in May of 1904, on fifteen acres adjacent to Luna Park, Coney Island.  It burns and closes in 1911.



Dreamland's spire aiming its searchlight toward the Atlantic, Luna Park next door, Coney Island, circa 1904.

From all accounts, the short-lived amusement park called Dreamland was not much more than a slickly plagiarized version of its competitor Luna Park across the way, but less successful, even with some innovative additions, because it was said to have suffered from poor management.  Before being reduced to charred ruins, the all-white structures -- designed in the wedding cake "Great White Way" taste -- were all painted by new owners in bright if somewhat garish colors, presumably to reinvigorate interest in the flagging concern, the way a colorful new top or new shade of lipstick will sometimes be employed to pique interest in a figure or face grown too familiar and in need of "a change."

Even as I write those words I can't help thinking of Anita Brookner novels.  "Look At Me" (American edition, Pantheon, New York, 1983) comes to mind.  It is one of the few books to which I know the first lines; in fact, the whole of the first paragraph:

Once a thing is known it can never be unknown.  It can
only be forgotten.  And, in a way that bends time, so long
as it is remembered, it will indicate the future.  It is
wiser, in every circumstance, to forget, to cultivate the 
art of forgetting.  To remember is to face the enemy.  The
truth lies in remembering.

If the title isn't enough to tell you, let me: "Look At Me" is one of the most painful books I've ever read.  In fact I have to confess I've had a hard time reading anything else by Brookner after it.  The desire by someone timid and shy to be noticed by someone she loves, coupled with the fear that the beloved will never turn her way, that she will never be loved... well, it's tough to watch, as they say, much less read about. 

In any event, Dreamland's brief moment in time started me thinking about the equally 'dream-like' and fleeting world (Floating World, as they say in the world of Japanese art) of blogging and the Blog. 

I see the role of Blogger as "between floors" if you will.  Like a Nanny.

Oddly enough, just recently someone asked me (I can't remember who) if I'd been raised by a Nanny, and the question (regardless of what you think of it) illustrates my point, since some of you know the answer because you're related to me (or deeply intimate with my biographical details), and some of you aren't.  Nevermind the period-appropriateness of the analogy either, since even if you were born in 1904 you wouldn't necessarily look forward to the love or neglect of someone not related to you by birth, someone who lived with you Upstairs at the top of the house in the Nursery but also found herself at home with the Downstairs staff, who was seemingly as able to make an appearance before her employer in the drawing room as she was making bread and jam tea for you under the eaves, wielding a toasting fork, darning a sock, sewing on a button or whipping up slipcovers for Her Ladyship's Morning Room divan while you took your nap. 

Likewise we Bloggers straddle different realms, you see.    Perhaps all writers do, for that matter.  We know the sometimes grim reality of the small creatures in our charge, the ideas with runny noses, the anecdotes full of sassiness and hurts -- we know the Truth of the Nursery -- and yet if we are good at what we do, we need to frame that truth diplomatically and effectively for the Great World Beyond, peopled by Those Who Sired You and Those in whose hands your Great Expectations lie.  ["They're spirited, Mum, and make no mistake.  He's got your eyes, Milord.  She's a perfect angel and there's the blessed truth of it, Your Grace."]

A Blogger lives between the floors of Fact and Fiction -- for me, at least, also between the Past and Present.  Because knowing my own reality is only a part of it -- I have to try and tell you what my truth might be on any given day, but in a way that makes you want to hear more, not sack me and move on to the next.  ["For the love of God call the Service and have them send round another Nanny, this one's a bloody Bore"].

That's how I see it anyway: you can't trust everything you read, and that includes those out there with their comments too, okay?  At least one of you will recall the "Buffy" episode about the computer and the chat room where Willow meets that nice boy who turns out to be a horrible goat-horned monster.  Remember?  Xander tries to warn her.  "I go to the Elderly Dutch Lady Chat Room," he hypothesizes.  "But how do I know it's elderly Dutch ladies I'm talking to?"  My point exactly.  

But Dreamland -- the space between floors, inhabited by those who want you to notice, want you to look at them kindly -- oh, my darlings, it's not always an easy place to be.  I try to shade the truth and flatter his Lord and Ladyship, I work to find that turn of phrase that transforms life under the eaves into something charming and magical.  But sometimes all I want to do is slip downstairs to the Kitchen for a cuppa with Cook and whine about cruel Fate that's dealt me out still more injustice -- whooping cough or head lice, an upset tummy and bad dreams again; a bed-wetter, saints preserve us.

Dreamland of course is just a poor imitation of the real dream, a cheaply painted up lady but still a pale imitation of the more substantial, more successful Luna Park next door, which isn't doomed, isn't going to be reduced to soggy muck and rubble.  And yet, look at the beacon, panning the ocean at night under a starry sky.  Look at the million electric lights that caused the fatal short, the snap and pop of a fuse box that took it all down.  Look close for the one-armed lion tamer, Captain Bonavita, waving and lit up by the flames.  "Look at me!" he's crying.  Look at me.  

To be Continued.