Reading Telegraph Avenue on Telegraph Avenue

Sometimes it feels like I’m traveling just so I can learn the context for more stories, my own–I want to collect as many things to weave into the stories I’m going to tell as possible–and other people’s as well. 

I remember what a difference studying abroad in Ireland had on my understanding of The Dead and how the second time I read it–after having been there–felt like reading it for the first time because there were so many new layers that had been hidden to me before. I remember reading the line “The gentle rain was trying not to fall” in Murphy and being blown away by how exactly it described something I’d experienced there many times. If I’d read that turn of phrase before I went to Ireland it might have pleased me but I wouldn’t have understood it nearly as completely.

It’s for that very reason that I waited to read Michael Chabon’s latest book, Telegraph Avenue, until I was in Oakland.

Quests of Nerdery

I’m in Pittsburgh on my own for a week. I’m essentially house sitting while the person I’m staying with is on the West Coast for Thanksgiving. This is a new experience on this journey. So far everywhere I’ve stayed there has almost always been someone around, someone to give my exploration of a place a nudge in one direction or another and someone to report back to at the end of the day. “Today I did this, and saw that thing, and visited this establishment, and learned this little factoid.”

Here, in Pittsburgh, there’s no one to tell stories to about what I saw and did (at least, not until next Tuesday) and I’m enjoying that freedom, that lack of accountability. I’m also trying to resist the urge to just stay in with the two softest and cuddliest cats and watch Buffy and whatever “classic” movie I can find that’s streaming on Netflix.

Pittsburgh is one of those places, like Portland, ME, that takes up more of my mental geography than it has an actual, physical presence in the real world. This is mainly due to Michael Chabon. The only thing in Pittsburgh I knew I wanted to see when I arrived was the Cloud Factory. Upon discovering that Dogma was filmed here as well enough of my interest was piqued to drive me away from the continuing angst of the Scooby Gang and out into the streets of Pittsburgh yesterday.