The Joliet (Xereney) Page

The Joliet Page

I am attending another lecture at Washington University School of Architecture, notes occupying a then-blank top right side of the page. While the speaker proceeds with the presentation I am thinking of my hometown, Joliet, Illinois, of the 1970s and 1980s, which in lrixe is called Xereney /SHE-jeh-neh-ee/, meaning “Reney is cast out” (Reney being an older, optimistic nickname similar to Icarus.) The elemental ingredients of steel appear at upper left, with a poorly constructed workman in a shop below. The lrixe inscriptions “l’ikaryne”, “reney”, “reneyikaryne” are names for myself, and the dates followed by cursive lrixe titles of anrenyn (the one dozen eleventh through the two dozen first) appear near the center of the facing page. Vignettes of billowing smoke from a factory across from Station 9 in Rockdale, of the glass foundry in Plainfield, and a general scene recalled from driving well south of Rockdale surround Joliet and its lrixe name. In Italian, the phrase “the sunset of the industrial age has killed my city” underscores the page. Industrial vignettes continue on the right page, a long flat factory with prominent cooling towers, possibly GAF, the appearance of the factory on the Des Plaines opposite Station 9, the watchtower at Stateville, the twin stacks at Commonwealth Edison’s Station 9, and the Caterpillar factory, underscored by the Italian phrase “industrial city”. Ballpoint, drawn 5 October 1997, Tayya 5920, five dozen ninth phase (Ñixaþa-Ajinevral Xrga), at Steinberg Hall, Washington University in St. Louis.

This page last modified Thursday 5 April 2012.