Salt Hotel
Well the conference weekend is over and went well as far as I could deduce, though I confess I was too tired to do the necessary social interaction generally required at a conference dinner. I'm sure it would have been fun but I was all talked out already. After three hours of teaching and a squashed-in train journey all I could manage was to check into the designated hotel and stay there all evening, resolving to make a fresh start on the Saturday, which I duly did. Having made this decision it was something of a relief to doze off on the bed in the large, quiet, all-mod-cons but utterly anonymous transient space of a hotel room. I couldn't resist doing a bit of fiddling with the paper and concomitant powerpoint but substituted the conference dinner for some room service supper and a glass of wine. I sat on the bed and watched star trek on the flat screen wall mounted TV and felt much restored. A bit of a mini retreat.
Of course half of the satisfaction of the situation was its temporary status; my ephemeral designation as an unknown, almost anonymous, virtually possession-less person who had ducked under the radar of responsibilities just for that evening. I'm sure I got extra pleasure from the fact that I was avoiding the evening's scheduled activities. It felt slightly subversive. But I've no doubt that if the situation had continued I'd have got pretty lonely and depressed. A hotel world isn't one intended for putting down roots. Anonymity and transience are all very well but carry on and you start to realise that your very human condition isn't all that different, given a sufficiently distant and dispassionate perspective.
There's a certain eloquence therefore in some 'destination hotels' being composed of obviously transient materials. I'm thinking particularly of the ice hotels which are seasonally available in North Norway and other Scandinavian venues; beautifully sculptured, equipped with individual rooms, bars, chapels; they're not romantic in terms of home comforts and temperate conditions, but they are in their doomed intricacies, their 'only for one winter' appearance. I'd like to see one, maybe stay in one (a single night would probably do); metaphor doubly enacted. There are other oddities, examples of novelty resting places: Bolivia for example has a salt hotel - it doesn't sound too permanent. 'Visitors may want to take luxury with a grain of salt at this remote accommodation,' says a salt-hotel news feature I surfed across. Perhaps someone turned back, wanted one last glimpse of someone or something when they should have been moving on, forwards...
This is all very well but not what one wants with a real home - a place where one dwells; has sentimental, practical, ornamental, entertainment and educational resources (one's own) all to hand, and the companionship of family or relationship too. I've read Heidegger on building and dwelling and can't really identify with the literal experience of constructing a dwelling house; though figuratively one certainly has to construct one's living arrangement and space, alone or together. So we're not too happy that we'll almost certainly be on the move again quite shortly here in London - but the landlords are clearly in some trouble and repossession is set to go ahead. Alas. Here on earth we have no abiding place. And even under the best of conditions a moving of house is a major stress. However we do at least have the materials and resources to reconstruct the shapes and spaces of our home; an offsetting, at least semi permanently, of the swift closure of a hotel sojourn; a remedy against looking back and creating by so doing a hotel of salt.
Of course half of the satisfaction of the situation was its temporary status; my ephemeral designation as an unknown, almost anonymous, virtually possession-less person who had ducked under the radar of responsibilities just for that evening. I'm sure I got extra pleasure from the fact that I was avoiding the evening's scheduled activities. It felt slightly subversive. But I've no doubt that if the situation had continued I'd have got pretty lonely and depressed. A hotel world isn't one intended for putting down roots. Anonymity and transience are all very well but carry on and you start to realise that your very human condition isn't all that different, given a sufficiently distant and dispassionate perspective.
There's a certain eloquence therefore in some 'destination hotels' being composed of obviously transient materials. I'm thinking particularly of the ice hotels which are seasonally available in North Norway and other Scandinavian venues; beautifully sculptured, equipped with individual rooms, bars, chapels; they're not romantic in terms of home comforts and temperate conditions, but they are in their doomed intricacies, their 'only for one winter' appearance. I'd like to see one, maybe stay in one (a single night would probably do); metaphor doubly enacted. There are other oddities, examples of novelty resting places: Bolivia for example has a salt hotel - it doesn't sound too permanent. 'Visitors may want to take luxury with a grain of salt at this remote accommodation,' says a salt-hotel news feature I surfed across. Perhaps someone turned back, wanted one last glimpse of someone or something when they should have been moving on, forwards...
This is all very well but not what one wants with a real home - a place where one dwells; has sentimental, practical, ornamental, entertainment and educational resources (one's own) all to hand, and the companionship of family or relationship too. I've read Heidegger on building and dwelling and can't really identify with the literal experience of constructing a dwelling house; though figuratively one certainly has to construct one's living arrangement and space, alone or together. So we're not too happy that we'll almost certainly be on the move again quite shortly here in London - but the landlords are clearly in some trouble and repossession is set to go ahead. Alas. Here on earth we have no abiding place. And even under the best of conditions a moving of house is a major stress. However we do at least have the materials and resources to reconstruct the shapes and spaces of our home; an offsetting, at least semi permanently, of the swift closure of a hotel sojourn; a remedy against looking back and creating by so doing a hotel of salt.
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