BERNEVAL

At one point in the history of Internet communication by email, it was the custom to append various snippets of poetry or prose to the signature block. Sometimes they enticed one to read more. Take for example:

“The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the last date shown; 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.”

– Terry Pratchett, _Guards! Guards!_

And I learn from a Wikipedia entry “that in large quantities all books warp space and time around them.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_dimensions_of_the_Discworld

And so for day 271
11.09.2007

Writing in Now, Gerald Hannon opens the obituary for Danny Cockerline (1960-1995) with extraordinary freshness.

With age comes innocence. That is why we need the succulent, corrupting young. That is why we have lost so much with the suicide on December 11 of Danny Cockerline. He was just 35 years old, and had about him still the blatant fearlessness the world misunderstands and calls corruption.

There is also on line somewhere a more nuanced appreciation by Chris Bearchell. She called him “Brilliant and reckless. Beautiful but insecure. Destined to provoke. Queer. But a queer queer; an outsider among outsiders. Danny was always ahead of his time in fashion, decor and politics.” See the posting at walnet.org http://www.walnet.org/97_walnut/danny_cockerline/c_bearchell.html

And so for day 270
10.09.2007

I got asked to summarize McLuhan in a few succinct words. Came up with three: “international intellectual provocateur”. And wondered what three could apply to me. Came up with: “commonplace book keeper”. Commonplace all one word. Book keeper, two words.

And so for day 268
08.09.2007

Place the entry from day 265 “Reading Creases” alongside the entry from day 266 “In the shadow of should” and scan the table mentioned at day 265…

Memory, Mimesis, Middle Term aligned with Tech, Aesth. Response, Perception — body

and see if you cannot map construction onto technology, collaboration onto body and communication on mimesis

building the tool, tending to the body, managing substitutions

the potential recursiveness is eerily enchanting… for the reading can be further elaborated so that construction, collaboration and communication are as a repeated grouping connected to each of technology, mimesis and body.

To achieve such giddy structures and suggestive juxtapositions is in some respects being alert to metaphysical interpretations, alive to how words mesh with words to world create. It is however more akin to exercising the skill of memory: one can carry a shape a long time before remembering a shape that fits its boundaries and opens the mind.

And so for day 267
07.09.2007

Garet Garrett Ouroboros or the Mechanical Extension of Mankind Chapter VII “Dim Vistas New”

It must occur to you that what the world requires to find is a new conception of commerce among nations — one that shall be free of the predatory impulse, above the exploiting motive, competitive in some nobler sense.

[…]

This is very different from parasitism, which is one-sided, for gain only. And there is a very curious suggestion that organisms now existing together in a state of permanent symbiotic union were once parasitic and learned better.

I first picked up this slim volume because the title reminded me of Marshall McLuhan’s formulation of media as prosthetics. What I found was a treatise on macro economics. What I found in its confrontation of peasant and industrial interests was the foreshadowing of the growing importance of agribusiness.

In the language of the economist, the agricultural index will rise and the industrial index will fall. It will require a greater quantity of manufactures to buy a bushel of wheat; fewer bushels of wheat to buy a manufactured article. This will not be for one year or two. It will be lasting. It will affect the status of great groups and classes of people. In the cities and industrial centres the cost of living will move in a vertical manner.

Garrett concludes in an open ended fashion:

In any light, man’s further task is Jovian. That is to learn how best to live with these powerful creatures of his mind, how to give their fecundity a law and their functions a rhythm, how not to employ them in error against himself — since he cannot live without them.

The solution to surplus production is twofold: nurture the fashion system and harness to this system, storage. The surplus can serve as an archive for the self-renewing moves of the fashion system. Ouroboros, indeed.

And so for day 263
03.09.2007

Stewart Brand. How Buildings Learn: What happens after they’re built Chapter 6 “Unreal Estate” on lot size:

Small lots give greater individual control and thus greater variety, and they encourage more pedestrian activity. The more owners, the more gradual and adaptive the ongoing change. It’s a conservative, wholesome kind of change — the place looks a little different every year, but the overall feel is the same from century to century.

One wonders if an analogy might be drawn to the world of blogs — small incremental shifts at the local level — an essentially conservative genre.

And so for day 262
02.09.2007