Carlisle, Pennsylvania
We left our little resort in Fort Lauderdale and began the
trek home. This part of the trip is always the most difficult for us as it more
about reaching deadlines and planned stops more than it is about the journey.
We determined two touristy things to do along the way, bought an audio book
version of Midnight in the Garden of Good
and Evil (there is only so much satellite radio to which one can listen. If
I hear Fight Song one more time I
will actually vomit), and settled in with determination for the most direct
route home.
Then we decided upon our first deviation from this plan.
Seaside, Florida is an unincorporated town nestled along the
southern coast of the Florida panhandle. It is very unique because the layout
and organisation of the town and its functions were completely planned out
before being built. All other additions to the community were decided upon with
consensus and were developed within the original plans. It was an attempt to preserve
the small town atmosphere of America wherein you could walk to all of your
required destinations and that there were plenty of opportunities to meet with
your neighbours. This last part is reflected in the central post office with is
next to a very large outdoor amphitheatre which is surrounded by all of the
shops. Immediately behind this is the school and the streets which spoke out or run parallel to the amphitheatre. Across the street from the post office are
some restaurants and the pristine white sand beach cuddling up to the warm
waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
It is a perfect place. So perfect that it was used to film
the town scenes in The Truman Show. I
was immediately smitten with the community and, after eating fresh shrimp on an
outdoor pavilion that overlooked the water and then walking barefoot along the
beach with Eric, boldly declared that this would be the place I would spend my
retirement years as a snowbird!
Eric then noted that the place felt more like a resort than
a town. At this point we looked around us again. The restaurants were great,
but pricey for what they served. But that is for the tourists. The shops that
surround the amphitheatre were not inhabited by the butcher, the fishmonger or
the tailor. Instead we had a book store, a vinyl record store, high end
fashions and a furniture store that had a very specialised stock.
I do not remember these kinds of things in the small town
America I have seen in documentaries or any Frank Capra movie. Apparently there
about few hundred people actually living in the town and then a resort than a
home.
We also noticed that the only visible minority we could find
were overweight people. If you know what I mean.
It was like the Stepford
Wives version of a town. Perfect in
almost every detail. Almost. I began to feel less smitten and more seduced. I
am not totally convinced I would enjoy actually staying in this place for a
long time. Certainly I doubt I could afford it!
Nevertheless, it was a wonderful place to visit and we both
felt a few hours later that it all felt a bit like a dream or a Twilight Zone episode.
Our next stop ended up being another deviation from the ‘Get
Home’ plan.
One of our most cherished movies is Tim Burton’s Big Fish. I have spoken about this in
previous posts when Eric and I took a road trip to New Orleans and back. In
this trip we visited some of the filming locations, but we did not get to see
Spectre. If you know the movie, Spectre is a place the main character visits
more than once. Spectre is a small town that serves as an evolving metaphor
that examines the concept of narrative and how we perceive our lives and
dreams. Spectre holds a great deal of influence over the narrative of this
film. If you have seen this film, you know to what I am referring. If you have
not seen this film, I recommend it with great enthusiasm.
The set of Spectre, one road leading to a church with
buildings on each side along the way, is simple. It is every main street in any
small town in North America. The set is located on a private island that you
spend three dollars to cross the bridge. The area is used primarily for fishing
(of course!), but there also seems to be camping. Being a set, the place is completely
dilapidated and some of the buildings are now gone. The shops are gone and a
couple of the houses. The church is still there. The mayor’s house, in which
the main character ate pie, is in relatively good shape as it was the only ‘dressed’
set for interior use. But the porch stairs and door are long gone on this house
as well.
Walking up and down the road of this place brought the name
Spectre into a whole new focus. It truly is a ghost town now. When you consider
the themes and ideas that were explored using these building consisting only of
plywood and artistic license, it seems both sad and fitting that this place,
this unreal place, should be left abandoned to fade away from existence and be
swallowed up by the natural order of things.
Eric and I have been on sets before, and we hold no romantic
notions of preservation. Indeed, we agree that part of the beauty of theatre is
its fleeting nature. We left feeling grateful that we were able to visit this
place, and knowing that we would never return.
Fleeting. Such is the nature of any spectre.
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