Mina Loy - Stories and Essays of Mina Loy

But I adore to see them taking off their boots — or something — –

The German baroness—

I feel nothing at all — during that time I think of what I shall order for next day’s dinner.

THE LOGOS IN ART.

(7:188)

Loy deliberated about what to call this handwritten piece; slight variations in the title include “The Logos in the Arts.” and (possibly the first) “Logos in Art.” The fragments here are part of a longer work, of which 1, 2, 6, and 7 are the numbered pages that remain. “Logos” can mean word, speech, discourse, or reason, and is often conflated with the divine; Loy’s text is thus tied to her ongoing explorations of aesthetics and metaphysics.

PAGE 260

“Greek the spirals” was “The spirals”

After “centrality” reads “or encircle the limbs drawing the eye — etc.”— ed .

PAGE 261

“conformity to finite” was “conformity to inf”

“ passagère ” reads “ ‘passagère’ ”— ed .

Above “The new Zig Zag” reads “ Logos in Art ”— ed .

“falls down” was “fell down”

“Cinema” reads “(Cinema)”—Loy may have wanted this word excised— ed .

“Screen” has a long line through it— ed .

“ nouvelle vierges ” reads “Nouvelle vierges”—“vierges” is unclear — ed .

Beneath “penetrates” reads “permeates”— ed .

“because the proportions of their” was “because their”

“too great for” was “too great or p”

“their purpose” was “their adaptation”

PAGE 262

Above “The logos” reads “ Logos in Ar t.”— ed .

“than those” reads “that those”— ed .

“of some previous” was “of previous”

“breathing upon of the logos” was “breathing into of the logos” and also “breathing of the logos”

“inform contemporary” was “inform the”

THE METAPHYSICAL PATTERN IN AESTHETICS

(6:165)

Describing “The Metaphysical Pattern in Aesthetics.” as “a prescient essay on modernist abstraction,” Burke dates it at 1923, which is the same year that Loy published her first volume of poetry, Lunar Baedecker [ sic ] ( BM 325). This piece consists of a typescript of two pages; the folder in Loy’s papers contains no handwritten or additional drafts.

PAGE 263

“ ‘subject.’ ” reads “ ‘subject!.”— ed .

“ absurdum —the ability” reads “ absurdum the ability”—ed.

PAGE 264

“graven image” reads “graven ikage”— ed .

“subject in dissolution” was “ ‘subject in dissolution’ ” and reads “ ‘subject in dissolution”— ed .

“In all the masters” reads “I all the masters”— ed .

MI & LO

(6:166)

The American poet Marianne Moore labelled Loy “a sound philosopher”; by rather stark contrast, the English poet Edwin Muir expressed concern about Loy’s philosophical tendencies, which he described as her willingness to “ ‘intellectualis[e] life without. . coming to conclusions’ ” ( BM 222, 336). “Mi & Lo” allows us to test these two assertions; the work is Loy’s attempt at a Socratic dialogue in which different parts of her one self — the “Mi” of Mina and the “Lo” of Loy — play both roles.

Burke suggests that Loy wrote “Mi & Lo” in the thirties, and sent it to her son-in-law Julien Levy for inspection ( BM 376). The manuscript is over sixty pages in length, of which only four pages have been typed. Although a set of notes suggest a plan, much of the text is in very rough form; the dialogue frequently disappears in favour of circuitous arguments, tangents, and convoluted, incomplete notes. As in other works — particularly “Transfiguration.”—Loy repeatedly puts a large “x” next to sentences or sections of this manuscript. An additional portion of “Mi & Lo”—centring on Christ’s relationship to the Jews — exists in a folder of Loy’s longer autobiographical work, Goy Israels , which is also thought to have been written in the thirties (2:30).

The most comprehensible and complete portions of “Mi & Lo” are included here, or about half of the entirety; emphasis has been given to the sections that are part of the dialogue proper. On occasion, Loy does not identify her interlocutors, and their names have been added whenever a change in speaker is discernible. The ten distinct sections are not numbered by Loy, but indicate a break in either theme or in the continuity of the script; where headings arise, they are Loy’s own.

PAGE 265

“Does form result from seeing unform repeatedly?” is pencilled along the top of the typescript

Next to “union of identicals” reads, in handwriting, “Argue re Picasso”— ed .

PAGE 266

After “the answer of form” reads, by hand, “Re often giving an unexpected answer”— ed .

Above “a token” reads “or symbol”— ed .

“inseparable: truth being the question that answers itself — as” was “inseparable: as”

“immortality existing” was “immortality ousting”

“existing as a question” reads “existing a question”— ed .

“the macrocosmic mind of god” was “the mind of god”

“microcosmic forms” reads “micosmic forms”—the “cro” is crossed out— ed .

“is this the elucidation” was “as this education”

“monad?” reads “(monad)??”— ed .

“indicated” was “signalled”

“cognisable from the” reads “cognisable the”—“from” is crossed out in text— ed .

“fourth dimension” was “plus-dimension”

From “In the recession. . of thought, while” is an addition pencil- led into the typescript; “thought” is crossed through— ed .

Next to “In the” Loy has written: “[ unclear word, possibly “él- ogement ”] pendant le procès de [ unclear word, possibly “ la ”] penser ”— ed .

“unification” was “encumbrance”

PAGE 267

Above “Then man” reads “or (the intellect of)”— ed .

“Then it is the confinement” was “Then it is untraceable the con- finement”

After “of creation” reads, by hand, “(creative ideation)”— ed .

PAGE 268

“The encompassment” was “While the encompassment”

“The encompassment. . has form” was attributed to “lo”

“phenomena already have form” reads “phenomena already has form”— ed .

“concavity of the mold” reads “concavity of the mould”— ed .

After “outer—” was “the 4th dimensional aspect of”

After “outer—” appears a torn page that reads as follows:

mi

In the face of a social non-provision, the grab-hazard pleasure of the masses is a poor, defiant and unlovelypleasure shoo’ed into the shadows of civism.

lo

Yet are not the movie and radio concerns for the provision pleasure.

mi

Only and always the imparticipatable pleasure of mythologies.

The assurance of the mob that the gods have leisure to love

The typescript ends here; all else is handwritten

II.

A title page between I. and II. reads, “Power / force animating Body— / Electric Prayer / etc”

The first line of this page follows on from another, and reads, un- der “mi”: “No for the fourth dimensional aspect of life is myr- iad—”— ed .