Dear Fictionists, Linguists, Trans-Romanticists
and Colleagues ATC
Cultivate Idiocy
L. IDIOS = private, individual, unique
no-2-snowflakes-alike, non-replicable,
non-franchiseable: one’s original
relationship with the whole, the
world, universe, source of “genius,”
vocation, calling, contribution. .
Watching the process of the class moving
toward making some common meaning of
Nabokov’s “Signs & Symbols” yesterday
made me aware of:
1. How important it seems to be—meaning
how difficult it is merely to sit inside meaningless-
ness and appreciate its meaninglessness as meaningless.
Not explaining. Not interpreting.
Susan Sontag wrote an essay called
AGAINST INTERPRETATION.;
where she tries to ague against our rage
for meaning. Imagine: being as much at
home in meaninglessness as meaning.
Chaos: an open gap, gape, chasm, yawn
—waiting for the random-to order ratios
which constitute our meanings.
2. In Making Meaning (as opposed to just
receiving it—getting answers, say, as opposed
to cultivating response.) Watch how IT goes—
in your own mind, making some meaning for
yourself. Or, here we are, a group of minds:
watch how it goes—the making of meaning.
Fiction-ing.
No, seriously: watch how-it-is you make your
meanings (as opposed to merely receiving them),
Characterize. Is it the same as how we collectively
Make Meaning? (Watch the class, because it’s
a sample: Mind at work Making Meaning. )
We have all these fictive mind-movies to put in
play over the semester: a noetic laboratory of
meaning-making (as opposed to just receiving it)
or merely enjoying the meaningless-ness.
Here’s a triad
X Z
explicit meaning implicit meaning
(obvious) (hidden, implied)
generally we can Needs to be Worked Out
agree on what’s significances and so-what’s
explicit: birds, jelly glasses
kid in insane asylum..
Y
free association—just pops up
bullets and lobotomies and letters one
thing leads to another….digressions
and transgressions….
These 3—and the greatest of these (in making meaning)
is Y. Need we argue?
Another triad,
Non Sense
Common Sense
No Sense At All
All 3!
Can you imagine trying to make your sense
without putting in play all three of these
Mothers of Invention?
Signs & Symbols galore. Any thing can
stand for anything else. An embarrassment
of riches. .
“Idiocy” is the source & origins of “genius.” True?
Need we argue. Also the source of insanity, of course.
That goes without saying. No wonder we deny and
cover our idiocy. Makes common sense.
xxxooo, Sam
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