A Dissonance in the Valence of Uranium

Day Four
Desparate to get some Paterson footage, even if it is ersatz Paterson, I convince Max Goldfarb to be the next special guest, even though our main objective was to explore a Wal*Mart parking lot in Hudson, NY for wormholes into another dimension. We ride out to the site in a red step van, M-49, a mobile unit once used by the fire department in Stockbridge, now a mobile vehicle for radio experimentation, but maybe also literally still a "fire" truck, since the heat from the metal floor is melting my flip-flops and it only gets worse outside where the air is dead from heat. Fire, tar, dead grasses, Queen Anne's lace, rotted palettes, birds, and (somewhere, like the angels) money: where is Paterson in it all? Again, we are nowhere near Paterson, but closer to an idea of ruins that might be more mid-industrial, Pennsylvanian, quaint. The Patersons proliferate: loose copies of the Platonic mess; yes it is a paradox, since the inner city and this particular poem are in general considered the opposite of the luminous form. But there is an ideal even in a mess. Radio mics give out, hypotheses fail. The real Paterson shames our senses.
Max will be broadcasting an evening of live talks and performances from his van on August 4 in Hudson, NY. (Among others, I'll be giving a talk/tour called "The Theogony of the Parking Lot"). Email argot@mit.edu for more information.