Yet more Wanderlust

I'm about a third of the way through Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust: A History of Walking. It's an interesting book, extremely readable but at the same time very educational. I'm currently reading about William Wordsworth, whose walking pedigree I was unfamiliar with, yet whose exploits Solnit deem worthy of an entire chapter (she goes as far as describing him as "the figure to whom posterity looks in tracing the history of walking in the landscape").

Among the more interesting things I've learned so far are that there's very strong evidence to suggest that it's not our consciousness that sets us apart from other animals but our ability to walk on two legs, a feat that freed our hands to do things other animals couldn't and encouraged our brains to develop (although I'm not sure where the kangaroos fit into this theory), and that galleries where originally places not for displaying art collections but for walking when the weather was inclement. "The gallery eventually became a place for displaying paintings," writes Solnit, "and though museum galleries are still a place where people stroll, the strolling is no longer the point."

On the negative side, Solnit loses points for misspelling the Tokaido (she refers to Hiroshige's Fifty-three Views on the Tokuida Road, which she describes as "a road movie from when roads were for walkers and movies were woodblock prints"), and for using the term Situationism, which anyone familiar with Situationist thought knows is a no-no (or as Guy Debord put it, "There is no such thing as situationism, which would mean a doctrine for interpreting existing conditions. The notion of situationism is obviously devised by antisituationists."). On the other hand, that Hiroshige and Debord (and yes, Werner Herzog) are mentioned at all is indicative of the scope and flavour of Wanderlust.

Theory of the Dérive

You may have noticed that the distances walked on the 20th of February and the 2nd of March were the same. That's because, apart from the last kilometre or two, the route I took into and back from town was the same. What's more, the route I followed in town - from the Bridge of Remembrance to Mondo for lunch and then on to Ticketek at the Town Hall - was also identical. The centre of Christchurch is not particularly interesting (it's completely flat and for the most part the streets run either north-south or east-west), but I'm often surprised at the number of times I find myself walking the exact same routes between the exact same places.

Back in July 2007 I noted how it's possible to find yourself in parts of your own city, a city that you may have lived in your entire life, that are completely unfamiliar to you. I commented how during a walk in North New Brighton Keiko and I "both felt as though we could have been in some completely different city, in some completely different country. Strange how you can live virtually your entire life in some place and still not really know it."

In his oft-quoted 1952 study Paris et l’agglomération parisienne, Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe plotted the movements made in the space of one year by a student living in the 16th Arrondissement to illustrate what he described as "the narrowness of the real Paris in which each individual lives . . . within a geographical area whose radius is extremely small". Most of the chosen student's movements fell within a small triangle, the three apexes of which were her school, her home, and the home of her piano teacher.

Writing in the inaugural issue of the journal Internationale Situationniste, Guy Debord expressed "outrage at the fact that anyone's life can be so pathetically limited". In his essay Theory of the Dérive, he outlined a technique for overcoming this.

One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive [literally: "drifting"], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.

In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.

As Debord himself makes clear, the dérive is different from the kind of carefree walking I referred to in yesterday's post, the benefits of which include offering "a vehicle for much-needed solitude and private thought". For a start, dérives are clearly politically motivated. But they are also best practiced in groups.

One can dérive alone, but all indications are that the most fruitful numerical arrangement consists of several small groups of two or three people who have reached the same level of awareness, since cross-checking these different groups' impressions makes it possible to arrive at more objective conclusions.

Interestingly, a colleague of Debord's compared the dérive to psychoanalysis. Ivan Chtcheglov also pointed out that the dérive brought with it similar risks to those of psychoanalysis. "Just as analysis unaccompanied with anything else is almost always contraindicated," he wrote, "so continual dériving is dangerous to the extent that the individual, having gone too far (not without bases, but...) without defenses, is threatened with explosion, dissolution, dissociation, disintegration." He suggested a week was a good average length for a dérive, adding, "In 1953-1954 we dérived for three or four months straight. That’s the extreme limit. It’s a miracle it didn’t kill us."

Distance walked today: 0km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 76.9km
Days left until departure: 72

Multi-tasking

Once again, Erik has put me to shame. He's vowed to walk ten miles per day, everyday, until he leaves for Japan. How on earth does he do it? Work full time, make wonderful art, blog, and train every day. By being organized, focused, and dedicated, that's how. I, on the other hand, have never been very good at multi-tasking. Last week I was inspired to work on my memoir. I wrote like a demon, getting through most of 2001, which was quite an achievement (it was an eventful year), but everything else suffered. Work, blogging, walking all took a back seat.

Speaking of multi-tasking, last night I sat down and watched Bukowski: Born Into This, a feature-length documentary about the poet and novelist Charles Bukowski. Bukowski managed to be a drunkard, a womanizer, a postal worker, and an incredibly prolific writer all at the same time. Like Guy Debord, he seemed to spend most of his life in varying states of inebriation. And like Debord, he was accused of being a misogynist. He denied the accusation. He said he loved women. In fact he spent a lot of time researching them for one of his novels, Women. But during one astonishing, booze-fueled interview included in the documentary, Bukowski, beer bottle in hand, lashes out both verbally and physically at his then wife, who's seated next to him on the sofa, first claiming she, like all his other girlfriends, had taken advantage of his kind nature, then threatening to hire a "Jew lawyer" to get rid of her, and finally pummeling her with his bare feet like a petulant child. So, a misogynist and an anti-Semite.

I have a bit of a weakness for artists who not only have seriously flawed personalities, but also have no qualms about parading their flaws in public. It's reassuring to look at them and think, I know I've got my problems, but at least I'm not as messed up as that guy. Or, Hey, he's more messed up than me, but he still managed to become a great artist. I guess it helps if you're also incredibly talented. I've never read any Bukowski. But the documentary ended with the following poem, read I think by the author himself, which took my breath away. Not that I wept or anything.

Bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

Distance walked today: 16.2km
Maximum altitude reached: 365m
Total distance walked since blog began: 511.2km
Days left until launch of Kisokaido Project: 58

Warning: may contain spoilers

Crikey. I can't remember the last time I was so moved by the near death of a fictional character. Last night, I watched helplessly as Detective Kima Greggs was gunned down during a botched sting operation against the Barksdale crime syndicate. I kind of saw it coming, but at the same time I was willing it not to happen. Even after watching the two would-be assassins move in on the vehicle in which Greggs was waiting along with the hapless Orlando and open fire, I hoped against hope that as Orlando was sitting in the front seat he would have borne the brunt of the assault and Greggs would have been spared. It was a cliffhanger ending, the first time the makers of The Wire had resorted to such a cliché, and the fact that they didn't show her body told me she must have survived. Still, that didn't stop me putting on the next episode and watching for another hour to see how she was, despite the fact that it was well past my normal bedtime.

There was no such drama on Wednesday night when I read in The Game of War about the death of Guy Debord, also the victim of a gun assault, but in his case self-administered. Whatever the circumstances, it's always tragic when someone takes their own life, although it had all been foreshadowed at the start of the book, and an argument made that it was inevitable given Debord's fascination as a youth with the Surrealists, who asked themselves the question, "We live, we die. Where is the function of the will in all that?" and in many cases chose suicide as the answer.

Distance walked today: 0km
Total distance walked since blog began: 78.4km

Missing

According to the Guy Debord biography I'm currently reading, a book called Enrages et Situationnistes dans le mouvement des occupations (Enrages and Situationists in the Occupations Movement), co-written by Debord but attributed to his "oafish" sidekick Rene Vienet as a kind of in-joke, was the most stolen book in Parisian bookshops after the "events" of May 1968.

Reading The Game of War made me want to have another go at reading Debord's The Society of the Spectacle, but when I had a look on by bookshelf I found it was missing. Thinking about this last night prompted me to compile this list of the best of the books I've lent to people that haven't been returned. (These are all books that have genuinely "walked". The list doesn't include recent loans that I'm sure people are still reading, or have finished but haven't quite gotten around to returning yet but will do some time in the not too distant future. Also not included are titles that I've lost but have since replaced.)

• The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord. See above. Yes, I know the entire text is available online, but it's just not the same, is it.
• The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy by Murray Bookchin. Considerable sentimental value. I ordered it at great expense from a bookshop in Tokyo while living in Japan in the 1990s. You'll know it if you see it; I underlined bits, and even scribbled notes on some of the pages (something I don't usually do), mostly meanings of words I was't familiar with at the time.
• The Blood of Others by Simone de Beauvoir. One of the few novels that I've read more than once. Adapted in 1984 into a movie directed by Claude Chabrol, "a master in the mystery genre", that wasn't absolutely dire, but did seem to tinker unnecessarily with the plot. (Obligatory mention of dubious New Zealand connection: stars "self-effacing thinking woman's sex symbol" Sam Neill as a Nazi officer.)
• Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media edited by Mark Achbar. The glossy companion book to the movie, including eighteen "Philosopher All-Stars" baseball cards in mint condition. At least they were in mint condition when I last saw the book.

Distance walked today: 0km
Total distance walked since blog began: 78.4km

Tourism again

The other day while doing a bit of research on hatago (inns that provided accommodation and meals for commoners, as opposed to honjin, which were reserved for daimyo, or feudal lords, and their retainers), I came across this interesting article which explains how the development of the Nakasendo and the other major highways of Edo Japan was closely linked to the introduction by the Tokugawa shogunate of the sankin kotai, or alternate attendance, policy.

Although details of this policy changed throughout the 250-year rule of the Tokugawa clan, in general terms, the requirement was that daimyo had to move periodically between Edo and their fief, usually spending alternate years in each location. Also, members of their family were forced to live permanently in Edo as hostages. The idea was that the expenditure necessary to maintain residences in both locations, and to make the processions (sometimes up to 350 strong) to and from Edo, would financially strain the daimyo and prohibit them from waging war.

But what initially caught my eye in this article, particularly in light of my recent posting on tourism, was the heading: How shoguns created the world's first travel industry. The author argues that Japan was "the first country in the world in which great numbers of ordinary people routinely traveled long distances on pleasure trips".

While there's little doubt that the sankin kotai system was a major factor in the development of the five highways and the network of inns of various grades along these highways, I do think this statement rather glosses over the severe restrictions that the Tokugawa regime placed on domestic travel (overseas travel, of course, was strictly prohibited).

There was a travel boom among the ordinary populace in the Edo period, but it was centered on short trips to hot springs or for sightseeing, since movement around the country was not officially permitted except for those on pilgrimages or other visits of a religious nature. Movement in and out of Tokyo in particular was severely restricted, with barrier towns established on all the main highways leading to the capital. (In one of these barrier towns, Hakone, the original checkpoint buildings have been restored and transformed into a museum.)

So what category of travel does the Kisokaido Project fall under? Well, I don't think it can be classified as tourism in the Debordian sense (i.e. "the leisure of going to see what has become banal"). Nor is it a pilgrimage as such, although it does have elements of a pilgrimage, albeit in a totally non-religious sense. I like to think of it as a journey whose route and timing have been determined in advance, but whose true purpose and meaning will only be revealed as the journey unfolds. One thing that's certain (and Debord would certainly approve of this) is that fun will be had.

Distance walked today: 0km
Total distance walked since blog began: 78.4km

Silver linings

The toe felt pretty good this morning, about as good as it did last Thursday when I was able to drive over to the other side of town to see some friends, and definitely a lot better then Saturday, when I was completely housebound. But there were still signs of an infection, so I made an appointment with the doctor and went to see him just after midday. I came away with a prescription for another week's worth of a different antibiotic (one small yellowish tablet at night with food, as opposed to the old two white tablets twice a day). We're going to review things again in a week once I've polished those off.

This period of enforced inactivity hasn't been completely without its benefits. Sunday was the first day of complete relaxation I've had for a very long time. I got up latish and watched a bit of the replay of the Crusaders' Super 14 semifinal before having a bath. The rest of the day I spent watching TV, listening to music, and reading. For dinner I sent Keiko out to buy fish and chips, despite the fact that she doesn't like them.

I finished reading Nelson Demille's latest thriller, Wild Fire, which I found unconvincing and a bit of a disappointment, especially after Word of Honour, which I'd finished just a couple of weeks previously. The latter is probably my favourite DeMille book to date, although I also enjoyed Spencerville. DeMille and Gerald Seymour are really the only thriller writers I care for. I usually take one or the other with me whenever I go overseas to pass the time in airports, aeroplanes, and hotels.

Also on Saturday I started reading Andrew Hussey's The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord. It's an old library copy someone lent to me years ago that remained untouched on my bookshelf until a week or so ago when for some reason, I can't remember why, I suddenly felt the urge to read it and so promoted to the top of my admittedly short reading list. As a vastly more experienced fellow blogger reminded me the other day when I felt I had nothing worthwhile to say and resorted to posting a quote from Debord, I vowed to keep this blog apolitical, so I won't comment about the contents other than to admit that the passionate, iconoclastic, uncompromising, totally committed, no-holds-barred, fun-loving approach to art/life of Debord and those around him is something that I've long admired. Or rather, envied.

Distance walked today: 0km
Total distance walked since blog began: 78.4km

Tourism

"Tourism, human circulation considered as consumption, a by-product of the circulation of commodities, is fundamentally nothing more than the leisure of going to see what has become banal. The economic organization of visits to different places is already in itself the guarantee of their equivalence. The same modernization that removed time from the voyage also removed from it the reality of space."

- Guy Ernest Debord

Distance walked today: 3km
Total distance walked since blog began: 78.4km