Infinite Digression

Fragments in the Field

modified:Apr 23, 20253 min read

created 2025-03-28, & modified, =this.modified

tags:y2025fragements

rel: Text off Edges, RAID

Note

I’m curious how many fragments of texts I encounter each day. So things where the text once complete, but no longer, such as through aging.

How often do I encounter these? Are they ever restored?

The examples are best if the text is irrecoverable.

  • At the gas station, the weathered pump handle has a worn off warning. I can make out something about sparks. The word WARNING itself has weathered characters, but is legible.
  • I see a dollar bill pinned to a board, but only the 1 remains. A jagged rip.
  • Notes at my desk in a hasty, scratchy scrawl. They are torn and words are intentionally clipped, just to get the words out.
  • In reading Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon there’s talk of a man playing an accordion with “pessimism” written on it. The text goes over his watching of it, with each compression of the bellows omitting parts of the word which are written on the page “eimsm”
  • Strip of labeled tape on an old box. At the point of the fold, the tape adheres to itself and so the text. The fold spans multiple lines, like a diagonal slash. ~“If this sæl is broken, or packgae is damaged”.

Note

So many instances so far, are fragments of labels, often warnings.

I will coin this wornings, a warning that is [so worn.

In scanning If Not Winter, Fragments by Anne Carson

I see a line from Derrida:

Breaks are always, and fatally, reinscribed in an old cloth that must continually, interminably be undone

Reading reviews of books. A reviewer comments on the misalignment in their print, making it impossible read.

Printed really badly! Text is upside down and the top of the pages are cropped too much/the printing has shifted to the top that you can’t read the sentences…

My closest friend passed away today. I cherish the words we share, in messages. But they feel like Fragments in the Field. They are fully separated from her now, and continued conversation. It’s not like I could heal them in a way, like I could lay my hands on them to connect them back to her so she would speak again. The words I have left are not meaningless, but I miss her.

Words do not allow us to speak to the dead. This is a romantic notion. It is not enough.

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