From: Ariosto Raggo <df803-AT-freenet.carleton.ca>
Subject: Re: rhizomes
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 22:56:28 -0500 (EST)


> 
> 
> On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Ariosto Raggo wrote: 
> > > This will go very slowly.  You have read so much more than me with so much
> > > more patience.  A professor of mine told me once that I have an "uncanny"
> > > ability to intuitively feel my way into the deeper structures of a text
> > > without actually following it *logically*.  In this way, I can often claim 
> > > that I have not *read* anything at all. (Hence my desire
> > > to read theory about reading so that I can become a more self-aware
> > > logical reader.)  Is the attempt at the building of a metalanguage the
> > > gift you (the sound of A) are offering me?  
> > > 
> >  I am at a standstill, that is how slow I am starting to go. This is what
> > i enjoy. That which I want to do is tell as best as I can, unfinished,
> > interminable X's (not sure of the word. I have no name to give this
> > genre.) that give an 'account' of the operation of the imagination when
> > it finds itself without models, in virgin territory. 
> 
> How many times have you found yourself in this place?  To be here with
> willingness and attentiveness.  

  This is my way indicating meditation which writing can be up to a
point since silence (the most poetic of words says Bataille) is a limit
of language and reading. So expression shipwrecks, drowns with an
insistent impulse, compulsion to say three more little words. I
started reading Barthes again, his Fragments on Amorous Discourse. In
the fragment on writing or inexpressable love he goes on, love has
a certain part to play in language but it never finds itself in writing.
The next fragment is on erring where he says that one can re-cite the
begining of love, I take this to be the impulse, but he says one can
never finish, like our death, this belongs to someone else to finish.
I say there is a sort of giving way, making room for another to go on.
After you stacey... you know I am always after you.


>I am having a hard time explaining what it
> is I want to ask. It feels a bit like the first time I read _Alice in
> Wonderland_.  I was eight. My grandmother gave me this amazing illustrated
> edition.  I kept thinking as I *more* than read it that she couldnt have
> possibly ever have read it, otherwise she wouldnt have *given* it to me.
> She actually had parts of it memorised.  
> 
  Hey have you ever read the little prince by St. Xavier? Nice story
about solitude and tending your flower. It has been a while since I had
read, I have this strong impulse to read it again. 

  I will finish this later tonight,
   A

> A "virgin
> > territory" can be a protean fabric on which to write non-allegorical
> > pictures which would make them unreadable, non-interpretable.
> 
> To be able to write this to me, you must have sense of my agitated
> stillness.  Probably what you would call bodily imagos.
>
   
> >I am making all this up in order for you, stacey, to quiet down and come
> over to  the spacing place that I live in. This is my invitation to you
> and it seems that I have to appeal to your ability to read warm signs or
> cold signs. 
> I have better days at this than others.  Sometimes I read everything
> ironically.  What do you suppose me *being* quiet would look like? I
> like how you begin.  
> 
> >Lately I feel like I am
> pushing you away. 
> 
> Really? I am doing my work.  I feel pretty fearless right now and that
> should probably scare me.  It is this feeling of urgently cradling
> myself. I thought you were just trying to "quiet down and come over to the
> spacing place that I live in."  Let me know, how much
> more vertical you would like.  
> 
> >I have my obligation
> > already to write more about all this. Give it most of my energy is what I
> > am doing and what I am saying is that if you are really interested,
> > let's think in a more protracted way about this relation
> > through something that is not yours or is not mine. I want you to be
> > my companion if it seems to you like your desire is the same as mine. A
> > desire that is withdrawing its investenment of interest in things and
> > conserving itself, waiting.
> 
> I know what it is to wait.  
>  
> > > I keep coming back to these lines...I have attempted to read
> > > > Spinoza's ethics a couple of times but I find him so difficult. Sounds
> > > > important if something as you write here is where your ambition and
> > > > lust is. 
> > > 
> > > I just think that Spinoza is where I would begin/began my initial
> > > re-thinking/re-doing of my body.
> > > 
> >   Go then, I will be there reading Spinoza when I am fifty, if I live
> > that long.
> 
> You give yourself to me so perfectly there.    
> 
> > > What you called a "binary movement" when read as text I would
> > > > describe as coincidence of opposites and the writer would be a crossing
> > > > of male/female. 
> > > What do you mean by coincidence? (arbitrary?)  Does this make the writer
> > > androgynous, hermaphroditic, asexual?
> > > 
> >   Maybe arbitrary, maybe another word describes better. Yes,
> > bisexual(polysexual would be a limit-possibility and so you get
> > impossible examples or simulacra) writers but why would you say asexual? 
> 
> Still working this out.  I think when I thought of that I was thinking of
> neutralisation.  I was trying to think of another "arbitrary" movement
> that would unwind this. The moment of moving from no desire to desire.  Again, 
> I never seem to be able to win or exceed this particular discussion.  My
> feeling has been that your influence will make this significance 
> irrelevant for me.  I dont think we are opposite. 
> 
>  > > I know this makes me and my
> expression a narcissistic
> > > > simulacra. Another name for simulacra is anamorfosis or trompe l'oeil.
> > > > The appeal through the laterality of the turning phrases is to the
> > > > observing reader who is included if not incoorporated in the imposture.
> > > 
> > > Yes, my complicity - and self-awareness of my complicity with a text often
> > > leads to more pain.  My interpretive desire is used against me.
> > > 
> >   So your experience then is that of disintegration and is this pain a
> > sad joy? It's my favorite mood.
> 
> I never associated it with a loss of self...but I think a lot of the time 
> I dont have the same kind of "self" as other people I interact with.
> Perhaps this makes me even more selfish?  the experience is more like a
> marker or a highlighted area in the text/me (implied reader) that upon
> re-reading would potentially mark a change. Not a disintegration but an
> actualisation. A trail of rhyzomes...like bread crumbs?  the sad-joy part
> i would definitley agree with.  
>  
> > > > This is the figure and position(a protean one, constantly changing
> > > > depending on circumstances, situations, occasions, the moment) of the
> > > > sophist. 
> 
> I might have missed what you were trying to say about the act of
> interpretation.
> 
> > > You are talking about entrapment theory right? And I think you are write,
> > > this isnt me at all.  Not clever enough.
> > > 
> >   come on, we are talking the seduction of interpretive desire and
> > surely you smile when you say you are not tricky enough, a player
> > write? 
> 
> Yes, I was smiling.  But the thing about being a player is that you
> give yourself away at some point so that the other person is aware
> that they have been played with. Remember, affection and affectation.  
> 
> There were these girls over earlier on
> and one, young,
> she > tells she broke up with her boyfriend because he was a "player." I
> > don't know why some people don't like games and somehow someone lacking
> > that gives true love? 
> 
> Certainly not as textured a landscape.  I dont think I want to talk about
> what *true* love is; I will leave that to the people who dont appreciate
> play.
> 
> > > For me it leads clearly to metafiction. I am not sure if this is
> > > > you, I mean stacey. You say you read me, and repeat that you do. Do you
> > > > read this? 
> > > 
> > > I feel that I do.
> > > 
> >   I am clear.
> > 
> > > I think this is my sense of direction through language that i
> > > > am begining to express, or rather paint as mask and image, as ornament
> > > > and display.
> 
> The IF and Gift, then?
> I wouldnt say all of these are points of departure.  Or would you say that
> the act of interpretation marks a "send-off"?  Then does a text that
> entraps then fail to offer a gift? or is it a gift which we havent
> explored yet?  
> 
>  > > Will you tell me what it sensorily seems like? > >  
> >   Good question. When it's good I know it is because I myself get
> > excited and try to control that to be able to continue to write. I stop
> > and enjoy also. Sometimes I jump out of my chair, sometimes it's
> > calming. I am going to keep this question in mind. There is a flow, a
> > feeling of confidence that tells you that you are on, in the spacing zone.
> > 
> > > > question: this is way of making something (but also a manner existence
> > > > and being?) that elicits the readers response, his capture. I had this
> > > > inhibition when to saying "her" rather "his." I am not sure that in the
> > > > shape up I am in right now there could be women readers, only writers
> > > > it seems.
> 
> You actually havent given me any kind of imago or idea of what kind of
> shape you are in. Perhaps this is what you are working on?  I will still
> attempt to read you.
> 
> > > So you are saying that only I could entrap you...that you could not entrap
> > > me? (you are so wrong and amazing at the same time)  Or are you using
> > > "woman" as a kind of rhetoric? (ie. I am not a woman figuratively
> > > speaking)
> > > 
> > > *essentially*
> > > stacey
> > > 
> >   *laughter* 
> >   we will have to get back to this,
> >   ariosto
> 
> I have been reading some stuff on entrapment today.  I am too tired to
> write what I think about it now.  I will sleep with it, and see if it
> shapes itself into something communicable.  (that would be another smile
> incase you missed it)
> 
> stacey
> 
> > >  Break time.
> > > > 
> > > > Ariosto
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > >(that isnt it...he says
> > > > > it better...i am so close to just going home and looking it up...but i
> > > > > have more to say...)  ambition and lust reside here for me...but they are
> > > > > messy house guests and (and never seem to actually want to be my
> > > > > roomates) sometimes i have asked them to leave...*Perhaps* this is why i
> > > > > do not enjoy it when other people watch me engaged with the
> > > > > world/myself...they are not really engaged with any kind of
> > > > > complexity...(fuck is that bordering on vertical movement? i am trying
> > > > > to avoid it) dont be an ant or a word... seriously have you read
> > > > > Derrida's book on the postcard? i send postcards to my friends all
> > > > > the time...and sometimes it isnt about what i say... but the expression 
> > > > > of longing inscribed in POSTING at all
> > > > > (doing)...transgressing...impossible...you continue
> > > > > to surprise me...now i think i am comfortable...
> > > > > 
> > > > > a postcard
> > > > > 
> > > > > i dream of a dress made from a bivouac...a shift dress of living
> > > > > ants...organic tapestry...seething chocolate brown speckled with
> > > > > white...the heads of major worker ants...clustering responses and tarsal 
> > > > > claws keening to clad me...my knees and elbows join me as surfacing
> > > > > possibilities...i dance in a dress that moves and breathes with the
> > > > > surface of me...opening the errogenous...erroneous from monolitihic teleos
> > > > > to rain and wool on skin and liminality shuddering the folds of increasing
> > > > > starriness...the pearls of gifts given with expectation reshaping into
> > > > > animals and cannibals...there is no need for sharpness....scissors.
> > > > > shears. swords or lasering beams....zones literally and laterally expanding
> > > > > across the limits of the shift into senses...the eye/i's that do not
> > > > > speculate but participate...
> > > > > 
> > > > > stacey
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > i just had to clear one other little (mis)interpretation up...pinking
> > > > > shears does not refer to the colour pink...(not a big fan of pink...forced
> > > > > to wear it way too often)  they are scissors which have a kind of serrated
> > > > > edge which prevents fraying...sorry this sounds a little
> > > > > patronising in my head...did you already know this?
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > -- 
> > > >                                
> > > >         
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> >                                
> >         
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 



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