Previous | Next :: Gaungzhao Dawn : View from The New Century Tau Palace Hotel : China | February 8, 2015, 4:03 am

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The white noise of long haul jet engines …… muddles day and night ……. merges today and tomorrow …… muddles the future and past ……. blurs destination and departure ….

I picked up an old note book by accident as I left for the airport this morning …….

I see only now on the plane my mistake ....... it's a notebook from last year …… the final thing I had written in it : ”View of Gaungzhau at dawn from the New Century Tau Palace Hotel “ ……..

On reading I remember back to that that morning in China looking out across the alien landscape at the dimly lit characterless city …….. I had flown in very late the night before and taken a bus to the hotel …… I was up very early about to take a bus back to the airport to fly out ……. This was my only chance to consider Gaungzhau ………. I made a photograph from my hotel room window ……. rain fell in the darkest hour and continued on as the grey dawn came without any lifting of the overpowering sense of melancholy.

I am flying from London to Atlanta now ……. once more the white noise of long haul jet engines and the recurring uneasy sensation that I am traveling the wrong way ……..

I started to watch that movie …… ‘ Walk the Line’ ……. about the life of Johnny Cash with Joakin Pheonix playing Cash ….. But I couldn’t go on with it …… I suddenly remembered I had been previously warned not to watch it ……. Johnny Cash loses his brother in a terrible shocking way ….. I thought early on as that scene approaches …. they are right …… I actually cannot watch this …….

So I instead I watched the Brad Pitt movie …… ’Fury’ …. now thats another depressing movie ……… shocking violence and arbitrary death …… for all …… not just your brother.

Now through the intensity of the movie merging with the constant rumble of the engines ….. I have the slight sensation that I could land in Berlin at the end of the war ……. or the Birmingham of my youth ……..

Cheers Jez XXXXX

PS ……This above was written on the cross Atlantic flight but did not get posted on landing ……… I landed as Delta Airlines had predicted in Atlanta and then flew on to Orlando ……. then I was shooting in Daytona and Tampa etc in Florida …….. then it was back up to Atlanta for another shoot …… now today I fly on from Atlanta to Dallas for another assignment ……. then on to San Diago …….. then NYC bla bla ……… :-))) XX

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