The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees

Edward Yellow is back in Philadelphia, in the spacious country house his parents bought in the early fall. After the tumult of New York City, the disappointing setbacks, the nervous walks down crowded avenues, the sad narrow room where he slept and studied, Edward is glad to be here, with the strong pillars of humanity that created him, that love him, that respect him. He is happy to be here in his own room, a place of his own, finally. He has unpacked his books, and surrounded by them, he feels a certain contentness he has not felt in a long while — fetish objects against the loneliness, maybe, or magic receptacles of thoughts and ideas that can stir the waters of his mind on gray days.

He is dirty. He has not bathed himself in a day and a half. It cannot wait much longer, but he holds off, strong still in the state of himself, relishing the rest that comes after many battles.

The future is no brighter than it was a day ago. He still has no job for the summer and a head full of uncertainties — the unknown judgments of all the corporate lawyers who had sat across from him and found him not good enough — he is not a lawyer, they thought. Good, maybe they thought, but not better than — Edward wonders how much of it is his own reticence to go back to the officeworld of commerce and timeshares and money — something sterile about those fluorescent lights and large windows and beautiful views of the city –

Perhaps it would not be so terrible, to work late in one of those offices, if only for the views.

On the other hand, juniors probably just stare at the building across the street, looking in at the similarly-situated also toiling for someone else’s money.

One must be superior in one’s own sphere, Edward thinks. How is this superior? How will it make me my own man? A savings account?

To touch the very skeins of society, and tug on them and make them dance. To plunge headfirst into the superstructure and bang out a tune on the steel rods of the law — these options might be open to him — he does not always pass the straight-face test — they think him a dabbler or a dilettante, or the truth, a liar, hungry only for the money that will grant him freedom —

That’s one way to get freedom sure. The other way — be willing to starve, be willing to wait –

Learn to wait, says Rabbi Nachman of Breslov across the quiet centuries, if despite all your determined efforts you cannot seem to reach your goals, be patient. Between acceptance and anxiety, choose acceptance.

The quantum physicists talk to us about other worlds — some of them must be almost identical to ours — and in some, our counterparts have done different things — taken different paths — in every choice, a world unfolding, and somewhere, out there, or next to us, in a greater world than the one we know, hypothetical observers observe with peacock eyes the larger picture — he’s a what he’s a what he’s a newspaper man — shall we call these observers angels? The angels of our better nature — the consolation of the disappointed — wheels within wheels and everytime a bell rings an angel gets his wings and if you clap your hands and pray real hard Tinkerbell will rise from the dead (dead for our sins, nonbelievers every one) where do we go? what shall we do? the possibility presents itself that there is more to our lives than we see — the Great Deep Mystery, that God Was Born in History Two Thousand and Eight Years Ago (I don’t believe it of course, why would God be Jewish?) the Incarnation, but what of the Daily Incarnations, the Little Mysteries, the blood that makes the great journey from the top of our heads to the bottom of our toes, the great dance of breathing we enact with the grass we tread on and the trees we walk beneath — Go, what will you do with your live? What have you already done? Who have you touched? Who have you saved? Who is out there in the night carrying a secret torch for you? The love we create, the Good, not the God, twist around, unfolding like an origami flower, paper airplanes ride along the air currents, swallows dive above and below, surprised, and in the planes, I sit, and stare out at the universe and think “This, this is something new, this is something new that humans do, fly, and though I will die, I have flown up into the very heavens and looked out upon endless cloud landscapes and that is enough, that is sufficient, I am in love with the world and it is all very beautiful and in these quiet moments I am able to see it and then when I begin jousting with the others — my bloodkin and my friends — the quantum wavefunction collapses, Time grows grey and mournful, and the weight of unrealized possibilities dangles up above, bursting with gravity and potential energy —

A bell is ringing. An angel flies. Time is the ocean we swim in, together.

said it best.

“Enjoy every sandwich.”

Same as the old boss. Maggie’s farm. F-22 vanguards flying low over the desert. The Great Game we play — great big GoogleEarth chessboard, with the countries colored in with different colors. Young Prince Blessing, what will you change? What will do now, We Young Americans? Continue to munch away at our Chicken McNuggets and our Burger McBurgers and our Milkshake McMilkshakes — ironic — Chicken, Son of the Nugget, Ancient Hibernian. Scream the Nightmare History playing itself in your bonetheater — the World is out there, Screaming. Same boss, same old boss, the world is old & sick& dying in seven different ways — the pounding at my head — is it Wisdom breaking out, come Vulcan with your Hammer. Rage, rage against the dying of the light machine, rage against the injustice and the poverty and the inequitable moneymachine which is the only way the thing ever works — Freedom to Starve — too many people only have the Freedom to Starve

Edward Yellow and Little Honeybee Blue
sat sitting at a table at a bar in August in Washington DC
and made eyes at each other
till one of them
– can’t remember which —
worked up some nervous nerves
to make the first move
“kiss the girl” sings a crab to my right
as I row my boat across the water
“kiss the girl” he says

India is the world, and the world is India — rich and poor, poor gathered around the rich — it’s turtles all the way down, the old woman said — people standing on top of each of other, pushing each other down, grasping for straws, climbing up for air — death and filth — but love, true love, slumdogs, rat bastards, liars and thieves, the hope of other days, he will guess the answer, it is written, time, destiny, the skeins of our lives pulled long across the days into years, we are unable to read the patterns written in those tapestries — boy beats dog and man beats boy — written poems — great large skyscraper condo towers, rising up above where slums use to stand — Athos, and Porthos and …. shitdive at the beginning, internal homage — dance with me at the end of the story, my true heart, ani l’dodi, v’dodi li — God is Great, they say — God is Great — There is One God, and He Loves Each and Everyone of Our Precious Moments, and mourns our deaths as we slip out of the world — the world where God lives — destiny, and stars, and reaching out and making it for onesself — loose ends, the story of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, how he got on the show — Twelve Questions — and in them, the Chance for a Better Life — Once, the World was Young, and One Day, it will be Young Again.

black man in the white house — and I’m only twenty seven — “I’m carrying your suitcase outside of Alphabet City” — in someone else’s life — the poetry of others’ poems — the songs that others sing — where will we go when the going goes over, where will we stand when the earth falls away? Dance dance human, dance, dance revolutions around the rosy — all of the modern plagues, or that great big sucking sound at the bottom of your father’s 401(k) — or the broken bridges and broken roads across this Great Exceptional Nation — with a black man in the white house — and I’m only twenty seven — already this is the new normal — what was so strange about it? nothing, nothing so strange, not at all — I love everybody and everybody loves me — city of brotherly love with a knife sticking out of my side — trash in the streets but people singing, people dancing, blissed-out pill-poppers, hello, hello, goodbye, another year is coming, 2009, like 2008 before it, the World Depression Two (as my sister points out, they called World War One the Great War before the sequel came along) but everything will work out eventually, just love each other, buy a kid a toy, donate a meal, do handstands in the dark, take singing lessons, learn to play the flute, run, run back and forth down the block and then further, to the city limits, to the river, past the river, to the ocean, up to the mountains, and down to the mountains on the other side, rucksack on my back now, here I go, I am a wanderer now, the road is my destiny, the people I meet along the way my comfort, the rooms and the clearings, sleeping on the grass while the moon falls across the sky overhead — what’s around the next bend in the road, what cities are there still to see, where else will I be going before the end of days — taste the new optimism, enjoy every sandwich, and die with your loved ones around you — it will be hard for them but wonderful for you so wonderful for you and as you gather up the rucksack for the last final journey into dissolving foam the love in the room will rise up — everything transient about it will be fixed forever in the upper firmament with Artemis, Orion, and all the other old stories of heaven —

and then you’ll be gone — happy!

In the Fall of 2008, Edward Yellow slowly lost his mind. He had moved to New York City in August, changing horses in midstream, transferring out of the middle-tier law school he had done so well at to attempt to graduate from a more prestigious one situated on the lower half of the island of Manhattan. He arrived in a whirlwind, barely having time to say goodbye to all the friends he hadn’t bothered to see that summer. He found a small room in a small apartment on Craigslist. He stayed for a couple of weeks at his aunt’s apartment while she was away traveling, before the lease on the small apartment began.

His girlfriend was headed for Connecticut to study psychology. On the weekends he took the train to see her.

As the weeks went on, he would put on one of his two suits, tie his tie and go interview at large law firms. He tried to smile, but found their questions off-putting. He struggled to explain what he was doing there, why he deserved to be hired, paid so much money. He was not persuasive. The firms did not call. As October dawned, he realized he had struck out – his purpose in coming to law school had been thwarted. After this — he could feel the deep turbulence of his soul come welling up — he tried to keep it pinned down for a moment, knowing that if he despaired, he would be done for, and as best he could, he picked himself up to try again, to start a second round of job searching, even as the wider economy went into a freefall, even as his father called him two weeks later to tell him that he had lost his job —

Characteristics of the Sabi religion (Seboghatullah)

Sābi’ūn know Allah as the Rabb al-‘alihah and ‘ilah al-‘alihah and speak to angels in their meditations^[22] , each of whom they believe dwell in different stars, which has led to the erroneous beliefs among some that Sābi’ūn worship angels while others derogatorily call them star-worshippers (and so it is said in Arabic saba’at al-nujūm, meaning “the stars appeared”). Sābi’ūn read from the Zaboor and use the sun for a Qiblah facing the equator at mid day^{[23][8][9][24]} . Their fundamental teaching is “La ilahah il Allah”^[5][6][18] , but besides this ardent unitarianism, Sābi’ūn are quite akin to Christians^[10][25] . Unlike their Mushrik Sabian cousins, who consider themselves the people of Idris’ son Sabi, Hanif Sabians are more universal looking to Noah as their prophet of the Din^[2] Sābi’ūn have five daily prayers^[26] (though Zohar can join Asr while Ma’ariv can join Isha giving the appearance of three). They believe in all prophets reiterating the Din of Noah and, not in the same way as the Muslims, believe in The Seal of The Prophets^[27] . They also fast for 30 days^[28] .

Sabians who adopt Abram as a patriarch distinguish themselves from other Sabians by calling themselves Hagarim (Hagarenes) and were based around Petra. The culmination of the journey to enlightenment will be marked by a circumcision ceremony for most of those male Hagarim who get to this level called Yagur. This branch of Seboghatullah has thus been dubbed “Hagarism”.

JOHN SHARMAN, young bank trader, has lost his job with hundreds of others in the collapse of one of the largest investman banks in America. He stands in a crowded elevator holding a box full of his belongings. He is surrounded by other people holding their own boxes, blank looks on their facese. In John’s box is a coffee mug, several CDs and folders, a Tyrannosaurus Rex toy, and the Yale Book of Quotations.