Da Vinci Days continues to confound me. A festival of arts and sciences should not just be right up my alley, it should pave the alley, it should decorate the walls of the buildings on either sides, and it should put up a sign that says 'closed to traffic' (my personal neurosis about alleys goes back a long ways.) Somehow, it is hard for me to interest myself in it.
The part that has been most fascinating for me is the film festival. My strongest memories of Da Vinci days take place there. I remember seeing the man Gillian and Amelia thought I would identify with. His boots were largely inspired by chameleon feet. he sat on the floor curled up in his green poncho, legging'd knees drawn up to his chin. I also remembered watching the "Mature Narrative" part of the festival. It was interesting to see what was set aside for the adults, especially as an 18 year old. It was like a portal offered. It didn't give me any insight, but it was interesting just to be there. Also, somewhat disturbing.
At Da Vinci Days, I ride with the Kinetic Sculptures. Over the years, this has become less and less rewarding. I miss anything that might actually interest me, and I am underwhelmed by the Kinetics experience. The Port Townsend race is much more my style. There are moments of happiness, but they all come from watching other people be happy. I think it would take having my own sculpture to really embrace kinetics.
And who knows, I have a welder.
Finally, Da Vinci Days has been on an auspicious weekend for the past two years. It falls directly after country fair. Country fair has, for the past two years, fallen directly and I mean DIRECTLY after adventures in Europe. That makes Da Vinci Days my first weekend at home for the summer. I think that's another source of the disdain for Kinetics. It holds me back from my life for one more weekend. But it's also interesting because Da Vinci Days is a meeting place for my age group. It gives me a place to run into people for the first time. Sometimes I'm ready for that and sometimes I'm not. But it's always interesting.
To put an end to speaking in generalities, this weekend I read Junky by William S. Burroughs. I read it while waiting during Kinetics, I read it hiding from crowds during Little Feat, I read it waiting for friends in the fluorescent glow of the merch booth. That's where I finished it, and where I met Graham and expounded on its many beauties. Mostly, I talked about how the appendices on my edition showed three perspectives on the book, none of which are mine. It brought into high relief the parts of Trainspotting and Junky that brought me in, when they were supposed to push me out. Namely, the withdrawal stories. It felt like reading about love. I saw authors trying to describe moments more intense than the high, more intense than anything. It was a place people came back to, regardless of the cost, because of the reward. And then the cost suddenly consumed them. It seemed that every time a description of withdrawal was presented, the withdrawee reacted differently. Sometimes they were determined, sometimes they begged for drugs, sometimes they cursed everything, sometimes it was a routine.
As I finished that book, a puncture wound sustained at fair gradually swelled and filled with puss. I thought that I had fully excavated the hawthorne, and because it was on the side of my foot I didn't feel the pain immediately. So as I limped over the past few days, in almost constant pain, I wondered what it would be like, to be in the constant torture of heroin withdrawal. I am not a good judge of pain. I don't know how much it hurt. Sometime I would try to walk normally, but that hurt so much that my body wouldn't let me. I guess I will never know. But it's a fascinating thought experiment, if an unsuccessful physical one.
Well, that leaves a lot of unconcluded thoughts, but it's time to hunt down my antibiotics (it's rather past time, actually.) If I were to add one or two more paragraphs, I would talk about how later on the night I finished the book, I watched The Dark Knight Rises. I found strange parallels, and it was a fun movie to grossly overthink.
Goodday.
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