i+alia a to z :: d - an odyssey

‘The way you see it now is no more real than the way you’ll see it then…What makes you think you can see anything clearly? What gives you the right to make a notebook and shake it at me in thirty years, if we’re still alive, and say you’ve got the truth?...But I tell you, Henri, that every moment you steal from the present is a moment you have lost forever. There’s only now.’  

- Domino, The Passion

she was waiting there for us, on the other side, Penelope, lit up and stretched upon the wall, not like earlier in the day. i totally missed her, in broad daylight, another hedge on the bank. i had my head down thinking about what to record from the day, stealing moments I guess. also, Jeanette Winterson via Villanelle is right, ‘The city I come from is a changeable city.’ it was dark, but i was looking up. this was our fourth pass of Ponte dell'Accademia. but let me start from the beginning.

my sweetheart suggested that i reread Winterson’s novel The Passion while i was in Venice. two out of four chapters take place in the changeable city. Winterson writes about the nature of time and relationships and the finding of one’s life and death post*certainty. some have set this struggle in a maze of mirrors (see Lacan). Winterson chose the heart of Venezia, a web-footed girl with no need of bridges.

‘We didn’t build our bridges simply to avoid walking on water. Nothing so obvious. A bridge is a meeting place. A neutral place. A casual place. Enemies will choose to meet on a bridge and end their quarrel in that void. One will cross to the other side. The other will not return. For lovers, a bridge is a possibility, a metaphor of their chances. And for the traffic in whispered goods, where else but a bridge in the night?’

we crossed three bridges on our third day in venice. i’ll begin with the last.

Ponte dei Sospiri, the bridge of sighs as it is translated sits under the doge palace. this is the link between the court rooms of the palazzo and the prison, between peace and justice or justice and peace, rightful lovers but seeming adversaries depending on one’s perspective. Fredi explained that the name of the bridge recalls the affect of the accused as they realized their chances were at an end. crossing the bridge meant darkness and terror and often death. which is more real, i wonder? light or darkness, hope for freedom or certainty in a cell? if there is only now, then there is only darkness for the …. Villanelle reflects, ‘I used to think that darkness and death were probably the same. That death was the absence of light…But darkness and death are not the same. The one is temporary, the other is not.’ if time is not at an end, there are no easy binaries, no easy separations between one’s present location and the direction one is facing. we are now counted among those who survived the bridge of sighs, although the present meaning is significantly changed.

In the middle of the day, we made our way through corridors of shops to the Rialto bridge, a long time hub of venetian trade. as we dipped our heads into doorways, maybe crossed a couple of thresholds, i imagined Ulysses, tugged at by all manner of temptations. i thought of Villanelle’s warning: ‘Some who come on foot leave on horseback and others who trumpeted their estate beg on the Rialto. It has always been so.’ we climbed to the top of the bridge but did not cross, seeing sadly that most of the wares were poppy for the soul. looking ahead was just like looking back.

finally, the beginning. our first pass of Ponte dell'Accademia was on pilgrimage to the Peggy Guggenheim museum where modern sensibilities safely reside behind a guard rail, securing hope from plummeting into the abyss of post*realities. Nonetheless, hope stands on tiptoe peering at her rippling reflection in the water under the bridge, uncertain.

On our first pass, my back to the bank, I was fascinated by the bundles of locks that hung under the railings. 

My dad explained that lovers buy a lock with two keys. They write or engrave their names on it and lock it to a bridge, each taking a key. I thought of her, my sweet heart. I thought about locking…well, what’s an odyssey without a little lovesickness. ‘anyway,’ as she would say. 

is change certain? a post*certain question for the modern thesis. as i entered the special exhibit, i noted (meaning snapped a photo of) Peggy Guggenheim’s statement of purpose in supporting Art of This Century: ‘to serve the future instead of recording the past.’

and then I came across this piece…

9th Street Exhibition, Robert Motherwell, collage

this is an archive: an arrangement of an event or series of events that immediately becomes a recording of the past even if the techniques of arrangement signal a change to modes of recording. change is dependent on a past, in art, a set of techniques, skills, colors that open onto new configurations, but nothing new under the sun. 

a hall of mirrors, if you will. notice the distortions that the daylight causes – reflections, changes in color, fading, people, etc. is art in the process or the production or the interpretation? is it a verb or a stative?

I was particularly drawn to the pieces by Salvador Dali, which is not unusual. Surrealism expressly unveils the absurdity of tradition, read time, while holding fast to it in both technique and subject.

La Naissance des desirs liquides (Birth of Liquid Desires), oil and collage

Dali watches tradition trans*forming, fluidity joined to fundamentals, albeit with resistance.

another...

i see our reflections, as though they are part of the piece - mine and my parents'. i am caught in this interchange, reminded that i am tethered to my creators, my ancestors, a tree strung with shards of glass. i left with this image of myself.

'Our ancestors. Our belonging. The future is foretold from the past and the future is only possible because of the past. Without past and future, the present is partial. All time is eternally present and so all time is ours. There is no sense in forgetting and every sense in dreaming. Thus the present is made rich. Thus the present is made whole. On the lagoon this morning, with the past at my elbow, rowing beside me, I see the future glittering on the water. I catch sight of myself in the water and see in the distortions of my face what I might become.'  - JW

it wasn't until later, after dinner that i looked up into the night and found her and i felt found. she whose shadow is a more compelling reflection than any mirror or camera could make, more [hmmm] in the interplay of darkness and light. well, we had the same hairdo at least - me and Penelope.