2002-07-17 - 6:23 p.m.
I doubt I'm the only one who knows the dispiriting feeling of a massive, memory generating night receded into the distance with nothing textual to remember it by. The adieu party for the Annapolis 2002 Marxist Summer Camp took place last Friday and Saturday, and I narrated the entire affair, rushing boxes outside of my dorm room in College Park at 7:00 a.m. and wounding myself in the process, to successfully pulling off the public presentations of the William Paca Garden in front of a group of St. Mary's Field School students and Dr. Mark Leone. After that wound down, we had our final party, drinking beer by the bay in Annapolis.
Even there, I was rushing to the future, babbling about my thesis to whoever would stand still for two minutes. I chatted with the director of the archaeology lab, and told him that I thought Sarasota and Annapolis were similar. "They both had a sort of 'rich justification' for themselves," I said.
"I know what you mean," he replied, in a tone that indicated he did. He said that his position was an exciting one to be in right now, as Historic Annapolis is in the process of constructing an Annapolis History Museum, and he'll be able to say that he participated in designing the exhibits. I mention that the Ringling Museum is doing something similar, that I may be able to get involved with that in some capacity, and that connections to Annapolis might help me. He gives me his card.
Earlier I mentioned that plan to Dr. Leone, that I planned to stay involved with the design of the interpretive center. Leone said, "You must."
I like people who tell me I must do what I want to do anyway but am apprehensive about.
Jump over the extended visit to the bar and night in a hotel room--interesting enough, but not destined for posterity--and to late Sunday morning as I'm driving down I-4 on an ephedrine binge trying to make the 18-hour drive in one sitting. I surf through the radio, and what should come on the local hip-hop-dance music station. "You're breaking it down to our level 4 mixologist"--pff, I think, could you get a Ph.D. in mixology?--"DJ Leone!!"
WTF?!?! I'm not hallucinating. For the rest of the drive through Orlando, which takes longer than expected because of a detour, I listen to the dance mixes of the "sweet, sexy, level 4 mixologist DJ Leone."
Let me re-affirm my total agreement with Tom Wolfe's thesis that journalism will overtake fiction because reality is better fiction than fiction. What a fitting end to my Maryland mayhem. I'm not sure how to define this new period yet.
