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The Invisible Man's Electric Bill: — after Ralph Ellison

The Invisible Man's Electric Bill: — after Ralph Ellison The Invisible Man’s Electric Bill —after Ralph Ellison 3 A fa a M ic h a el We av er Old and figured over from a life in the basement, he sat under the judge, deaf to paper shuffling, jabs from the jury, the thousand flashes of cameras, holding his figurine, a dancing Sambo he made in the long hours after he forgot what day meant to night, how the evening sounds of street life became the swirl and slosh of puddles in a city under the metropolis, a summary of his dreams of shuffling about from glad hand to glad hand until he fell down the looking glass into surrender. The day they came to tear down his shack of books and marked spaces in reason, he asked if he could see these things he had heard so much about from those who went up on the streets from time to time, these machines that did everything, that had made keyboards an entry into a dream of the mind, and they showed him a laptop with a bright apple on the cover, he in turn gave them a figurine, a favorite one of a watermelon he had made, as big as his hand, with Go down Moses carved in cursive the way they used to do in grade school with practice paper. Old and figured over from a life in the basement, he had taken time to study gratitude, smiling when he handed them the fruit, breaking the perfection of this space made from the invisible energy, the light that made light, and he was led off to face years of stealing from ConEd, to pay his bill finally, to make the accounts balanced, found out as he was by these little machines, these minds inside the mind made real by the imprint of an apple meant to say paradise had been made violate for greater good, for the lost trumpet sounds of feet in rivers below, rivers above, glad moments in wires crisscrossing the heart. The Baffler [no.26] ! 105 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Baffler MIT Press

The Invisible Man's Electric Bill: — after Ralph Ellison

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Publisher
MIT Press
Copyright
© 2014 Afaa Michael Weaver
ISSN
1059-9789
eISSN
2164-926X
DOI
10.1162/BFLR_a_00290
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The Invisible Man’s Electric Bill —after Ralph Ellison 3 A fa a M ic h a el We av er Old and figured over from a life in the basement, he sat under the judge, deaf to paper shuffling, jabs from the jury, the thousand flashes of cameras, holding his figurine, a dancing Sambo he made in the long hours after he forgot what day meant to night, how the evening sounds of street life became the swirl and slosh of puddles in a city under the metropolis, a summary of his dreams of shuffling about from glad hand to glad hand until he fell down the looking glass into surrender. The day they came to tear down his shack of books and marked spaces in reason, he asked if he could see these things he had heard so much about from those who went up on the streets from time to time, these machines that did everything, that had made keyboards an entry into a dream of the mind, and they showed him a laptop with a bright apple on the cover, he in turn gave them a figurine, a favorite one of a watermelon he had made, as big as his hand, with Go down Moses carved in cursive the way they used to do in grade school with practice paper. Old and figured over from a life in the basement, he had taken time to study gratitude, smiling when he handed them the fruit, breaking the perfection of this space made from the invisible energy, the light that made light, and he was led off to face years of stealing from ConEd, to pay his bill finally, to make the accounts balanced, found out as he was by these little machines, these minds inside the mind made real by the imprint of an apple meant to say paradise had been made violate for greater good, for the lost trumpet sounds of feet in rivers below, rivers above, glad moments in wires crisscrossing the heart. The Baffler [no.26] ! 105

Journal

The Baffler – MIT Press

Published: Jul 1, 2014

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