June 23, 2020
(I deleted a passage, because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings).
Kingsway Massage: make it an Am I the Asshole OR I Fucked up When.
Do I have comments?
I had an insight late Thursday night that I did not jot down. Regarding the form of Piglia’s Diary. The word density.
I sat across from a teenage girl. I don’t feel old until I encounter youth. Or the incongruity of the fact that when I was her age I had done some things . . . and was about to leave home for Calgary just as I was dropping out of school. These things seem impossible for this person who appears to my eyes now more like a child than an adult.
We cannot understand or remember our youth.
Form: The progress of days. The shape of life. A life. The form is the experiencing mind making daily notes (with the idea of publicity; the idea of publication).
In a popular revenge narrative there is an absolute right and absolute wrong.
The treatment works on another kid? Misdirect? Raise hope?
“A certain relationship with women, certain ceremonies, parties in dim light that repeat over the course of time; they are the cipher of my life.” 107 The Happy Years, Piglia
I love this because I can replace women with media and parties with my office/car/safe place. I would have bloated these lines with analysis and thoughts. What relationship? What ceremonies? The only clue is the word cipher. A zero. A nothing. A person w/o will.
Also, a code.
Does he communicate with the cipher? Or does he try to understand it, but fails and so fails to understand his destiny (the author being Destiny).
On first reading, I read Cipher as a zero, a nothing like Piglia wastes his life or time with women and the ceremonies of mating. I misread, because I read myself.
