While I think about where Cosmic Edges is going and what I want the newsletter to be and to do, Iām beyond grateful for your subscriptions, which are majorly helpful as I reflect on reaching the cosmic edge. Iām going through the locked Cosmic Edges archive of hundreds (thousands?) of posts, and sending some of themāreframed, redressedā(Dante! Fashion! Poems! Alchemy! Purgatory! Madness!) to your inboxā¦ā¦
I wrote the below post from bed last February in a very air conditioned hotel room on the edge of swampy Tampa, re-falling in love with the gulf coast. Underworld lingo, Bacall (Virgo) and Bogieās (Capricorn) romance, varieties of Florida, some alchemical associations: sulfur is the soul and salt is the body, the third circle of Danteās h3LL, and gluttony.
Wallace Stevens once wrote: āI am what is around me. / Women understand thisā which I quote in the post below. I am what is around me might also apply also to my new novel, Vivienne, which I spoke about on the Cracks in Postmodernity podcast in terms of surrealism and the atmospheric vibeyness of its screens and cigarette smoke. Freaky, sweet, and creepy permeability.
Meanwhile, back in hell: one of the first posts from last yearās long Dante series: