ATDDTA(11) San Miguel As Nymph's Mirror [305:10-19]

[Keith]

This passage merits savoring:


[305:10-19] He led Frank outside under the chill, imponderable cone  
of an electric bulb high on a pole, and they walked amid the feral  
discourse of the cribs, while a gunshot occurred back down Pacific  
Street, somebody climbed to a rooftop and began to recite "The  
Shooting of Dan McGrew," and nearer at hand single-jackers climaxed  
and ruffled doves wailed, till they were down beside the river, where  
the Row had been squeezed to by more respectable forms of commerce,  
and it was possible to stand with the ungoverned electric town at  
your back, the untraveled night in front, with the San Miguel  
between, brand new out of the mountains throwing flashes of light  
like declarations of innocence.

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cone of an electric bulb high on a pole:
http://tinyurl.com/35mecq

Sounds of animals fucking. Humans shooting, reciting and fucking.  
Facing the uncertainites of night, the reflection of stars and the  
moon in the San Miguel river as it flows from the mountains standing  
in innocent contrast to the lights of the ungoverned town behind,  
foreshadowing the nymph's mirror reference later that same page.