GREEN LOVE: PETER LAMBORN WILSON’S NEW BOOK, RIVERPEOPLE

New book from the great Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey), now available to order via Autonomedia

This “epic” mixed poetry and prose text about an area of upstate New York is organised around seven historical, geographical and aesthetic events that once took place along the euphoniously-named Esopus River, with which the author says he fell in “green love.” Peter Lamborn Wilson provides a literary and philosophical tour-de-force of local history, including the “cartolagic” documentations of the performances he conducted to commemorate and to “re-enchant these landscapes” so threatened by vulgar materialism and ecological devastation.

“Every map has its Night Sky because the Map is not the Territory — & yet it is….

Ordinary maps project ideological inscriptions onto the body of landscape — but a magical map would share essences with that landscape & engage in co-realization with it. Such a map could then act as a pilgrim’s guide to the Profane or— Secular Illumination — a pagan theory of Sacred Earth as cartomantic spell. Looked at this way, even ordinary maps possess an “invisible” or nocturnal dimension, or rather a set of stars & asterisms that replicate or mirror its topography & hydrography in the sleeping sky — ‘As Above, So Below’ — sciences that (as Novalis says) will then have been poeticized.”

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About Jay Babcock

I am an independent writer and editor based in Tucson, Arizona. In 2023: I publish an email newsletter called LANDLINE = https://jaybabcock.substack.com Previously: I co-founded and edited Arthur Magazine (2002-2008, 2012-13) and curated the three Arthur music festival events (Arthurfest, ArthurBall, and Arthur Nights) (2005-6). Prior to that I was a district office staffer for Congressman Henry A. Waxman, a DJ at Silver Lake pirate radio station KBLT, a copy editor at Larry Flynt Publications, an editor at Mean magazine, and a freelance journalist contributing work to LAWeekly, Mojo, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Vibe, Rap Pages, Grand Royal and many other print and online outlets. An extended piece I wrote on Fela Kuti was selected for the Da Capo Best Music Writing 2000 anthology. In 2006, I was somehow listed in the Music section of Los Angeles Magazine's annual "Power" issue. In 2007-8, I produced a blog called "Nature Trumps," about the L.A. River. From 2010 to 2021, I lived in rural wilderness in Joshua Tree, Ca.

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