Coca-Cola Corner

Here’s a photo from a corner in Slatington, Pennsylvania, USA. I’m not sure what the name of this place is, either Kurt’s Korner or Homeslate Sports Bar. Kurt’s has the sign above, but Homeslate shows up on the Coca-Cola painting on the wall.

Doesn’t matter. I’ve driven past this place about three hundred thousand times in my life. Okay, not that many but I grew up a couple of towns away and this place was frequently on my route to somewhere else, especially when fuel was cheap. Ah, those were the days, sometimes.

As might be gleaned from the name of the town, Slatington was once surrounded by slate quarries. It was a prosperous business for a while, especially before the advent of asphalt shingles. All those roofs of a  growing America needed something to keep the rain off of our ancestors. Of course, nothing lasts forever. The slate pits filled with water after they were abandoned.

I’ve been known to crisscross the northeast United States in search of such places. Sometimes I find people who were alive during the glory days of these old-time industries. They love to chat about the past. Often times they explain unique solutions to everyday living that were actually commonplace in an age before computers and modern appliances.

As mentioned before, I’m going to start photographing these people and writing down as much of what I learn from them as is practical. At the moment, I can’t remember where, but various historians are taking oral histories from people in order to build a record of the past that is from many more first-hand sources. It seems like I’m duplicating their efforts. Nonetheless, why not? In the first place, those who have gone before me deserve a record of their accomplishments. Second, who knows what comes of such writing? I remember my early days in Aruba. Plenty of people told me stories about the island and their lives. Then, some years later, I was writing An Island Away. If not for the people I met there, the story would never have come about.

Just like the Coca-Cola tagline, my thinking is that life… “It’s the real thing.”

Published in: on July 3, 2008 at 2:26 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Creating Atmosphere, Part 2

And now we go inside two different cathedrals, each with its own particular atmosphere. The first one is the Cathedral in Seville, Spain. Construction began in 1402. Here Columbus is entombed. From this city sailed the conquistadors to a world unkown to Europeans, and this is a look at the interior of their massive center of worship.

Icons and statues stare down from every ledge. The space is darkened by shadows cast by the massive columns, one of which is under repair as seen on the right side of this photo. The weight of this building presses down relentlessly. The windows are relatively small as is typical of the gothic style, offering little light and no escape.

A much newer cathedral can be found in Madrid. This is the Almudena Cathedral, begun in 1883 and completed in 1993. It has an entirely different atmosphere.

Thanks to more modern building techniques, the windows are much larger, illuminating the entire space more evenly. The eye is drawn upward along columns that seem lighter thanks to the brighter color. Here’s another look.

The windows of the celestory at the top of the frame shine gloriously with the same warm sunlight that brings visitors from darker climes to Spain.

Both of these locations exude their own sense of space, presenting the visitor with two unique experiences. So it is in a good story. What are your favorite spaces? What places leave a dramatic impression on you? Let me know.

Published in: on July 3, 2008 at 10:15 am  Comments (4)  
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Creating Atmosphere, Part 1

In the course of writing a book, one of the challenges is to create the atmosphere in which the story unfolds. The setting could be the frozen tundra or the tropics but simply stating where a character is doesn’t do the job. There are elements that have to be added to give a sense of the place, a mood, a feeling in the readers mind. The greatest writers do this without the reader realizing it.

I’ve always enjoyed visiting old churches be they big or small. Of course a cathedral is the epitome of the form and I’ve visited them in England, France, Spain, and the United States. Talk about atmosphere, these places are loaded with it. For example, while in Seville, Spain, I spotted this delivery of candles.

They weren’t going to the massive cathedral there, but rather to a much smaller church in another neighborhood. However, the size of these candles is impressive. Their light is more than the average taper. They will certainly cast shadows among the old stones, worn wooden pews, and gazing icons inside. The faint scent of burning wax, mixed with incense and old dust, will lurk in the sanctuary. Interiors like that are enough to make the goose-bumps pop. See Creating Atmosphere, Part 2 for a look at this first hand.

And that’s part of the fun of writing a story. The writer has the pleasure of creating the world. Of course, he also has to take responsibility for it and that can be a daunting challenge.

Published in: on July 3, 2008 at 9:07 am  Leave a Comment  
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One Place to Write

As a film student at New York Unviersity’s Tisch School of the Arts, I had the opportunity to live in New York City. Of course, New York offers more chances at success and failure than perhaps any other place in the world (maybe Hong Kong has more of both). This is one of the unique aspects of the place that makes it attractive to people the world over.

Well, a friend of mine graduated from another program at NYU (not film school like me) and went to work for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. I went to visit one day and was given a private tour of the kitchens, the ballroom, all the behind the scenes stuff that goes on at a hotel. There’s plenty the guest never sees and that may be a good thing. By this time, I was writing steadily and one of the places I used to write was at a table in the Park Avenue Lobby. This area was called the Cocktail Terrace. Here’s what it currently looks like:

Not the greatest photo but the little round table there to the left of where that man is sitting used to be my regular spot. I was not yet twenty years old, but had a few decent suits and would put one on and go up town with my notebook and pen to scribble as long as the words kept coming. That piano in the frame was given to Cole Porter who used to have it in his suite. There was drink service and I consumed my share of Maker’s Bourbon and club soda at that table. A waitress named Gretchen used to enjoy the bits of stories I told her.

Here’s a longer view of the terrace:

The bar used to be in the back there. One of the fun things about sitting here was all the people watching. Well known people and strangers alike would come up those stairs from the Park Avenue entrance. It was possible to watch them without them watching you. Some of the things that happened after midnight were highly entertaining, if not a bit unnerving.

On the floor in the middle of this space is the Wheel of Life Mosaic, which was actually covered up for many years, until the entire hotel was remodeled in the middle 1980’s. Here’s a look at it:

It is worth a visit if you’re passing through town, especially given that many of the old style hotels like the Waldorf are going modern and losing this kind of older elegance. Some of them have become condominiums so they’re basically private residences.

For many years my mother was a florist and she loved to look at the flower arrangements in the big hotels. Here’s a look at what the Waldorf put on the day I took this photos:

Yes, they’re real and fresh and updated constantly. One more reason to pass through this lobby on your way through New York.

I’m grateful to my friend for allowing me to pass many nights at the Cocktail Terrace, and also to the management who never seemed to mind that I was there with my pen and paper. The stories I wrote here have yet to make it into print. They’re stashed away in a stack of scrawled notes. There’s some gems in there, I just have to make the time to mine them out.

Do you have a favorite lobby? Perhaps another space where you think or write or create? Let me know.

Published in: on July 2, 2008 at 8:42 pm  Leave a Comment  
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