& what can make an imagined light be imagined as kindly

• Bernie Sumner is 58 today, and if it is true that there is no longer always a New Order song in my head and that New Order is no longer in the circle of bands for the rotational seats in MSADI5G neither makes it less true that once New Order was. The above: my most air-guitared song ever and to this day.
• Yes, I promised a Fennesz cascade today. That was before I remembered today is an Egoslavian Holy Day. Fennesz next post.
• The transference from what the fuck into duh proceeds on schedule.
• Bros.
• Reflections on the accelerate manifesto.
• Pedagogy, theater, and radical and radical organizing in schools of poverty. (h/t Richard and Aimee).
• But were there any dick jokes?
• Derpsikorean Muse.
• Another reason I do not regret abandoning DC United and MLS. It's pro-wrestling, just more sloppily scripted; MLS doesn't care if you see the kayfabe.

• Woolf, Joyce, class, autodidacts, etc.
• Pynchon's blue shadow. I can't decide whether I should reread Inherent Vice before seeing the movie, especially after reading this paragraph: Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice (2009)—his extravagantly convoluted version of the private eye novel, set amid the detritus of the end of the 1960s—is the kind of verbal construct that at first glance seems inherently unsuited for filming, certainly not as a widescreen spectacle with an all-star cast. To say that Paul Thomas Anderson has faithfully and successfully adapted it to the screen is another way of saying that he has changed it into something entirely different.
• { feuilleton }'s weekly links. 
• On the Jackson Mac Low poem below. Just ordered the book.
• By the way, the fonts in the poem below? Just how it copy/pasted and the limitations of my motherfucking free blogging platform. Read no Mac Low intentions into them, please.
• It is interesting - if unfortunate (or not) - how the word amazonlight now glints off meanings Mac Low could not have imagined when he wrote it.

27th LIGHT POEM

Jackson Mac Low

I
 

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12 13 14 15 

P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

J-10, E-5, R-18, Y-25 = “EE” – 2 + 5 = E-7;

R-18, O-15, T-20, = K-20, H-8 = S-8, E-5, N-14, B-2, E-5,

R-18, G-7
 

j-10   = jack-o’-lantern light

e-5     = earthlight

r-18  = refracted light

r-18  = refracted light

Y-25  = e-7 = ether-lamp light
   

r-18  = refracted light

o-15  = amazonstone light

t-20 = k-20 = kindly light

h-8   = s-8 = shaded light

e-5    = earthlight

n-14 = noonday

b-2    = m-2 = moonlight

e-5    = earthlight

r-18  = refracted light

g-7    = j-7 = jalousie light
  

Is it Jack-o-lantern light

or earthlight –

this light that’s refracted over here

        to where I imagine I am –

or is it refracted light

or an ether lamp?
 

j-10   = jack-o’-lantern light

e-5    = earthlight

r-18  = refracted light

o-15  = amazonstone light

m-13 = moonshine

e-5    = earthlight
 

Not Jack-o’-lantern light,

& probably not earthlight,

but light refracted thru

an amazonstone,

bright green amazonstone light,

possibly moon shining thru stone

(possibly earthlight).
 

How wd we know

whether or not

light refracted

by an amazonstone

is kindly light

                                                            [a long silence]

Here I have a shaded light,

earthlight

or noonday

or moonlight,

but even if it be earthlight,

it is a refracted light

that filters thru imagined jalousies.

                                                            (10-11 Oct. 69/ 20-21 Jan. 75)

                                             
II

                                                                  (19 May 70/ 21 Jan. 75)

Imagined jalousies

can only refract

imaginary light –

imaginary earthlight

or imaginary moonlight

or the imagined light of an imagined noonday

– but can imaginary earthlight

ever be imagined as a shaded light?
 

& what can make an imagined light

be imagined as kindly,

& who can imagine light

refracted by an amazonstone

who’s never seen one?
 

Can one who’s never been far from the earth

ever imagine earthlight

as one can imagine moonshine

or even imagine light

refracted by an amazonstone

once one knows it’s green?
 

Can one ever imagine earthlight

as one can imagine the flickering yellow light

(or maybe merely remember it)

of a grinning orange pumpkin jack-o’-lantern?
 

I can only imagine ether-lamp light

as a kind of bluish movie light,

a horrible light,

since all I know of it

is from Shattuck’s Banquet Years
 

I quoted it in the 11th Light Poem

for poor dear dead Dick Maxfield,

whose light escaped or leaped

before this poem began.
 

– Let me sing your requiem,

dear Richard, dear friend,

you are a great composer,

& your murderous doctors were wrong,

just as you must have known they were,

except at moments like the one that took you away:

peace,

Richard,

peace. –

In 1897 in a charity bazaar in Paris

“in a rambling wood-and-canvas structure off the Champs

     Elysées”

they “set aside a room for a showing

of Louis and Auguste Lumière’s

recently perfected cinématographie. . . . 
 

“The film program attracted many children,

and a turnstile was installed to keep them orderly.
 

“An ether lamp provided light for projection. . . .”
 

& the whole place burned up.
 

Tho I’ve never seen it,

I can imagine the light of an ether lamp

refracted thru water,

but I who’ve never seen,

directly or reflected or refracted,

true earthlight

can hardly imagine it

as easily as well-remembered Jack-o’-lantern light.

 III

Why talk about Jack-o’-lantern light or earthlight,

refracted or reflected,

& why mention the light, reflected or refracted,

of an ether lamp

when the dog is barking crazily in the yard?

I can remember Jack-o’-lantern light

as easily as I can hear the dog

barking & crying crazily in the yard,

but the crazy sound of her barking in the yard where she’s

     been chained

& stands in the dark in the rain

blots out the possibility

of my imagining earthlight,

refracted or reflected or direct,

or amazonstone light,

direct or reflected or refracted,

for I can barely imagine moonshine

this dark & rainy night

when I hear poor Josie,

whom the landlady owns, not we,

& who’s been chained in the yard with the silent new male

     dog,

barking & crying crazily in the yard

in the dark

in the rain,

& nothing in me wants to make the effort

to imagine earthlight.
 

I cannot imagine light

refracted by an amazonstone

while Josie’s crazily barking,

& never can I imagine

any light that’s kindly

as she’s barking, barking crazily in the yard.
 

I can only imagine

letting Josie loose

in the shaded light of streetlights

that falls on her on the driveway in the yard beside the house;

& rather than half-illusory earthlight,

I can barely imagine

ordinary noonday light or moonlight

as Josie barks & barks in the rainy dark;

& any earthlight imaginable

is sure to be refracted

not by jalousies

but by Josie’s crazy barking.

 IV

Even the lamp’s electric bulbs

are giving a kind of darkness

as Josie barks in the yard

& I hope against hope

that those in the house next door

will let her loose before I’m forced to do so.
 

Altho when I open the window

I find the rain has stopped

& the moon & a star or planet

are shining,

I know I’ll soon be forced to let her loose

& risk a fight with Rev. Williamson

if Jose keeps on barking crazily

& crying on her chain in the yard in the dark

as the unchanging light of streetlights

barely makes her visible in the yard.

V

A full orange Jack-o’-lantern moon

is rising toward the zenith

as Josie sits in the yard

quietly whimpering

–so quietly you often cannot hear her with the windows closed–

but sometimes barking loudly,

usually when people pass by,

walking their own dogs.
 

A full orange Jack-o’-lantern moon,

shining in the cloudy sky,

nearly at the zenith,

is all that’s left of the lights from Jerry’s name.
  

The lamplight of my double-headed aluminum-colored

     gooseneck lamp

& the greenish reflected streetlights

& rarely passing headlights

are all the light that’s there

besides the orange Jack-o’-lantern moon.
 

But an airplane flashes green & white & yellow light

as Josie starts her barking once again

after “the Rev” and her handyman come in.
 

I wait to see what “Christian love” will do,

confronted by the crazy

barking & the crying

of Josie in the Jack-o’-lantern moonlight

& the shaded light of streetlights.

What has stopped her barking now?

I can hardly bring myself to look

down from my upper window & across the yard

to see into the shadows

where Josie now seems silent.
 

The streetlights & the headlights barely glimmer

as I sit in the yellowish lamplight

writing the poem’s ending

& wondering if it’s whimpering I hear

below the city’s roar

& that of passing jets.
 

Is the high-pitched sound I hear

whimpering or birds

or “merely” in my ears?
 

Raising the window, I hear her softly crying,

but when she hears the window rise

or sees me looking out,

she begins to bark once more

as crazily as ever.
 

I should have left

bad enough

alone.
 

My cowardice because I have no money left to move now

makes me end this poem in disgust,

with aching legs & head & sore throat,

just before I push the clink switch

to darken the double gooseneck’s bulbs.