online: 7 november 2014
modified: 5-7 november 2014
31 october 2014 time as a new element
...waking several sleeps later from a frightening dream of a doctor
become aggressive (and critical of disorders of which his patient is unaware)...
...and now greatly calmed... being newly informed of a research subject new to me... the
diagrammatics of space and time... particularly the latter... in the work of Stephen Boyd Davis*...
...and i am intrigued to find that his research into various ways of mapping time
(in calendars, chronologies, histories of several kinds) enables me to think of time as newly imagined...
and perhaps as a new element...
...(as well as 'the form of the internal sense'
as Immanuel Kant defines it among similar definitions)**
...as i pause and look up i see the half moon (from the outdoor cafe at
Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath) as if directly above and on the axis of the
garden (and of this seat set against the garden wall)...
...and now it's already dark... and all but me have left the cafe...
later:
as i walked away in darkness i passed a distant view of city lights
supported by invisible buildings as chains of red and white spots or
sparks along the horizon...
...then the sight of two tiny dogs being fitted with collar lights
before being unleashed to run away into the darkness...
...by now i am remembering the 22 light poems of Jackson Mac Low***...
(composed by chance from lists of names of lights)...
...and while travelling back in a crowded bus i was astounded to
see a full-size pram containing four nearly full-size baby dolls
(each placed at the corner of a square and each wearing a
knitted bonnet) and a fifth baby (perhaps also a doll?) being kissed and
cuddled by an older woman sitting beside the pram (which was being held
by a younger woman... who was standing)...
...and after these phenomena i feel i'm back in a world of childhood or of
dream... or freely-invented stories... and in time as differently imagined****...
*Stephen Boyd Davis, History on the line: time as a dimension,
Design Issues, vol 8 number 4, Autumn 2012.
**Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason (second edition), translated by J M D Meiklejohn,
J M Dent, London 1934, reprinted 1969, pages 49 and 52,
(or in other editions see TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF THE ELEMENTS, section II Of Time,
paragraphs number 7(b) and 8).
***Jackson Mac Low, 22 LIGHT POEMS, Black Sparrow Press, Los Angeles 1968.
(composed by chance and choice from a list of 280 light names,
names of friends and playing cards... and other timely or sublime poetic accidents)...
****john chris jones, 'letter twenty-five', pages 477 to 482, in the internet and everyone,
ellipsis London 2000, out of print but obtainable from: jcj at publicwriting dot net
homepage
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