VV(11): Submarine Country

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

                         k i n g  o f  t h e  s u b w a y



                         he must have been there all night,

                         yo-yoing out to brooklyn and back,

                        tons of water swirling over his head
                            
                          and he perhaps dreaming his own

                           submarine country, peopled by 
                          
                          mermaids and deep-sea creatures

                                    all at peace

                         among the rocks and sunken galleons;



                          must have slept through rush hour,

                          with all sorts of suit-wearers and

                            high-heel dolls glaring at him                     
                            
                         because he was taking up three sitting

                           spaces but none of them daring to

                                      wake him.



                                         if 
  
                                   under the street

                                         and 

                                    under the sea 

                                         are

                                 the same then he was

                                     king of both.                             
    
                                                                                
                    


 question, repeated: what about tony tanner's 
 "underground/undersea=subsonsciousness"-thesis?
 seems to fit here, but isn't it, however, 
 a little "too ontological"?!



                                                  only time i slept in in the   
                                                  subway for longer was rather  
                                                  unpleasant. it was the last   
                                                  train, and i was woken at the 
                                                  final station by two security 
                                                  guards dressed in black,      
                                                  harshly telling me to get     
                                                  off...  


 cindy "deep diving" lou                                                        
                                                                         


Dave Monroe schrieb:

> "On the Lexington Avenue downtown he saw a bum lying across the aisle,
> diagonal on the seat  He was king of the subway.  He must have been
> there all night, yo-yoing out to Brooklyn and back, tons of water
> swirling over his head and he perhaps dreaming his own submarine
> country, people by mermaids and deep-sea creatures all at peace among
> the rocks and sunken galleons ..." (V., Ch. 8, Sec. 1, p. 215)
>
> Okay, the Lexington Avenue subway line, then, very good.  But the "king
> of the subway," you'll note, has a greater amplitude, has a further
> apocheir than our Profane protagonist, who "wanted to stay in Manhattan"
> (p. 214).  Again, see that map ...
>
> http://www.nycsubway.org/maps/historical/1959_a.gif
>
> But to continue.  On that "submarine country," cf., of course, not only
> Pierce Inverarity's artificial galleon-and-skeleton strewn Fangoso
> Lagoons in The Crying of Lot 49, but also the following  ...
>
> I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
>
> I do not think that they will sing to me.
>
> I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
> Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
> When the wind blows the water white and black.
>
> We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
> By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
> Till human voices wake us, and we drown
>
> >From T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917), lines
> 124-31, conveniently online @
>
> http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html
>
> Not to mention that "atomic" submarine ride at Disneyland, e.g., ...
>
> "Richard Nixon and his family were the first passengers on the ride,
> which featured a trip past a graveyard of sunken ships.  The real
> meaning of atomic weapons technology had been contained through its
> transformation into an amusement."
>
> >From p. 86 of Mark Langer, "Why the Atom is Our Friend: Disney, General
> Dynamics and the USS Nautilus," Art History, Vol. 18, No. 1 (March
> 1995), pp. 63-96.  Or  the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride, for that
> matter.  See ...
>
> Fjellman, Stephen M.  Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World and
>     America.  Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992.
>
> ... pp. 276, 339, 340.  By the way, again, I've not been to The Big
>
> Apple, but I have taken the BART under San Francisco Bay to Berkeley and
> back again.  A truly humbling experience, actually, felt regal only in
> the sense of "royally scared," but was pleased nonetheless fortuitously
> to have the Stone Roses b-side "Going Down" on the mix tape in my
> Walkman.  "Ring a ding ding ding, I'm going down" ...
>