 'true' picture if asked to choose between our two 'fanciful vapors.' You needn't throw stones."
I thought some about the comparative "truth" of our two pictures and fell into a long silence. Our discussion seemed to have shifted onto dangerous ground, though I wasn't at all certain Mother had even noticed. It was like tugging at a little thread and finding one's guts suddenly spilling forth from a swiftly unraveling wound, the garment and flesh having turned out to be one and the same. I couldn't continue for fear it would never be contained.
It's just that something troubles me about the Fair, what might count as a "true" picture of the Fair. Something about surfaces. It all seems so wrong. I can't help but feel queasy when I touch the bare wood lathing of an unfinished wall, or imagine the enormously thin shells of those gigantic domes. For all my glib agreement with Flora, the Fair always gives me the shivers.
I'll look down from the woods at the eastern edge of the Presidio, gazing down from the thick grove of eucalyptus through the scattering ocean mist, and take in that impossible panorama of golden domes and broad, palmed avenues peopled by milling throngs, dwarfed to the size of insects by distance and comparison.
And then my head feels empty and weightless, as though the wind is blowing through it, and my body becomes sensitive all over, like a shivering. Sometimes I just want to cry. What is it that's begun unraveling? It's all so elusive. To set the truth of my memory clearly down on canvas . . . that thread seemed simple enough. But it's dug suddenly deeper into me, dropped down into my center. Something about the appearance of things unhinges me.
The only thing that's right is Maybeck's Palace, a hollow ruin built in a hundred days. He's asked that they plant cedars to mimic its broad sweep and that they leave it all be, the building to collapse and decay slowly over the generations that pass as the cedars grow tall among the ruins. I find that reassuring.
The Plunge
_______________________________________________
15 MARCH 1915
Lincoln Beachey's monoplane collapsed into itself two thousand feet up into the cloudless sky and plunged like a cannonball down into the bay. Beachey drowned and they haven't told his fiancee for fear she will suffer psychic damage. His mother has refused to believe that he died, waiting up late into the night for his return.
This is what the newspaper said:
Lincoln Beachey, whose daring as an aviator has echoed round the world, was claimed by the elements he so long defied yesterday afternoon. The new German Taube, in which he had hoped to demonstrate his complete mastery of the air, folded its toylike wings and plunged from a great height into the waters of the bay.
Before the horrified gaze of 50,000 people who had witnessed his flight from the marina, in front of the Palace of Mines, at the exposition, the peer of all aerial champions went to an end as spectacular as his remarkable career.
Beachey was on his second flight after having thrilled the spectators with a series of graceful loops and successfully had flown upside down across the
"It looks right," she insists.
"But it isn't right," I tell her. "You've been fooled by the flat surface. It's all in the book."
"But if it looks right, pumpkin, it is right. We mustn't quibble over aesthetics." This was her accustomed retreat.
"This isn't 'quibble,' Mummy. This is fact. You're the one who said to use the book."
"Art cannot be explained in a single book, dearest. We mustn't become slaves to our teachers."
'' You are getting lazy, that's all," I concluded. "A true picture is drawn through attention to detail. Geometry. Hidden structure. All else is just fancy, vapors of the mind." This was a phrase from my parlor play. It made her mad.
"The pot ought not call the kettle black, tenderness. A neutral judge would have no trouble selecting the 'true' picture if asked to choose between our two 'fanciful vapors.' You needn't throw stones."
I thought some about the comparative "truth" of our two pictures and fell into a long silence. Our discussion seemed to have shifted onto dangerous ground, though I wasn't at all certain Mother had even noticed. It was like tugging at a little thread and finding one's guts suddenly spilling forth from a swiftly unraveling wound, the garment and flesh having turned out to be one and the same. I couldn't continue for fear it would never be contained.
It's just that something troubles me about the Fair, what might count as a "true" picture of the Fair. Something about surfaces. It all seems so wrong. I can't help but feel queasy when I touch the bare wood lathing of an unfinished wall, or imagine the enormously thin shells of those gigantic domes. For all my glib agreement with Flora, the Fair always gives me the shivers.
I'll look down from the woods at the eastern edge of the Presidio, gazing down from the thick grove of eucalyptus through the scattering ocean mist, and take in that impossible panorama of golden domes and broad, palmed avenues peopled by milling throngs, dwarfed to the size of insects by distance and comparison.
And then my head feels empty and weightless, as though the wind is blowing through it, and my body becomes sensitive all over, like a shivering. Sometimes I just want to cry. What is it that's begun unraveling? It's all so elusive. To set the truth of my memory clearly down on canvas . . . that thread seemed simple enough. But it's dug suddenly deeper into me, dropped down into my center. Something about the appearance of things unhinges me.
The only thing that's right is Maybeck's Palace, a hollow ruin built in a hundred days. He's asked that they plant cedars to mimic its broad sweep and that they leave it all be, the building to collapse and decay slowly over the generations that pass as the cedars grow tall among the ruins. I find that reassuring.
The Plunge
_______________________________________________
15 MARCH 1915
Lincoln Beachey's monoplane collapsed into itself two thousand feet up into the cloudless sky and plunged like a cannonball down into the bay. Beachey drowned and they haven't told his fiancee for fear she will suffer psychic damage. His mother has refused to believe that he died, waiting up late into the night for his return.
This is what the newspaper said:
Lincoln Beachey, whose daring as an aviator has echoed round the world, was claimed by the elements he so long defied yesterday afternoon. The new German Taube, in which he had hoped to demonstrate his complete mastery of the air, folded its toylike wings and plunged from a great height into the waters of the bay.
Before the horrified gaze of 50,000 people who had witnessed his flight from the marina, in front of the Palace of Mines, at the exposition, the peer of all aerial champions went to an end as spectacular as his remarkable career.
Beachey was on his second flight after having thrilled the spectators with a series of graceful loops and successfully had flown upside down across the
Similar Books
