Some mornings I feel like Auggie Wren

 

You remember Auggie Wren who lives in Brooklyn and runs a tobacconist shop on the corner of Third Street and Seventh Avenue? Every day he takes his Canon 35mm SLR camera out into the street at 8.00 am and takes a shot of the same street corner, his corner, day after day.

 

 

"They’re all the same, but each one is different from every other one. You’ve got your bright mornings; your fog mornings; you’ve got your summer light and your autumn light; you’ve got your weekdays and your weekends; you’ve got your people in overcoats and galoshes and you’ve got your people in t-shirts and shorts. Sometimes same people, sometimes different ones. Sometimes different ones become the same, and the same ones disappear. The earth revolves around the sun and every day the light from the sun hits the earth from a different angle."

 

 

People walking to work. The 7-Eleven truck making a morning delivery. The old guy walking his dog. And there, more than once, is Paul’s late wife, Ellen. Alive, lithe, and now dead. What is the meaning of Auggie’s odyssey? Why take the same picture every day? Auster does not give us a direct answer, at least not by way of straightforward exposition.

However, the clues are all there in the screenplay. While Auggie seems to record the same scene day after day, never varying his routine, it is not in fact always the same. The cityscape Auggie frames in his lens is subject to constant change: variations in weather and light and the constant, ever-changing stream of humanity passing by.

The city, just like the lives of the people who inhabit it, has a veneer of permanence: on Auggie’s corner the days, seasons, years come and go with tedious repetition. But look a little closer and we see that the city is in the throes of constant, dynamic change and we, Auster implies, are an integral part of that ever-changing city.

We are all in the process of dying, whatever journey we choose to take through life, or whatever course is determined for us, each of us is marching forward towards our inevitable demise. So it is with cities, even as New York City grows it decays, its demise is built into the steel and concrete of its very bones. All cities rise and fall, the apparent solidity of Manhattan is but a flickering candle destined to be snuffed out in the maw of entropy.

Instinctively, perhaps, Auggie realises this and so presses ahead with his photographic project with no specific aim or intended destination. It will only be brought to a conclusion, we infer, when his own life reaches the end of its final reel.

It's time for me to do my Auggie Wren stuff and take a shot of my "corner". "It's my corner, after all. To me it's just one little part of the world but things take place there too, just like everywhere else."

Some mornings I feel like Auggie Wren.

(Read Paul Auster's book here or listen to it here)

 

Das Lied meines Lebens?

 

 

Heute hier, morgen dort, bin kaum da, muss ich fort Hab mich niemals deswegen beklagt Hab es selbst so gewählt, nie die Jahre gezählt Nie nach Gestern und Morgen gefragt Manchmal träume ich schwer und dann denk ich es wär Zeit zu bleiben und nun was ganz andres zu tun So vergeht Jahr um Jahr und es ist mir längst klar Dass nichts bleibt, dass nichts bleibt, wie es war Dass man mich kaum vermisst, schon nach Tagen vergisst Wenn ich längst wieder anderswo bin Stört und kümmert mich nicht, vielleicht bleibt mein Gesicht Doch dem Ein' oder Andern im Sinn Manchmal träume ich schwer, und dann denk ich es wär Zeit zu bleiben und nun was ganz andres zu tun So vergeht Jahr um Jahr und es ist mir längst klar Dass nichts bleibt, dass nichts bleibt, wie es war Fragt mich einer, warum ich so bin, bleib ich stumm Denn die Antwort darauf fällt mir schwer Denn was neu ist, wird alt, und was gestern noch galt Stimmt schon heut oder morgen nicht mehr Manchmal träume ich schwer und dann denk ich es wär Zeit zu bleiben und nun was ganz andres zu tun So vergeht Jahr um Jahr und es ist mir längst klar Dass nichts bleibt, dass nichts bleibt, wie es war

 

"Don't sell Riverbend; that would be the ultimate sin."

Noel's framed message, a postcard, is standing on the far left in front of the Burmese harp

 

Thus wrote my old mate Noel Butler back in April 1995. Eighteen months earlier, in a sudden rush of blood to the head, I had bought Riverbend even though I barely knew the business end of a spade, let alone what to do with it.

Of course, we all have such dreams. Many years before, I had already bought DIY-books on how to build a cabin in the woods, on how to milk a cow, and how to build a chicken coop. They never made it to the top of my bookshelf which was occupied by 'The Practice of Modern Internal Auditing', 'Petroleum Accounting: Principles, Procedures & Issues', 'Ship Operations and Management', and 'Pick Basic: A Programmer's Guide', and other esoteric works on accountancy standards, IATA rules, laytime calculations, charter parties, and case studies in forensic auditing.

Noel, too, on coming back to Australia after a lifetime spent in New Guinea, had tried to follow his dream of a bucolic life in the country, first at Caboolture, then at Mt Perry, and finally in Childers. He knew as much - or rather, as little - about it as I did, since he'd conveniently forgotten that in New Guinea he'd never held more than a cold beer in his hand as he oversaw a small army of haus bois doing all the hard work.

I, too, had conveniently forgotten that life in the country does not mix easily with computer code, spreadsheets, internal rates of return, and public rulings by the tax office, and had toyed with the idea of selling up again almost as soon as the ink had dried on the settlement cheque.

Noel had known of this, and as his life slipped slowly from autumn into winter and, just a few months later, into permanent hibernation, his last message reminded me not to give up on the dream because, as he so clearly foresaw, "... that [this] would be the ultimate sin."

His message sits on my mantelpiece to remind me of a wonderful friend, a wonderful friendship, and a wonderful piece of advice.