on not being trivial

when so much else is going on

“And to our sacrifice the Furies came.”

--Rowe’s Lucan, I.1079

In this bright autumnal dawnlight, the light of partial eclipses staining, a passage opens to the city’s secret life. I knew it was there, but I could never reach it. It burned down one hundred years ago.

I remember one time, it must have been the 70s, a nonfiction article in a scifi magazine. The author purported to have found a way to rephrase all the laws of physics in terms of information theory.  It seemed terrific for a moment, then faded. I have not even been particularly curious as to its reception or aftermath. It was a shift not unlike changing all the capital letters to lowercase, & all the lowercase letters to capitals. Bat-haughty kazoos sing you to oblivion…

Another example is the language I heard about in which there is no word for “hand’ or “wrist”, only a word for both of them together. You become a bit wiser, perhaps, if you have words for “a man in a room” & “a man outdoors” which are different words. Most philosophy, I think, wants to be the latter—but only manages to be the former example. That ouzo-shaky gab will get you every time.

Artists were transfiguring the new skyscraper city from the moment it was built; & not long after, filmmakers. Certain old inhabitations became shrouded in myths. You look for them when you go there, & you will always find what you’re looking for. The paradox, then, of this unsung city of Fillmore is that although it claims to have come from nothing, to those who enter that bozo-aghast yak hut, it will nevertheless reveal itself in a non-trivial way.

We discover the name of a new lost ancient language: Kalašmian. Before we had a name for ourselves, we thought we were basically the same as the others, but somehow just weird. The motions of tying a mask behind my head, practiced daily till it becomes second nature, they never knew or needed a name for. Now in this eclipselight, a passage has been opened. We stand in the crosshairs of a nasty thug bazooka. Was there ever any other way?

10-19-23