{"id":135,"date":"2014-01-04T15:32:33","date_gmt":"2014-01-04T20:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/?p=135"},"modified":"2015-12-14T07:12:22","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T12:12:22","slug":"escalator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/escalator\/","title":{"rendered":"Escalator"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Character:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0The Escalator<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Source Text:<\/strong> <\/span>\u00a0Whitehead, Colson. The Intuitionist<\/span>. New York: Anchor, 1999.<\/p>\n

Entry Author:<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Alexandra Katechis<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The escalator is an imagined \u201ccharacter\u201d developed from Colson Whitehead\u2019s The Intuitionist <\/i>(1999). The escalator\u2019s mixed race lineage is pulled from its nature as half stair and half elevator. In this poem, the escalator is personified in order to parse out the available material in the escalator\u2019s status as mixed race. The poem explores the ability of the escalator to exist as stairs (black) but never achieve the status of elevator (white). The hardest task of the poem is to fulfill the standards of legitimacy as mixed race. Is it fair to say that the escalator is mixed race? Does the metaphor translate? If so, do we simply hear the confident and militant voice of Huey diagnosing the escalator with a case of \u201cafro denial\u201d?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Escalator<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ascension abbreviated: auto-manglia of up;<\/p>\n

Brokering the blasphemously black (broken)<\/p>\n

Crawl toward climax; we collapse like a dead star.<\/p>\n

Drudgery of metal monotony, dour doldrum drip:<\/p>\n

Exotica of oneness, twoness, sameness\u2014<\/p>\n

Flora of this frightfully frigid dream.<\/p>\n

Go and do not come back to me. Take this<\/p>\n

Hysteria of homogeneity,<\/p>\n

Intoxication with inclination and precipice,<\/p>\n

Just bad luck. Otherwise, let me<\/p>\n

Know you are still there, your knuckles of<\/p>\n

Laudanum, bitterest lullabies of a long wet tongue\u2014<\/p>\n

Melancholia, my eternal diagonal alias.<\/p>\n

Naked as the word, the world, I rise, I rust.<\/p>\n

Offal in the organism optimized by a<\/p>\n

Plastic parasite for usefulness. If I<\/p>\n

Quit this quixotic business of belonging\u2014<\/p>\n

Radically, selfishly\u2014to two realities at once, in my<\/p>\n

Stillness I am halved, not splendidly split but<\/p>\n

Torturously torn, embers of a tremendous spark.<\/p>\n

Usward is our only up.<\/p>\n

Verticality\u2014venom and verve\u2014<\/p>\n

Wanton, wistful mistress of whispers and hums\u2014<\/p>\n

Executioner and executor of the exquisite wish. Can<\/p>\n

You bear what dreams may come?
\nZenith promises only down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Character:\u00a0\u00a0The Escalator Source Text: \u00a0Whitehead, Colson. The Intuitionist. New York: Anchor, 1999. Entry Author:\u00a0\u00a0Alexandra Katechis   The escalator is an imagined \u201ccharacter\u201d developed from Colson Whitehead\u2019s The Intuitionist (1999). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20604],"tags":[20605],"class_list":{"0":"post-135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-intuitionist","8":"tag-non-human","9":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.clarku.edu\/mixlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}