Horseshoe Bay --> Departure Bay (notes in between the New York Times and Geoff Dyer's But Beautiful) [return trip addendums from the Duke Point --> Vancouver run in brackets]

The creased grey sea, foam-flecked, low dark lines of distant peninsulas and islands. Barges; a white sail heeling with the wind; the express hydrofoil arrowing straight for Vancouver, the city invisible behind a grey screen of rain and cloud.

Breaks of blue, at first just hints of sun, later blossoming into hard, metallic colors.

Hot sunlight on my face.

Mist streaming from cloud-edges as if from a wet road or fencepost.

Harmac's blue plume.

"He wasn't cut out to be an entrepreneur: he was the kind of man who, when reaching for the phone, would knock a cup of coffee off the edge of the desk and into an open drawer, thereby ensuring not only that any documents that were in the drawer were ruined but also that the first thing a caller heard was not a pleasant voice saying 'Hello, can I help you?' but Mingus yelling 'Shit!'"

The recognition that every object depicted in [Evan] Lee's photographs is a symbol of something else. Criticism thus consists of acknowledging what is physically present in the images (cardboard boxes; ginseng roots; draughtsman's tools; spilled glitter and confetti) and what is not (galaxies; exotic birds; predatory cartoon faces).

[Material allegory]

"The dark earth is the mirror of the star-strewn sky." [Foucault]

"There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O earth, what changes hast thou seen!
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea."

"It's now time for all vehicle passengers to return to the vehicle deck."

(Thanks to South Wellington's Daph, Pete & the cats for hospitality, Moomin merch and the E&N railtracks. 15+ miles of hiking from Departure Bay to Duke Point, 40-odd pounds of used books on my back).
- posted by cjb @ 9:02 PM