Deconstruction: Act One

From here we pick up the action as previous described:

We are at Baltimore Friendship Airport, outside on the tarmac, a passenger jet is taxiing loudly. We are inside and see out the window towards the terminal, and also see one of the air hostesses (POV DERRIDA without yet seeing his face).

We are are outside on the rooftop of the concourse with FIRST COLLEAGUE smoking a cigarette, noticing the jet and the time, then trowing away his cigarette and bustling his way down to meet DERRIDA, whom we see exit the jet and go through the terminal. Add that we should see a big board of flights with the flip-over letters as was common in that era, and basically pay homage to this classic movie opening which was filmed at San Francisco International about a half year after the action of this story.

Then FIRST COLLEAGUE (who is a Francophone who is able to speak English) finds Derrida, who is introduced to the SECOND COLLEAGUE (who is American). They eat the airport diner with the cops in teh background, making the waitress laugh, and joking about "the raw and the cooked." DERRIDA gives the manuscript of his talk to FIRST COLLEAGUE, saying he wrote it in 10-11 days. Then EXITING THE GLASS DOORS to the taxi waiting era with Derrida's bag, with the pantomime of SECOND COLLEAGUE describing the action of the upcoming scenes (taxi ride to hotel then campus).

Then we have the cab ride, with DERRIDA looking out the window (the reflection montage) and making small talk to the driver about the Orioles' victory and Spiro Agnew while his FIRST COLLEAGUE reads the manuscript he was given in the diner, absorbed in it completely.

Derrida sees (during the detour) the dome of Baltimore City Hall. Add that he also sees an U.S. MARINES RECRUITING STATION.

Derrida, having seen the woman about to give birth at the hospital, is taken off into the remembrance of his own wife giving birth to their child. At the end of the ride, at Derrida's hotel, FIRST COLLEAGUE exclaims his amazement at what he has read, using his knowledge of American baseball.


The glass doors at SFO at the end here are classic. The are the same one we will see at the climax of Bullit (1968).

Deconstruction: Fantasia at Johns Hopkins

Let us see (either at this point, or perhaps earlier when we showed the JOHNS HOPKINS campus), the interior of the building we shall see later, and even the interior of the LECTURE HALL. Let us see the empty seats and the empty podium. The custodial staff preparing the room, maybe with brooms or mops. The motion of the brooms should be uncoordinated. They should be few in number but spread throughout the hall. (This should contrast with the placid motion of the men washing the ship with hoses as described previously).

Deconstruction: The MVP

Now let us be in the air, just above the helicopter we saw. Let us see that it is a news helicopter from a local television station. For now, let's make it WBAL. We down through the blades which look like a blender that is scrambling the cars on the freeway, at the same time we see the still emptiness of ancient nearby rail yards. We can see much of the skyline, perhaps the City Hall, which we will see in close-up later during the cab ride.

Traveling above the helicopter let's hear the radio station announcer voice, from WBAL radio.

"WBAL News coming up in one minute...traffic report on the hour for early birds...speaking of birds...Birds!...we'll have American League MVP Frank Robinson on the air LIVE at noon to talk about...where do the Orioles go from here, in the off season,  But are you tired yet of being the World Capital of Baseball? I don't we are, Baltimore!"

We see also the same small detached house as in previous scene, where the lights came on. Now let us see, while we hear the radio announcer continuation, a young man come out the front door, dressed in suit and tie, and carefully ushering her very pregnant young wife down the steps and the sidewalk towards their 1962 Dodge Dart which is in the driveway.

Deconstruction:Still Down at Waterline

While we down at water level let us see the hulk of a large metal vessel, motionless beside a pier, and anchored with an enormous chain. On another part of the ship, on the deck, let us see two men hosing off part of the deck.

Deconstruction: Water

Now let's Baltimore on the waterline. What would that have looked like on an October morning of 1966?

The harbor is where the Patapsco River enters Chespeake Bay ---the Algonquian pota-psk-ut, which translates to "backwater" or "tide covered with froth---where it enters the harbor.   It was centerpiece of Maryland's industrial revolution from the 1770s onward.

From this spot grew the first stream-powered railroad in the United States, in 1828. So let's see some awesomely rotting rail yards.

Let's see a shiny late model Lincoln Continental parked by itself on a wharf where the tides slurps at wooden piers. We cannot see much inside the windows, nor tell if someone is inside. Nearby is a placid shack, its windows and doors shuttered, showing no sign of life.

"The renewal of Baltimore's Inner Harbor area began with the adoption of the 33-acre (13 ha) Charles Center project by the City Council and Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro in March 1958. Between 1958 and 1965, Baltimore renewed the center of its business district by rebuilding Charles Center with office buildings, hotels, and retail shops."

Deconstruction: The City at Ground Level

Let us also see:

From the back of a station wagon a NEWSPAPER DELIVERY MAN drops a bundle of newspapers on the sidewalk in front of a newspaper vending machine in front of a bodega. He then bends over to cut the string of the bundle with a knife.

The CAMPUS OF JOHNS HOPKINS serene in the arriving light of day---its modern buildings glimmering with the fresh day, and its lawns tidily kept.

In the distance, we see a figure, busily scurrying across an otherwise empty sidewalk. Later we will see it is MACKSEY. Outside the lecture hall we visit later, a student is putting up posters for the day's event.

Deconstruction: Da Capo

In the very early light of morning from several thousand feet above we see the city, its downtown, its harbor, its freeways, its tall buildings, its transmission towers, and the neighborhoods beyond, visible and invisible through clouds. In the distance, at the same altitude as us, and moving away from us towards the city---a helicopter.

Down at ground level, in one of the close-in neighborhoods to downtown---the front of a brick church near to the street. A young priest in cassock is sweeping the front steps. A bell tolls. Nearby an ancient dive tavern, squeezed beside attached homes, is shuttered for the nightly respite it must take by law. In the window, an Orioles pennant. On the sidewalk an old man walks by.

In a residence nearby, through the bedroom window we see a television. Just as we see it the shot of flagpole with an American flag switches to showing the words "Mass for Shut-ins".

In another neighborhood, the tail lights of a police cruiser recede slowly down a narrow street.

Outside the entrance to a hospital, a resident walks up to the door to begin his shift.

In another neighborhood, with houses now detached a little bit, but still small ins size, a light goes on in a bedroom window.

Inside the hospital, in a small break room, we see the resident, now in his scrubs, sitting a table drinking a cup of coffee and talking with another doctor close-by.
On the wall, a calendar. October 1966

Deconstruction: Forgive My Clumsiness in Asking

As the routine of the COLLEGE CHUMS continues, slowly until even the last two standouts join in joyfully, we hear a VOICEOVER...

BALTIMORE SUN REPORTER: "Last question, professor. You've mentioned the importance of having Claude Levi-Strauss and the others here, and what that brings, as far as the world's attention. Is there anyone here at the conference who you might say could be, an unknown to look out for, who you might say could be, well, forgive my clumsiness in how to even ask it, the new wave...of the new wave? You mentioned one speaker. I have his name written written down here...a Monsieur..."

Deconstruction: Old College Chums

Among the previous snippets we saw of people during the coffee break, let's stipulate that we also saw a group of OLD COLLEGE CHUMS apparently having a mini-reunion on the occasion of the conference, by whatever circumstance. They are graduate student or post graduate students, maybe young professors. There are six---three men and three women.  When we first see them the women are especially social with each other.

We CUT from Derrida's view point back to the these same group of COLLEGE CHUMS, a second time. Two of the women, joined by the rest of them, begin going through the motions of some ancient routine they have learned, touching their hips and then putting their hands out together, chanting or singing.

Deconstruction: Amendment to Walk & Talk

In previous scene, when MACKSEY is talking to BALTIMORE SUN REPORTER,

change: instead of "Nietzsche", Macksey says "Wolfgang Iser in Der Akt des Lesens".

Deconstruction: The Jerk

Somewhere along the same hallway, amidst a flow of people, a door open and out comes DERRIDA, blinking a little as if adjusting from darkness to light, and getting his bearing. He hardly has a beat to adjust before a young woman, one of three walking to together,  collides with him gently as she passes, and scowls with displeasure and annoyance as she does. As the trio of women walk on she continues to express her disapproval of his rudeness. Meanwhile he, as is oblivious to them, is lost is a pure gentle appreciation of the tableau in front of him.

Deconstruction: The Great Hermeneut

Now we come back to MACKSEY and the BALTIMORE SUN REPORTER, still walking.

No longer encumbered by coffee cup nor donut, Macksey is loose and free. The reporter is listening.

MACKSEY (absorbing what was just said): "The way you just put that...is very interesting. Not many people know this but NIETZSCHE WOLFGANG ISER said something very close to that in Der Akt des Lesens."

Deconstruction: Yes Yes Yes

After seeing the first colleague, we also see the SECOND COLLEAGUE, standing and listening attentively to YOUNG WOMAN, the age of a college senior, who is talking to him. She is carrying a spiral notebook under her arm. He says something back to her, as if opining briefly on what she just said. She nods back appreciatively, as if to say, yes yes yes.

Deconstruction: The Blast

From the walk and talk we JUMP to multiple wide and medium shots in the corridors, and open floor spaces where anyone might gather, of conference attendees and other people talking to each other, in various combinations, modes and registers. Pairs and triplets. More men than women. Continentals and Anglophones. Locals and exotics.

At times we catch snippets of what they say (some of that to be specified). Other times we just hear the ambient noise of the collective of people present.

Amidst these views we see the FIRST COLLEAGUE talking to several other men, as if explaining something to them. We walk for several seconds and then he taps the outside breast of his jacket quickly, indicating that he has something there. Leaning in towards the men a little, as if sharing something discrete, pantomimes a tiny explosion with his hands--- la boum.

Deconstruction: The Martin Heidegger Walk & Talk

CUT TO:

OUTSIDE THE LECTURE HALL in a busy corridor with many people walking and talking. At the end of a long hospitality table with coffee urns, paper cups, and a tray of donuts, is RICHARD MACKSEY,  y himself for the moment. He has just picked up both a coffee cup full of coffee and a donut in the other hand. He carefully takes a bite of the donut, and then starts to walk away, slowly at first.

Just as he does,  a man of middle age, the BALTIMORE SUN REPORTER, enters the scene up along side of him, and walks beside him in stride.

As they continue walking, passing others in the hallway but not having to swerve very much, as other make room for them.

REPORTER: "Professor Macksey...[NAME], Baltimore Sun. Really enjoyed your speech. Mind if I ask you a question or two while we walk?"

In good  humor, MACKSEY, a slow chewer, indicates that he has a mouth full of food, but he doesn't mind so long as they can continue walking.

REPORTER : "Ah, of course. (grins) Well, Professor what I wanted to ask you is---could you describe, in words that the layman would understand, the general significance of this conference, specifically what it means for Johns Hopkins as a research institution, and for the City of the Baltimore?"

The reporter glances up to see that MACKSEY has lagged a step behind, because just at that very instant Macksey has taken a sip of his coffee, breaking stride a tiny bit so as not to spill

MACKSEY, catching up in stride, indicates with full mouth a second time that he appreciates the irony.

REPORTER (after chuckling): "In that case, while I let you think of an answer to my question, I'll just fill the space while we walk by telling you that I personally very much appreciate being at this conference. In my profession---well, let's say I haven't heard anyone mention Martin Heidegger in a long time...You know I actually read some Heidegger back when I was in the service? An Army chaplain in Korea gave me a copy. Can you believe it?"

The first issue of The Sun, a four-page tabloid, was printed at 21 Light Street in downtown Baltimore in the mid-1830s. A five-story structure, at the corner of Baltimore and South streets, was built in 1851. The "Iron Building", as it was called, was destroyed in the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904.
In 1906, operations were moved to Charles and Baltimore streets, where The Sun was written, published and distributed for nearly 50 years. In 1950, the operation was moved to a larger, modern plant at Calvert and Centre streets (show in photo above). 

By Marylandstater (talk) at English Wikipedia. - I created this image entirely by myself., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17373173

Deconstruction: Relaxed Samurai in the Town Square

From the Busby Berkeley shot, we cut to a WIDE VIEW from the back of the nearly empty LECTURE HALL looking down and gathering in all of the rows.

Ideally we'd prefer to make the lecture hall or auditorium be based on the one used at the conference at the (then brand-new) Johns Hopkins Center for Humanities.

In the meantime, for story purposes, let's suppose we have the auditorium we need to tell the story.

The lecture hall has a pitch: theater seating. It need not be steep. It can be a gentle slope, and is modern and open, like in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations, which was built from 1948 and 1952, but obviously much smaller and less grandiose than that famous room.

The lecture hall is broad---enough to fill a wide shot looking down towards the stage, as we are going to do. There are aisles along the sides, maybe also in the middle.

DERRIDA is the last person (or two) in the empty rows, and the last one who is standing amidst the rows: the only one not making for the aisle, or going up and down the aisles towards the door. Perhaps a few people are still sitting solo or in a pair amidst the rows. Let's place DERRIDA about two-thirds of the way up the rows. He is comfortable, contrapposto,  apparently looking with vague focus, askew down across the rows towards the corner towards the direction of LEVI-STRAUSS and his cluster, whom we have placed by the doors. Let us specify that the doors next to the stage and there is an ample there for the cluster to form, like an eddy in a draining pool.

We linger here for a moment, in a moment of equilibrium and difference, seeing the slow motion of the room, with the two men like two poles, Derrida being a perspective-skewed giant, being he is closer.  Between them in the gulf of the rows and seats, and the VACUUM of the auditorium. The podium and stage is like a third force between them, to separate them, to create distance between their respective spaces.

The music should be from the same Walter Wanderley album, but a more gentle tract, like this one:

GOING BACK FOR A MOMENT: it is important that during the previous PAN OVER THE AUDITORIUM  that we eventually arrive at a wide shot of RICHARD MACKSEY enunciating the words of his introductory lecture while at the podium on the stage in front of the seats filled with attentive people. We don't see him otherwise in the scenes so far.

Deconstruction: The Busby Berkeley Shot

A split second after LEVI-STRAUSS finishes speaking...

CUT TO

TOP-DOWN SHOT at ceiling level of the auditorium, of Levi-Strauss surrounded by his fans.

Over the next beats, him move about him while LEVI-STRAUSS is the FIXED POLE. What we see should be evocative in some form, even shamelessly, of a classic BUSBY BERKELEY shot of a musical stage number, found in many of his movies, but instead of dancers moving in delightful coordinated movements, it should have a feeling that is beehive-like, spontaneous, glacially chaotic and not at all frenzied, tantalizingly close at some points, with certain pairs or triplets of individuals, to something that might possibly be a jovial medieval dance, and the negative black-for-white of the conventional Berkeley shot in that the we dark clothed people moving againt a light background of the floor.

During this we hear the same music continue from the zoetrope montage of Levi-Strauss.

Deconstruction: Zoetrope Montage/The Professor Signs His Oeuvre

A young man, the age of a graduate student, is able to get his question expressed amidst the others:

"Professor Lévi-Strauss, would you say that your work has given us the first SCIENTIFIC study of the Oedipus myth?"

IMMEDIATELY CUT to a music-only ZOETROPE-LIKE MONTAGE of still shots of Lévi-Strauss answering the question in various expressions and with various animated gestures, and then subsequently interacting with the people around him, including autographing a 1955 PLON first edition of Tristes Tropiques handed to him by a young woman of college here, who is delighted as he signs it.

During the montage, perhaps we hear something like this from Rain Forest by Walter Wanderley:


After the autographing, we see a couple more stills, indicating Lévi-Strauss is answering another question. At the end of the quick montage, we come back into the live action, with Lévi-Strauss, having handed the book back that he signed, making a soft-landing:

"And that is why, that event though Monsieur FOUCAULT and I differ greatly in regard to the definition of the concept of MAN, we nevertheless have many overlapping thoughts that are in accordance with each other on a fundamental level."

Deconstruction: The Cluster Around Mr. Levi-Strauss

ACROSS THE EMPTY SEATS in the auditorium, and many rows away from Derrida, in an other clear area in the aisle by the door is a cluster of a a dozen or more people, men and women of various ages. In the middle is someone they want to see, touch, hear, and talk to. They are like pigeons around someone feeding them popcorn.

Inside the middle of the cluster, we are CLOSE UP with the man speaking, hemmed in by those in the inner ring of the cluster. He is middle-aged, wearing thick glasses. He is dressed slightly on the formal side among the people there, but in a comfortable way that suggests this is  how he always dresses. He is comfortable being the pole of attention at the moment.

He is speaking English with a thick but pleasant French-accented, each syllable having a solid gravity of purpose and meaning:

"One sees that among the tribes of the Pacific Northwest, there is a variation in the versions of the stories, along certain criteria, and thus we say the myth itself is not one particular version---for how can it be?--but is the matrix of variations of the myth."*

At the end of the sentence, the merest break in his stride of speech, several people try to get his attention...

"MR. LEVI-STRAUSS!, MR. LEVI-STRAUSS!, "

(Throughout, his name will be pronounced LEH-vee STROASE by some, including all the French characters and some of the others, and LEH-vee STRAUSS by some Anglophones and maybe others, and elsewise by certain other characters as may be appropriate for the story)

Deconstruction: After the Speech/Misdirection

CUT TO:

SOUND OF MANY VOICES.

People are standing in the aisles and moving noisily through the seats. Derrida is standing in place amidst empty seats, his hands in his jacket pockets, lingering as others are moving around him. We don't see his colleagues.

He see two young Japanese women a couple rows away. They are talking  to each other in semi-hushed volume in English.

Is that him? Him over there? 

Yes that's him. He's the one this conference is for. 

Everyone is here for him.

One of them points discretely and they both look. Derrida notices them pointing and examines them.

But they are looking not at Derrida but past him. Derrida, his hands still in his pocket, twists his torso to look in the direction they are looking. Twisted around, he grins broadly in satisfaction of what he sees.

Deconstruction: The Venue and the Man

CUT TO:

INTERIOR OF A CROWDED CONFERENCE HALL

PANNING OVER THE AUDIENCE, SEEN IN PROFILE

Hardly an empty seat is visible amidst the rows of semi-formally dressed men and women who are, almost universally, silently giving their full and fresh attention to the unseen speaker, RICHARD MACKSEY.

MACKSEY (off camera):  ...We are especially grateful to those of you who have traveled such a long distance, ideologically as well as geographically, to attend these meetings. tings. There are representatives among us from eight countries and at least as many formal disciplines, who by their presence have expressed a willingness to submit, provisionally, to the, perhaps, tendentiously pluralistic topic suggested by our dual title of our convention. . Some of our initial difficulties are clearly indicated by the fact that the symmetrical English and French titles are not, on close examination, identical. More significantly, many here would reject, even for the rhetoric of symposia programs, the seductive allure which the word "Sciences" borrows from fields alien to our endeavor. Further, I realize that others, in the wake of Foucault and Heideggerian revisionism, would question the legitimacy for this time of the word "Man" and the metaphysical pathos attached to it by humanistic conventions and titular sponsors such as a Humanities Center (however loosely defined operationally both its virtual center and effective circumference may be).

The faces in the crowd will include characters who have not yet been introduced or specified, so we will forgo including all of the ones who must be seen in this shot for the time being. At the point where he is talking about the differences between the French and English titles of the conference, let's see two FRENCHMEN, heretofore unknown to us, quietly and discretely whispering to each other, with one pointing to a a program in his hand, as if explaining the very point that Macksey had just been speaker of.

At some point, as we move through the crowd, CLOSE IN, on faces one by one as they look at the speaker, we encounter the familiar visages of the TWO COLLEAGUES of Derrida and finally DERRIDA himself. For symmetry breaking, they should not be sitting side-by-side, but staggered in adjacent rows, as if they had taken some of the last available seats.

Among all the faces we have seen, it is DERRIDA who is not staring straight ahead, in wrapt and placid attention, but is gazing around the room, his head moving only slightly, but his eyes moving more, as if he is sizing up the place.

Let us make sure we are seeing him in a CLOSE UP when Macksey says the word "Man".

Deconstruction: the Book

The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland 21218 The Johns Hopkins Press Ltd., London Originally published, 1970, as The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man Johns Hopkins paperback edition, 1972 Second printing, 1975 Third printing, 1977 Fourth printing, 1979 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 78-95789 ISBN 0-8018-1047-7 (hardcover) ISBN 0-8018-1381 -6 (paperback)

From the preface:

The papers and discussions collected in this volume constitute the proceedings of the international symposium entitled "The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man," ["Les Langages Critiques et les Sciences de l'Homme"] enabled by a grant from the Ford Foundation. The sessions were convened under the auspices of the Johns Hopkins Humanities Center, during the week of October 18-21, 1966, when over one hundred humanists and social scientists from the United States and eight other countries gathered in Baltimore. The symposium inaugurated a two-year program of seminars and colloquia which sought to explore the impact of contemporary "structuralist" thought on critical methods in humanistic and social studies. The general title emphasized both the pluralism of the existing modes of discourse and the interaction of disciplines not entirely limited to the conventional rubric of the "humanities."

Deconstruction: The Voice-Over/Welcome to the Conference

Inside the cab, with Derrida, who is contemplating his colleague's reaction after reading the manuscript, we hear the voice over begin, in flat American tones:

On behalf of my colleagues, of the newly instituted Humanities Center, and of The Johns Hopkins  University, it is my privilege to welcome you to the first session of the symposium "The Languages  of Criticism and the Sciences of Man...

Deconstruction: Tall Building

The tall building that Derrida sees reflected, during the detour part of the cab ride, is Baltimore City Hall.

Baltimore City Hall as it looked like in 1873 (source)

Deconstruction: Detour

During the cab ride reflection montage, perhaps when the driver is talking about Spiro Agnew, and his colleague is scrunched against the window on his side in order to get enough light to read the manuscript, we should see, from Derrida's point of view, a Detour sign reflected in such a way as to suggest it was in front of the cab and then came into the reflection as the cab turned to the opposite side from which Derrida is sitting.

Deconstruction: Your Kind of Man/Son of Baltimore

One of the things that Derrida (and we) should see during his Baltimore cab-ride montage is an election sign for Spiro Agnew's campaign in the upcoming Maryland gubernatorial election, which was just three weeks away.  His slogan was "Your Kind of Man." (see this photo taken Nov. 1, 1966 for an example)

Agnew was born in Baltimore to a Greek immigrant father and Virginia-born mother. He briefly attended Johns Hopkins University, started at the University of Baltimore law school... After military service in World War II (and later Korea), Agnew completed his legal studies, settled in the Towson area, where he became involved in community organizations, and was appointed to the county zoning board...  

Switching his registration from Democrat to Republican, Agnew in 1962, taking advantage of a split in Baltimore County’s Democratic organization, was elected county executive. His record in Baltimore County was moderate and at times progressive, even in civil rights (though he was unhappy with integration protests at Gwynn Oak amusement park).

With re-election in Baltimore County unlikely with a unified Democratic Party, Agnew ran for governor in 1966. Again, the Democrats divided, nominating perennial candidate George P. Mahoney, who ran on the anti-open housing slogan “Your Home is Your Castle.” Thus, Agnew became the “liberal” candidate in the race, gaining support from white progressives and African-Americans, en route to being elected Maryland’s fifth GOP governor. Once again, Agnew governed as a moderate, working with the (always) Democratic General Assembly. (link)

The cab driver can see the sign and talk about Agnew as a local politician.  He can say the slogan out loud, He can reference the protests at Gwynn Oak amusement park, which were three years in the past.

"It was all over the news." says the driver to Derrida (the colleague is absorbed in reading the manuscript while coping with the starting and stopping of traffic). 

"Couldn't turn on the t.v without seeing it."

We could see Mahoney's sign and slogan,  “Your Home is Your Castle”, as well, but only see it, without hearing it said out loud. Sometime later in the story we should see a castle or building that looks like a castle.

Possible epilogue text: On Nov. 8, Baltimore County executive Spiro Agnew was elected Governor  of Maryland, winning with 49.5% of the vote over two other candidates. He took office in January 1967. A year and a half later at the Republican National Convention in Miami, Florida, he was selected by Richard Nixon to be his vice presidential running mate for the 1968 presidential election.

Spiro Agnew (1918-1996)

The fallout shelter sign, ubiquitous in that era, should make an experience somewhere in the movie as well, but not during the cab ride. Maybe in the next group of scenes...

Deconstruction: Cab Ride/Orioles/The Home Run/Maternity Ward

We are outside at the curbside. A cab is parked. The trunk is open. Derrida is standing with his bag on the ground with the driver by the open trunk. The French has opened the other back door and is taking off his overcoat. In the background of the street, amidst other traffic is a parked Baltimore police cruiser .

The American is on the sidewalk Looking at Derrida, he says, as if giving him instructions, and confirming them at once,  "So, to the hotel, ...then the university..."

Derrida gives thumbs up.

In the back of the cab, Derrida settles into the backseat beside the other Frenchman, who is already reading the manuscript again..

In the front of the cab is some small paraphernalia of the Baltimore Orioles, the baseball team.  It should show the bird mascot. It should be a small pendant that hangs from the mirror, or something that can oscillate materially on the dashboard.

As the cab goes into motion, the French colleague takes out the manuscript and looks at it, as if he is absorbing it as quickly as possible. Derrida turns and looks out the window.

Derrida, looking out the window, asks him about the orange and black bird.

The driver says, "that was from the World Series. You know what the World Series is?

"Ah yes, the World Series. Brooklyn Dodgers," says Derrida

"Dodgers? No not the Dodgers. We beat the Dodgers. We swept 'em. Four games to nothing. Four to nothing. We're the Orioles, the Baltimore Orioles. You're in Baltimore. Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore won the World Series this year. Not the Dodgers. And not the Yankees either. You probably know them I beat. They're our rival. But we beat them this year, and we beat the Dodgers.

During their conversation, and in the conversational silence that follows, we see Derrida's face gazing out the window, his face and superimposed over it, around it, on the glass window, we should experience a  hyper-kinetic montage sequence in the classic style of Slavko Vorkapich.

The montage should consist of what is reflected in the window of the City of Baltimore, while Derrida would be seeing it, during his way to his hotel.  It should be like a many-hued primary color kaleidoscope of fragments, some coherent, sometimes too blurry, with too much velocity, to make sense, then settling into outlines of focus. The kaleidoscope need not be strictly realistic of what he would. It can be fantastical, and even imaginative, but should nevertheless remain in the ambiguous area where we cannot tell whether or not it is something in the physical world he is seeing.

Let's not specify all the things he should see yet. We can fill them in later. We will probably have ideas for this as the story goes on.

Emblems of autumn, to establish time of year of story. A stoplight changing from red to green (must see this). A yellow tow truck.

While this is happening, perhaps we hear a bit from Cecil Taylor's Unit Structures album, which came out in 1966.

Like a carousel riding coming to its conclusion, the reflection montage should come to an end with a static image, on the exterior of a hospital, specifically n emergency ward entrance. An ambulance is parked. Orderlies open the rear door.. They go inside then they carry woman very pregnant on a gurney. A nurse comes up to the gurney and bends over the woman. All this happens very quickly, almost at once.

At that moment, and for just a few beats, we are suddenly inside Derrida's black and white memory,  where we are in the waiting room of a French maternity ward, and with Derrida through the window we see infants in cradles. We see his wife with the baby, and Derrida in their presence. Derrida's wife's name is Marguerite.

Derrida's memory is interrupted by his colleague's voice, expressing joy and excitement, in giving his reaction to the manuscript, and tapping the paper with his fingers.

We are back inside the cab, which is stopped. Derrida is looking at his friend. His friend seizes his sleeve of his jacket with urgency.

"Oh--oooh" (or some equivalent exclamation a French person of that era would make)

In English, "They are going to like you...or not like you. Not like you very much.

You are going to hit the home run!"

He looks at the driver for quick confirmation of his use of the term. The driver nods his ascent. We see the Oriole oscillating.

At that moment, for a beat, while Derrida absorbs this in the cab,  slackening in his joviality, perhaps now for the first time experiencing the gravity of the moment, we begin to hear a speaker's voice, beginning to address an audience in formal terms of an introduction...
.

Deconstruction: How Do You Want Your Eggs?/Raw/Cooked

Derrida (to the waitress, holding up two index fingers) "Two eggs, please"

He pauses, thinking about the translation, nods in affirmation.

Just as he is about to turn to resume his conversation

Waitress, routinely, and with patience: "How do you want your eggs?"

Derrida, confused, then realizing he needs to complete his order

"How do I..." he begins to say back to her.

"Cooked" she says, helping him.

"Cooked?" (beat). "Cooked!" He is elated. He turned to his French colleague and says the word again to him drawing out the ooo sound

Then again to towards the waitress, but addressing all three of them, "Cooked" (on the one hand) "Raw" (on the other."

"Cooked...raw..raw...cooked..." He says as if savoring the Anglo-Saxon diphthongs in each word separately.


To his French colleague "RAW!


The French colleague says back "Raaaaw!" duplicating his effort at the phoneme.

"Raw!" "Raw!" They go  back and forth, amplifying each other, as if leading a cheer.

The waitress is patient. She is amused. She wants to be a part of their conversation.

We hear the other colleague say in an American flat accent, "He'll have them sunny-side up,  miss.  ...These jokers..."

In the background we that the Baltimore cop is talking across the talking in his own world to another cop.

We see the short order cook put an egg on the grill next to several others which are in various states of sizzle.

Deconstruction: The Manuscript

We see the three men now inside of a cozy diner. They are seated in the middle of the counter, side by side, unencumbered by anyone directly at either side of them. Their overcoats are off. They are all wearing jackets and ties. Derrida in the middle. The observation deck man is at his right and the newcomer, the third man, is to his left.  Derrida is gesturing, his hands in the air as he speaks, animatedly talking to his colleague at his right.

Behind the counter is a waitress, and a short order cook with his back turned, occupied with tending the grill. In the background in the diner we see a Baltimore cop sitting at a table against the far wall. He is calmly minding is own business, facing the direction away from the men. A waitress is behind the counter by the cash register, somewhat off to the side of the group. She is punching buttons on the register.

Now we are close enough to hear their dialogue between Derrida and the man seated to his right.  Derrida has picked up the coffee cup to take a sip. In a voice just loud enough for Derrida alone to hear, observation deck man says, in native French:

"Tu l'as--içi?"  (Subtitle: "You have it--here?")

Derrida puts the coffee cup down in the saucer and pats his left vest pocket of his jacket in two quick taps. He gently moves the hand up with raised finger to say give me a second, and contorting himself in his counter seat, he reaches inside his jacket packet and carefully draws out a thin sheaf of papers, a manuscript, folded neatly down the middle the long way. The pages are somewhat rumpled, as if they have been handled already.

Derrida quickly unfolds the manuscript with bold hands, as if opening a book, while his colleague slides his own coffee cup out of the away on the counter,

In the cleared space, Derrida places the manuscript down face up and presses it firmly onto the countertop with the palm of his right hand, as if sealing it in wax. In the tight counter space between him and his colleague, he holds up both his hands, as if showing his palms, with all ten fingers out.

"Dix jours,"  (Subtitle: "Ten days.")

he says, bouncing his hands gently with the syllables of the word.

He is proud of himself. He looks for acknowledgment in the reaction of his colleague.

He pivots to the man on his left, who is leaning in to listen, and says to him,  showing him his fingers in the same way,

"Ten days.


The man on his right is already scrutinizing the first page of the manuscript, while stirring his coffee.

As Derrida is frozen in that second with his hands raised, we see the waitress his standing right behind the counter from Derrida, looming over him. She's holding the order pad, looking straight at him, herself frozen, as if waiting for him to finish.

Deconstruction: The Third Man/Second Colleague

From down the corridor of the airport concourse we see Derrida with his bags walking from behind.  The sun is reflecting off the walls and the polished floor. The man in the overcoat that we saw on the observation deck, arrives in a mild trot and greets Derrida from behind slapping his shoulder gently and the give a hearty handshake.

They exchange a few words. The colleague motions off to the side, as if inviting Derrida. Another figure comes in from that direction. A third man. Observation deck man introduces him to Derrida. There is more cordial handshake between Derrida and this third man.

Then the observation deck man shepherds the group off the to direction from which the second colleague arrived, and they depart from our view in that direction.

Deconstruction: The Waiting Colleague

Friendship Airport in 1964 (source)

In the mid 1960s, the old terminal of Baltimore Friendship Airport had an observation deck on top We see someone waiting up there. A man wearing a tie and a black overcoat is at the railing looking out over the tarmac, and smoking a cigarette.  The day is overcast, as if the world is readying for late autumn.

We see him looking an aircraft---Derrida's aircraft---while it is taxiing slowly towards the terminal off the runway.  At some point (important) we see the control tower in back of the aircraft as it is movie horizontally.

Seeing the plane and noticing its colors, he looks at his watch, taps it gently five times rhythmically as if in thought. Then he springs into motion, flicking away his cigarette as if to give himself momentum and he turns and heads back to the door of the deck.


Now is a quickening of pace. We him do down flights of stairs in a mild but gentle hurry, moving around several people on the stairs who are going in both directions. We hear the conversations of people in the stairwell but we do not see their faces.

Who is he, this man? Evidently he's a colleague of Derrida, waiting for his Derrida's arrival on the plane. Which colleague?

For that we will need to dive into the history of the conference itself.

Deconstruction: Dramatis Personae

There are other characters in the movie. Who else is in the movie besides Derrida, and Baltimore? Some of the characters we can identify by name, from history. Other characters we will identity by their role in the story.


Near the start of the story we see Derrida arriving in his flight to Friendship Airport, as it was called back then.

Friendship International Airport was dedicated on June 24, 1950. The airport was renamed Baltimore Washington International in 1973.

This is what the airport looked like in 1967:

By Daniel Tanner - http://www.airliners.net/photo/United-Airlines/Douglas-DC-6B/2703580/L/, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43576003

The early Boeing 707s and Douglas DC-8s could not use Washington National Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport did not open until 1962, so Baltimore became Washington's jet airport in May–June 1959 when American and TWA began transcontinental 707 flights.(Wikipedia)

The arrival by airport of one of the main or supporting characters to open a movie is a classic story feature of that era. If we find out later that Derrida arrived some other way, and its important to the story, maybe we'll change the story, but for now we will go with this.

Did Derrida travel with his wife and child? Let's say he did not, for the time being. He was a last minute replacement speaker, after all. His wife and child will certainly become characters in the story, so add two more to the list dramatis personae, but let us suppose they did not come to Baltimore with him.

We see Derrida emerging from the aircraft. There are air hostesses at least two of them, on the plane and the tarmac.  Also a gate attendant in the same hostess uniform is present he comes out into the airport itself, into the waiting area.

The air hostesses serve as another point of reference to cinema of that time, for nothing is more emblematic of those years than the crisply-attired flight attendants of the airlines that carried passengers between continents.


Come Fly With Me (1963)

Deconstruction: More Atmosphere

Os-Afrosambas by Baden Powell and Vinícius de Moraes is another piece of music from 1966 that I think works well for atmosphere in the film. Remember Derrida was an African.

Deconstruction: The Soundtrack

Since this film is set in 1966, we need some 1966 music at times to create atmosphere.

Right away I think of Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66

Deconstruction: The Hero

Jacques Derrida (July 15, 1930 -- October 9, 2004)

He was 36 years old in 1966. The photo here is obviously well after the time of the story.

Derrida was born in El Biar, French Algeria,  into a Sephardic Jewish family (originally from Toledo) that became French in 1870 when the Crémieux Decree granted full French citizenship to the indigenous Arabic-speaking Jews of Algeria. 

Following the (Algerian) war, from 1960 to 1964, Derrida taught philosophy at the Sorbonne, where he was an assistant of Suzanne Bachelard (daughter of Gaston), Georges Canguilhem, Paul Ricœur (who in these years coined the term school of suspicion) and Jean Wahl. His wife, Marguerite, gave birth to their first child, Pierre, in 1963. In 1964, on the recommendation of Louis Althusser and Jean Hyppolite, Derrida got a permanent teaching position at the ENS, which he kept until 1984.

We would see Derrida not only younger than the photo above, but also in the fashions of the time, when men's suits were tightly tailored and the neckties were thin. For those of us who remember that era, it's easy to see how much fashions changed very radically right after the time of the story.

Here's Jack Palance with Brigitte Bardot in Contempt in 1963:

Deconstruction: The Motion Picture

If I had complete freedom to produce movie, television show, streaming series, etc., I'd certainly make one about the original three-day Baltimore conference in October 1966, where everyone agrees is where it all started. It was, Derrida himself called it, the évènement ("event").

The hero of the story is of course Derrida, the trickster, who comes into the conference as the unknown, a last-minute replacement speaker, and comes out as a rock star.

We would place other notables in the story as well.  Many of course would be French, but also plenty of Americans as well. 

Certain background and plot would be provided in flashbacks, perhaps tracing Derrida, and perhaps other characters, in the time before the conference. The story would need to foreshadow, and to some extent explicate, the importance that the "event" would take on in later years.  At the end we should understand better how we got where we are today, partly because of what happened there.

One of the characters of the story is the city of Baltimore itself, as it was in the fall of 1966, including it airport, where perhaps we see Derrida in the beginning and end of the story. Certainly, given the subject matter, we need to see a hospital maternity ward with newborn infants.

The visuals of the movie would reflect the achingly gorgeous, crisp  technicolor aesthetic of both Hollywood and foreign movies, recognizable to any film buff as characterizing the  years roughly from 1962 to 1966. How could  it be otherwise?  Among other films, Contempt by Jean-Luc Goddard comes to mind. Perhaps one can find a way to make Brigitte Bardot, whose genius is perhaps most evident in that particular movie, a character in this story too.

Paul Fry: The Rise and Fall of Structuralism (1:35)

"..and BOY did he know about Structuralism..."

This is one of my favorite segments in the course, from Lecture 9 on Structuralism. Fry explains the arc of this brief, intense period from 1964 to 1966, the magical mid Sixties, when Structuralism washed over the United States academic scene, in literary theory, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and other fields...until it all came to a sudden, cataclysmic end.

Video starts at 7:02. Watch to 8:37

"There was an incredible aura about Structuralism in the 1960s. It crashed on the shores of the United States from France in a way that stunned, amazed, transformed people's lives. People, like Kant reading Hume, woke up from their dogmatic slumbers, or at least they felt that's what they were doing...

...it was a phenomenon that was transformative intellectually for people in the academic and beyond the academic world, all over the country, and of course it led to, in all sort of ways, most of what's been going on in theory ever since.  

The amazing thing about it is that as a flourishing and undisputed French contribution to literary theory, it lasted two years, because in 1966 at a famous conference Jacques Derrida...blew it out of the water."

Paul Fry: I Placed a Jar in Tennessee (0:57)

"As Derrida would say, 'the center limits freeplay'."
Here Professor Fry gives a reading of what is surely one is favorite pieces of poetry, given the lucidity which he recites it, and his comments regarding Derrida.  The recitation is meant to evoke, through poetry, the symbolism of the (perhaps imaginary) vertical axis in the paradigm of Structuralism. Brilliant.

Starts at 12:46. Watch to 13:43

I placed a jar in Tennessee,   

And round it was, upon a hill.   

It made the slovenly wilderness   

Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.   

The jar was round upon the ground   

And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.   

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,   

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

"Anecdote of a Jar" by Wallace Stevens (1919)

Paul Fry: An Appreciative Reading of the Remarkable Last Sentence of Derrida (0:51)

Video is cued to start at 1:07. Watch to 1:58.

"Here there is a sort of question, call it historical, of which we are only glimpsing today the conception, the formation, the gestation, the labor. I employ these words, I admit, with a glance toward the business of childbearing-but also with a glance toward those who, in a company from which I do not exclude myself, turn their eyes away in the face of the as yet unnameable which is proclaiming itself and which can do so, as is necessary whenever a birth is in the offing, only under the species of the non-species, in the formless, mute, infant, and terrifying form of monstrosity."

Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences (1970)

How French Literary Theory Took Over the World

Going by publication dates on the videos, yesterday (Sept. 1, 2019) was the tenth anniversary of the upload of this remarkable and magnificent set of lectures by Professor Paul Fry of Yale, of his course entitled Introduction to the Theory of Literature.

Remembering the Triumphs of Newark

After that excursion, what else could we do but go back to the ferry terminal and catch the boat back across the Hudson to Jersey City? At the hotel we retrieved our bags, went down the escalators, got our car back from the valet service, and in a few moments we were making our way towards the entrance to the Turnpike, to head back home.

It had been an awesome trip into the City, and an awesome stay with K and R at their place in Mercer County. In a few days Red and I would heading back to Arizona. As it happened my rendezvous with Zeke in Brooklyn immediately set into motion follow-up calls from him in which he hoped to get me on board with the project involving the streaming music service, and even to get me to go up to Portland the following week to help out on it. It always seems like there's some kind of conveyor tube that whisks me from New York to Portland. It's almost a trope within my life, so I was hardly shocked when I worked out that way, and I wound up going up there for a week. But that's a whole different story.

In the meantime Red and I had to get back home. R. drove us to the airport, and to my delight, we crossed over the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers, and we actually got a little lost in Newark because R. got off at the wrong turn, and that kind of thing punishes you badly in Jersey. He wound up cutting through Newark itself to follow the GPS instructions one he got off at the wrong exit. Newark is one of my favorite cities, and it was treat to see it at ground level on our way to the airport.

Our flight had us waiting at gate where one could see out the window to the Busch brewery. The sight of it reminded me again of the night in August 1985 where I spent the night under a fir tree in the island outside the front of the airport by the parking lot. I had eleven dollars in my pocket, and to my name, and a needed every last sent to augment the ticket voucher I had in order to get back home from a summer in Europe. It was one of the most serene nights of my life, to be young and broke and sleeping carefree under a fir tree at Newark Airport. It was so long ago.

Ode on a Vessel in the City of Love

How could it not be the most beautiful thing in the City? I thought to myself, staring in marvel at the enormous entity before me.

A hour before, I had arrived at the bookstore of Chelsea Market, and finding the rest of the group, I had perused the books there a little, to get the feel of what the staff picks are---always very vocal about their politics lately, just like the bookstore in Princeton we had visited.

Then we got lunch at a French bakery there, and waited for our sandwiches at a metal table with metal chairs in the main corridor, people watching and meditating. Then we ate our meal.  They explained to me that they had just been on the High Line, the new above-ground park that had been built on an former decommissioned elevated train line, and which went north from Chelsea Market (which I would realize later was a big reason that Chelsea Market felt like the center of the City now). I had heard about the High Line from years ago, and knew they had planned to do it, but I had long since lost track of the project, and was not even aware that it had been completed and was open to the public.

All of them were enthusiastic about it, and I realize I had missed out on something I should have seen, but as it happened I didn't even have to ask before Red suggested they take another walk on it, since they had liked it so much it.

So after lunch, we walked over to the stairs that led up to it, and at the top I instantly realized what an awesome project it was, and that it was in fact revolutionary, and would change the entire nature of the City, and perhaps many other cities, over time.

I had pictured something wide and airy, and straight. Instead it was sinewy narrow path but above ground, hemmed in closely by the buildings around it.  One saw right into some of them. The path on the walkway was lined with planted trees. There were areas off to the side of the path to sit on benches. In fact it felt like being on an elevated walkway inside a zoo. Even the netting they had placed gave it a feeling of being in a walk-in building where the wildlife was around you.

It was spectacular. I had never experienced anything like it. It was already changing the geography and real estate around it. It would only be the start, I knew.

It took us about twenty minutes to navigate up to the north end. There was enough shade from the building and the installed plants that even Red didn't mind the heat and the sun. It was she in fact who had wanted to walk it a second time.

At the north end was the most spectacular thing the elevated walkway came out onto an elevated plaza, where one could see down one of the streets out to the river and to New Jersey.  Here there was a fancy department store that one could enter right off the plaza. But there in the plaza in the corner  was an enormous sculpture and structure, three stories tall at least. It was called the Vessel. It was in fact a giant outdoor staircase that one could climb to the top One had to buy tickets in order to access the outdoor stairs to climb to the top of the Vessel. I wasn't interested in that at the moment. It was enough just to see it, and be stunned by it.

It was, I realized in that moment, the utter concrete fulfillment of the Burning Man experience inside the City. I had known of this trend, of making Burning Man a living presence inside of cities. I had seen it in Denver a little bit. But this was the apotheosis of that trend. It was pure fun. Something in the air to climb for no reason at all but for amusement and gaiety.

It was everything I would want Beauty to be in that moment. Standing by itself, self-sufficient, autonomous,  It overwhelmed me and to be overwhelmed like that was a pleasure that only happens that way every now and again. Among other things it releases me utterly from the burden of understanding the City in any deep way, beyond the surface way I have experienced it. The City doesn't need to be mine. It can't be mine.

For what is the City in my mind but that imaginary set of spatial axes in a structure called to being in my mind, an imagined simultaneous slice-of-time of the City as it is right now, or at any moment, a snapshot of its real reality,  but a reality which I or anyone else cannot possibly access or know? By reason these structures of the simultaneous City in our minds for which we have to fill in all the gaps between the bits we've seen can't possibly exist in reality. Yet we use them, the structures, to imagine the City as real as the real City, and to love it as the City we think it is, in its fleetingness, in the few moments we have when our imagined City is anything remotely close to the real one.

The Beating Heart of Manhattan on Tenth Avenue

After the lunch with Zeke, it was time to get back up into the city. Before I went down into the subway I took one last perplexed look at the new skyline, knowing that, from the appearance of construction cranes amidst the already built towers, the layout of the building  would probably be very different the next time I saw it, whenever that was.

Heading back to Manhattan, I made sure to catch the Express, which is a nicer, bigger train than the local. Many people, even locals, don't realize how different the subway lines are, until it becomes obvious to them. It turns out the various lines were built in epochs of construction that now interweave in non-obvious fashion, but reflect a broad archaeology of time within the city's history.

The plan was for me to meet up with the rest of the gang. Originally they had thought to come into Brooklyn, but that morning in Jersey City they had decided to go back only into the City itself, which was much more accessible for a leisurely outing, considering they had already checked out of the hotel, and had put our luggage into a locked storage room at reception.

Red had thus texted to meet them at the bookstore in Chelsea Market, which is on the west side, near the river, in the Chelsea Neighborhood of course. I had only vaguely heard of Chelsea Market. I didn't know what it was. After getting off the subway, it took me a few blocks of navigating the neighborhood, full of rainbow flags for the ongoing and never-ending party that they symbolize, to find the location and finally cross the last busy avenue, where as I did I paused to take a picture of a cool steakhouse sign outside a door, and thought of the movie starring Margaret O'Brien about the miracle of the kneeling cow. On the other side of the traffic was the entrance of a large restored brick factory building, and I went inside.

Inside actually turned out to be nice. It was an indoor mall---a long hall crammed with people like a busy airport concourse, going amidst upscale and gourmet type shops of foodstuffs and other items. I had to ask for the location of the bookstore, and was told it was way down the hallway, which was quite a walk as it happens. Whatever Chelsea Market was, it had certainly come into its own in the current epoch of 2019. It was the place to be, for both locals and out-of-towners. It reminded me of what old Penn Station probably felt like, in the heyday of rail, except a modern yuppie-trendy version reflecting our Ultraprosperous Era, and all of our disposal incomes in this Ultraprosperous City.

Breakfast in Brooklyn, with Added Enthusiasm

It was always good to see Zeke. He's such an upbeat person most of the time and he expresses lots of positive energy in the way he communicates. In business terms it makes him a good salesman.

Most of the time during breakfast we talked about the doings in Portland, at the place where he was a partner, and for which I had contracted as a consultant. They had new offices, among other things. They were deep into a project for a longtime partner, a large streaming music service.  Ironically their headquarters was in the new 4 World Trade Center. Zeke had sometimes called me from their offices, when he was on site.

The current project was a new level of project for them, however, even for the same client. It went beyond the usual marketing web sites they had built for the service in the past, with complex design graphics and animations, to now to building for them a full web application with a login accounts backed by a database, and all that entails. I liked the fact that I was in New York talking about databases again. It was fun.

At the end of the meal, when it was time for him to catch his ride into the City, I trotted out my posters. I have to show you something, I said very humbly. Zeke's not a designer but he is close to that community, as has the eye for a designer's taste in things, from the business he was in. I knew if I got any traction of spontaneous enthusiasm in his response, above and beyond the police enthusiasm he would offer under any result of his judgment, then I was on the right track with my designs. He was intrigued enough to want to see more. That was the confirmation I needed.

Business in Brooklyn

Brooklyn sure had changed a lot, I thought to myself, after coming up out of the subway on Flatbush Avenue. "Jeeps---" I said, noticing the obvious at last, "it's got a skyline now." The old Williamsburg Bank Building had rivals alongside it now, a whole cluster down Flatbush Avenue towards downtown Brooklyn.

I had arrived about twenty minutes early. Zeke had texted me that he would set out by Uber from his place in Fort Greene, once his meeting was over. With some time to kill, I wandered around the neighborhood, past the usual row of bars and Modell's Sporting Goods, and other discounters one finds in every neighborhood of the city. A light rain started, and I took refuge about a block from the rendezvous point under the giant roof that overhangs the outdoor plaza in front of the basketball arena, where the professional basketball team of Brooklyn plays their games.

Getting a sports franchise back in Brooklyn, even a basketball team, was a big deal to some people, on the idea of giving Brooklyn its own identity (in the post-modern Pop Culture sense to be sure). The great irony for me was that the arena had sold its naming rights to the exact British bank that I had worked for at 222 Broadway. In those days the bank was well known in Europe but hardly known at all in the United States. The initiative in 2000 that they employed me for was to help propel it a greater market share. It felt awkward that somehow all that had succeeded, despite my not really giving a hoot about it all.

Zeke texted me he was running behind, so he suggested I go inside to the restaurant if I wanted, which I did. It was just getting started. Hardly anyone there at that hour of mid morning. Small and cozy. A woman, obviously a regular, was chatting up the one guy on duty.. It was hip and comfortable. The tables were nice thick varnished wood. I sat in the booth by the window and ordered some coffee, telling the benevolent slacker waiter that another person was coming. It was all cool.

When the coffee came I poured cream into it, and took a sip, then took the turquoise plastic tube, took the top off, and shook it upside down to the empty the contents onto the seat next to me.

I liked to take the posters I had made out of the tube as much as possible, so they wouldn't acquire a permanent warp. I found they relaxed well to almost flatness after a half hour. I wanted them to look as nice as possible when Zeke arrived.

The New Commuter Finds The City

The next day was, as Derrida might say, purely supplementary. 

I got up early in our hotel room in Jersey City, and before the rest had even gotten to breakfast, I got dressed and made a quick cup of coffee i in the room. Then left the room, by myself, and using the elevator, went down to the reception area on the second floor, which had a great view down the river. Then I used the escalators from there down to the ground level of the pier, where I went through the glass revolving doors and out on to sidewalk that runs in front of the buildings along the river.

I was carrying, slung over my shoulder, a plastic tube, about three inches in diameter and about twenty-four inches long. It was turquoise with a turquoise cap, and a black strap over my shoulder. I had carried it with me as luggage on the plane from Arizona, and then in the car up to Jersey City into the hotel room. Finally it was time to put it into action.

I took it with me as I found the entrance to the PATH station, with its glass doors lobby. It was quite a line at the ticket machine. It took me five minutes to get a ticket, but I waited patiently---no point in being egotistical about the waiting that all of us were enduring. Nobody is better or worse than anyone else, when you are standing in a line like that, waiting for the machine to process the credit and debit cards.

Finally I got my ticket and went down the escalators to the platform, finding the one to go into the city, and not the one go towards Journal Square in Newark, although I have nothing against Newark. Today I was going into the City. I was commuting. Just like everyone else. It wasn't even play acting. It was real, bona fide, just like the old days. It felt beautiful to do that, and come up out into the station by the Oculus, like everyone else, and make my way up the small steps into the main sunlit cathedral area. Without lingering---lingering would have broken the flow---I kept going with the people around me and crossed the Oculus in laminar flow, and went into the hallway that led to the Number 4 Train.

I went down the long hallways, the succession of them, following one sign up and down stair cases like through a maze and finally got to the Number 4 train. I found the platform for the direction leading down to the tip of Manhattan, and I caught the train. It was half full, and easy to find a seat with the turquoise plastic tube. In a few stops we had come to the tip of the island. But I didn't get off here. I was going to a new place, on this new commute. It was a place I had never commuted to by subway. For this one day at least I was commuting into Brooklyn.

When the Dream Penetrates Reality

Sometimes the surreality of a moment---the penetration of a true dream-like experience into the concrete world of waking consciousness---is so overpowering that there is nothing to do about it but imply it.

From the World Trade Center, I took the group on a gentle arc of a tour through the tip of lower Manhattan, down through the Financial District.

Heading west from the site we walked up Fulton Street alongside St.Paul's Church, where the great Montgomery who fell at Quebec is buried,  and the churchyard behind it, enclosed by the large spiked iron fence. I mentioned how Dey Street was one of the scenes of one of the most famous moments from 9/11, when a particular videographer caught the collapse of the North Tower, and the gush of the dust that came down the street alongside the churchyard to Broadway.

I took then around the front of the church, on the sidewalk along Broadway, directly across the street from old workplace at 222 Broadway. I told them that this stretch of the fence in front of the church is where the wall of posters, seeking out the disappeared and mourning the dead, had sprung up, with heaps of flowers at the foot of the fence, and stuffed animals tied to it.

Then I led them to the corner where Park Row cuts off at a diagonal from Broadway, and opens up into the City Park. I pointed out the Federal Building where there was no doubt legal activity going on in regard to a famous criminal who had just apprehended and was being held in the federal holding facility nearby.

We could barely see the Woolworth Building from that angle. I pointed out the Park Row tower, which used to be the tallest building in the world, as I told them, echoing the brief elevator-pitch tour I'd given to my British and American co-workers many years ago, from nearly the same spot.

Then we crossed Broadway, walking on the sidewalk in front of my old building and headed south on Broadway, passing by One Liberty Plaza, the old Helmsley Building, and the Equitable Building, where at each recognizable structure I gave a couple sentences about its significance and history.

Then at Wall Street we turned and followed the famous little street down past Federal Hall and the statue of George Washing. Being with Ohioans, I made sure to have a picture taken with my cellphone in front of the plaque commemorating the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

I showed them all the stuff you're supposed to see, like the holes in the front of the Morgan Bank caused by the car bombing in 1920, and 40 Wall Street, and of course the original headquarters of a famous private bank down at the bottom of the hill on Pearl Street.

To finish the tour we wound up at the famous historical Fraunces Tavern, having drinks, and thinking about George Washington and his officers. I had not been inside for a long time, maybe ever, in order to have something to drink.

On the way back to the ferry terminal, walking back up Broadway, we passed by the old Customs House and Bowling Green, where, upon hearing the Declaration of Independence proclaimed on July 9, the revolutionaries had torn down the statue of George III.  R. was interested in hearing me point the locations of the great shipping lines of the early and mid Twentieth Century.

Of course there ones find the statue of Charging Bull. How much it had changed.The bull was mobbed and nearly draped with folks taking selfies.  I t was one of the mot popular things in the city. The little island on which it stood was impossible to access We opted out of taking any of our own photos.

Before cutting back up to the ferry terminal, we topped at Trinity Church. K's parents had married there, after emigrating from Wales and Sweden, the two of them.  Of course we sought out Hamilton's grave (which is covered in loose coins that folks have stacked there out of respect).  We also passed by the grave of Robert Fulton, but only I seemed to care about it much.

Probably the most surreal thing that day, something that could have been a dream, had a I dreamed it years ago, but is now an actual reality, was the transformation of the building where I used to work. The old entrance on Broadway, with its covered modernist portico, with an Au Bon Pain where I would get a pastry in the morning after coming out of the subway at the corner of Fulton and Broadway---that whole facade was gone. The entrance of the building had been moved around onto Fulton Street. In its place along Broadway, facing across from St. Paul's, was an entirely new first floor fronting broadway---a well known women's clothing retailer, the sight of which made me laugh out loud when I first glimpsed on while on our tour.