Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.44.0208080259420.1252-100000@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: the character essays - explanation
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 02:59:56 -0400 (EDT)
the character essays The 1000 Character Classic (or 'essay,' depending on the translation) is a Chinese work from the 6th century - Ellen Zweig and I are translating it. It was used in the imperial exams; the first 80 characters formed the basis of keno; and numerous classical texts are numbered by the charac- ters. The 1000 characters never repeat; the text was one of the bases for learning the language. The beginning is mythological, more or less; there are also numerous (Confucian) maxims. Texts (such as Genesis) dealing with originary moments often stress the role of language; creation is catalyzed by the Word, Speech, Breath, and so on. In the reduction of Genesis I worked on, each word in the first half is used only once; the rest are eliminated. So the first half becomes a construct of language itself, its political economy, eliminating surplus. In the second half, the end of Genesis determines the fullness of the language, and the beginning of the second half contains the elimina- tions. A text beginning with God's speech descends to, ascends out of, the proper name, the only remainder of languages abstract skein. Genesis had to be modified, eliminating the future punctuations, capital letters, chapter and verse numbers; the result is transformed into enun- ciation, pure speech exhausting itself in the first half, and descending out of evanescence, God's silence, in the second. Other texts were also used to arrive at the condensation of the Julu perl scripts, the theoretical work I did on the abacus (which is an inverse, a spread of quantity across a skein), and bones drawn from the recent modi- fied markov chain pieces. Two different programs were used; one involved a number of unix commands, including awk, sed, tr, nl, etc., that transformed a text into a list of duplications which could then be manually removed. The second was a perl script; I asked Florian Cramer's help on this. I then modified the script to a small extent. The perl script is a coherent filter creating an array and comparing the elements, retaining only the first of any that were equivalent. Language can only be spoken once, or it can be spoken forever; there is no intermediary here, and once and forever are not binaries. Speaking once creates it in the form of rigid designators, description taut in its relation to the substrate of the real. Speaking forever glides forever; it is only with the greatest difficult that meaning is retained. Speaking once is the fullness and repleteness of meaning, but meaning grounded in unique enunciation, the fullness of the earth. Speaking forever is meaning emptied, swollen and diffused in air, untethered, transfigured. Language is never one nor the other, but creation is, and forever carries death, just as once is choratic birth. the character essays The 1000 Character Classic (or 'essay,' depending on translation) is a Chinese work from 6th century - Ellen Zweig and I are translating it. It was used in imperial exams; first 80 characters formed basis of keno; numerous classical texts numbered by charac- ters. never repeat; text one bases for learning language. beginning mythological, more or less; there also (Confucian) maxims. Texts (such as Genesis) dealing with originary moments often stress role language; creation catalyzed Word, Speech, Breath, so on. In reduction Genesis worked on, each word half only once; rest eliminated. So becomes construct language itself, its political economy, eliminating surplus. second half, end determines fullness language, contains elimina- tions. A God's speech descends to, ascends out of, proper name, remainder languages abstract skein. had to be modified, future punctuations, capital letters, chapter verse numbers; result transformed into enun- ciation, pure exhausting itself descending evanescence, silence, second. Other were arrive at condensation Julu perl scripts, theoretical did abacus (which an inverse, spread quantity across skein), bones drawn recent modi- fied markov chain pieces. Two different programs used; involved number unix commands, including awk, sed, tr, nl, etc., that list duplications which could then manually removed. script; asked Florian Cramer's help this. modified script small extent. coherent filter creating array comparing elements, retaining any equivalent. Language can spoken once, it forever; no intermediary here, once forever not binaries. Speaking creates form rigid designators, description taut relation substrate real. glides greatest difficult meaning retained. repleteness meaning, but grounded unique enunciation, earth. emptied, swollen diffused air, untethered, transfigured. nor other, is, carries death, just choratic birth. _