Mountain Mail follow-up letter by Jimmy Descant

This is an explanation of my recent letter to the editor of the Mountain Mail. I was thrilled when people e-mailed me or approached me on the street to tell me that they liked it but had to read it 3 times, get out the dictionary, and look things up online! That was kind of the point after so many base, and baseless, commentary letters recently that makes it seem we’re back into the Dark Ages. Here is the orginal letter, and explanation, for fun and intelligence.

(1) Fear and loathing on the river (2) As the minutia of aspects of our lives and comfort in our valley has risen in depth to ever more microscopic preferences, so too has our expansion of mentality and universality limitlessly pondered, soared, and realized. (3) The heaping piles of monolithic concrete, death, plagues, and all other manners of horrible ‘what ifs’ as windmilled modern dragons envisioned descend upon the shut in mind and leave not darkness but the blinding white of limbo that pre-existed 6000 years ago and looms large at our precarious edge, at say, the broken white line. (4) Ah, Grendel, yee won’t face me, as I am turned away.  (5) Be not Icarus in mind but Daedalus in forthright action and conscience. See whence, but do not shudder lest see the (6) harforizon as stead in the maelstrom.  Do not mock (7) Desdemona, but (8) Mach to the new undulating beauty, of environment and soul, thus once, again, (9) provenance. (10) Evoke, evolve, evince, evert, … eve.

1.      Chris at the Mtn. Mail changed the original title to the last line, but my title was from Hunter S. Thompson’s writing to reflect his anguish with his neighbors in Aspen.
2.      At their ArtWalk appearance 2 years ago I asked Christo and Jeanne-Claude what consideration ‘comfort’ had in their artistic endeavors, and they said they didn’t care if art is not comfortable or attitude or lifestyle were affected. This fits into their opinion that their art is in no way political, it is art for art. Me myself, I AM inclined to have a message as an artist, but admire them.
3.      This line is in reference to some who actually believe the Earth is only 6000 years old. That kind of conceit just flies in the face of reality and all that God is and has been and we are just a small speck of history everlasting. That conceit that this river belongs to anyone or any one faction is ludicris. The limbo is of the mind, and the broken white line is the hwy.
4.      Grendal is the mythical beast from Beowolf that comes in the night and slaughters the mind as well as the body. Larger than life and nightmare opinions can kill the owner as well as the trespasser.
5.      Daedalus was Icarus’ father who built the wings and warned his son of overdoing it. The level headed constructor who was in it for the long run.
6.      A jabberwocky take on the ‘Far Horizon’, utopia twisted.
7.      Desdemona, wife of Othello, accused but innocent, but still murdered.
8.      Mach – speed of sound – onward
9.      Provenance – origin, source – the River, and all it gives
10.  evoke – to call forth, evolve – to unfold, evince – to show plainly, evert – to turn inside out, eve – the period immediately before some event These are a calling out of the local soul to delve into what this art event may actually mean in many literal and etheral ways. This line was meant to pull the people out o themselves and find some new way of looking at it or themselves. There are many poets in the area who may have gotten my point in the first place, let’s help others do the same and conjour their own positive points.
Thanks, Jimmy