Sunday, June 17, 2007

Rail romance

Lou has a great post on her blog today, Abandoned Stations, with a passionate little meditation on urban travel, and a link to the site of Joseph Brennan, a delightful obsessive who has a love affair with defunct railroad stations. It made me miss the Chicago El, and I never thought anything could do that. Go look.

6 comments:

chayaruchama said...

That was really something...
I enjoyed it this morning.
Got to say, I share the sentiments...

Juvy Santos said...

I didn't know Lou had a blog! I LOVE HER BLOG! Thank you!!

Good morning, Maria, Ida :D

BitterGrace said...

There is a special allure to the grunge of a city rail station, isn't there?

Lou's blog is top-notch. Always interesting stuff there.

Anonymous said...

Why are train stations more romantic than airports? Why are so many more great songs written about trains than airports? Why, now that we have such bizarre security checks, has no one written a DeLillo-esque novel about airports and planes (excluding DeLillo's own "Falling Man," of course)? Why can't you imagine Bogart standing in a concourse in Paris instead of on a railway platform? Is it just the sterile environments at airports?

BitterGrace said...

All good questions, Bozo. Have there really been no great airport novels? Seems as if there must have been, but I can't think of one, either. Perhaps it's the sterile environment, perhaps it's the utter deprivation of autonomy that happens in airports. You become so much more a rat in a cage in an airport than in a train station. Anyway, here's somebody who does feel the romance, or at least the emotional resonance, of airports: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbtxhXynjuM

BitterGrace said...

Eeek--I dunno why, but I can't make that link work. Cutting and pasting will do the job, though.