The Yale Review

1 0 9 R T H E R E R U S H R A N K I N The ine√able and haunting sublimated spirituality of words, the misty frisson of elusive books, that ancient city hidden by vines, excites almost all of the intellectual teenagers in Kansas. Their eager, tattooed, mystic teacher bequeaths the class a blackboard of hazy erasures no one can read, except the cabbalist, who reads in the dark. A revelation betrays its own functional mystery. As the other others others othering others, the abyss abysses its abyssness the next afternoon in a taxi. Each absolute doubt, doubting itself, accepts that rebuttal. Spinoza sent Descartes a letter whose paper itself refuted an airy cogito. The postal service connects one fact to another like two people in bed who share a dream. I mean, the faux center of a semiosis, like a state employee, refuses to answer the phone only when it rings. ...