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Trevor, I reckon the parallel universe has been calling a lot of late,
whether invited or not. Curiously, maybe even interestingly, altho' I've
never seen The Age of Wire and String I have some across somewhere the
"Letter from Edward to The Scientific Community Thru The Mount Wilson
Observatory" tho' I can't remember where.
In the meantime, here's a bit more thingy, as I'm in the mood, shorn alack
of its expressive italics.
Best
Dave
OF THE FIRST CAUSE
Author of authors reclined on His bed in the clouds. Critically, He
hummed to the broadcasts of distant galaxies. Interesting, considered His
appraisal, but not quite Virgo super-cluster. Yellow-beak, His messenger,
came up from the earth. What language today, Your Magnitude? - enquired the
heavenly bird. Sanskrit, Hebrew, Pali, Tibeta .... No, no, intoned the
Divine Source, Let Us use English. English, Your Circumambulance? -
queried the feathered thinker, isn't that a little mercantile? I need to
talk of a mundane being, confided the Scriptor Supreme.
Author of authors offered His opinion on The Ghost Machine its author.
Hardly consistent, complained The Word, a benefactor here a despot there,
subversive on the one hand (left) oppressor of innocents on the other
(right). He gives his creatures liberty then denies them choice and dares
to invoke himself in comparison with Me whilst seeming neither likeable nor
to know Icelandic. Unlike Myself. Who Am The Nicest Possible You Could
Hope To. And know Icelandic - Fyrir ofriki Haralds konung (e.g.). What did
Yellow-beak opine?
Hosannahs filled the heavenly vault. Hordes of seraphic critics fired
cannonades of destructive analysis from cloud-lapped tow'rs, instantaneous
libraries assembled themselves in annotation of the Holy Critique.
Icelandic panegyrics sprang fully patterned from the pregnant earth and
levitated towards infinity while effigies of the lesser author fell burning
down to the black pits of Obscurity, the bitter lakes of Condemnation, the
foul dungeons of Retribution.
Black-button eyes looked through the Divine Transparency. Ordered by the
unfolding of disorder, the work begins then begins again through a progress
of self-negation. Opposed to itself it drives itself forward,
characteristics clash with the growth of character.
It stopped. It looked intently at the Supreme Fact of Fiction. Nothing, it
rounded, is what it seems in The Ghost Machine.
Yes, I said, and dropped out of the clouds, landing unhurt on my knees on
the barren ground of a previous page. Silent, expressionless, Yellow-beak
watched from a window in mid-air.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Trevor Joyce" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 11:15 AM
Subject: Re: Thingy thing
> Dave: The 'appliance' theme in your thingy reminds me somewhat of Ben
> Marcus (The Age of Wire and String), whom I think someone mentioned here
> recently, though it may have been in a parallel universe.
>
> I first came across Marcus in the form of a couple of pieces in the very
> interesting (if often uneven) Exact Change Yearbook. I was very struck by
> their tone - as though the author of a technical manual were subject to
> uncontrollable waves of bafflement and nostalgia borne on a texture that
> feels like collage - and bought the book off Amazon a few years back, but
> found that, for me, it didn't improve with extended acquaintance; a book
of
> one idea, of a single striking effect, I feel.
>
> Incidentally, the same ECY contains a couple of fascinating pieces
relevant
> to the discussion here of psychosis and writing: a "Letter from Edward to
> The Scientific Community Thru The Mount Wilson Observatory" and some notes
> on an exhibition of his paintings by De Chirico, written in 1972, well
> after Hebdomeros and the autobiography, but with some of the same strange
> clarity.
>
> Trevor
>
>
> Jill & Dave:
> >> The 'appliance' theme is great. Is it a Brit thing? Heath Robinson and
all
> >> that?
> >
> >Jill, danke, I honestly don't know whether it's a Brit thing or not,
maybe
> >someone else could tell me.
>
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