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Detox

Friday, Jan. 16 2009 UTC

Auckland Domestic Terminal

O’Hare Passenger

Made it to Auckland after two smooth flights, despite weather delays in Chicago, whose temperatures currently come close to rivaling those at the South Pole (albeit with a lot more blowing snow). While waiting in O’Hare for my first plane to come in, I sat and drew the architecture inside the Terminal 3 food court. I do not usually expect food court architecture to draw my interest, but the space in question was particularly non-rectilinear, which made it fun (and hard) to draw.

We finally boarded and, after we managed to alight from the wind-swept snowscapes of Chicago (a twinge of homesickness setting in almost immediately), I brought out the drawing and kept working on it. This turned out to be the icebreaker for a long conversation with a nice law professor from John Marshall Law School in Chicago. Our shared interests in science and Buddhism gave us a surprising amount of territory for discussion.

Changing planes in LA used to be a hurried, two-terminal affair with extra security checkpoints — now it takes all of two minutes to walk from one gate to another. I killed the rest of the time by playing Tap Defense on my iPhone (thanks to Gregory for the new addiction).

Several weeks ago, at one of those random literary urges that strikes from time to time, I picked up Pynchon’s latest novel, “Against the Day” and started re-reading it. Since it weighs in at almost 1100 pages, and since packing light for is for me is almost a religious principle, I planned to leave it behind. But, while I was packing, the book kept calling out to me. There is something about this trip in particular that ties in well with his books (return readers will recall I was reading him at the Pole last year). And, while thinking about my art recently, I realized that he does in fiction something which I would love to do in visual art, which is to create rich tapestries of strangeness, hinting at the corners of mathematics, science, and occult spirituality, that are so beautiful that, though fantastic, they somehow become true, or seemingly so.

A hermitic muse, of sorts. So the book now occupies perhaps 30% of the weight and space of my carry-on backpack.

At the moment, having just downed a freshly-squeezed 'Detox’ juice from the Tank Juice Bar (have to get in those freshies while I can), I have less than an hour before flying to Christchurch. Get bags, take shuttle into town, check into the Devon, go for a jog, take a shower, have an early dinner, and early to bed for me. Night shift at the Pole is my destination. Time to get my plane.