DAY 208 15062018
It's been 208 days since I left for Fargo, 195 since I returned. This will be my last entry on this website, also the last thing I'll write about this whole journey. I can't afford to keep paying for this domain, so this will all be gone before long, and it's fine - the book will remain, probably in the library, probably unread, but so it goes.
This entry may be redundant for those who have kept up, and cryptic for those who haven't, but I've been wracking my brain for weeks now trying to figure out how to tie this all together with a neat fucking bow and deliver some kind of heartfelt and meaningful speech about beauty and horror and the sublime and place and roads and towers and empathy and chance encounters, but something happened along the way and I stopped having fun with it. So this is going to be me having fun, and there will be questions unanswered and you may leave here wondering what it was all about and my only answer would be to read the work and decide for yourself.
But about that work. The gist is in the title, the abstract expands on that somewhat. I left Toronto about 6 months ago to go take photos of the Tallest Structure in america and the longest, straightest road in america, both of which happen to be within an hour's drive of Fargo, North Dakota. Let's call that Day 1.
On Day 11 I met a woman named Beth who lives in the literal shadow of that tower, and much of what I wrote revolves around her and the story she told me over cookies and coffee on my last day in North Dakota. But that's not true, not really. The story is about me, and my reaction to her story, because I'm super self-centered.
On Day 01 I drove 12.5 hours to sleep overnight in Marathon Ontario, which is just about the half-way point to Fargo if you're going north over the lakes, which I wouldn't recommend given the constant snow and the extra 8 hours it take versus driving south through Chicago, which I also wouldn't recommend, for different reasons. Just don't drive to Fargo is what I'm getting at.
On Day 02 I nervously crossed the border into the states. Given the new regime, I was nervous that my story about going to Fargo to photograph a tall thing and a long thing would draw some skepticism, but all suspicion was erased when I mentioned I'm an architecture student. Perks of the trade.
I wanted to photograph a tall thing and a long thing because my work had been building up to it. It all started two summers ago, on a rainy porch early in the morning, at a lake-side cottage rented by 10 very tired architecture students who had just finished a very intense undergrad program. I had my laptop and a fresh cup of coffee and I decided to tackle something I had put off, much like I'm doing now. I was going to write about what I wanted to look into for my master's thesis. I wrote about literature and the concept of infinity and imagination, and I think some of that still lurks in the periphery of my current work.
Instead of giving you a summary of the trip, which wouldn't do much more than convey the facts, and trust me the facts in and of themselves are not that interesting, I want to look back on key moments from those two weeks, and key moments from the last few years, as a sort of retrospective. There are so many details I'm going to have to leave out, which is part of why this has been so hard to write, because everything about this is in the details.
If you're just now joining me on this trip, here's a quick breakdown of where we're at in the story. I left Toronto about 6 months ago to go take photos of the Tallest Structure in america and the longest, straightest road in america, both of which happen to be within an hour's drive of Fargo, North Dakota. Let's call that Day 1.
On Day 11 I met a woman named Beth who lives in the literal shadow of that tower, and much of what I wrote revolves around her and the story she told me over cookies and coffee on my last day in North Dakota. But that's not true, not really. The story is about me, and my reaction to her story, because I'm super self-centered.
I remember sitting in my car at the base of the tower on DAY 05. It was my second day at the tower, and my goal was to stick around long enough for the sun to set and the beacons to glow. It was something I was frankly dreading, my fear of those red lights strong as ever. I pull up my phone and check my email. Piper Bernbaum had been following along and sent me some comments from her term in Rome. She was enjoying the work so far, but looking back on the 4 previous days of uploads, I can't help but read snark and cynicism in my observations. I stayed there that night and took my photos of the eerie tower, unable to muster much courage to approach in the dark.
Night was when I first saw those towers in cambridge which lead me to North Dakota is the first place. I was taking one of my usual drives through the country side, drives I go on when I need a break. I remember that this specific drive took place in 3A, during our large building project. I was sick and exhausted and I grabbed my keys and left starr and my work behind and found myself driving late at night with my high-beams lighting up roads and trees, old fences and rotting barns. I've always been afraid of radio towers, their creepy slenderness, the flashing beacons. I happened up 5 tall ones at the top of a hill not far from here, and though I was certainly not trying to face my fears, I approached none-the-less. From the safety of my car I took photos with my phone. Years later I would write about these towers and Maya would say to me, that's interesting, I wanna know more about these towers. A few rounds of googleing later I has a destination. KVLY-TV mast in blanchard, north dakota. Tallest tv mast on earth, tallest structure in the western hemisphere.
On Day 4 of my trip, I left my hotel room to visit the tower for the first time. I would have to drive northwest of Fargo for an hour, and after about half-way there I finally spot it, the faintest vertical line in one of the flattest parts of the states. I wrote a lot of how my mind perceives the tower, and even now, looking at the photos, I know I haven't captured it, can't ever capture it. The structure is so simple, so singular in its purpose, and yet, when you're there, standing below it, even from a distance, it constantly lies outside your peripheral vision. The sky doesn't help, these beautiful, low skies that are constantly changing. This void is the only backdrop to which you can measure the tower, and the void is unrelenting. When you're far enough from the tower to see it in it's entirety without craning your neck back and forth, it suddenly vanishes and all detail is lost, unlike the distinct silhouettes of the CN tower or the Willis Tower. It may as well be an apparition. I remember standing below the tower and dreaming