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McCLUREN_PARK

                                             June 5, 2002

                                MAPGAME      
Some musing upon a round 
of the mapgame, which took 
me to McCluren Park.                       McCluren Park is 
                                           one of the unsung 
                                           treasures of SF: 
   Cluster of purple flowers               A huge place, almost on 
   in the shade of some pine               the scale of Golden 
   trees, heavy laden with                 Gate park, but much 
   cones.                                  heavier on the hills.
                                           
   Look closer: two clusters 
   of different kinds of flowers, 
   one bright grape purple, 
   another lavender. 
                   

I recorded these words as a talisman 
to bring back an experience. 

Someone reading it who has not seen              And in fact it doesn't 
it can't use it in the same way.                 work tremendously well 
                                                 for me.  I recall the 
(As a key, a handle, a short piece               experience better than 
of information designed to tag,                  I would without the 
point at, another)...                            words, but I can't call 
                                                 up images with anything 
So instead they're likely to get                 like photographic      
a vague sense of pastorals, calmness;            accuracy.              
"grape purple" - frivolous associations?                     
                                                     Cramming experience
A hint of some character?  Someone                   into a cracked and      
who looks closer at flowers.                         fading memory...     
                                                                             
          (And writes about things                   A fool's game? 
           using pretentious cliches --              
           "heavy laden"?)                                          

The beauty that ignores connotation
for the sake of pure experience
cannot be a part of the literary
realm.  It's all an art of connotation,          FUNNY
it has to work with an understanding 
of *what* it is. 

       Verbal description of
       experience without   
       comprehension of the 
       experience is impossible.                 
       
                            
         Or nearly impossible.

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