By Geo Ong
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A short (in relation) excerpt from the 1344-page Imperial by William T. Vollmann, a work of nonfiction about the continuum between Mexico and America – more specifically, illegal immigration in Imperial County, a border region in Southeastern California. The excerpt, though cryptic out of context, displays some of the most well-written material I’ve seen in a while.
The fact that the perimeter of Imperial County resembles a distracted child’s attempt to draw a square scarcely distinguishes it, since many other counties in America, especially in the Midwest and Great Plains states, were likewise enacted as defectively wearisome rectangles. Still, we need to start somewhere. It may well be that since this southeast corner of California is so peculiar, enigmatic, sad, beautiful and perfect as it stands, delineation of any sort should be forgone in favor of the recording of ‘pure’ perceptions, for instance by means of a camera alone; or, failing that, by reliance upon word-pictures: a cityscape of withered palms, white tiles, glaring parking lots, and portico-shaded loungers who watch the boxcars groan by; a cropscape of a rich green basil field, whose fragrance rises up as massively resonant as an organ-chord. But I have seen so many old photographs in attics and archives, uncaptioned images of nameless California beauty queens, of lost canals and of obscure professional men in high white collars, all of them pinkening into specters even as the blank desert skies which frame them develop spots of ‘weather’ (brown fixer stains), and maye one of those professional men, whose hair was carefully sidecombed and whose moustachios tamed in order for him to best resemble the man he wanted to be by the time that photographer emergerd from under the focusing cloth, withdrew the dark slide from the film and threw open the shutter on that long ago day before Imperial was a county and the Salton Sea was even born, maybe he, our professional man, deserves to be thanked or cursed for something important; maybe that pretty high school girl in the bathing suit who stands gripping a ship’s wheel in her white, white fingers as she stands by the Salton Sea would mean more to me if I knew the extent to which her grandchildren mourned at her funeral and whether she ever once swam there, whether in her time it stank half as much as it does in mine with half-mummified birds and fishes crunching underfoot, which latter point would interest me extremely because some folks have told me that the Salton Sea is poisonous while others insist that there’s nothing wrong except an extra pinch of salt perhaps. And what should we do about the Salton Sea, which is to say what should we think, and on what basis, not to mention how should we live? Without a past, no matter how controvertible, the present cannot be anything other than a tumble through darkness towards the darkness which neither past nor present can illuminate. Because I’d rather fall through patches of illuminated air, no documentary caption can possibly contain over many facts to please me. Let the reader beware. At least the following attempts at delineation may entertain you by proving how badly I draw squares.
Congratulations! Your reward is an approving nod from each of us. Care to weigh in on what he means? That comment box is there for a reason. *wink *nod *wink *nod *dizzy spell
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
