Passage #211: 14 August 2013
This Too Shall Pass
August 14th is not a date at the forefront of our consciousness. It is not a July 4th nor a December 25th nor a September 11th. But, like any given day, many things have happened on this date in the past. Two events that we may pick out from the list and consider in unison are the signing of the Social Security Act into law in 1935 and, forty years later, the U.S. premiere of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Though seemingly disparate, both speak to notions of transience and permanence. The former, a program to provide support and stability, is of course itself now in danger of collapsing, while the latter has become the longest-running release in film history -- despite initially almost flopping. They both underscore that what will last, and what will pass, it is almost always impossible to tell. And they both started today.
This ride started some other day. But THIS ride, today's ride, it is happening today, August 14th. And it is perhaps not too eventful. No grand sites, no spaces of particular historical note nor importance, will be visited or discussed (though we will pass by perhaps a few), but we will, as always, trace a path down the city's boulevards and through its crevices, seeing it in one particular formation, at one particular moment in its own mutable path through time. And this ride, like the city itself eventually, it too shall pass. And yet we shall return again to ride another day. And maybe those other days will be more eventful, maybe less.
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