Following is the text, the preface (?) for Part One. The stories in this initial section deal with early life in Mililani, from childhood to the start of high school... Although it would be thematically consistent to have all stories deal with the end of innocence (in degrees, perhaps), I'm afraid that not all of the three (four?) stories in this section do. But what they do share, largely by design, is the common image of the "trench"...
I start with a quote taken from Wikipedia about Mars itself, and then attempt to tie the quote into the general theme of the stories within this "part."
Here goes:
Part I. Life in the Trenches
“The Italian word canale (plural canali) can mean ‘canals’ (including artificial canals or ducts) or ‘channels’ or ‘gullies’. This ambiguity also exists in cognate words in other Romance languages such as French (canal), and also in German (Kanal).
It is often stated that Schiaparelli [an Italian astronomer who observed Martian ‘canali’] intended the meaning ‘channels’ and that ‘canals’ was a misunderstanding or mistranslation into English. Nevertheless, the English term ‘canals’ [artificially constructed waterways] was used from the very earliest accounts in English, and as far as is known, Schiaparelli made no effort to correct the supposed misunderstanding if he was aware of it....
It is perhaps not so odd that the idea of Martian canals was so readily accepted by many. At the time, in the late 19th century, telescopic observers had difficulty distinguishing exactly what they were seeing when they looked at Mars.... In addition, the late 19th century was a time of great canal building on Earth. For instance, the Suez Canal was completed in 1869, and the abortive French attempt to build the Panama Canal began in 1880. It is perhaps natural that some thought similar projects were being undertaken on Mars.”
-From the Wikipedia entry on “Martian Canals” as of June 22, 2006
The compulsion to perceive an origin, a once upon a time, is like an unreachable itch. Small wonder, then, that upon the landscape of yesterday’s desert world, we continually “start from scratch,” digging straight lines in the dust with our eyes, in the hope that someday we may draw water from imaginary polar seas, and irrigate the dead and forgotten to renewed life. “The canals are there,” we announce excitedly to the world, “I can see them, yes, yes, they are definitely there!”
No one has the heart to point out the scratches upon our telescopic lens.
Least of all, ourselves...
Sunday, December 2, 2007
A Poem: Revisioning Marsilani Poem [a pathetic attempt]
We
here, it's said,
live a charmed life
a lucky life.
We are safeguarded by
a glyph,
hushing us shut
an aegis shaped like
rainbows-horseshoes-hugs
a promise-a blessing-an embrace.
But rainbows!
teeter unsteady,
to people who never rode one.
They have one foot
the other end's a cloud
(and we all know what happens to clouds)
and that one foot-
if you ever find it,
lift it
show me
the pot,
the leprechaun,
without the whole color'd arch
toppling over.
And horseshoes!
are magnets
and magnets draw blood-
rusted hemoglobin-
always back
and always down
twisting it in symmetric
patterns of force.
A hug?
This community never embraced me
and my culdesac was
a forgotten alveolic sac
noosed off
air-starved.
Speak of hugs, but
hugs are close kin
to choke-holds.
here, it's said,
live a charmed life
a lucky life.
We are safeguarded by
a glyph,
hushing us shut
an aegis shaped like
rainbows-horseshoes-hugs
a promise-a blessing-an embrace.
But rainbows!
teeter unsteady,
to people who never rode one.
They have one foot
the other end's a cloud
(and we all know what happens to clouds)
and that one foot-
if you ever find it,
lift it
show me
the pot,
the leprechaun,
without the whole color'd arch
toppling over.
And horseshoes!
are magnets
and magnets draw blood-
rusted hemoglobin-
always back
and always down
twisting it in symmetric
patterns of force.
A hug?
This community never embraced me
and my culdesac was
a forgotten alveolic sac
noosed off
air-starved.
Speak of hugs, but
hugs are close kin
to choke-holds.
The meaning of Mililani
From my scanty and shoddy research, there seems to be a discrepancy in the meaning of "Mililani." According to the plaque at Mililani Town Center, the name "Mililani" was given to this region by the developers, Castle and Cooke, who intended it to be a planned community for middle to upper middle classers. On this plaque, as I recall, "Mililani" is supposed to mean "Look Skyward." Many of the streets in Mililani Town actually reflect this meaning of the town name, as they refer to stars and other heavenly bodies. For example, Meheula Parkway, the large thoroughfare running the length of Mililani (from Mililani Mauka all the way to "Safeway side") means "Pathway of the Sun" (lit: "with a redness"), and Aohoku Place, the culdesac I grew up in, is the Hawaiian name for Jupiter.
Yet, in other texts, Hawaiian dictionaries, for example, the name "Mililani" actually seems to mean something more along the lines of "Giving thanks." The "Hawaiian Street Names" book by Budnick and Wise translates "Mililani" as "To praise; exalt." It's possible that the latter definition may be "stretched" to include or connote the initial definition of looking skyward, as you tend to "look up" at what you "raise up" through praise (okay, okay, maybe I AM stretching it).
In any case, the plaque in Town Center says what it says. And it's that definition that I am taking advantage of, to critique Mililani...
By the way, a point of interest: Kipapa Gulch, the "wound" that encircles a large part of Mililani Town, and a popular and famous haunting ground (ghostly hitchhikers, the night marchers, etc.) has a name which means almost precisely the opposite of "Mililani." "Kipapa" means to lay prone, and if we take the [medical] definition of "prone," this means to lay FACE DOWN. The name "Kipapa" was given to the gulch after a major and legendary battle about 700 years ago, when a large army from the Big Island sought to invade Oahu, and was soundly defeated in the gulch. It was said that the floor of the gulch was filled with corpses, "lain prone."
The juxtaposition (or perhaps superimposing) of the two names is very interesting and intriguing to me. The one name, for the gulch below, refers to a bloody battle, to the corpses lying at the gulch floor. The other name, for the town built above, an "exalted" town with people who "only look up." This, to me, is a key dynamic of Mililani, its denial of the past violence beneath its feet, its middle class Pollyanna optimism...
Yet, in other texts, Hawaiian dictionaries, for example, the name "Mililani" actually seems to mean something more along the lines of "Giving thanks." The "Hawaiian Street Names" book by Budnick and Wise translates "Mililani" as "To praise; exalt." It's possible that the latter definition may be "stretched" to include or connote the initial definition of looking skyward, as you tend to "look up" at what you "raise up" through praise (okay, okay, maybe I AM stretching it).
In any case, the plaque in Town Center says what it says. And it's that definition that I am taking advantage of, to critique Mililani...
By the way, a point of interest: Kipapa Gulch, the "wound" that encircles a large part of Mililani Town, and a popular and famous haunting ground (ghostly hitchhikers, the night marchers, etc.) has a name which means almost precisely the opposite of "Mililani." "Kipapa" means to lay prone, and if we take the [medical] definition of "prone," this means to lay FACE DOWN. The name "Kipapa" was given to the gulch after a major and legendary battle about 700 years ago, when a large army from the Big Island sought to invade Oahu, and was soundly defeated in the gulch. It was said that the floor of the gulch was filled with corpses, "lain prone."
The juxtaposition (or perhaps superimposing) of the two names is very interesting and intriguing to me. The one name, for the gulch below, refers to a bloody battle, to the corpses lying at the gulch floor. The other name, for the town built above, an "exalted" town with people who "only look up." This, to me, is a key dynamic of Mililani, its denial of the past violence beneath its feet, its middle class Pollyanna optimism...
A Poem: Marsilani, original version
Following is the original version of the "Marsilani" poem intended to encapsulate the collection of short stories. Clumsy, almost better as prose.
Mars-ilani
“Mililani” means “Look Up”
(“Look Skyward,” to be poetic).
For the lower to middle class suburbanites who moved here in the late 60's,
How apt:
Hope,
Look up,
And you too can someday reach the stars.
Mililani’s symbol is the horseshoe
(a three-colored rainbow, to be poetic),
a bridge of dreams,
the embrace of a community,
etc., etc., etc.
I was born and raised in Mililani.
And, like the fruit of a tired tree,
Fell and returned here,
Laying roots in its rusty soil.
Now,
When I look upon my town’s symbol,
I see neither a bridge nor an embrace.
I see the inevitable path of middle class life.
For if it is a rainbow,
it is on the verge of collapsing in on itself,
teetering unsteady
on one invisible pot of gold.
And if it is a horseshoe,
then it is a horseshoe magnet,
drawing the very iron in my blood back
to join the rust of its soil.
If an embrace,
then it holds me
like an umbilical culdesac noose.*
“Mililani” means “Look Up.”
But if you look down,
you may see
ancient tectonic rifts
buckling the pavement.
Look around, and find,
not commonality,
but indifference.
Alienation, a constant companion,
and aliens, sometimes acquaintances.
“Mililani” means “Look Up.”
But all I see
through haze of street lamp and telescopic lens
is a glass mirrored ceiling.
Where my reflection should be standing
in the midst of my hometown,
I only see Mars:
blood soiled,
canal scarred,
rumored of life,
certain of war;
And a Martian,
trying to find a way
to where I’m
supposed to be,
trying to discover
intelligent life.
Thus it is that I dub thee
“Mars-ilani”
town of past futures
and futures passed,
where aliens
shy of escape velocity
find
home
away from home.
* Culdesacs, the “leaves” (if not the flowers) of suburban development, are banned in some modern communities because of the high incidence of a specific kind of “freak accident”: parents unsuspectingly backing over their toddler children, whom they left to play unsupervised in supposed “safety.” An apt symbol for suburban life in general, where “[apparently] nothing ever happens.”
Mililani’s symbol, by the way, resembles a culdesac. Read the story “Culdesacs: Suburban Dream or Dead End” by John Nielsen in the June 7th 2006 broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition.”
[There was also some interview on November 3rd, with an author, something Foley? About suburbia. Noted it, but can't remember currently.]
Mars-ilani
“Mililani” means “Look Up”
(“Look Skyward,” to be poetic).
For the lower to middle class suburbanites who moved here in the late 60's,
How apt:
Hope,
Look up,
And you too can someday reach the stars.
Mililani’s symbol is the horseshoe
(a three-colored rainbow, to be poetic),
a bridge of dreams,
the embrace of a community,
etc., etc., etc.
I was born and raised in Mililani.
And, like the fruit of a tired tree,
Fell and returned here,
Laying roots in its rusty soil.
Now,
When I look upon my town’s symbol,
I see neither a bridge nor an embrace.
I see the inevitable path of middle class life.
For if it is a rainbow,
it is on the verge of collapsing in on itself,
teetering unsteady
on one invisible pot of gold.
And if it is a horseshoe,
then it is a horseshoe magnet,
drawing the very iron in my blood back
to join the rust of its soil.
If an embrace,
then it holds me
like an umbilical culdesac noose.*
“Mililani” means “Look Up.”
But if you look down,
you may see
ancient tectonic rifts
buckling the pavement.
Look around, and find,
not commonality,
but indifference.
Alienation, a constant companion,
and aliens, sometimes acquaintances.
“Mililani” means “Look Up.”
But all I see
through haze of street lamp and telescopic lens
is a glass mirrored ceiling.
Where my reflection should be standing
in the midst of my hometown,
I only see Mars:
blood soiled,
canal scarred,
rumored of life,
certain of war;
And a Martian,
trying to find a way
to where I’m
supposed to be,
trying to discover
intelligent life.
Thus it is that I dub thee
“Mars-ilani”
town of past futures
and futures passed,
where aliens
shy of escape velocity
find
home
away from home.
* Culdesacs, the “leaves” (if not the flowers) of suburban development, are banned in some modern communities because of the high incidence of a specific kind of “freak accident”: parents unsuspectingly backing over their toddler children, whom they left to play unsupervised in supposed “safety.” An apt symbol for suburban life in general, where “[apparently] nothing ever happens.”
Mililani’s symbol, by the way, resembles a culdesac. Read the story “Culdesacs: Suburban Dream or Dead End” by John Nielsen in the June 7th 2006 broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition.”
[There was also some interview on November 3rd, with an author, something Foley? About suburbia. Noted it, but can't remember currently.]
AWESOME
Now, I'm not a football person, but tonight's win (UH over Washington) was AWESOME. Final Score: 35-28. It's especially impressive considering how far behind UH was: in the first quarter, they were back 21 points. Way to turn it around.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Getting Better... Still...
The score now is 28-14, UW... No, let me amend that, 28- 21!!! Can't help myself. Don't usually watch, but let's hope UH can win DESPITE me.
Jinxer
I decided not to actively watch the UH-UW game. I was watching the first few minutes, in which Washington scored two touchdowns with apparent ease, and almost took Brennan out. De-pressing... My via-negativa perspective is probably jinxing the team. So, I'll check in, fleetingly, periodically, just to check on the score. Not long enough to do any more damage...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)