4. What happens when A makes B, but A vanishes as both body and sign from B? Instead of A, D becomes attached to B. C observes B created by A, but the idea of D has replaced A. Has B changed? Yes. B has changed because the idea in the body of C when observing B is now D rather than A. D does not equal A. They are two different bodies, and they are two different symbols. If the bodies of D and A are no longer there, B, the thing that cannot use signs, is not changed. Nevertheless, B’s meaning lives only in the body of C, the third element. Without C, B has no significance in itself. C now understands B through the sign D, all that remains of D after D’s body no longer exists.
5. D is not the generator of B, but this ceases to matter. A is lost. A’s body is gone, and A does not circulate as a collective sign for B. Where is the idea that was in A’s body that created B? Is it in B? Can C observe the idea that was once in the body of A in the object B? Can A’s idea be found somewhere in B, despite the fact that C does not know A was there and believes in D?
6. B’s value is also an idea, an idea that is transformed into a number. After observing the thing, C wants to own B. A number is attached to B, and those numbers are dependent on the name connected to its genesis, which is D. D = $. C buys B because the idea of D enhances C’s idea, not about B or D, but about C. B is now a circulating thing, which also inspires ideas about C and D, but which once was an idea inside the body of A, now burned to a fine powder that was put into a box and buried in the ground.
7. There were many ideas that were part of A’s body when it was alive, but they did not begin with A. They were part of other bodies — too many others to be listed. They were in other living bodies that A knew, and they were in signs that had been inscribed by living bodies that had stopped living generations before A was born: E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Had A not taken these other ideas into the body that was A, B would not exist. B now circulates as an object known as D’s B. A is underground. A is the sign of ABSENCE.
Harriet Burden Notebook B
January 15, 2000
Self-examination results in confabulation.
Confabulation is the falsification of episodic memory in clear consciousness, often in association with amnesia, in other words, paramnesias related as true events.I
But the neurologists are wrong; we all confabulate, brain lesions or not.
I wonder if I am explaining things away now, remembering my life all wrong. I look at Dr. F. I try to remember. I can’t remember. So much has disappeared from the past or appears altered to me now. Remembering is like dreaming unless it was yesterday. Dreams are memories, too, anyway, hallucinatory memories. And the doctor is himself and others at the same time.
When you don’t remember, you repeat.
But in reality I would not know that I possess a true idea if my memory did not enable me to relate what is now evident with what was evident a moment ago, and through the medium of words, correlate my evidence with that of others, so that the Spinozist conception of the self-evident presupposes that of memory and perception.II
That is all there is — perception and memory. But it’s ragged.
Why do you always walk with your head down?
Elsie Feingold said this to me on the telephone.
I didn’t know I walked with my head down.
Why do you always say you’re sorry? I’m sorry this, I’m sorry that. Why do you do that? It’s so annoying. You’re so annoying. That’s why the other kids don’t like you, Harriet. I’m telling you this as your friend.
This happened, words very close to these were spoken. Lung constriction. Pain in vicinity of ribs. I remember I had pulled the telephone into my room and am lying on the floor just inside the door. I say nothing. I listen. A litany of crimes — my clothes, my hair. I use too many big words. I am always answering in class, brown-nosing Harriet. As your friend…
You must be quiet. Your father is reading. I am so quiet and so good. I hardly breathe.
What are you doing in here, Harriet?
I am smelling the books, Mother.
She is laughing, letting out her high chiming sounds. She leans over and kisses me. Does she kiss me? I see myself as small. Observer memory.
Do I remember this or is it because Mother told me? Her laughter was a balm, always, but this may be her story of little Harriet smelling her father’s books, and she laughs when she tells me the story. I was four. I may have stolen the little tale from her and given it an image, a memory that is mine by proxy. I see the study with its big desk, and I smell the pipe. Why did all philosophy professors smoke pipes? An affectation. His students, too, all young men, smoked pipes, every single one of them. The graduate students all grew beards, and they smoked pipes on the seventh floor of Philosophy Hall. The Analyticals. Frege. The logic is out there.III
Felix is standing in the doorway. He is looking through me again, as if I am not there. The note to Felix the Cat from the couple in Berlin is in my pocket. I have carried it with me for a week. Practicing what to say, learning it by heart, so simple.
Before you leave, I say, I would like to return this to you, a note from friends. It was in your blue suit, the one you wore to the opening last week.
I can see the surprise in his face, can see his embarrassment, not shame. He has become negligent, flippant about it all.
He takes the note and slips it into his pocket.
But you know, he says, it has nothing to do with you, my love. It has nothing to do with my love for you.
I am erased.
Dr. F. says, I don’t think you understood how angry you were.
No, I did not understand how angry I was.
Last night. This I remember, don’t I? Yes, it is clear still, parts are clear enough, although there are peripheries never seen. Too many voices to distinguish any single voice except now and again — a soprano squeal or squawk. The throng in the well-lit white room, the paintings — so little on them — but a few hazy body parts, underpants, garters, bottles of nail polish and perfume. Mildly interesting. The artist smiling. He has a stiff smile, but who can blame him? Long, convoluted essay in the catalogue, quoting that buffoon Virilio.IV Phinny has put his arm around my waist. I can feel his hand. I do remember this warm gesture, this little goodness. In that instant, I worry over Bruno’s refusal to come with us. Maybe it is Phinny’s hand that makes me think of Bruno, my mauling lover. I am back to life under his hands, his rumbling voice, his jokes, but he said, I hate that art world shit. It’s worse than the poetry world, and that’s pretty bad, but there’s no money in poems. Just egos.
Phinny and I: PH. We make an F sound together, as in phuck you.
Last night again. James Rukeyser has heard that I am building on Felix’s collection. He is interested in me now. Oh, yes, I hold a sudden luminous charm. Felix’s wife has Felix’s art and Felix’s money. Maybe he will lure me into a purchase. Show me the cabbage. That is what he means as he smiles. I am wearing my blue velvet beret. My affectation, which is not a pipe, courtesy of Phinny. James gives me his card. I have a flash memory — the stiff paper in my right hand, my thumb visible over the name. The business card is beige with black type. Miriam Bush joins us. “I have not seen you in years, Harriet! Why, what are you up to? Someone mentioned you. Who was it now? Are you still making those little houses?” James looks confused: little houses? He does not know that I have ever made art. When Phinny and I get outside I throw the card away. I see it in the wet gutter, its lettering invisible, just a small rectangle vaguely illuminated by the streetlamp as the ice-cold rain falls.