to: ellipsis
from: Numeroso
10 July 1996
subject: letter ten J
attachments: radio simplicity
dear Tom and Jonathan
This is Numeroso telling you of his reactions to
the piece about the Borth Review and his various
decentral experiences.
Before he went to sleep John Chris showed me
copies of the magazine. I was surprised to see
that it contains little or nothing written by him.
I wondered, if he likes editing, why he did not do
more of that afterwards? But I gather that the
village magazine was a sideline - it was
several decades before he realised that he was
more at home in writing and in speaking than in
the design of hardware. Though at that time he did
design a car of the future for a competition and I
believe it won a prize. But I don't think his
heart was in it.
It's interesting that he values the Borth Review
more as an example of decentral creativity than as
a literature. Perhaps he is right. He is certainly
no specialist.
I'm not saying anything about what jcj wrote in
days 2 and 3 - they seem to me to explain
themselves.*
The piece I'm leaving for Edwina to react to is
'Radio simplicity', which has affinities with this
one. I think his real enthusiasm is for a new kind
of social designing that hasn't yet got a name. No
wonder he likes the internet, and the phone before
it. That's the kind of thing I like myself.
With good wishes
Numeroso