AtD translation: the irregular of spirit

[Michael Bailey]

Parks frequented by the irregular of spirit -

What this makes me think of is the memoirs of Kenneth Rexroth and how he
and many other budding anarchists etc would frequent public parks.

A lot of places would have literal soapbox speakers animadverting on their
political theories, autodidacts sharing quaint and curious lore.

No tv back then.

I’m pretty sure somewhere in Saul Bellow’s books there also are
descriptions of public orators in parks speaking from the sheer desire to
speak, to orate, to rabblerouse.

Chicago is the setting for these parks in both Rexroth and Bellow - a
continuation of anarchist contingent Lew Basnight observed?

These folks I think could easily be among those whom Pynchon would call
“irregular of spirit”

Not “establishment” speakers, not think tankers or professors or
politicians - thus, “irregular”

Public parks often have statues that most everybody ignores.

Thankfully here a lot of the worst ones, like those of our US Confederate
creeps, as bad as Khäutsch, are coming down.

But also in general, people who frequent public parks are likely to be
“irregular” in terms of less monied, less connected, more eccentric -
aren’t they? And the places around statues especially, because there might
be a good patch of grass to set up your soapbox on?