Infidel Poetics: Riddles, Nightlife, Substance Book

Introduction: Lyric Substance and Social Being

1    The Spectacle of Obscurity

In the Vernacular

Anon

Kryptonite

Def Rhapsody

Thick as Thieves

The Riddle of Being

2    Riddlecraft

In the Parlance of Things

Black Wonder

Orpheus and the Backwardness of Things

Darkness Visible

The Metaphysics of Dust

Counterfeit Gloom

3    Lost Laboratories of the Sphinx

Enigmatography

Rhapsodic Measures

Hex

Ransom in a Voice

Elegiac Questions

Fetters, Jinx, Logic

Blow-Up

4    Lyric Monadologies

Genetic Obscurity

Ariadne’s Thread

The Infinity of Small, Hidden Springs

Lucifer’s Element, or the Secrets of the Sublime

Logic, Expression, Harmony

Clockwork of the Infidel

Infinity, Inc.

Sleeper Cells and Slumbering Monads

5    Infidel Lyric: The Rhymes of the Canting Crew

Flash, etc.

Strange Navigation

Sparrow Language

The Spy’s Lexicon

Ragpicker, Dandy, Apache

6    Flash Crib: A Genealogy of Modern Nightlife

The Infidel Sublime

Tavern Talk

The Brands of Cupid

The Politics of Nightlife

Infidel Culture

Shoemaker-Poets

Fairies and Infidels

Noctambulism

The Nightspot and the New Chanson

Tingeltangel  

Smash Palace

Shades of the Avant-Garde

7    Mother Goose and Mallarmé

Afterword: The Art of Disappearing

Notes      Index