He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
-- Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146.
by The Tears of Things
There's a touch of evil in downtown Phoenix. There's something creepy about the arts area, as if a sinister snicker lurks in every shadow. Even in daylight. After every one of our excursions for "The Burgeoning" series, whether merely cruising by or walking around, we felt . . . dirty. We would come home and burn sage. Add to that at least two declared assailants; ugly, nasty, and stupid comments and emails, especially after we speculated on a meth craze down there -- speed freaks love to keep it ugly; the snide silences of Phoenix arts officials; threats of mutilation and death after dissing Beatrice Moore (whose email name, we learned, is muppetsmom). The tactical batons help with physical safety, but we kept hearing those Nietzsche riffs in our heads. We needed psycho-spiritual cleansing. And if we needed it, well, then, it stood to reason these downtowners needed it, too. For the sake of the city.
So we went through our library, consulting An ABC of Witchcraft; Charms, Spells, and Formulas; The Book of the Hopi; Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia; Psychology and the Occult; Navajo Witchcraft; The Way of Wyrd; Spiritual Cleansing; On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism; The Cosmic Game; Pueblo Gods and Myths; A History of the Devil; Salvation on Sand Mountain; Mexican Folkways; Yuman Tribes of the Gila River; Triumph of the Moon; Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles; Witchcraft in the Southwest; Eternal Secrets Channelled From The Planet Zuron . . .
No, no, no, no. We sat amid the books, fanning each other with sage smoke -- you know, for clarity . . . and, after a while, it worked! We had it: the Sage Censer!
You assemble it like this: Take a large shallow metal bowl, like a giant stir-fry pan. Fill it with dried sage and hot coals. Cover it with chicken wire. Bolt it to the top of the car with some small directional fans and slowly drive the perimeter, smoking away, from Grand Avenue and Thomas to 12th St, then south to Jackson, and then west back to Seventh Avenue, where Grand begins, wafting, wafting the healing smoke. . . .
No, no, no, no. We tried yoga. We tried music. ("I know: roof-mounted loudspeakers! We could loop Keep On The Sunny Side . . .") Finally . . . back to the library. And as Jerome was picking up a Mike Kelley book to set aside, two slips of newsprint fluttered from its pages to the floor. He bent over to pick them up, and the word Satan leapt out at him.
Jerome shivered as an anticipatory chill thrilled up his spine.
It was a news story, in two parts, from The New York Times, March 14, 2002. The first headline sounded promising:
Florida Town Finds Satan an Offense Unto It.
The second headline, on the continuation clipping, was even stronger:
Florida Town Finds Satan An Abomination Unto It.
Now we're talking. Perhaps the panoply of pathologies we have outlined in our "Burgeoning" series were not just scattered symptoms of individual irresponsbility, nonprofessionalism, and drug abuse. Maybe something, or Someone, held a huge hidden hand over the whole mess.
We eagerly read the story. This was two years ago. How did Inglis, Florida fare in the recent hurricanes? We Googled. Well, Frances flooded it, but otherwise it's still doing okay. Hmm. What did the Proclamation say? Here it is, exactly as God guided the hand of Inglis mayor Carolyn Risher, she says:
Be it known from this day forward that Satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of Inglis. Satan is hereby declared powerless, no longer ruling over, nor influencing, our citizens. In the past, Satan has caused division, animosity, hate, confusion, ungodly acts on our youth, and discord among our friends and loved ones. No longer!
How to apply the concept to the downtown arts district?
In the story, if you recall or linked, The Inglis Proclamation, and some admonitory and intercessory prayers, were inserted in hollow wooden posts, sealed, then sunk into the ground at four of the town's limits. (These were promptly stolen, and replaced with others sunk in reinforced concrete.)
Posts sounded easy, and Jerome even remembered Liberty Poles from the American Revolution as precedent; but we wanted people (not to mention Satan) to read the words; poles -- all kinds -- were all over the city; these would just be lost in that forest.
Then we realized we had a precedent a lot more recent, which could display the Proclamation, and even had the City's imprimatur already: the Seventh Avenue Streetscape Project. This is basically a glorified bus stop with double-sided, steel-reinforced plexiglas panels, each holding a giclée print of an artist's work.
You see where we're going here? Here's the plan: eight of these double-sided panels firmly planted at eight points around the trapezoidal perimeter we outlined above: four at the midpoints, four at the corners. Each would carry a giclée copy of the Phoenix Proclamation, on both sides.
The original Proclamation will be installed in a bulletproof and alarm-sensitive glass case at City Hall. The Proclamation is a rectangle of pale beige muslin. The words themselves will be handwritten by a special person we have access to, known only at The Calligrapher. (You don't really want to know more.)
And there you have it: the solution to downtown's woes, unleashing wave after joyous wave of creativity, imagination, and talent, now -- finally -- out of bondage!
We've already put the package together and sent it on down to Phil Jones. (We thought we'd sneak it in as art.)
We feel better already.
You can thank us later. And, Satan? NO LONGER! The reality check is in the mail, you bastard.
Posted by Jerome at October 17, 2004 09:00 AM | TrackBack