to: ellipsis
from: William Dragon
16 July 1996
subject: letter sixteen P
attachments: what is a novel?
: the fanshaws
: the architecture of all this
: simple forms
: democracy
Greetings Tom and Jonathan
The first three texts have of course already
appeared on your website. I selected the next two
from jcj's chronotes, his working papers which he
files by date and time in a single 'chronofile',
following the practice of Buckminster Fuller. He
files everything he writes, about ten sheets a
day.
Besides this he keeps a journal in which he writes
about three pages a day. This begins in 1982 and
has now reached volume 77.
When he wants to consult this archive, which is
far too large for anyone to read as a whole, he
takes random samples or looks for highlighted
items.
The chronotes consist largely of 'worry notes',
about how to proceed with projects like this book,
or how to survive, semi-independently, in a
culture which he distances himself from.
Other chronotes, like 'Simple forms', which
recounts a dream, and 'Democracy', in which he
reacts to news items and to daily events, are what
he is now calling noteart, the result of attending
closely to the smallest thoughts and impressions,
and to the words in which they are related. This
process of taking seriously the 'the chatter of
the mind' is, I believe, his particular skill. He
calls the resulting notes 'existentia'. The texts
called 'softecnica'* are examples of this, though
they were written more densely than usual.
This brief account of 'jcj's paperwork' will tell
you something of how this book was written. Now
that he is able, through your ' hermeneutic
homepage', to publish-in-the-act-of-writing-on-the-web
he seems a happier person. And he likes to think
that inthe future everyone will be free to do the
same.
If they wish.
I see from the clock that yes, I will indeed be
able to complete this series of letters by
midnight, the last moment of the year-and-a-day.
hastily
wd