The bus to the factory
will be crowded with passengers sneezing and shuffling through plastic
bags loaded with amorphous objects of uncertain origin. Knitting
fills their time; you’re better off watching the side roads that
parallel the freeway for trucks that kick up dust. In order to
survive a bus ride of any distance you must detach yourself from
contemporary transportation expectations. A bus transports its
passengers retroactively, returning to the concept of movement as a
tenuous group endeavor. You may arrive safely, but never on time,
never without discomfort, a spectator to breakdowns. Near the filling
station, a cardboard snowman waits. Winter without moisture, a
beer can on the side of the road, frigid intransigence, gasoline smell,
cigarettes and paint thinner. A man pushing a shopping cart
hobbles past. He carries a sign:
MINISTERS OF
FLAT IGNORANCE TIRE FORSHORTENED TROPICS
On
the way to a
place such as the factory, one should reflect abstractly: incidents
catalyze narrative; where memory enters can’t be mapped, it’s a
question of where things go wrong, and it’s always earlier, before this
or that; whenever someone says “used to,” suggesting that certain
events repeated in the past, these events happened once at most.
Example: remember when we used to drink egg creams and track dragon
flies? At one time, great Venetian statisticians tracked patterns
with stones piled in courtyards. You’ll notice there has been no
mention of the kid who played triangle in music class. On the way
to the factory no one talks besides the driver, and he talks
incessantly. How to be stupid, he says to a passing car. To you
I’m something small. To the yeast that hasn’t begun to ferment,
to the Indian diarchy of 1919-1935, to the clouds named cirrostratus,
cirrocumulus, cirrus, he muses. You can’t measure time by your
nostrils, they burn and they burn, and the seat next to you will fill
with someone near Toledo.
Mention that you’re familiar with the
book he or she reads. It’s called Toward a Strange Meeting:
Directions for Mechanical Inventions, and the first chapter covers
Eritrean copyright laws in great detail. The following directives
may be nothing to you. Personally, the driver says, I’m reminded
of Arnold Weintraub’s collection of medieval hauberks. The driver
will tell you (and he knows better than anyone) to begin with nothing
whatsoever but your enthusiasm for numbers and correct answers.
It’s natural not to have such enthusiasm; still, you can try to create
it by thinking of consonants like mountains or virtues praised by
Plato. Next, consider the fact that such touchstones of thought
are never very far removed from their geometrical equivalents realized
by computer simulations of neurological topographies.
Intrigued? Very good.
Incidentally, this model corresponds
to the theory of autonomic rule in a nutshell. Functionalize
Hanging Gardens as a conceptual irrigation unit: number of thoughts
equals depth of root source as aquatic presence. Arnold
Weintraub’s compositions for the harmonium. Think irrupt, think
injunction. Stand on one foot. Imagine: this too Napoleon
did, though he wore different boots and his pants puffed at the
thighs. Cough when anyone says “interesting” or “that’s
true.” Make a list called contractions; include half-integers,
mathematical indulgences, and overdoses. Always include rhubarb
jam. When you arrive at the factory gate, apologize: I’m sorry
for my dirty shoes. I’m sorry for things I bought at the store.
I’m sorry for developing equatorial photographs, I’m sorry for drinking
too much and forgetting your birthday. The gate’s hasps and
latches fasten and unfasten according to the operator’s glottic
fluctuations. Games and procedures, mistaken theories and the
malnourishment of perception, phantasms of technological advancement,
these features adhere less to the gate than to the surrounding
environs.
The factory’s hazards, depicted in warning posters
tacked to brick walls, navigate an accident compendium: rectangular
appendages broken by gigantic pinwheels, mechanical canines and
bicuspids tearing into linear digits, rotating tetrahedrons crushing
cylindrical limbs. Maintain balance by holding both rails as you
pass over the pedestrian bridge leading to the central assembly; it’s
here that ministers process your frames. Proceed confidently,
bring offerings in whatever form, and when you’ve placed your order
withdraw to the waiting room. Stained glass windows, a sense of
vertical force; the waiting room will invoke the heron’s broad arc, the
ornithic monumentality that frames memory. Spend time here, not
because your order will reach you, but because it’s here that you’ll
recognize you already possess whatever you’ve come to collect.
Board the next bus home, and next time bring your knitting.