The Imaginary Mariner

The time is (current-time:). (alert:"Beyond this point, things get serious. Grab a snack and buckle up.") (transition: "pulse")[Gleep!] The shadow (text-style: "shadow")[flares] at you! (display: time) (set: $a to (a: 1,2,3,4,5,6)) (print: (shuffled: ...$a)) ###Level 3 heading renders as an enclosing <h3> (set: $counter to 10) You have |amount>[$counter] seconds left! (live: 1s)[ (set: $counter to it - 1) (if: $counter is 0)[(go-to: "The Menu")] (replace: ?amount)[$counter] (link: "Helen")[(either: "Helen", "Matilde", "Lara", "Dido","Ophelia","Beatrice","Joan Rivers")] GG (set: $tito to (either: "Helen", "Matilde", "Lara", "Dido","Ophelia","Beatrice","Joan Rivers")) (link: "$tito")[$tito] [(either: "Helen", "Matilde", "Lara", "Dido","Ophelia","Beatrice","Joan Rivers")]<shout| (click-replace: ?shout) (set: $password to (prompt: "Morality CheckYou are about to look at somebody's private belongings. Please write yes to indicate that you understand that this is an invasion of privacy.") ) (if: $password is "yes")[You are correct. [[Satisfied]] ](else:)[You are wrong. [[Try again->Enter the password]].] (set: $name to "Dracula") (set: $p to (print: "Count " + $name)) (set: $name to "Alucard") $p (set: $plug to "brick", "bat", "boom")

*So I wait for you like a lonely house till you will see me again and live in me. Till then my* [[*windows ache.*|Reststop]]

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Menu ==>[Razor clams with parmesan]<shout|<== [Grilled Sea Bass]<shout| [[Conger Eel Ceviche]] [[Giant Barnacle Stew]] (font: "Futura")[[[Fresh Urchins]]]

Why this verse? It's been twenty years, so the details are a bit hazy, but here goes: I once visited Pablo Neruda’s seaside home in Isla Negra, Chile. That is an almost indisputable fact. On the way, I stopped for lunch and sat at a picnic table outside a highway rest stop. While I ate, a gusty breeze deposited a (text-style: "rumble")[fluttering scrap of paper] right on top of my Lomito Italiano sandwich. It was a dirty shred of grid paper - the kind kids use in math class - with some lines of Spanish poetry scribbled on it: [*y así te espero como casa sola*]<c1| [*y volverás a verme y habitarme.*]<c2| [*De otro modo me duelen las ventanas.*]<c3| (click: ?c1)[*So I wait for you like a lonely house*] (click: ?c2)[*till you will see me again and live in me.*] (click: ?c3)[*Till then my windows ache.*] Bits of words were still visible on the torn edge of the paper, which meant the lines were part of a longer poem. Later, I discover the poem was by Pablo Neruda. [[Partial Disclosure]]

How do windows ache? Tough question. Strange question. I mean, windows are loaded with meaning. (link-replace: "This window")[ conducts light and illuminates] (link-replace: "This window")[ conveys air and freedom.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is a portal.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is a threshold and a barrier.] (link-replace: "This window")[ frames the world.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is a fixed perspective.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is to the soul.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is shattered.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is a voyeur's delight.] (link-replace: "Windows")[ is by Microsoft] (link-replace: "This window")[ is boarded up.] (link-replace: "This window")[ joins inside and out.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is vulnerability.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is protection.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is every screen, lens and photograph.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is drafty.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is an escape route]. (link-replace: "This window")[ is the eye.] (link-replace: "This window")[ is a memory.] (link-replace: "These windows")[ are memories]. But how do windows ache? *Panefully*! [[This window opens to a fractured view of Pablo Neruda's house in Isla Negra|House]].

Isla Negra is Spanish for "Black Island". The coastal community of Isla Negra where Neruda's home is located is neither black, nor an island. Pablo Neruda is not his real name. His real name is (link-reveal: "(drumroll):")[ **Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto**] He would have been addressed as "Neftalí" by his high school teacher and mentor, Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga, who also had a secret identity and went by (link-reveal: "another, more famous name:")[ (link-reveal: "**Gabriela Mistral!**")[ (link-reveal: "Huh?")[ **First Latin American woman to win a Nobel Prize in Literature. Feminist. Poet. Educational Reformist. School Teacher. Featured on Chile's 5,000 peso bill.**]]] Mistral was in Temuco for a year and is said to have introduced Neruda to Russian literature. The charismatic Mistral, starved for literary banter in the backwoods of southern Chile, took the shy and talented Neruda under her wing, advising him over tea. Her portrait and several volumes of her works can be found in [[Isla Negra|More Windows]].

Pable Neruda's house in Isla Negra stands high on a grassy hill and overlooks the jagged Pacific coast. The air is scented with the ocean, pine, wild flowers, and eucalyptus. I find the house's exterior is hard to describe because it changes substantially depending on where you stand. The low stone tower(click-replace: "low stone tower")[high gabled], brick facade(click-replace: "brick")[clapboard] and capriciously distributed stone arches (click-replace: "stone arches")[balconies] are confused in my memory, almost as if I've conflated many houses into one. The property is a sprawling optical illusion - as soon as you think you've grasped it, it slips away again. I remember the inside as both dark and brightly lit. The garden is at once wild and manicured, and the house is a ship that has never, and will never sail. [[Isla Negra isn't even really an Isla Negra|Isla Negra]].

For whatever reason, I remembered his bedroom as circular, as if atop a tower and overlooking the ocean kingdom. I've recently seen pictures, and it's actually rectangular. What I do recall with some accuracy are the picture windows, set side by side to open the room to the ocean. I remember thinking that anyone who wakes up to that view every morning can't help but become a (Link: "poet.")[ *The pacific ocean fell off the map. There was nowhere to put it. It was so big and messy and blue that it couldn't fit anywhere. That is why they left it in front of my [[window.|bedroom storm]]* Interview with Pablo Neruda]

Nosy, nosy. My wallet's contents: 10,500 Chilean ducats in bills (1 x 5000, 5 x 1000, 1 x 500) 220 Chilean ducats in coins (2 x 100, 1, 10) A Chilean national identity card. RUT# (random: 14234581,19344588) A British Cultural Institute membership card. # (random: 452348, 924993) A receipt from Casa Lomazo for 728 Chilean ducats for a [[Lomito Italiano]], curly fries and a Pepsi. Black and white photobooth pictures of (either: "Helen", "Matilde", "Lara", "Dido", "Ophelia", "Beatrice", "Joan Rivers") A red bank-card from Banco Santander (click-append: "Banco Santander")[ <== had to be replaced (random: 5,7) times in less than a year. Don't ask.] A business card for "La Ventana", a now defunct used book store. A capsule tray of four triazolams A scrap of grid paper with three handwritten lines of poetry. [[The coupon from the Goethe Institute]]

Politics do not cease with death. Neruda died just after the 1973 millitary coup under suspicious circumstances and was buried in Santiago's Cementerio General, (link: "but he had requested otherwise.")[ *Companions, bury me in Isla Negra, in front of the sea I know, to each wrinkled area of stones and to the waves that my lost eyes won’t go back to see...* - Canto General, 1950] When democracy was restored in 1992, his remains were transferred to Isla Negra where he was buried alongside Matilde. The burial site opens to an unobstructed view of the ocean, whose salty fingers Neruda said seeped into every corner of his house and his life. I was taking in the view from the stone steps at the grave when the security guard clanged the old ship's bell to announce closing. The view was not unlike the one from their circular bedroom in the high tower, except now it wasn't constrained by the frame of a window. On the way out, I passed a landlocked red and white skiff. Did I [[exit|The Gift Shop]], or did I risk upsetting security by prolonging the stay and getting a better look at the [[skiff|Landlocked boat]]?

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There are a dozen ship's figureheads in the house, with names like La Novia and Jenny Lind. They hang from walls and ceilings, with spectral faces and streamlined poses, like swift spirits frozen in midflight. In (Link: "*The House of Sand*")[*La Casa de Arena*], Neruda wrote brief personal biographies for each of his treasured (link: "*mascarónes*")[figureheads], including the weeping [[María Celeste]].

"Italiano" in this case might be obscure or misleading. To be clear, a lomito is a popular Chilean pork sandwhich, in this case dressed with (text-style: "outline")[mayonaise], (text-style: "outline")[tomotoes] and (text-style: "outline")[avocado]. The garnishes coincide with the colors of the Italian flag; thus, "Italiano". Now back to [[snooping|wallet]].

The part about the breeze dropping the paper on my sandwich is a complete fabrication. The paper was already wedged into a crack on the table when I sat down. The whole winds of providence thing was a little heavy handed, and I am remorseful for the embelishment. I thought about throwing the scrap out with the trash, but changed my mind and slipped it into my [[wallet]] instead.

The coupon knocks 25% off admission to any major tourist attraction in and around Santiago, including Pablo Neruda's house in Isla Negra. On Google Maps, my trip is a blue line extending 120 kilometers west from the centre of Santiago to the coast, veering slightly south for the last forty kilometers or so. I didn't have Google Maps then, and some of these numbers may be off. When I arrived, I was presented with two options: Option A: (click-append: "Option A:")[ Get in for free. Wait until an hour before closing, when admission drops by 75%, and kids and seniors are free. I can't pass for a kid, or a senior, but the Goethe Institute coupon should take care of the rest. This might involve some persuasion at the counter, and a rushed visit, but free is free.] Option B: (click-append: "Option B:")[ Pay and go right in. Use the Goethe Institute coupon and cough up the 4,800 peso discounted admission.] In either case, it was too late for a guided tour. So what do you think I did? Wait and [[get in for free|free]], or [[cough up]] and get more time?

Neruda wrote in front of a window with a full view of the sea, his hands stained by green ink. He wrote on two rough planks because the room was a work in progress and he had yet to find the right desk. Years later, in an interview, Neruda would say that the house in Isla Negra "started growing, like people, like trees...” Each item in the house and its placement received the same care and attention to detail as the arrangement of words and spaces in his poetry. One morning he paused from his writing to look out the window. In the distance, he could see an (text-style: "shudder")[object bobbing] on the horizon. He marked its slow approach on the meandering current until he had a sense of its size and proportions. "Matilde! My desk! My desk!" It was late afternoon by the time it landed on the stretch of sand below the house. Matilde joined him for the recovery. Upon closer inspection, it was a long, flat piece of oak with an irregular shape, like a warped oval, but the broad side was the right size and it had been polished smooth by the sea. After drying under the sun for two days, it replaced the planks under the window. His new friend, the driftwood desktop, would carry along his [[green, undulating verses. |Friendly Objects]]

Inside, the narrow passages, creaky floors and round timber make the house feel like a ship. This is by design. The rooms are filled with collections of maps, ship instruments, ship models, ships in bottles, prow figureheads, driftwood, masks, statues, landscapes, still lifes, and portraits of Walt Whitman, Gabriela Mistral, and Charles Baudelaire, among others. There are hundreds and hundreds of shells, endless glass bottles, each coloured by the tints and hues of the sea. There is a giant wooden horse, a narwhal tusk, rows of tobacco pipes, cider jars, butterflies, diverse nautical paraphrenalia and [[a driftwood desk.|The Desk]]

I'm not sure if I read it, heard it or made it up, but Pablo Neruda once wrote that waves are the renegade brides of the sea, their long foamy veils trailing behind them as they flee their stormy groom.

The ticket vendor looked skeptical but didn't put up a fight. "Ultimately, it makes no difference", he said and pointed to the [[window.|windows]]

The ticket vendor smiled as he counted out the change. "Start over there and enjoy your visit," he said pointing to the starting area just outside the [[window.|windows]]

A red and white skiff was set on the hill beside the house, not far from his grave. Neruda liked to invite his guests aboard to sit in the stern of his boat, where they would drink, sing and tell stories while the waves rolled in safely below. Neruda worshipped the sea, but he rarely waded in further than his waist. I'm a little hazy as to why. I was told, but I forgot. He may have been prone to seasickness, or suffered from some kind of phobia. Was it that he couldn't swim? In any case, one reason his house was a ship is that he only sailed on land. I walked towards [[the exit.|The Gift Shop]]

Neruda stood by the bedroom window in his bathrobe, his hands clasped behind him as he watched the storm unfold. Matilde was everywhere: in every sudden flash of electricty, in the crashing waves and howling gusts, and in the rolling claps of thunder - all filled with her. And all of it without her. *I watched the void that without you is like a house, nothing left but tragic windows.* He wondered if [[Maria Celeste|Figurehead]] was weeping.

Each object has a history or a special relationship with Neruda. And the house is filled with objects: on the floors, hanging from the stone walls, embedded in the concrete, lining shelves and suspended from the mast-like rafters. I had entered the refuge of a crafty sea god who raised his secret palace from shipwrecks and salvage. It never feels like clutter. On the contary, the house and all of its parts are confluent and conversant, recalling the remarks of his friend Luis Poirot in his book *Pablo Neruda*: (link-reveal: "*Absence and Presence*.")[ *Neruda had legions of friends. Only some of them were human beings; the others were plants, animals, trees, landscapes, objects of all description, and houses. Neruda appeared to live on terms of intimacy with the world of things and to carry on secret conversations with all kinds of beings, animate and inanimate, conversations that often* [[*became poems."*|Bedroom]]]

And the ocean is visible through [every window.|Bedroom]

María Celeste, not to be confused with the *Mary Celeste*, a 19th century American brigantine whose crew mysteriously vanished, was Neruda's favourite figurehead. Before her second life at Isla Negra, María Celeste was afixed to the prow of a Seine river barge. There's something incongruous about her round and serene oaken face and my conception of a river barge. María Celeste's mouth is small and pursed and her large eyes are cast upward. On certain foggy or rainy winter days, miraculous tears well-up in her motionless eyes until they spill over and stream down her face. [Why does María Celeste weep?]<c1| (click: ?c1)[ She remembers how the music of [[Matilde and Pablo's voices|Finale]] once animated the house.] (click: ?c1)[ She isn't really weeping. "She" is a wood carving with eyes made of glass, where moisture (text-style: "condense")[condenses] and falls.] (click: ?c1)[ She'd rather sail than be sailed.] (click: ?c1)[ They are crocodile tears.] (click: ?c1)[ She is a tormented spirit trapped in a figurehead.] (click: ?c1)[ She misses the water.]

=><= [[<h4>The Imaginary Mariner<h4>|Lonely House]] by Paul Darvasi

The house in Isla Negra can be seen in so many different ways. =><= It is a tourist attraction. <==> No matter where you stand, there are always windows of all shapes and sizes: panoramic, curved, picture framed, portholed, stained glass, broken - everything - even some aching ones. Most impressively, all of them have a [[view of the ocean|The Ship]]. (click-replace: "It is a tourist attraction")[It is an altar](click-replace: "It is an altar")[It is a monument](click-replace: "It is a monument")[It is a ship](click-replace: "It is a ship")[It is a communist threat](click-replace: "It is a communist threat")[It is a shrine](click-replace: "It is a shrine")[It is a tribute](click-replace: "It is a tribute")[It is a hallucination](click-replace: "It is a hallucination")[It is an homage](click-replace: "It is an homage")[It is a source of revenue](click-replace: "It is a source of revenue")[It is a museum](click-replace: "It is a museum")[It is a mausoleum](click-replace: "It is a mausoleum")[It is a love poem to the ocean].

On the way out, I stopped at the giftshop - it stayed open half an hour after the house closed. It was small, but densely packed with postcards, books, miniature figureheads, ships in bottles, rare shells, notebooks, pens, etc. You get the picture. The attendent, who was dusting a row of Pablo Neruda bobbleheads, looked up and said, "If there's anything more you'd like to know, (link:" just ask")[(gotoURL:"https://www.google.ca/search?q=%22Pablo+Neruda%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=GXn8VpmVC4KjjgTaxKGYAg")].