Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred. ~Walter Benjamin It has been years since I have looked at a Benjamin book. I used to have a couple of them, but I left them in Florida a few years ago, 5-6 years ago? Things had become too stale and irreconcilably exhausted. Even though I had travelled there last year, it was brief, and not a very good visit. The funny thing about returning to places one used to live is that it is never the same. People change, places become alien, and even the air changes scents as opposed to what memory used to dictate. After awhile one gets used to where they are at, even if the customs seem strange, or even sometimes, seem to make more sense than where one has been before. I am not too crazy about the “Fritz-Farmer” areas of the rural side of Illinois, but for some reason the urban areas (STL or Chicago for that matter) never really changed from what they “felt” like when I was kid. Some places may be emptier as opposed to back then, but something remains unchanged, just a minor alteration with time. It is funny how the transference of experience rides upon the non-descript and nebulous impression-ridden flashes of what we call memory; and we treasure these vague, immaterial things as if they were the utmost definitive? And even let them guide actions in the present with a not-so-sure distinction of certainty? Hmm…
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 04:10:35 +0000