Angels ain't so high

[Paul Mackin]

On Tue, 19 Mar 1996 MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu wrote:

> Truth to tell, I felt a little uneasy about the connotations of--archangels--but wanted 
> to  play  w/--Los Angeles.  I put in the closing thought precisely not to draw 
> invidious high/low distinctions.  Sorry if I seemed to do so anyway.

I feel personally responsible for bringing Archangels into the discussion. 
Just couldn't resist paraphrasing H. Adams' great opening line "The
Archangel loved heights" as a catchy (I thought) name for a thread.
Needed to tie together angels (as in City of the) and towers (as in Watts).
Saint Michel seemed a likely candidate. That's what you (I) get for being 
pretentious. Oh well, a bit of flame throwing once in a while isn't a bad
digression from IJ.

Even Archangels aren't so high, though they may have exalted job titles
here on earth. Further up the scale of celestial beings are principalities,
powers, virtues, dominions, and thrones. Also cherubim and seraphim fit in 
there somewhere. Lower down are just-plain-angels, who mostly do the grunt 
work of guarding poor preterite souls. It is these preterite angels from
whom Neustra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles, for me the truest of the 
Lady Vs (way I was raised foax), recieves the greatest allegience as their
queen.

Pynchon's (have to bring him in somewhere) Rilke made the Angel a pseudonym 
for God. But the poet also (as I remember it) being a modern, 20th Century 
materialist assigned to corporeal man the task of transforming the 
visible realm into the spiritual (angelic). Or something like that.

Anyway, angels ain't so high is what you got to keep in mind.

				P.