Christ speaks of the tiny mustard seed, and the gloss on the J. Bible stresses that the kingdom will enter inconspicuously--very small; i.e., lowly. Where we would least likely to look for it . . .
This realization is very important.
And this lowly trash, bottom penetration is exactly how I portray it (Ubik) in Ubik! On match folders; in tawdry commercials--therein lie the divine messages.
Entry from the "provinces"--Galilee--now takes the form of entry from trash in the gutter up--a trashy [SF] novel which contains trash (the chapter-opening commercials) is the triumphant return of the rightful king. Ubik is trash containing an ever lower order of trash: the Ubik commercials--but which are in fact vox dei. 289-90
* * *
This all really presumes another, invisible landscape at odds with the palpable one. Two realms, perhaps a lower and a higher, one implied, each with its own laws. The lower realm alone does not tell the full story--in fact may not even tell the true story or a part thereof. In the lower realm, deity appears in a debased and trivial or besmirched guise, marginally (like the cheap commercials for Ubik). Only at the end (as in the heading of the last chapter in Ubik) does deity unmask itself, and we see it as it truly is.
Thus I say, if deity exists in the lower realm it will not bear a noble heavenly dignified beautiful aspect; it will be where least expected and as least expected, so there is no use deliberately looking for it--it will have to come to us and unveil itself to us. It could be an old sick--even dying--tomcat sinking of urine, degraded and humiliated.
However, it aids, advises and monitors us. The world is a one-way mirror; God can watch us but not we him. 342
* * *
Ubik shows what I suppose: deity in the very trash of the alley. And deity intimately connected with and utilizing--if not actually being--information. "Ravished away and full of God," as the E. of Phil. article on Plotinus says. Ecstatic comingling. 601
This realization is very important.
And this lowly trash, bottom penetration is exactly how I portray it (Ubik) in Ubik! On match folders; in tawdry commercials--therein lie the divine messages.
Entry from the "provinces"--Galilee--now takes the form of entry from trash in the gutter up--a trashy [SF] novel which contains trash (the chapter-opening commercials) is the triumphant return of the rightful king. Ubik is trash containing an ever lower order of trash: the Ubik commercials--but which are in fact vox dei. 289-90
* * *
This all really presumes another, invisible landscape at odds with the palpable one. Two realms, perhaps a lower and a higher, one implied, each with its own laws. The lower realm alone does not tell the full story--in fact may not even tell the true story or a part thereof. In the lower realm, deity appears in a debased and trivial or besmirched guise, marginally (like the cheap commercials for Ubik). Only at the end (as in the heading of the last chapter in Ubik) does deity unmask itself, and we see it as it truly is.
Thus I say, if deity exists in the lower realm it will not bear a noble heavenly dignified beautiful aspect; it will be where least expected and as least expected, so there is no use deliberately looking for it--it will have to come to us and unveil itself to us. It could be an old sick--even dying--tomcat sinking of urine, degraded and humiliated.
However, it aids, advises and monitors us. The world is a one-way mirror; God can watch us but not we him. 342
* * *
Ubik shows what I suppose: deity in the very trash of the alley. And deity intimately connected with and utilizing--if not actually being--information. "Ravished away and full of God," as the E. of Phil. article on Plotinus says. Ecstatic comingling. 601
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