I was pleased to receive the new edition of ‘Lud Heat’ from Skylight Press. They’ve done a lovely job of blending the original eccentricities (photos, drawings, prose journals, riffs, lyrics) with contemporary commentaries by Allen Fisher and Andrew Crozier, and Moorcock’s generous afterword from 1995. The whole production has more breathing space than any of the earlier editions. I think this is the sixth version since Albion Village Press launched the frail craft in 1975.
But the most unexpected aspect of the reissue was the discovery of how oddly prophetic the final section, ‘Running the Oracle’, actually was. It predicts, by nutty and occulted means, back in 1974, the exact position of the future Olympic Stadium.
‘The point is sited on the Northern Sewage Outflow, raised Ridgeway, slanting south-east… But the shrine is at the price spot where this secret route passes above the River Lea… That crossing place… The invasion path… From this platform we look across water and waste and nomansland to Stratford… He knew it had to be RUN.’
Iain
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