to: ellipsis
from: jcj
25 July 1996 00/00/0000ai (day/month/year 'after internet' and time zero for timeart)
subject: letter twenty-five Y
attachments: life on earth
: visiting the specialist, part two
: synopsis, part two
dear ellipsis ... and everyone,
(I started writing this at about 6.15.)
This letter was conceived at 4.29 this morning and
at 5.08 something more than it began. That was the
time according to British clocks when I wrote this
in my chronotes (broken here into thought-units
for clarity):
'this moment o5:08 b.s.t. is the moment of birth
of the book. - these note(s) were the labour and
1995-96 the (period of) gestation.
Conception was synopsis (at some) date in Nov? +
the baby is not the letters (they are
afterbirth). The baby is simply these new
clocktime(s) + calendars. (+ names) ... (j-921
gestated 10 years from August/ September 85)'
At that point I fetched the Duo and switched it on
at 5.15 and it was open by 5.16
I will explain this surprise when I tell or type
the notes that led to it, but for the moment I
want to sleep a bit more if I can, for I was awake
until 2 after writing letter 24.
... I didn't sleep but refreshed myself with yogic
relaxation and now I am going to extract something
I wrote in my journal at
'05.41. Reporting a miracle, or the birth of ai
(after internet, in place of a.d. and b.c. + all
things terrestrial, or rather additional to it).
'Between 5 or so + now (see chronotes, see pages 1
to 4) came wake notes re letter 25, + out of
thinking of the consequences of that (dangerous?)
impulse to attach 'y celwyddgwn ar y prom' to
letter 24
I found myself led to this moment when I see that
everyone with a computer (or when using any such)
can switch to personal time + calendar with
consequences I've begun to note and soon will
continue on the computer not paper.
As I prepared the Duo for this (it's now
recharging for the plug was only half in) I saw
that 1-25 is the (birth) labour, + 4 July 1974
(when I left employment for independence) to now
is the gestation, + 25 July 1995 was the
conception, of all this, of what? a new calendar +
clock, + such (related) conventions out of which
i2 came to be on earth (or at first as j-921, it's
10 years ahead, being born in 1985 August) while
each of us now, like me, can be reborn or
reconceived at any moment I'll say no more for
(this is for) the Duo. This is letter 25 beginning
...'
20.18
I didn't write anything all day but now I am. I've
found something. 'Put it into written words', says
someone to whom I was telling the idea.
'Difficulties that arise at the beginning of a new
life' are what I read of in a rune book and that
is exactly what I feel. Try not to rush until you
can see how to do it easily, without effort, like
a spring filling with water or fruit ripening on a
tree. Or until the pastry that I took out of the
freezer is soft enough to make the pie I'm going
to eat this evening. The first in year zero ai
(after internet). Yesterday was the last one of bi
(before internet). And as this is in some way a
rebirth, or a reconception, my age today is zero
also on this new calendar which is the first
thing, the first design or consequence, of what
happened this morning.
The pastry is now soft enough for rolling so I go
to do that. I guess the metaphor will do nicely
for this spreading thought that I'm trying to
realise in words ... the right medium, don't you
think, for constructing something in time?
A piece of timeart, I like to call it, enjoying
the sight of 'ear' inside this word for what I'm
doing now. Everyone is a timeartist and every
action is timeart. Cooking especially, and writing
also, unless they've been mechanised... I'm
looking now at 'Y celwyddgwn ar y prom', the piece
that provoked this thought or theory of time that
came to me at 4.29. It begins in Welsh and then
slips into English for I was writing it as
homework for Gareth King's Welsh class ...
... (but here I must pause for the pie's already
cooked and I want to eat while it's hot) ...
... and there was not time for me to write it all
in my beginner's Welsh. And anyway, as it's about
bilingualism, I was glad to drop into a kind of
Welsh-English as part of my message. Yes, I fear
it's all message and for that reason I don't like
it. And perhaps that's why I woke feeling nervous
about displaying it here. Or because of the
racialism which is present throughout.
But then came a revelation, or so it felt to me.
(I began