It wasn't what I saw that stopped me.
It was what I didn't see. Can you understand that ?
In all that sprawling city, there was everything except an end.
There was everything. But there wasn't an end.
What I couldn't see was where all that came to an end. The end of the world.
Did you see the streets? There were thousands of them! How do you choose just one?
One woman, one house, one piece of land to call your own, one landscape to look at, one way to die.
All that world weighing down on you without you knowing where it ends.
Aren't you scared of just breaking apart just thinking about it, the enormity of living in it?
Land is a ship too big for me.
It's a woman too beautiful. It's a voyage too long. Perfume too strong.
It's music I don't know how to make. I can't get off this ship.
At best, I can step off my life. After all, it's as though I never existed.
-Danny Boodman T. D. Lemon 1900
From the movie, The Legend of 1900, original title La Leggenda del Pianista sull'Oceano, a movie by Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore about a prodigal pianist born and lived his whole life in a four stacker ship, the SS Virginian.
