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rel: Oulipo The Parable of the Palace by Borges Future Camera Process Async date
Why I'm reading
I’m not sure if I’ve read Georges Perec but he’s come up numerous times in discussions of experimental writings and Oulipo.
Right now there seems a trend toward summarization and brevity. Things are taken in as impressions and vibes.
Just like Future Camera Process, there is an attempt as maximum data capture but in words here. It seems, even if attempted to be exhaustive, futile; and thus interesting.
Maybe there is some of George Kuchar’s Weather Diaries, or Surveillance Camera Man here.
There are a great many things in place Saint-Sulpice.
A great number, if not the majority of these things have been described inventoried, photographed, talked about and registered. My intention in the pages that follow was to describe the rest instead: that which is generally not taken note of, that which is not noticed, that which has no importance: what happens when nothing happens other than the weather, people, cars and clouds.
- a rather big chunk of sky (maybe one-sixth of my field of vision)
- Vehicles (their inventory to be made)
- Human beings
NOTE
I’m immediately feeling grounded in reading this. Following Georges’ scanning eyes. How many of these things have I directly seen?
Also I wonder the process here. Even in writing notes here, on his notes I must pause for a period my reading. Did he look and write? Collect a certain amount and then write?
Could he have left even a single item to be a fabrication? The blue Mercedes truck in inventory, not actually there and only on the page?
- From a tourist bus, a Japanese woman seems to be taking my photograph.
NOTE
This is the first sign of possible evidence of Georges in action. A photo can exist, somewhere. If done today, say in NYC, I wonder how fully documented the documenter would be.
He chose an active area here. How would the text differ if in a country road?
I also wonder of a modern take of this that is completely passive. We see language models connected to webcam feeds that can constantly attempt to describe what they see.
rel:All Spoken Word Recorded
- People stumble. Micro-accidents.
- Return (uncertain) of previously seen individuals
rel:Alterity - The wind is making the leaves on the trees move.
rel:Track Down Leaves
NOTE
There is constant transit notification, “An 86 passes by.” Humanity is concealed.
A single element of here can be further detailed. For example, “A young man passes by; he is carrying a large portfolio.” or “A man passes: he is pulling a handcart, red.” An entire story precedes and follows unwritten.
These are inconsequential details tied to a very conscious life. A slice of it here, is just an object and inventory.
“In front of ‘La Demeure’ a woman is waiting, standing near a bench.”
- Again the pigeons go round the square. What triggers off this unified movement? It doesn’t seem linked to any exterior stimulus, nor to any particular motivation.
rel:V Formation - I have the impression that square is almost empty (but there are at least twenty human beings in my line of sight.)
Note
All the while, a funeral appears to be going on in the nearby church.
The majority of the viewing locations are cafes. Cafes afford this kind of extrospection.
The regularity of the buses (and their obtrusiveness) serve as a visual clock.
Despite being in the same space, he writes about differences. Certain cafes are closed. Changes in trash.
- Moments of emptiness
NOTE
“moments of emptiness” - I understand this, though the book punctuates mostly literal
- Four Children. A dog. A little ray of sun. The 96. It is two o’clock
Note
That’s how the book ends. No period.
Describing the unhappy echo behind every effort to write and speak, and behind every decision not to:
If in this world there is one misery having no relief, it is the pressure on the heart from the incommunicable - Thomas de Quincey