New Writing
Lily James
from
High Drama in Fabulous Toledo
Every child born into Western Civilization must repeat its history as
he becomes a man. Jay is a man, and therefore, he has repeated the history
of Western Civilization. At the age of six months, Jay recognized himself
as an individual, and lost his innate connection with the collective universe,
with Gaia, with the folkloric consciousness, with the Oversoul, and all
that horseshit with which innocents and civilizations are born. Moving
thus and so straightfoward from the folk into the self, as did the ancients
move from public into private life, constructing boundaries, experiencing
life as a single being, he developed subsequent unique connections with
particular other human beings, these being our mother and our father.
He invented and mastered a system of signs and symbols common to the larger
group of his community. He learned to write. And read. Learned a counting
structure, and simple math. He experienced at first local and then increasingly
wide circles of travel.
Around the age of six he shifted from the Ptolemic conception of the solar
system to the Galilean. That is, he came to understand that the universe
didn't revolve around him, goddammit, that there was a great big Milky
Way out there, with lots of stars, and that his planet body was just one
of several, revolving around one of many, revolving around ten-thousand
billion of same and different, and he was very small. I like to pretend
that the birth of myself had some influence on this paradigm shift, but
I digress. The forgotten and dark ages of eight, nine, and ten were followed
by the enlightenment and romanticism of the pre-teen years. At this time
Jay moved from the feudal system of the patriarchal family into the larger
and more exciting world of the high-school work force, and he learned
to operate heavy machinery for a small wage. The industrial revolution--do
you see? Soon after this, he made his first solo flight. Following this
there were several wars. Internal hierarchies were established. He realized
he could kill himself. He refrained from doing it.
Lily James read at SPT in October
2001. High Drama is published by FC2.
