DOI Artikel:
J. [John] B. [Barrett] Kerfoot, 291?
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31336#0075
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291 ?
It is given to no man to fasten a single definition upon “291”
If St. Paul should visit Gotham; and if having walked through Wall
Street and visited the Shopping District, he should pause on the crest of
Murray Hill to be interviewed by the Press; he would doubtless point down
the Avenue to “291 ” and say “Ye men of New York, as I passed by and
beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UN-
KNOWN GOD.”
And again, if a Gothic gargoyle-maker, awakened from his long sleep,
should turn his chisel to the fashioning of its symbol, he would doubtless
carve, for “291,” a dwarf Colossus standing militantly a-straddle the line
which divides the Sublime from the Ridiculous.
And again, if the mixed lingo of modern orthodoxy be drawn upon for
a description, it must read, “A microcosmic evolution, in which the survival
of the fittest is personally presided over by an omniscient deity—made in
man’s image.”
But “291” is greater than the sum of all its definitions. For it is a
living force, working both good and evil.
It is an active and obscene offense in the eyes of the ossified.
It proffers free lotus juice to the flaccid.
Its tentativeness is toxic to the ill-trued.
Its functioning is supremely tonic to the tonable.
To me, “291” has meant an intellectual antidote to the nineteenth
century; a spiritual preparation for—the twenty first; and, withal, a glorious
training camp and practice ground for eclecticism.
J. B. Kerfoot
7i
It is given to no man to fasten a single definition upon “291”
If St. Paul should visit Gotham; and if having walked through Wall
Street and visited the Shopping District, he should pause on the crest of
Murray Hill to be interviewed by the Press; he would doubtless point down
the Avenue to “291 ” and say “Ye men of New York, as I passed by and
beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UN-
KNOWN GOD.”
And again, if a Gothic gargoyle-maker, awakened from his long sleep,
should turn his chisel to the fashioning of its symbol, he would doubtless
carve, for “291,” a dwarf Colossus standing militantly a-straddle the line
which divides the Sublime from the Ridiculous.
And again, if the mixed lingo of modern orthodoxy be drawn upon for
a description, it must read, “A microcosmic evolution, in which the survival
of the fittest is personally presided over by an omniscient deity—made in
man’s image.”
But “291” is greater than the sum of all its definitions. For it is a
living force, working both good and evil.
It is an active and obscene offense in the eyes of the ossified.
It proffers free lotus juice to the flaccid.
Its tentativeness is toxic to the ill-trued.
Its functioning is supremely tonic to the tonable.
To me, “291” has meant an intellectual antidote to the nineteenth
century; a spiritual preparation for—the twenty first; and, withal, a glorious
training camp and practice ground for eclecticism.
J. B. Kerfoot
7i
