Everyone marks their journeys with signs and I found myself looking for the words and images, those telling artifacts with which I could map my trek. A different map from my road atlas--as useful as it is. Even a different map drawn by a native St. Louisian (?) on yet another map telling me how to get to Ted Drewes. Signs tell different stories; they aren't the stories that people tell, and may not even be actual narratives, but at the very least signs beg the question of a story. Signs certainly tell me how to go, where to go, what direction, even what to be wary about. Signs tell me where I am at any given moment--in the non-existential sense--and how I'm standing in both the past and the present. All kinds of rhetoric--bureaucratic, historical, folksy, humorous, low brow, high brow--that I'm reminded of all that permeates the language we speak everyday. In Texas, just off the I40 and visible from the highway, is, according to the highway billboard, the world's largest cross--clean, white, looming. Large indeed. The promise on the said billboard is the ultimate spiritual experience, and sure enough, there was a semicircle of tour buses at its base, presumably seeking what the billboard claimed. 
Then there are signs that transcend their original intent and become an artifact for history and sacred space.
A few miles south of the Lorraine Motel lies Graceland--another place frozen in time--and there is proof that there are differing opinions as to what constitutes sacred space. Here, signs can become words, notes, things left behind.
I found all the small items at Graceland to be the most poignant.
Driving south on the I55 to Memphis last Saturday, I became rather obsessed with the sign telling me how many more miles I had to travel before I reached my destination. So my weekend was mapped by mileage, history, music, and words. MLK Jr., Elvis, and William Faulkner all had something to say about journeys, maps, and signs. On Friday night, I saw/heard the raucous 80-year-old Red Holloway playing a mighty fine tenor sax here in St. Louis; Sunday night, I was listening to Bessie Smith--this cd I bought on Beale Street--as I sped back to St. Louis. All that came in between these bits of blues and jazz--the National Civil Rights Museum, Beale Street, Rendezvous (great bbq ribs), Graceland, and Rowan Oak (in Oxford MS)--tower over anything that could be built off an interstate highway. 
I found all the small items at Graceland to be the most poignant.
Driving south on the I55 to Memphis last Saturday, I became rather obsessed with the sign telling me how many more miles I had to travel before I reached my destination. So my weekend was mapped by mileage, history, music, and words. MLK Jr., Elvis, and William Faulkner all had something to say about journeys, maps, and signs. On Friday night, I saw/heard the raucous 80-year-old Red Holloway playing a mighty fine tenor sax here in St. Louis; Sunday night, I was listening to Bessie Smith--this cd I bought on Beale Street--as I sped back to St. Louis. All that came in between these bits of blues and jazz--the National Civil Rights Museum, Beale Street, Rendezvous (great bbq ribs), Graceland, and Rowan Oak (in Oxford MS)--tower over anything that could be built off an interstate highway. 
No comments:
Post a Comment