Terse

Anna,

Your latest missive suggests that you find yourself in a less than comfortable situation. I'm glad to have received word from you. Nevertheless, my dear, I am unable to find myself emotionally moved by your words. This may be an expression of feelings toward you, and how welcome another missive from you would be. Perhaps it is not.

Thomas

The Wonderous Claims of Johannes Grisebach

A young man walked into a tent, uninvited. Sitting silently in contemplation was another. Disturbed from his meditation, the man in the tent sighed and looked up inquiringly. He was annoyed, but acquiescent. The man who had entered spoke: "Are you the one they call Johannes Grisebach?"
"My name is of little importance. What do want with me?"
"It has been claimed that you can command the winds and the clouds--"
Johannes chuckled, "Who says such things?"
The young man was surprised. "I had heard that it had come once from your own mouth. Am I mistaken?"
Grisebach responded absently, "I have made no claims of my own abilities; perhaps, I have repeated claims made by others. I place little importance on the discourses of men."
"So, then, are the claims not true?"
"I have made no such statement."
"Are they?"
Grisebach chuckled again, mysteriously. "Perhaps."
"You see, I come from a village where it hasn't rained for a long time. My father is an elder; he had heard of your abilities. I-- my village, was hoping you could help us out. We could give you cattle... Or gold, or, or anything you want."
Grisebach looked into the young man's eyes, into his soul. After an infinite moment, he smiled sadly, paternally. "I'm sorry; your village has nothing I desire."
"Nothing you desire? Or nothing that will induce you to aid us?" the young man replied hotly.
"Nothing I desire."
"There must be something you seek; perhaps we can lend men who can aid you-- I myself am willing if you would protect our village."
"I seek only the Path."
"The Path?"
Grisebach sighed; so young, so devoid of understanding. Alas. "In the East, they call it jihad; further east still, enlightenment. the Jews call it, depending, Cabala, The Word, or Elijah's Spirit, there are other names in other places; but you do not care for such things."
The young man was desperate. "Is there nothing we can do?"
"Nothing." The voice was firm. The young man's heart nearly shattered.
"Then goodbye, sir." The young man turned slowly and left the small tent. Grisebach fell back into his meditations.
As the young man made the weary journey to his home, he stopped in a town where a woman was praising a strange man she had met at a well. In his melancholy, he noticed nothing else. When he returned to his village it had rained.
Johannes continued his search.


*-*-*-*-*
Obviously, Johannes is a reference to The Rose. Obviously, also, there is a jarring anachronism. Who cares?

...I saw a city steadily sinking... ceaselessly stumbling on

Another city I went to was perhaps the most depressing place I've ever been. I was sent there by a former alderman, who wanted me to help them rebuild. It had been steadily sinking since its founding. You see, the founders built it on a swamp. They knew it would keep sinking, but they built it there anyway out of defiance. They were clever though, and the ingenious architects built machines to hoist the buildings from the swamp before they sunk too far.

Later generations had forgotten these machines, and built stilted structure on stilted structure, hoping to stop the sinking. Often, buildings will sink unevenly, and the stilts (or the structure itself) will break, and the wood will be reused for new structures which meet the same end. The citizens live with the same defiant attitude as their founders, but they no longer take the measures taken by their founders. Instead, they say that the machines never existed, and were simply a metaphor, and that these broken structures are what the founders intended.
They don't realize that instead of becoming the captors of the swamp, they have become the captives of the swamp,


*-*-*-*-*
The title is from "Nice and Blue Part 2" by Aaron Weiss of mewithoutYou.

Appeal to Higher Authorities

An anthropologist friend of mine informed me recently of a few remote groups of esoteric mystics. They seem to believe that all things come from an abstract ideal concerning groups of things, and transformations of these groups. My friend could not give me much more precise information that that, as he cannot decipher their thoughts. In part, this is due to the arcane nature of their sects. He informed me, however, that the primary problem in deciphering their beliefs is that their written language is full of non-sense symbols and punctuation, with almost no written words. To make matters worse, the few letters they use seem to be used interchangeably, and occasionally, other opaque substitutions are made.

As a scholar of languages, he asked me to take a look at the texts. So far, he has been unable to give any to me; however, he did remember (he thought) a short snippet of the unintelligible writing:

{a,b|x,y} & {c,d|z,w}
     .es.
{{a,b}&{c,d|z,w}, {c,d}&{a,b|x,y}|{a,b|x,y}&{z,w},{c,d|z,w}&{x,y}}

Clearly, I have my work cut out for me. However, these seems vaguely reminiscent of an ancient instruction book I once glanced at. There may be a link-- or even an unbroken tradition. Esoteric sects have a way of keeping themselves alive longer than should be expected.

*-*-*-*-*
The astute (and overly educated) reader will find the above set theory familiar, and would be able to "translate" & and .es.
But it doesn't matter anyway.

Labyrinthine

I think the most interesting city I've ever been to is a lone industrious city in The Brink. I never caught the name of the place, and the inhabitants never put much emphasis on it. These inhabitants are very friendly and quite expansive. However, they seem to take almost no interest in anyone. Either they expect the same sort of enthusiastic self-descriptions, or they present a different face to outsiders. Their friendliness removes any thought of egotism, although they can be tiring.

The most interesting thing, which the inhabitants hardly recognize, is that the city itself is a labyrinth. More properly, it is a maze. The citizens seem not to notice that their city exhibits any unusual properties, and find their way around without any hesitation. Only once was I not helped when asking directions-- the reply I got was "I haven't been in that part of the city, sorry." It's as if their city exhibits some logic that cannot be deciphered by foreigners.

Stranger still (although only in retrospect) is a feeling of nostalgia or deja vu that seems to float like a fog in that place. Everything feels familiar, as if I had just recently forgotten what was around that next corner. It could be that the construction of this city resembled other cities I had been to, or it could be the vague notion that I wasn't actually lost-- that I had been to this part of the labyrinth before. Either way, the city was rather eery, yet very pleasant.

*-*-*-*
Hurray, Albert!

On another note, I recently picked up Labyrinths (coincidence, I swear), a collection of translated stories by Borges. I was hoping it would have A Dialog About a Dialog, but it does have The Avatars of the Tortouse and The House of Asterion, so it isn't a complete Loss... Also, it has almost all of the stories in Ficciones, which by themselves make it work while.

I need to get back my copy of his complete fictions, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

On Scientific Rigour

I've already realized that a sort of theme has begun to develop... one which I didn't necessarily intend. There's an anti-scientific feel to the workings of the universe and the philosophers of the universe. This is strictly unintentional; however, it seems necessary.

The purpose of this project is to illuminate a surreal and mysterious universe. A world which follows a well-defined (that is, scientifically discoverable) set of rules cannot be both surreal and mysterious.

While I do have anti-rationalist tendencies, the expression of said leanings is not the purpose of this project.

Also, to completely confuse the whole universe, On Scientific Rigour by Borges should be considered a part of this universe. Consider it De Quincey's Writings, XXV:lxv (b). I daren't write part a, although you may see more of XXV

Writings, VII:xii

Collectively, mankind has spent countless hours attempting to discover the hidden meaning of the machinery of nature. There is a strange automation in the world around us; one which consensus suggests is beyond the scope of a priori understanding. However, empiricism has shown no greater progress in understanding. Nor have the empiricists succeeded in developing a parrot machine-- a replica which was produced according to the exact structure and specifications of the original, with no understanding of it's purpose or mechanism. No such machine has ever worked. Of course, you know this; what you might not know, is that hundreds of parrot machines have been built, all to no avail. This would seem to suggest that the order and mechanism apparent in the universe is lacking.

On the other hand, perhaps, it is we who are lacking. One would think that in a world so full of dumb mechanism, the one creature capable of metacognition and abstract analysis would be capable of building a dumb replica. It seems such mundane tasks are beyond us-- by taking the abstract, we have somehow lost touch with the concrete.

*-*-*-*-*
De Quincey's name is perhaps too obvious... Oh well.

Edited to sound less arrogant (although no less didactic)