The City of St. Augustine

[Elven Doritos]

What is the truth? A plain picture. A tramp vomiting into the sewer, and next door to the picture, Mr. Rockefeller.
-Bob Dylan, interview for Time Magazine (1965)

[ic=Your faithful reporter]I came here looking for something very specific. Something particular. Someone in particular, actually. I knew his name, I knew what he looked like, I had heard his voice, read his poems, and I felt as though I knew him, but I didn't Know him.

   Just off of Highway 61, there was this city, this quirky little hodgepodge that seemed completely unaware how contradictory it was, how jumbled and mysterious it seemed to an outsider's eyes. On the outskirts of the town, situated between ramshackle barns and an abandoned auto plant, were fields and fields of picturesque farmland, and as a proud sign declared, this was Maggie's Farm. Idealistic farmhands gave me a tip of their straw hats and a hearty wave as I drove near, and I thought to myself, My god, do these people know what year this is? I parked my old '64 Cadillac on the side of the dirt road and asked the farmhands for directions, and they were more than happy to help. I quickly learned that they once knew the man I was looking for, and I , searching for any insight into his cryptic past, listened for hours to their quaint stories and plain-spoken reveries of days long gone. I shook the calloused hands of the workers before Maggie's father could come to kick me out.

   A locomotive train was hurling across the tracks just outside the city, and I could swear that as I approached, I could smell blood on the tracks. When I came to a stop, old men in overalls and derby hats stared at me from inside a boxcar as cigar smoke poured out of the side door. They had cowboy mouths and steel-string guitars, and I heard old spiritual songs echoing into the empty valleys.

   Once I crossed the railway tracks, I was inside city limits, and the difference was noticeable. Immediately, I was caught in traffic, listening to people argue at a streetlight, but as I listened in, the words became clearer; this wasn't a traffic dispute, they were talking about poetry. Whether Ezra Pound or T.S. Eliot was the greatest poet of the twentieth century. Eventually a policeman came and sorted out the dispute, letting traffic resume its normal course. I parked my car and made my way down to 4th Street, the old hangout of the man I was searching for.  The painters, the poets, and the jilted lovers all had stories to tell, and I patiently listened and wrote as I became more confused than when I had started.

   On my way into the subway, I recognized a reporter,  C.W. Jones of Time Magazine. He was sad and slouching, and as I asked him about his work ,I learned that he was on sabbatical. He was more than happy to discuss my mystery, but had little insight; he knew something, but didn't know that he knew it, so bound up in facts that he forgot how to have ideas.

   I went to a run-down electric company, a commune, a prison, a forest, and a dozen other places looking for information about this man. I spoke to the blind police commissioner, an actor, the workers of the local carnival, an ex-wife, three children, a lumberjack, and a hundred other strangers, none of whom seemed to Know him.

   To some, he was a poet. To others, a hero. A villain. A hypocrite, a traitor, a sell-out, a thief. A clown, a trapeze artist, a sycophant, a trendsetter, a good singer, a bad singer, a prophet, a priest, a messiah, a blasphemer, a son, a father, a brother, an uncle, an overgrown boy, an ancient wise man, a spastic pill junky, a kindly vagabond, a youthful rake, an outlaw, an in-law, a painter, a fool, a prince, a pauper, a Jew, a Christian, a musician, a spokesman, the future, the past, and a million other things.

   And as I rounded the city blocks of St. Augustine, I wondered how many of them were true. Maybe none of them. Maybe all of them.

   But now that I'm here, none of that really matters. Scooped up into the cornucopia, I can see why he left. But looking at this city, seeing it in all its warm absurdity and oblivious contradiction, this wellspring of inspiration, angst, distrust, and nostalgia, well... I have a feeling he'll be back, so I wait. And I watch.[/ic]

The City of St. Augustine is a micro-setting based upon the works of Bob Dylan, featuring quotes, images, characters, and concepts culled from Dylan's career, which transcends the bounds of music, poetry, literature, film, and stage performance. I will update periodically with brief prosaic descriptions of characters and places, but it is unlikely that any great detail will be accomplished; if the project seems unpromising early on, I intend to abandon it. This is mostly as a mental workout to use the setting in some short fiction I intend to work on (but we all know how that tends to work out). This wouldn't be very well suited to roleplaying games, but hey, who knows.

Also, I can't draw city maps. Otherwise there would be one here.

[Elven Doritos]

You've got a lot of nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning
-Positively 4th Street (1965)

[ic=Locale: 4th Street]The hipsters have infested what was the folkie hangout, and people with plastic sunglasses and bad fashion sense have replaced the dusty, leather-skinned troubadours who idolized Woody Guthrie and fancied themselves the agents of social change. One man killed this haven for idealism with a bad amphetamine habit, a transient sense of social responsibility, and a Fender Stratocaster, lodging a cleft in the center of the community that had come to revere him. Now, the divide was crystal clear; on either side of the street, the Folk Scene and the Hipsters were visibly separated by the presence of a Starbucks coffee shop, the absolute zenith of commercialist pandering. The folkies, as led by Romeo Marques, Johanna Malveaux, Jane Queensbury, and Rosemary White, have taken roost along the street corners, distributing pamphlets and flyers protesting the encroachment of corporations into a residential zone of the city. Firm, committed, and constantly accompanied by harmonicas and acoustic guitars, the north end of 4th Street remains stoic in its endearment to values and their sense of justice.

With their leopard-skin pillbox hats, their velvet suits, and their ironic smirks, the south 4th Street inhabitants couldn't be any different than their northerly counterparts. Loud, vitriolic garage rock bands constantly blast their amplified music for all of 4th Street to hear. Although known for posing constant questions to any passerby, be it a stranger, a friend, or a north-ender, the south-end 4th Street inhabitants are rarely interested in answers. Self-described "cosmic amphetamine-brain" William Scott plays host to a wide variety of rebellious debutantes, and has firmly entrenched the south end of the city with the "in crowd" with his avant-garde art gallery. Sara Castaway, the once-wealthy daughter of the city's second-wealthiest man, now works at Starbucks, filling orders for her hipster friends with an unconvincing smile.[/ic]



Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row
-Desolation Row, Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

[ic=Locale: Desolation Row]The former Mayor Adrian Pawn of St. Augustine had vehemently lobbied for the creation of a high-security prison right on the western outskirts of the city, and though his wish was granted, it cost him re-election. Despite being a great financial boon for the city, the Newport Correctional Facility is met with derision and a good deal of suspicion by the populace, and rumors of mistreatment and mismanagement by the prison staff abound. Still, people in St. Augustine prefer to turn a blind eye to the happenings of Newport, and remain oblivious to its darker reputation.

Among inmates, the maximum security wing of Newport is widely known as Desolation Row. Reserved for high-profile criminals and repeat escapists, allegations of abuse by the prison staff have surfaced from released prisoners. Jack Shapiro, a con artist released for exemplary behavior as per the Good Samaritan act, has claimed that the Newport medical staff, in particular the lead physician Doctor Rudolph Filth, regularly commits unusual medical experimentation upon inmates, but Shapiro's subsequent arrest by the St. Augustine Riot Squad during a violent protest has obliterated his already dubious credibility. The warden halted any further investigations regarding medical impropriety in Newport, and the concern has, for the time being, abated.[/ic]


The light in this place
Is really bad
Like lookin' out the bottom
Of a stream
Any minute now
I'm expecting to wake up from a dream...
-I'm Dreamin' of You, The Bootleg Series vol. 8: Tell-Tale Signs (2008)

[ic=Locale: The Subterranean Homesick Blues Club]If you went to the Subterranean Homesick Blues Club in the 30's, 40's and 50's, you may have seen the likes of Bo Diddley, Leadbelly, Howlin' Wolf, and a dozen other grizzled blues veterans, and you would have heard songs about heartbreak, injustice, booze, Roosevelt, and what it means to be a man. Although the club is still standing (and it still smells like a dirty sock dipped in a bottle of scotch), the venue's popularity has caused a shift in its performances. In lieu of the old bluesmen, wide-eyed white teens with leather jackets and a knack for slide guitar sing old blues standards with all the soul and some of the grit from the old days.

The Blues Club remains a popular hangout for musicians and artists, especially in the rare occasions that the Club's owner, Danny "Casanova" Clay takes the stage. Clay, the grandson of the club's original owner, spent most of his childhood learning the blues from the musicians who frequented the club, often staying for weeks at a time in the loft above the bar. At the age of twenty, Clay began to frequent the folk rallies so prominent in the 4th Street scene, helping to forge the close alliance between the black and white St. Augustine musicians. His reputation, and the financial success of his subsequent inheritance, increased even as the folk and blues scenes fell apart. Now, the Subterranean Homesick Blues Club remains a curious oddity, a nostalgic, idiosyncratic point of pride for the fresh-faced youth who know, but can't Know, the Club's deep history.[/ic]

[Numinous]

Classy man.  I don't listen to Bob Dylan because it's not my kind of music, but I appreciate the message and what you're conveying is good reading.  These little glimpses of a non-existent world might not be publishable or even good by professional standards, but I like it.  Do as you will, not as I wish, but I'll be here reading.

[Elven Doritos]

Classy man.  I don't listen to Bob Dylan because it's not my kind of music, but I appreciate the message and what you're conveying is good reading.  These little glimpses of a non-existent world might not be publishable or even good by professional standards, but I like it.  Do as you will, not as I wish, but I'll be here reading.

I gotta say man, this kind of comes across as a backhanded compliment. I know it's (probably) not intended as such, just saying.

[Biohazard]

I'm on the pavement, thinkin' 'bout the government...

[Elven Doritos]

I'm on the pavement, thinkin' 'bout the government...

The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again


Also, future content will probably be posted in one of the above posts (as space provides), with bumps to notify of updates. Mostly for formatting reasons.

[Steerpike]

I'm very much enjoying this - to be honest, more than your Warehouse Wanderer Notes.  You've got a real talent for articulating urban space.  Really looking forward to more.[blockquote=Elven Doritos]When I came to a stop, old men in overalls and derby hats stared at me from inside a boxcar as cigar smoke poured out of the side door. They had cowboy mouths and steel-string guitars, and I heard old spiritual songs echoing into the empty valleys.[/blockquote]These lines are probably my favorite.  Really melancholy and beautiful, with enough whimsy to be compelling without becoming corny.

[Lmns Crn]

YESSS i want this thread

I swear I'll have something coherent and possibly useful to offer lately, but for now I just want to put this prose in a paper bag and inhale and reinhale it like a man trying to avoid hyperventilating.

[Elven Doritos]

Updated with a new locale: Desolation Row. I'm working on some character descriptions as well.

[Elven Doritos]

New locale: Subterranean Homesick Blues Club