ATDTDA read proceeds, end in sight...

[Michael Bailey]

 Mark Kohut:
> yes, I feel this movement of the symphony......seem OBA has a structure like
> you adumbrate goin' down here......seems to me.
>
>

might not be too soon to speculate on the sweep;

well just a few words on the
Chums frame tale - witnessing and perhaps causing the fall of the Campanile
something like Enlightenment worldliness has
- in the opinion of some -
broken a hitherto chiming harmony of faith

- their perspective of seeing the world from above as
Yashmeen achieves in her pregnancy-annunciation vision,
their habit of seeing the world that way, the internalization of logic and
co-operative procedure

I still think of the Chums as the readers -
ie the safest, most illuminating and funniest (life is a comedy to those
who think, etcetera, etcetera) perspective to adopt for the various events

World Exhibition set up immediately against the reality of the world
-- World Exhibition torn down and burned for warmth mere months later
and Dalley homesick for it (just as Merle and Dally's mom themselves
harken back to the marvelous sunsets from Krakatoa)

but for the Chums, they are privileged to observe and interact
from a relatively protected space; it's as if they inhabit the
world conceived in the Exhibition...to some extent...

and as readers, and (as Jill pointed out) relatively privileged persons,
we enjoy the same relative immunity to contemplate the events,
to "reflect on passion in calmness" or something as Wordsworth might
have indicated at one point or another

may none of us ever have to witness an explosion in a mine shaft
or be driven to violence by despair of justice,

or feel forced to "smite, early and often" by perceived threats of
a rising tide of anarchy....

may none of us ever have occasion to seek revenge...

may we all fly toward grace

for the memory of those who have been sacrificed for whatever causes
(laying aside dispute over the causes' merits and thinking only of
the individual lives, "each a coming Buddha" as Kerouac at one
point was instructed to meditate upon, the sufferings, the strivings, the hopes,
the "animals with a full set of pain receptors" as Pynch noted in _Vineland_
so horribly misused)

and with the wish for peace and calm to prevail...

may I wish a mindful Memorial Day to those who observe this holiday tomorrow?