186, 17 addendum Hanged Man

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

I'm playing a record by Sheila Na Gig, a Celtic sextette named 
after something nasty and pre-Christian and all that. The band 
includes Sharon Devlin as harper. Look her up in Margot Adler's 
"Drawing Down the Moon". I'd include her among the people 
I've encountered for whom a conversation that didn't, somehow, 
include invoking the "tree of life" was the rarity. As offhand as 
anything, they'd talk Kabballah or ancient Norse Myth, or spells 
for auto maintainence---I suggested changing the oil regularly 
and got a dirty look!. That auto-spell practioneer is a specialist 
in Runes. And so it goes.

Got the record (no inner sleve, otherwise mint, essentially a miracle 
find at a thrift shop in Jeshimon) an hour ago at Amvets. 

What a world, what a world. . . .

Kind of  an insider's, conspiritorial tone in this passage, a few knowing 
words of caution for newbies, no reason to make a spectacle of 
ourselves, now, wouldn't you say?
          
          (after you get a little time in---whatever 
          that means over here---one of these archetypes gets 
          to look pretty much like any other, oh you hear some 
          of these new hires, the seersucker crowd come in the 
          first day, "wow! Hey---that's th-th' Tree o' Creation! 
          Huh? Ain't it! Jeepers!" but they calm down fast 
          enough, pick up the reflexes for Intent to Gawk, you 
          know self-criticism's an amazing technique, it shouldn't 
          work but it does. . . .  

As in, be attentive but not agast---this is how it's done. And stop drooling, 
while you're at it!

          Monte Davis:
          That *is* a bravura passage. That sting of reflexivity 
          at the end -- the quiet, catastrophic breaking of the 
          fourth wall -- is very Robert Musil-ish.

If you're wondering how this ties into 186.17, recall that that this
concerns the hanged man, who is hanging from the tree of life.
A card reader---if they're any good---knows the tree of life like they
know the backs of their hands.