I remember the first time I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (translated) in Beverly Drapalik's high school English class. This story was my introduction to Magical Realism and it both irritated and fascinated my logical-oriented mind to allow for the "willful suspension of disbelief." While the actual details of the story have fluttered from my memory like feathers in the wind, I have found myself time and time again, drawn to this realm of magical thinking. This exposure doesn't imply comfort; I often feel like a person next to a large, cold pool, willing to put a toe in the water but shivering with goose bumps at the thought of going deeper. This weekend however, I dove.
Tombstone, Arizona - 'the town too tough to die'
Saturday and Sunday I was in Tombstone, AZ with relatives. My uncle in Phoenix had coordinated a trip for my grandfather, brother and I to visit so we took a road trip from California through time to the late 1800s Arizona frontier. Tombstone, founded on a silver vein in 1879, quickly grew to a population of more than 15,000 people including the notorious Cowboys and celebrated personalities such as Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, Johnny Ringo, Big Nose Kate and other characters of the West memorialized in legend, lore, and Hollywood. Touring the dirt streets of Tombstone required a healthy suspension of disbelief. Citizens wandered the streets in full 1890s garb: boots and cow boy hats, dresses and bonnets, guns, rifles, pistols, knives. The Bird Cage Theater still stands in its 1800s splendor, as does Big Nose Kates Saloon, once the Grand Hotel (at three stories, a skyscraper), the County Courthouse, the Boothill graveyard, and the OK Coral. Locals and tourists alike spend the day wondering from shop to shop, telling ghost stories, talking guns, spreading gossip and legends. Life here is both 2007 and 1887. While entertaining, it isn't just a show any more than Disney is just an amusement park- it is a custom, a lifestyle, a culture-- Americana. The Wild West in all it's violence and ugliness, is part of our collective (un)consciousness, our manifest destiny--all the hope and despair connected to that phrase.
Driving the six hours back on Monday, I was greeted at home with the news of the tragedy at Virgina Tech. My heart and prayers go out to everyone affected from the senseless violence. This too is now part of our shared consciousness...as much as I wish it wasn't; as much as I wish it was all make believe. There's nothing magical about it.
Tombstone, Arizona - 'the town too tough to die'
Saturday and Sunday I was in Tombstone, AZ with relatives. My uncle in Phoenix had coordinated a trip for my grandfather, brother and I to visit so we took a road trip from California through time to the late 1800s Arizona frontier. Tombstone, founded on a silver vein in 1879, quickly grew to a population of more than 15,000 people including the notorious Cowboys and celebrated personalities such as Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, Johnny Ringo, Big Nose Kate and other characters of the West memorialized in legend, lore, and Hollywood. Touring the dirt streets of Tombstone required a healthy suspension of disbelief. Citizens wandered the streets in full 1890s garb: boots and cow boy hats, dresses and bonnets, guns, rifles, pistols, knives. The Bird Cage Theater still stands in its 1800s splendor, as does Big Nose Kates Saloon, once the Grand Hotel (at three stories, a skyscraper), the County Courthouse, the Boothill graveyard, and the OK Coral. Locals and tourists alike spend the day wondering from shop to shop, telling ghost stories, talking guns, spreading gossip and legends. Life here is both 2007 and 1887. While entertaining, it isn't just a show any more than Disney is just an amusement park- it is a custom, a lifestyle, a culture-- Americana. The Wild West in all it's violence and ugliness, is part of our collective (un)consciousness, our manifest destiny--all the hope and despair connected to that phrase.
Driving the six hours back on Monday, I was greeted at home with the news of the tragedy at Virgina Tech. My heart and prayers go out to everyone affected from the senseless violence. This too is now part of our shared consciousness...as much as I wish it wasn't; as much as I wish it was all make believe. There's nothing magical about it.
1 comment:
Tombstone was unique and I'd even recommend people to visit. I'd compare it to Vegas, in the fact that it's a destination in and of itself, but it really is more of a reflection or facade of other times and places. (that and both are primarily desert). While maybe not effectively, I was trying to communicate in the blog that you have to suspend your disbelief and allow for the juxtapositions of modern and ancient to appreciate Tombstone, and in a way, regardless of one's impressions of tombstone, just allowing make believing has value.
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