the romance extended: a vision of *walking tours* of great long adventures exploring in depth. Down the coasts of the americas. Along the paths of Cormac McCarthy novels. A great and vast journey over sea and land. The path of my mother's family in Burma—they called it Shwe Pyi Daw, The Golden Land (a kind of parallax of the Golden Country of Orwell, breathed into life in the place where so many of his dreams foundered, despite it all). A brief interest in Japan, the salt smell of the coast, the sound of rain among the leaves, or upon the still roofs of tiny retreats, tea houses amid the hill country. The Yucatan, Oaxaca—the flavors of fire, the great stirrings of the Zapotec and Aztec kingdoms. The diversions of artists and poets in Europe: urban Paris, the riverlands of France, the rich largesse of Piedmont. The vision of Wim Wenders, his own reframing of 20th Century American Romanticism and my appropriation thereof. Visions telescoped with others' visions.