The Salton Sea

Walking the salt-encrusted earth I look west and hear the call of seagulls flying above. It is the golden hour and the sky is turning orange and pink and the clouds above sparkle with flecks of lavender.  I hear too grasshoppers churn through the shrubs and see little things: jack rabbits, roadrunners, and field mice scurrying to safety. An odd sensation lingers in the air. The smell of sulfur comes and goes.  The water stands as if frightened by some apparition and I think to myself, yes, that’s it. A ghostly air exists all around as if years back a nuclear accident happened. Far into the distance visions of an almost apocalyptic past are visible. Remnants of life remain scattered throughout and somehow through this devastating beauty phantoms of life teem sporadically. The sea appears like a mirage amid a desert changed over the years, but there is very little there. An hour passes and the silence becomes overwhelming when I realize I’m alone. I become the sea, lonely and abandoned.

Years passed, before I braved myself to drive the abandoned coastline and watch the sun reflect bitterly its incandescent light. The highway here has also been left desolate. Not many people drive through it anymore. The years of endless quakes and heat caked the asphalt to liken scales like the reptiles that inhabit the desert. In the distance trucks bound east drive in due diligence trudging through the miles of space. They pass quickly like rays in the distance; one moment there and another gone.

I walk past the barnacle beach and hike up a peak protruding at the edge. It seems the highest point nearby. At the very top an old wooden bench stands decrepitly. I take a moment and sit looking out onto the flat canvass. Birds fly all around and the water refuses to stir. In the distance I see the ground—moss colored where the water receded. Trees deadened with time stand skeletal like monuments of the memory that was the sea once.

In my travels, I remember the elders recount memories of their childhood on the water, how they used to swim there once. They tell me too of the yacht club that was on the other side of the sea and how they’d have to wear boots because barnacles would cut their feet. Even in their voices a sadness looms as they remember the good times they’ve had there and at the same time look at what it’s become.

On Red Hill, where the docking station once hosted visitors, an old canoe wades in the mud. The water there’s receded so much it’s become impossible to use—even if the sea were clean. There’s a totality on this side of the sea. The red clay structures and vapor rising from the geothermal plants far off, appear to have been struck my some nuclear blast. A palpable eeriness descends on my soul so I drive away to another end, but fail to be appeased.

At one of the canals that pour into the sea, I see two men fishing in the distance. It seems strange they’d be there. I park away not wishing to disturb them and at last I find myself at the very end. A dozen docks stand frozen coming out of the mud. Where fishermen once sported patiently, a row of bridges stand statuesque as remnants of a once active community and it becomes the final straw. The end of my journey is near.

Footsteps clank the hollow planks as I walk into the fading sun. It’s twilight hour and my body is spent. I’ve seen too much loneliness. I’ve seen too much abandonment. I wonder—as I drive into the distance, when I’ll return. I wonder how things have changed and how I tumble in winds of time. Night descends and I draw down my window. The air on my face is cool and for a moment I think I’m near the beach but look steadfast onward; home.

On Golden Pondering

The four of them sat round the dinner table in robes each more garish than the next contemplating men as if there sat four high school teens eating cheesecake. The notion of following four women in their golden years seemed normal at the time, but completely implausible by today’s standards. There was nonetheless something to be said for the gravitas of network wigs to even air such a show. The Golden Girls came at a time when America was all about anti-establishment and decadence, at the height of crime rates and when it was cool to go against the system. There was essentially very little room for wholesomeness and looking back since technologies hurried us towards the twenty-first century.

The past 5 years has seen a resurgence for all things ‘golden’. Partly due to incessant re-runs and DVD release of all the seasons, The Golden Girls have gained a new pool of fans in an unlikely demographic. There still remain those twentysomething and up individuals who remember the original air dates, but growing too is the younger generation whom have learned about Rose, Blanche, Dorothy and Sofia indirectly. Even more surprising, is the relevance of the story line. It holds true through the years and manages to faithfully pull a string of chuckles. Be it the hilarious Saint Olaf stories, Sophia’s “Picture it!” rants, or Dorothy’s dry sense of humor, the scenarios the series presented always held true to the characters’ personalities and made the viewer empathetic to their plight. In fact, the characters were so well crafted that invariably seemed to follow—as most things of such nature do, the quiz that helped you determine which golden girl you were. Admit it! You know you’ve done it.

Unfortunately, very little is left of The Golden Girls legacy. Surviving the three, Betty White remains the only cast member alive. Glancing at her on late night cannot help but stir sweet memories of a bygone era.  Her appeal remains so strong today, that there was even a successful Facebook^â campaign to have her host Saturday Night Live to which she did to great acclaim.  Furthermore, she launches a new show this week on TV Land. And the girls have collectively earned a place in gay culture, but Bea Arthur especially has won iconic status with her particular sense of style. Shoulder pads will never look the same on anyone else.

It is safe to say that another generation will continue to enjoy The Golden Girls wagon for years to come and immortalize the show to something way more special than producers thought it would ever become. Perhaps a remake of it will follow years down the line, but the truth is that there will never be another show that peeps into the lives of women of a certain age in the same way. In the end, maybe the show’s greatest triumph was not the countless jokes through the years, but that for once, viewers become enamored with characters no matter what age they were in, and that thought is golden. 

Face it Facebook...

I sit bewildered as grandmother tells me she heard the moon landing on radio because they didn’t’ own a television set and how there was a time when she thought Elvis Priestley was black because of his smooth baritone. The fact is that she was a product of a generation that moved slower. It seems difficult to compare our times because the world’s changed so much since then. Technology has hurried speedily the unstoppable inertia of globalization, and so we live in an age when it becomes increasingly important to stay connected. Staying connected, has therefore become a commodity we’ve taken thorough advantage of, and by this, I of course mean Facebook®.

Okay, I have to begin by saying that I too like millions of others have for some time considered it “important” and cannot be without an account. I try to tell myself that I only have it because I want a space where I can upload and share pictures with whom I choose to share them with. The truth however, is that I find myself sporadically looking to see what other’s have written and occasionally comment; and like clockwork, I post a weekly opera scene—I guess its my way of spreading a little culture. This week it was the opening to Mozart’s Don Giovanni from the 2008 Salzburg Festival with Maltman and Schrott. Other than that, I find myself rarely writing anything on the wall.

A friend of mine wrote she was only a couple of friends away to having 1000 contacts and urged everyone to recommend people she’d might want to add. I laughed because here I am ignoring the persistent requests and occasionally deleting others at an attempt to maintain some kind of privacy. Now I don’t have any questionable material on my page, and don’t put anything that I’d be ashamed of, but I want to believe there’s a level of privacy people should keep hold of.

We’ve become so preoccupied with putting our business out there and looking into others’, that we’ve filled our brains with useless information. The media has created a business of exposing everything and anything celebrities do to appease those that subscribe to what they have to sell. It’s the basic law of supply and demand—capitalism at its best/worst. In a minute I can tell you that Jennifer Lopez was spotted having lunch at the Ivy and that Rhiannna got a new haircut. We subscribe to all of this. It becomes the topic of conversation. Were you to through some names like Harper Lee or Elena Kagan to those same people, they’d look at you bewildered.

I sit at my desk and tell myself, “Face it! Facebook is here to stay.” It’s just the new way people communicate. Just like people don’t call, they text; and they don’t mail letters, they e-mail, Facebook is the new way to communicate. I fear however, that gone too is the way we’ve learned how to maintain a conversation and negotiate ideas back and forth.

I don’t think Facebook is a terrible thing. In all honesty, I’d just wish we’d at least consider sitting down more often and talk, face to face.