Local Guides World
Rilan Keathley
8 reviews on 1 places
Oh, Great Smiter of Conscience!
Thus I cried out to a crow seeming to land on the shoulder of a venerated author, his legacy flung wild to the wind and committed to treachery incarnate by the wilds of Central Park. Here would ever the aspirers line up to gawk at his likeness, here would sunsets rise to meet the dawn, here would glad tidyness bring its own abuttal in the court of the damned and remark, as if in aside to the jury but with enough elegance to capture the sway of a judge rendered obsolete by time and desperate by reverence, "It is enough to bring glad tidings, is it not my fair friends? It is hardly a joke among comrades to set their laughter free, so why should we not bring ourselves to task in this grimy murder - yes, I know, sustained, I know."
The crow did not respond, but several weeks later I received a scroll at the postage box on my calling card:
I beg for signs every day, that there
Might be a stronger pull beyond the past
But this is one small lens on life that begs
To be rewritten by the ones who cast
Aspersions on what feels and flows, on what
Grows limbs and knees and wills and skin and toes,
And after all that grants it life but not
Without keeping sure this thing always knows
That consciousness is only its by loan
And any moment could make it a drone.
Thus I cried out to a crow seeming to land on the shoulder of a venerated author, his legacy flung wild to the wind and committed to treachery incarnate by the wilds of Central Park. Here would ever the aspirers line up to gawk at his likeness, here would sunsets rise to meet the dawn, here would glad tidyness bring its own abuttal in the court of the damned and remark, as if in aside to the jury but with enough elegance to capture the sway of a judge rendered obsolete by time and desperate by reverence, "It is enough to bring glad tidings, is it not my fair friends? It is hardly a joke among comrades to set their laughter free, so why should we not bring ourselves to task in this grimy murder - yes, I know, sustained, I know."
The crow did not respond, but several weeks later I received a scroll at the postage box on my calling card:
I beg for signs every day, that there
Might be a stronger pull beyond the past
But this is one small lens on life that begs
To be rewritten by the ones who cast
Aspersions on what feels and flows, on what
Grows limbs and knees and wills and skin and toes,
And after all that grants it life but not
Without keeping sure this thing always knows
That consciousness is only its by loan
And any moment could make it a drone.
Having won Monopoly in a past life, I'd thought I had conquered the ellicit draw of domination in urban settings. So shooketh was I when I ascended the tarried peaks of Fort Tryon, the topological epitome of what-they-don't-know-won't-hurt-them, coined after the British general of the same name and William. It was, in a word, as contentious as a Buzzfeed quiz that asks readers whether each quote was written by Shakespeare or Taylor Swift.
The larger park was apparently "acquired" by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (most well known for being indistinguishable from his father but an utterly unique breed famously called "unrecognizable" by his grandfather) from the early 1900s. I sent sundry telegrams to the park service to ask what was meant by this terminology and can only pass onto my readers the assurance I received that the land was at every point in its exchange freely up for sale and of course Rockefeller like all real estate bros always forever paid a fair price and that is how the market works and he earned it and actually no we don't have open records of the sale but I'm sure that the families of the anonymous people who sold would be happy to speak with any interested parties if they were contacted directly STOP. At least one previous tenant was a millionaire so perhaps truth is real.
After restructuring this lush forest into greenery, Rockefeller then generously donated the land to the public and in so doing earned the reverence we owe him for this - the ultimate sacrifice. I even tracked a small sparrow who, for reasonable compensation, was ready and willing to follow in Rocky's steps with this testimony:
Stay still. Wait. Silence the parts of you that
Thrill to make noise for the sake of motion,
That match the momentum of the world to
Stop the drop of drowning in the ocean.
They can only ever float though they strive
To reach reality on ev'ry dive
And dive again, hoping this time they will
Catch what they seek if they can stay alive
But though currents are meant to sway and roam
They cannot help but carry us back home.
His name? Taylor Swift.
The larger park was apparently "acquired" by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (most well known for being indistinguishable from his father but an utterly unique breed famously called "unrecognizable" by his grandfather) from the early 1900s. I sent sundry telegrams to the park service to ask what was meant by this terminology and can only pass onto my readers the assurance I received that the land was at every point in its exchange freely up for sale and of course Rockefeller like all real estate bros always forever paid a fair price and that is how the market works and he earned it and actually no we don't have open records of the sale but I'm sure that the families of the anonymous people who sold would be happy to speak with any interested parties if they were contacted directly STOP. At least one previous tenant was a millionaire so perhaps truth is real.
After restructuring this lush forest into greenery, Rockefeller then generously donated the land to the public and in so doing earned the reverence we owe him for this - the ultimate sacrifice. I even tracked a small sparrow who, for reasonable compensation, was ready and willing to follow in Rocky's steps with this testimony:
Stay still. Wait. Silence the parts of you that
Thrill to make noise for the sake of motion,
That match the momentum of the world to
Stop the drop of drowning in the ocean.
They can only ever float though they strive
To reach reality on ev'ry dive
And dive again, hoping this time they will
Catch what they seek if they can stay alive
But though currents are meant to sway and roam
They cannot help but carry us back home.
His name? Taylor Swift.
What does a bridge owe its people?
The day was wintery, for a summer afternoon - the sky cloudy, until it had rained, then cloudy again for a while, then clear, but by then I had left. I happened upon this bridge not by design but by wandering around the neighborhood in the hopes that I would discover a ghost. But as any seasoned anthropologist would tell you, by the time one seeks, it is often too late. This humble author begs the reader to remember this, for as the sun set I noticed signs that may or may not have signaled some suspect force in the direct area:
- The bridge itself was covered in marks, like crosses but rotated at an even more he**ish angle, so as to suggest subterfuge. The anti-crosses, as I will call them, were constructed on the side of the bridge as if to mock its crosser with lack of confidence in our skills to walk across it without tumbling off.
- The water underneath was very still, as if it were saving its energy for the day when it might meet its love and feel pressure, as one does, to perform to that stream's standards. For one does not disappoint love when it is so gracious as to grace one...this is universal.
- A crow flew far above, alighting on several tree branches in an apparent show of distress and indecision. What does a crow have to be indecisive about, I wondered? Without any way to know for sure, I could only piece together the details of its flight - the jolting up and down, the tenuous launch off every branch, the incessant flapping of wings in the act of landing - that this creature was facing indelible air-related trauma on a scale I could hardly imagine.
The crow, being a self-identified life coach but refusing to go into any more detail than that, offered these comments when I asked him for a bit of gossip or local lore or a free sample of its services:
I dream to rise above the surface of
My weight on water, rushing up on waves
And diving down with debri that curses
Its grey mind to dare regret what it saves,
That fiddles with depth as if it plays in
The air rather than thick ocean and foam
Freezing crisp in the wake of dawn rather
Than slow sinking strangled swirls of soft loam -
Only then could I see self and suppose
That it is real beyond some fate I chose.
There was also a man whose head I gently offered up. Very polite for the area but cold, as I've learned is custom in the unnerved hot-coffee-cold-shake-burger-well-done-and-don't-forget-the-carrot-sticks diner types.
The day was wintery, for a summer afternoon - the sky cloudy, until it had rained, then cloudy again for a while, then clear, but by then I had left. I happened upon this bridge not by design but by wandering around the neighborhood in the hopes that I would discover a ghost. But as any seasoned anthropologist would tell you, by the time one seeks, it is often too late. This humble author begs the reader to remember this, for as the sun set I noticed signs that may or may not have signaled some suspect force in the direct area:
- The bridge itself was covered in marks, like crosses but rotated at an even more he**ish angle, so as to suggest subterfuge. The anti-crosses, as I will call them, were constructed on the side of the bridge as if to mock its crosser with lack of confidence in our skills to walk across it without tumbling off.
- The water underneath was very still, as if it were saving its energy for the day when it might meet its love and feel pressure, as one does, to perform to that stream's standards. For one does not disappoint love when it is so gracious as to grace one...this is universal.
- A crow flew far above, alighting on several tree branches in an apparent show of distress and indecision. What does a crow have to be indecisive about, I wondered? Without any way to know for sure, I could only piece together the details of its flight - the jolting up and down, the tenuous launch off every branch, the incessant flapping of wings in the act of landing - that this creature was facing indelible air-related trauma on a scale I could hardly imagine.
The crow, being a self-identified life coach but refusing to go into any more detail than that, offered these comments when I asked him for a bit of gossip or local lore or a free sample of its services:
I dream to rise above the surface of
My weight on water, rushing up on waves
And diving down with debri that curses
Its grey mind to dare regret what it saves,
That fiddles with depth as if it plays in
The air rather than thick ocean and foam
Freezing crisp in the wake of dawn rather
Than slow sinking strangled swirls of soft loam -
Only then could I see self and suppose
That it is real beyond some fate I chose.
There was also a man whose head I gently offered up. Very polite for the area but cold, as I've learned is custom in the unnerved hot-coffee-cold-shake-burger-well-done-and-don't-forget-the-carrot-sticks diner types.
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to get off their feet in the midst of a hectic publicity run - such wears the whimsy of Tribeca Park at this moment, nearly folding in on itself with the sunglass-bedraggled hordes of festival goers clamoring for sweet release from their self-inflicted congratulatory charms.
One can almost feel, thick as Cassandra's song obliterated into smoke and turned orange as an homage to a social media trend housed in the reputation of a filmmaker whose tastes ran toward the pastel, the push and pull of New Yorkers who call themselves native with the newcomers lighting upon the area they have chosen for their annual carnival of glory, gold, and film. But what are we to do with such anarchy? I am but a humble observer, caught in the mess. We are but pawns thirsting for quench on a hot summer day, aching for release from our feet with the smallest trade from our dignity, unsure what to make of the city's humble claim that it bought this lot for merely $3950 - but from whom? Would that my internet would work on this fine day...
In the area was an overpopulation of starry-eyed sophistocates drowning their ennui in pointing this way and that, striding fast past infrastructure and unbothered by demands on their time, in fact thriving in the knowledge that they are scarce and the world has no right to them and this they earned through achievement, and also pigeons. I stopped one on its commute to ask its opinion on the local comings, goings, and stayings, and in return for the question it offered this:
There are hopes I hold for the far future -
Change for which I wish I could rush the fight
And find the battle fair and the road steep
But not ruined, rough but not gone, and might
I find myself there, would you come? Would you
Keep us safe together on the path, or
Soft in the grass? Would you walk with me too?
Would you remind me what the walk was for?
For fate was always Orpheus to me
And I forever its Euridice.
One can almost feel, thick as Cassandra's song obliterated into smoke and turned orange as an homage to a social media trend housed in the reputation of a filmmaker whose tastes ran toward the pastel, the push and pull of New Yorkers who call themselves native with the newcomers lighting upon the area they have chosen for their annual carnival of glory, gold, and film. But what are we to do with such anarchy? I am but a humble observer, caught in the mess. We are but pawns thirsting for quench on a hot summer day, aching for release from our feet with the smallest trade from our dignity, unsure what to make of the city's humble claim that it bought this lot for merely $3950 - but from whom? Would that my internet would work on this fine day...
In the area was an overpopulation of starry-eyed sophistocates drowning their ennui in pointing this way and that, striding fast past infrastructure and unbothered by demands on their time, in fact thriving in the knowledge that they are scarce and the world has no right to them and this they earned through achievement, and also pigeons. I stopped one on its commute to ask its opinion on the local comings, goings, and stayings, and in return for the question it offered this:
There are hopes I hold for the far future -
Change for which I wish I could rush the fight
And find the battle fair and the road steep
But not ruined, rough but not gone, and might
I find myself there, would you come? Would you
Keep us safe together on the path, or
Soft in the grass? Would you walk with me too?
Would you remind me what the walk was for?
For fate was always Orpheus to me
And I forever its Euridice.
They say we ought not loiter in the park after dark, but they who dare to say this ought not take for granted the boldness of those who scale boulders. That said, I twisted my ankle but it was not for naught, as I was also blessed with some fine findings on this night. See here:
The trope of the eleven o'clock jogger struck true thrice this evening, though at that point I had to leave to attend to my SnoCone, having dropped it off a rocky ledge. What possesses a human to jog, and why we should draw lines between the joggers and the runners and the very fast and very desperate subway hunters, all of whom pursue their passions with ferocity and velocity and deign to define their roles without falling in line, except in the cases where marathons and 5Ks run rampant, this author will never know. The word itself was spawn, after all, of a town in Greece where a battle was fought and because that battle was fought a man had to rush across a city to tell other men a very important message, and so important was the message that so fast he had to run that he lost all his clothes in the process and by the time he arrived in Athens he announced that they had won and promptly dropped dead. So the lesson is, of course, that if a marathon is named after the origin of the race then it ought to go in a circle and the rest of the situation isn't of much importance and certainly not of such importance that one would run a marathon at all.
Supposedly there are a thousand bats in Prospect Park. Perhaps they are the They who say we ought not loiter in the park after dark, but if so They're uncommonly silent for the type to be those Theys who warn en masse, precluding the following talkative fellow who seemed all too ready to parse philosophy over his midnight coffee:
We were born knowing these things, weren't we?
Up and down and right and wrong and unreal -
It doesn't take too long to seek them, friend.
No matter how long they've been lost, to feel
That moment of finding them again makes
Ev'ry rock and stone on the path over
Worth tripping on a hundred times again.
Would you like to look behind your shoulder?
If I told the truth, I suppose I do,
But thankfully reality's all too true.
The trope of the eleven o'clock jogger struck true thrice this evening, though at that point I had to leave to attend to my SnoCone, having dropped it off a rocky ledge. What possesses a human to jog, and why we should draw lines between the joggers and the runners and the very fast and very desperate subway hunters, all of whom pursue their passions with ferocity and velocity and deign to define their roles without falling in line, except in the cases where marathons and 5Ks run rampant, this author will never know. The word itself was spawn, after all, of a town in Greece where a battle was fought and because that battle was fought a man had to rush across a city to tell other men a very important message, and so important was the message that so fast he had to run that he lost all his clothes in the process and by the time he arrived in Athens he announced that they had won and promptly dropped dead. So the lesson is, of course, that if a marathon is named after the origin of the race then it ought to go in a circle and the rest of the situation isn't of much importance and certainly not of such importance that one would run a marathon at all.
Supposedly there are a thousand bats in Prospect Park. Perhaps they are the They who say we ought not loiter in the park after dark, but if so They're uncommonly silent for the type to be those Theys who warn en masse, precluding the following talkative fellow who seemed all too ready to parse philosophy over his midnight coffee:
We were born knowing these things, weren't we?
Up and down and right and wrong and unreal -
It doesn't take too long to seek them, friend.
No matter how long they've been lost, to feel
That moment of finding them again makes
Ev'ry rock and stone on the path over
Worth tripping on a hundred times again.
Would you like to look behind your shoulder?
If I told the truth, I suppose I do,
But thankfully reality's all too true.