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Sport 21: Spring 1998

5

page 30

5

As my flight for Melbourne departed, the windsock pointed back in the direction from which I had come: an extended finger signalling ‘go back’ or, at least, ‘consider again what you're leaving behind’. Hence, the windsock came inadvertently to denote the place I had left.

In Australia I was greeted by another windsock, pointing back in the direction from which the landing aeroplane had approached the runway. Since then I have noticed windsocks around the world, all of them identical and all of them pointing back in the direction from which the aeroplane has just come, pointing towards the past.

In contrast to the backward-facing windsocks of my departure for Australia and all the other destinations, I imagine the windsocks of Malevich and the Russian Futurists magically reversed and pointing towards a dizzying, irrational future.