The Graspable and the Ideal

What can you grasp or comprehend? What is beyond your grasp? What is the Ineffable, the Platonic Ideal? That there is more to life than meets the eye or the comprehension is a cornerstone of Platonic thought.

On our jaunt through Anchorage I stopped to photograph the sign for a shop called “Plato’s Closet.” The lit major in me wondered whether it was related to Plato’s cave wall. While photographing, I was accosted by a large blonde in a larger SUV who asked why I was taking a photo of the sign. I smiled my guileless smile and replied that the name was the same as the Greek philosopher who gave us the idea of the “ideal.” She told me it was her store and asked why hadn’t I heard of Plato’s Closet? She looked perplexed so I asked if she might be Mrs. Plato. No, but she graciously invited us in to check out her store, even as she wondered why this tourist lady found her store’s name so quaint.

Continuing the theme of projections on the wall, I must report that Anchorage hosts two theaters showing video footage of the Northern Lights. How baffling. The Aurora Theater will sell admission to a seat to watch a narrated movie of Aurora Borealis. So will “Lumalim.” They offer this: “experience the Northern Lights through augmented reality.” And then audience members may tell the folks at home they’d seen the Northern Lights in Alaska. Does it matter that it was on a screen?

What about turning off all the lights and selling tickets to a simulated solar eclipse?

Similarly, the NP bus tours have a ranger with a spotting scope on board. She spots wildlife and links her scope’s active feed to screens placed on the bus. Thus the passengers can ogle the wildlife on screen with the same magnification as her spotting scope. So that increases the likelihood of wildlife viewing, but does it count if it is on a screen? Why not just Google “moose image” and skip the bus ride? Or take a photo at the ANC airport:

Traveling confers on the traveler the sense of seeing something different from the usual. I think Alaskans greet tourists with “Watch out for moose!” the way we’d say, “Surf’s up!”  There’s pride in that warning. I got a lengthy spiel from an Alaskan who told me what to do if chased by a moose. She delivered it with practiced gravity, the way I’d tell a beach newcomer about what to do if caught in a riptide. By the way, the answer is: run in a zigzag and climb or hide behind a tree because moose have poor depth perception and lose interest quickly. What was it I was chasing? Naw, better just go back to eating swamp goo.

Sign on the Coastal Trail in Anchorage. There are neither helmet laws nor leash laws, only suggestions.

The state department that administers the annual dividend to residents is called the PFD: Permanent Fund Dividend. This is not “Personal Flotation Device.”

It’s worth noting that JG looks at the world through an engineer’s eyes. So when we cross a river, he’s looking at the bridge construction while I look at the plants. In a rough climate like Alaska, structures deteriorate fast. So a lot of labor is needed just to keep up with maintenance. The “Pretty Rocks Slide” has closed the single road in Denali at Mile 43 and no repairs are forecast. JG was already musing how to fix the road with a bridge. He really enjoyed the many different kinds of bridges we’ve crossed while I admired the plant life. Top five best things about Alaska:

5. Glaciers. I have no words.

4. Rivers: mostly named after the glaciers from whence they flow.

3. Frontier: not many roads or trails, lots of public land 

2. Ability of the hardy young population to thrive outside city limits with no internet

1. The “eat the wilderness” mindset, called “subsistence,” that, as I reported from Louisiana, examines everything in the wild as “good, bad, or good eatin’.”