Thursday, March 31, 2011

Day 22: Create a bridge

I was saving this book for a special project, because it's one of my absolute favorites. I came across 'Winter's Tale' in my High School library, but fell in love with it immediately and spent years tracking down a copy.
It's a complicated book, and I'll admit it's not the kind that will be a favorite with everyone who reads it. The plot twists and turns through time and place, and pinning down what it's actually about can be tricky. It's about people, and New York from its aristocratic heights to the terrifying depths of slums, and how dreams shape history and what we do echoes down through time. If you're in love with cities, this is well worth reading.
Bridge of light, cast on the wall.
The main character, Peter Lake, has an influence in the course of the city's history in a dozen different ways, although to his perspective he never does anything all that exceptional. He may be one of the few characters in the book who doesn't have big world-changing dreams. One of the dreamers is a man named Jackson Mead, and his grand dream is building bridges. He sees them as eternal rainbows, a kind of heavenly architecture. It's not just the construction he's in love with, but the very concept of what a bridge is, and how it connects people and places.
It's probably important to note that even though this story takes place in New York, it's a kind of mythical New York that isn't quite historically accurate. In a way this New York is even larger than life, and much of the story takes place around the turn of the century.
Brooklyn Bridge, 1896
It's late, and I'm failing at finding the words to adequately describe this complex and moving story.

The bridge I've created is made of light, which is an entire rainbow in itself. I made a stencil using this photo of the Brooklyn Bridge, so with a good light source it can be projected to bridge just about anything you want to connect.

4 comments:

  1. Ahhh...you did get to work on shadow puppets, of a sort!

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  2. Sort of a reverse shadow puppet! I... spent most of the day having a headache and sleeping. Now the cat is limping, so I guess we're some kind of sick house...

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  3. This is neat...and very theatrical!

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  4. Thanks! It could probably be better if I could find my Maglite, it needs a good light source. The blue from the dinky LED keychain flashlight did pretty good, though!

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