to: ellipsis
from: William Dragon
13 July 1996
subject: letter thirteen M
attachments: a duck flying
: rhythms of the body
: fifty words to save the book
Greetings again, Tom and Jonathan
I waited a long time for jcj to return from his
sleep, and then from writing letters eighteen to
twenty-four, but he never did. And neither did
Edwina, nor Utopia and Numeroso, so I shall have
to complete thirteen to seventeen myself. As the
deadline is close I shall be brief, looking only
for that 'something lovely' which I thought at the
beginning could emerge.
In selecting texts for these five letters I have
chosen five things from his previous writings and
ten that he wrote for the ellipsis website or for
the book itself.
The first of my selections, 'For nothing is
outside (a meditation on the skeleton)' is
attached to letter twelve. With this letter I'm
attaching two more to do with the body. I'll refer
to all three in letter fourteen.
I'm also attaching 'Fifty words to save the book',
a short piece he wrote deliberately and swiftly
when he thought he'd lost his way. I was watching
him unobserved. He'd set himself to write no more
than fifty to one hundred saving words and
somewhat miraculously he did it in exactly fifty,
counting the words of the title.
They had no effect immediately for he continued to
write anxious worry notes for several days. But
then he began the 'true telling of thoughts' that
he promised in the fifty words and you can, I
think, see this happening in the later letters.
Best wishes
William Dragon