Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Disappearing Unknown



I have to wonder what the disappearing unknown does to the human psyche.  When I was growing up, people harbored not-so-secret dreams of escaping to some far away place, some exotic land.  There was a man down the street who worked on the sailboat he was building in his back yard.  He would sail away.  Tahiti, perhaps, or further.  On weekends he would go out and tinker.  Writers and painters told us it was there.  And it was.  You didn't have to go, only to know that you could.  Take to the mountains and jungles and high seas.  

Lowell Thomas and Marlin Perkins and Jacques Cousteau.  National Geographic.  

Somewhere on a velvet couch in a place far away, dimly lit in a mysterious chamber, a soothsayer, perhaps, or an incubus, a land filled with djinns and genies, there lay adventure.  


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