Once on the red planet it will be necessary to carry things from home. Only the landguage of Earth will comfort and heal the lacerating effects of deep space travel. How far can one travel away from home before completing a full circle. There is something about infinity in this.
Since moving to Newfoundland and Labrador, the idea of slow travel has been buzzing around my head like the floor plan of some great novel. Usually opting for the more “agonizing” of modes like the bus and the ferry to move across larger distances, it is often striking how much time is given to reflection. One is not constantly bustled about from one checkpoint to the next, from the security clearance to the gate and so on.
There are beautiful passages on speed and movement in Alessandro Baricco’s, “Cette Histoire-Là”. But a few passages form a recent read are creeping into the thinking pattern. More about destinations that speed, but at the same time needing a certain lingering of motion to process.
“S’il s’en va, au demeurant,
ce n’est nullement qu’il n’a pas été séduit par ce qu’il quitte; au contraire, c’est qu’il a tant aimé ce qu’il tient de connaître qu’il aspire à des contrées qui soient cela avec encore plus de rigueur, plus de consistance, plus de force: des contrées dont le pays des lacs ne serait en somme qu’un avant-goût édulcoré, une île ou un massif annonciateurs, un missus dominicus, un modèle réduit. Il aspire à l’original.” R. Camus, Loin, p.289
Another picture from the Interzone. This one is from Denver International. I wish I knew about the blue mustang as I would have taken a walk to see it. We were in Denver for two or three hours. I was amazed at the difference between air travel in Canada and in the US.
Once you pass security and while you are in that secure zone. Are you actually nowhere? It seems like all the people there are in the same country and that it is not a country at all but rather an intercountry (I like calling it the Slipstream). Or maybe that is what Burroughs meant by the Interzone.