'I chang'd my ways'
buzzes through radio static
film of oil on the road across the
'groaning continent'
and the AC
machinery
and the winking
red freeway
tail-light river
and the
waitress,
tresses
of the waitress
seventeen years old
at the truck-stop diner,
in its entirety banal,
in particulars banal,
all in all
banal,
this wet dream
of the mind.

A landscape entirely flat and populated with immense trucks. Continent-spanning trucks. The multi-national contingent spills out and heads for the diner. Russian accents, Slovenian accents. Immense Americans lumber, air-conditioned, inside. The New York Times, a few days ago: 33 percent of the US population is overweight. This is especially evident in the midwest, where there appears little else to do than eat. The sky expands outwards, infinate above a landscape of riveted metal signs, black tar roads and cornfields cornfields cornfields. Plans are underway to visit Burroughs. Kansas lies ahead. It seems the thing to do - a ticket to punch on the American road.

It's no accident that the Beats hover over Middle America and surface occasionally in conversation -- apart from the almost complete absence of almost everything, this cultural vacuum, you get the feeling that, despite everything, this "place" hasn't really changed much (if it's a place it becomes so only in transit -- an observation which owes itself to the Beats, or simply to speed of passage).

Who defined the vocabulary of the American road in the 20th century, anyway? It rattles through rivets of the charging machine, roaring across the landscape. Malevich's "Red Cavalry". So when in doubt, visit Bill. This would be good, of course, for my film (tentative title: "Transnationala, An Untitled Road Movie"). Assuming he agrees. Eda cackles; she's looking though the viewfinder at a shot of Miran, who is singing a Slovenian folksong to himself.

The Road. It's not merely a cliche; it exists, an artifact. Borut and Dusan man the bridge of the immense RV as the sun eases down to horizon level. Heading for Australia, Quantas Airways.

Kansas. A sea of undulating flat green rolls and swells under the motionless window of the RV. Actually, the RV is in motion, not the prairie. But the roar of storm-tossed landscape is real enough -- though frozen in time. We have to move through it to animate it. Living as long as flies, on a geological scale, we see from a longer perspective, the sea and land both in constant motion.

We live in a strobe light of days.

RV stop, gas and ersatz "cappucino" spewed from the innards of a machine. We are a long way from Kansas. If Kansas is defined as a place where you can get a good cup of coffee. Later, we will pass "Dorothy's house." Marketing gimmick. Earlier, we passed a large grey barn beside the road with the following slogan stencelled on it in block letters:

No God... No Peace Know God... Know Peace

I force myself to focus on the sometimes seemingly remote possibility of squeezing a film out of this trip. I have every advantage. The finger should be on the button at all times. Finite time.

The point of the trip is not the destination but the trip itself. The medium is the message -- not the case with the internet, for example. No oncoming realisation of utopia, it is regularily confused as such by those burned by previous failed utopias. Determined to singe their eyebrows again, they flick lighters, same old thing in brand new drag. Footsoldiers of a failed revolution seeking another revolution to fail.

The banality of the road, of the machines on the road, unswervingly redefined by the banality of the tunes that ease out of the speaker grille. The FM band is designed by people who know how to cut their losses and keep fingers from the dial. The better to sell products to a captive audience. Arriving at the truck-stop store, the products offer themselves. It's a closed system. We head for Albuquirque. The AAA Road Atlas reveals miniurized urban grids, laid out in blue and black and red letters. These towns and cities are waiting for us, ahead -- air-conditioned, immaculate, shimmering in heat. Lizards skitter at the periphery.

A kind of torpor overtakes individuals. The rumble of miles rumbles through mental spaces as well, installing ennui and a need to sleep. Immobility in the midst of mobility, the paradox of close quarters within large spaces, the whole dialectical confirmation, words bent and soldered into place.

Laptop down, camera up on the tripod, trying to bag some shots. This whole picture would no doubt seem insufferably cute to an outside observer. We feed on, & dish out, all with the latest chip technology. Documentation is all. Back at the laptop, the camera silent on its vibrating tripod. We are monied and well-supplied, an all-expenses paid RV trip through the United States. The facts, just the facts...

Meanwhile, clouds march across the entire upper level of the two-tiered structure. A pure flat division: heaven and earth.

"Someplace, home of astronaut Someone", proclaimed a sign last night (population: X). Didn't remember the particulars, being behind the wheel at the time. Thus does the corn-belt flat-land proclaim its ability to send citizens into the vast sky.

I helpfully pointed out the sign to Brenner and Leiderman, occupying the cab with me, since I thought somehow it would correspond with former Soviet reality. They registered no comment. We continued talking about rock and roll and Russian literature, and American literature. Brenner was of the opinion that Mailer was a genius because he saw, correctly, that fiction was less important than reality and shifted to documentation of reality and real people. Leiderman disagreed, seeing defeat in Mailer's leaning on a pre-existing reality. Brenner poured scorn on Saul Bellow. I defended Bellow, who long ago won a Seventies battle for primacy over Mailer. The giant of Chicago. It's clear to me who posterity will remember. And this despite the fact that Mailer started out with the best prose in America.

All this also a foreshadowing of future battles between Brenner and Leiderman. A certain unrepressed competitiveness surfaces among the Russian contingent.

Sasha Brenner in the cab. I thumb the cruise control and we speak in stilted English as the prarie turns inexorably into desert. Outside Albuquerque the road cuts straight as a ruler to the shimmering horizon. It is cut into flaking reddish geology. Last night we drove until three AM, cutting across the upper left corner of Texas. Then we found an RV camp and caught several hours sleep. Surfacing momentarily from sleep, later (Borut at the wheel), I looked out the window at Texas -- like an immense wall-to-wall expanse of cattle. Pungent smell of shit.

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