Tag Archive for 'places of interest'

Daily Journal Entry #11823 05/13/08 Tue

Allerton Park

I decided to take a trip to Allerton Park with Kiril, Martin, and Bharath. We bought kites, but didn’t use them, though I did blow some bubbles while we were there at least.

The park was beautiful, as usual. It’s really one of my favorite places, and it’s amazing that it exists in the midwest, carefully hidden away. It was a great setting for my conversation with Kiril about pleasure and morality.

One odd feature of the trip was our constant references to Tarkovsky’s film Stalker. Most of my friends, and most people in general, haven’t seen or heard of this film, so it was somewhat surreal for it to filter our collective experience of the park, such as when we were walking through the forest.

After the park we stopped in the small town of Monticello, and my companions were incredibly disturbed by it for some reason. Bharath said the town felt as if it were seething with a repressed urge for violence. I’d been to the town before, and it also reminded me of some of the small towns in Texas, like Brenham, so I suppose that is why I was unperturbed.

Minutiae

  • I brought up my conversation with Martin about the ineffability of smell, and Bharath mentioned this book on perfume that touches on “the human experience of scent itself.”
  • In the evening I saw this incredible high school jazz band perform at the Iron Post.