Space. Space between the bumpers of cars. Space as the gaps between customers in memory. Time as that which occurs between the appearance of customers. (Customers don’t occur in Time and Space, but exist as the always moving borders of Time and Space. Nothing can be said to occur which does occur in between the appearance of customers.)

Take the filter out and put it back. Walk to where the rag is and stop, then walk back to the filter and have a look. Check the fridge and its handle. Look out over the room to the sugars. Pull out this fridge and clean what’s in back of it (how did that thing get in back of it)

Customer with difficulty filing for disability. Customer thinking the county needs more playing fields, needs more open land for the kids. Customer added to her purchase to accommodate the three dollar minimum. Customer ordered medium chai latte with extra hot soy and a cookie. Customer carried a text book, thick but with a soft cover: with fluorescent pink and lime green post-it notes protruding from two of its edges.

Woman from the hair salon remarked that that was her bus that just came, so that the server, spurred to activity, whipped down a sheet of sandwich paper and found instead he’d grabbed three.

“Cold today,” customer said. “but it’s gotten warmer,” server said. “Yes it has gotten warmer,” customer said. “What does It’d mean,” customer asked. “How do you spell it?” “I — T — apostrophe — D… I never seen that before.” “Oh, it means ‘It had’ or ‘it would’ I think.” “Sounds like it’s from the streets.” “You don’t hear it a lot, I guess, but it’s like ‘he’d’ or ‘they’d.'”

(Chance Sweepings….)

Gorgias is the Platonic dialogue for our times! Interesting distinction made here between persuasion that instills belief by means of knowledge, and that which instills belief without knowledge. Gorgias 454e:

βούλει οὖν δύο εἴδη θῶμεν πειθοῦς, τὸ μὲν πίστιν παρεχόμενον ἄνευ τοῦ εἰδέναι, τὸ δ᾽ ἐπιστήμην;

Shall we lay it down then that there are two forms of persuasion, the one producing belief without knowledge, the other knowledge? (Woodhead)

An example of persuasion with knowledge would be a teacher persuading a student that the sum of a triangle’s angles is equal to 180 degrees. An example of persuasion without knowledge would be a lawyer’s argument (as opposed to a physician’s — indeed, independent of a physician’s knowledge) that a person should wear masks or not; or, independent of a geometer’s knowledge, that a triangle’s angles in fact equaled 360 degrees.

The rhetorician’s art, says Socrates, is to be persuasive about things he doesn’t really know about.

……q……g
.au………..ra
lia…..P……vel
swin…ang…ines
ging..siron.. sand
Maryof Egypthami
rrida bashitru Mar
gUAr dnnelS o-da
.BubbsalnBubb..
..Bub.ooBubb….
………edirbongo ananeyillsuion
m … t …m
m .. t ..m
m .. t ..m
m … t …m
m …. t ….m
m ….. t …..m

I wrote this before reading Finnegans Wake but it seems somewhat to “foresee” it. I was thinking of the “discrepancies” that Faulkner excuses himself for at the beginning of The Mansion and thinking how a new conception of the novel might embrace or allow for (or demand) mistakes of that sort —

That illogicality of plot is “a feature not a bug” . . . if a story is the patched- together parts of 20 conflicting stories but is stylistically and thematically consistent, if the story as a result states contradictory things as true –a la the discrepancies in the Snopes trilogy that Faulkner felt obligated to explain– this perhaps is to be preferred in the next evolution of the novel. Not so hard to envision the “next Shakespeare” as putting forward a sort of “mash up” of what would have otherwise appeared as his separate tragedies –because– the same person will seem Lear, Hamlet and Macbeth, to himself, herself, at once. Without the conceit of the stage, or of a drama, the author will see all those personalities and their dramas converging and mixed in himself.

If one could conceive of a mash-up of all Shakespeare’s plays into a single novel –one that was really effective– wouldn’t that somewhat resemble Finnegans Wake? If one could “unmash” FW what would one find?

Related question, have there been any rules established yet for the creation of mash-ups/ collage, like there were for perspective in painting way back when? Do we know anything about what goes together, to achieve what effects and why?

Related question, how would you make a mash up or collage of Shakespeare’s works? I think the obvious strategy would be to start with Hamlet as your foundation and then just start piling on and taking away. A weirder thought that occurred to me was to start with the idea of the jester-clown, which gives you a point of entry into both the comedies and tragedies.