#94: Orange You Going

Grace Church, NYC

The two photos aren't related by geography, but they are united by one unusual aspect: orange doors on churches.

I'll confess, I'm sort of a sucker for the combination: that unmistakable hue favored by architect/design folks (yes, I do own about 21 magazine holders in this exact orange color from Bigso Box of Sweden) offset by the weathered stone of an old church. As for the Bruges picture, it makes me very happy as it reminds me of cycling down the narrow streets of the medieval city while Angelus bells rang out and the summer sun slowly set. Consider it my very modest contribution to the as-yet unrealized Bruges Cycle Chic website.

What's that you say? Bruges Cycle Chic has already been done? Ah well, I suppose I'll find my niche in Bruges Orange Door Churches Cycle Chic. So when it finally hits the big time, I can say that I got there first.

Bruges, Belgium

#270

#270, Bruges

It's 30 km to Roeselare, 21 to Lichtervelde, and 270 to Paris from the bell tower in Bruges. It's 366 steps to the top, a feat of exercise I'll never see in the same way ever since watching Martin McDonagh's film In Bruges, about two Irish hit men hiding out in the picturesque Medieval Belgian city. They spend most of the film trying to keep from killing themselves -- or each other -- out of sheer boredom while waiting for instructions for their next job. When they receive news they'll be stuck in Medieval Disneyland for two whole weeks, a trip to the tower seems unavoidable. Or two trips. Or ten.

Climbing the steps of the bell tower is basically the touristy thing to do in this tiny town, and the bunch of overweight American tourists in the movie who announce their intention to climb to the top get a skeptical tongue-lashing from Colin Farrell's character, who is, as Brendan Gleeson's character points out, "about the worst tourist in the whole world." As a backdrop, the tower provides the film with some of its best comic and tragic scenes.

I love it when a city plays a major role in either a movie or a book, when its personality becomes so intertwined with the story that the city itself becomes a main character. I think of Carl Sandburg's Chicago in Harvest Poems, Joyce's Dubliners, or Hemingway's Paris in A Moveable Feast. The authors of these books -- this is also true of McDonagh -- make their cities come to life. We see them, feel them, smell them, and hear them. We see beyond the main tourist attractions and simple set pieces -- though these are often included in the stories -- to the quirks and weaknesses of each place. I love Dublin these days, but after living with the emotionally stifled characters in Joyce's Dubliners for fifteen stories, I sure wouldn't have wanted to see it at the turn of the last century. Chicago's changed since the Sandburg called it the Hog Butcher for the World, but I still imagine it as a place of grit and hard-boiled characters. Chicago, to me, is a man and Paris is a woman. Is it my own experience that makes me think this, or does the writing have something to do with it? Has my view of each place been shaped by what I've read or seen about it?

It's possible to fall in love with a place -- or (ahem, Las Vegas) fear and loathe it -- based on a book, a movie, or even a set of photographs. It's also possible to be reminded of the places we've traveled to, lived in, or loved by revisiting it through another's eyes. Bruges would've been the last place I'd have thought to set a movie about two hit men, but now I'll never be able to think of Bruges without them.

#164

#164, Bruges, Belgium

Before setting foot in the medieval town-meets-Epcot Center world of Bruges, I'd heard it described as "the Venice of Northern Europe." Comparisons like this are always unnecessary and lead to more dangerously asinine comparisons like calling Jackson Heights "the Williamsburg of Queens." Let's just call Bruges, Bruges, and please can we move on to the mussels and Belgian beer and the architecture?

Now I had about two hours, cycling alone at dusk one fine June day while the church bells rang out from the tower, when I thought to myself, "I need to move here. Right now. I need to move here and write my novel here and see windmills every day." The brightly colored Dutch billy buildings, the network of labyrinthine streets, the cobblestones, the solitude - once you got away from the circus of the square - were transporting in the best way possible. Absolutely. I could get used to this.

Then about a year ago, I was excited to learn that Martin McDonagh, whose writing I could eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, had written a screenplay for a sort of noir hitman film based in Bruges called, er, In Bruges. The trailer hit all the right notes for me: dark and fast-paced with that peculiar vinegar-flavored humor that McDonagh's plays are known for. Instead of an idyllic medieval writer's retreat, the Bruges of the movie is basically a candy-colored tourist-infested hell imprisoning the two main characters, played brilliantly by Brendan Gleeson and, a guilty pleasure to admit, Colin Farrell.

In Bruges was one of those stories where setting truly played a major role, and I love getting wrapped up in stories (whether novels or films or even songs) where the story can not possibly be extracted from the setting. Try to imagine Roman Holiday set in Halifax and you'll see what I mean. And as far as choices go, I loved the underdog quality of this choice. If it was anyone other than Martin McDonagh, the proposal for a hitman film based in the rinky-dink sized medieval town of Bruges (usually not a good sign when everyone who hears the title asks, "Where's Bruges") would have been laughed out of the theatre, and not in a nice way. But it didn't. It got made, and I thoroughly enjoyed every gruesome minute of it.

Poor Belgium. Brussels is great, but "it's no Paris," Bruges is beautiful, but it has to be sold as "the Venice of Northern Europe." I'm here to tell you without shame that I love you, Belgium. I love your inferior cities, your mad architecture, your dark chocolate, and your mussels mariniere. I love who I have been in your squares and streets and what you stir up in my windmill-chasing soul. I'll probably never extract another number for you, Bruges, all the rest of the year, but with material this rich, who's counting?