The End of Beach Reading?

Summer officially ends on Thursday at 6:23 pm EDT, which means that the opportunities for reading The Dream Antilles on a beach are dwindling. At least for those of you who go to the beach in North America and Europe. But in the Southern Hemisphere (yes, that means you in Oz and you Kiwis, too) the chances are just beginning. Those of us in the Caribbean (and no, I'm not telling you where) are able to read on the beach year round. But the tide is higher on the full moon nearest the equinox, as it is now. Sometimes at the equinox the waves even tower over us and roll as if they were at the Jersey Shore. This does not disturb life in desde Desdemona in the slightest, although it does remind John Coltrane Ramirez of his early life in Newark, and he finds himself expressing his gratitude for desde Desdemona quite fervently for him. "If you compare this to Newark, it's pretty good. In fact, it's not bad at all."

This is an idea that Philip Roth and other people intimate with Newark, including me, would probably agree with. But my Newark, like John Coltrane Ramirez's, is so far away it's remembered as if it were a crumpled, sepia photograph. It lacks the contrast and contradictions and movement of a real place. And it is inhabited by people who have been dead for decades. And it's easier for Ramirez and me to remember a passionate discussion about Willie Mays than to know the name of the last mayor.

That, of course, doesn't mean that city can't be visited. It's still there and it still produces people who are as tough as cockroaches. And because, mercifully, all time is truly simultaneous, you can visit desde Desdemona and my tattered Newark in the same afternoon, and draw your own conclusions.