Subterraneanness

This subject has been investigated experimentally in order to obtain so far as possible a means of expressing mathematically the relative “subterraneanness” of various species of noctuid larvae.

And the Earth itself, that “feminine symbol” par excellence, with all her subterraneanness, her apparent immutability, would she be anything more than a pedestal which permits you to stand up straight?

The play is The Lower Depths, and it’s being performed, aptly, in a basement. But apart from this subterraneanness, you may not recognize Maxim Gorky’s monument to romantic naturalism, draped as it is in buffoonery, chaos, and lurid colors.

The subterraneanness, both physical and mental, enfolds its value, as a geode its flash, and that is where this visitor at least is going to leave it.

A subterraneanness makes the earth shake, the surfaces.

Jazz clubs, and Ronnie’s in particular, are about nightness: the otherness, the subterraneanness, the Left Bankness, the all-the-things-your-parents-warned-you-against-ness.