Ego-histoire
Ego-histoire is a novella/anti-memoir documenting a research PhD launched in late 2021. Episodes, to be presented serially, are redacted (i.e., self-censored) and semi-encrypted through an aleatory form of shorthand, in part to anonymize aspects of the unfolding story but also to enhance the literary merit.
As of October 9, 2023, the following episodes have been “transcribed” and will be uploaded (serially published) as readers and subscribers signal their interest.
INTRODUCTION
0. THE LIBRARY
PART ONE — THE GIFT
1. THIRTEEN DAYS IN LJU
2. KLM BLUE MYSTERIES
3. VERONESE PROJECT
4. DREAMS + NIGHTMARES
5. THE SHADOW
6. W4W — THE LONG SAGA
7. THE IDES OF MARCH
8. VIRGO FULL MOON
PART TWO — THE HEART
1. ARRIVAL IN VENICE
2. THESIS PROPOSAL DEFENSE
3. NSK PARTY
4. THE VISA, ETC.
5. THE THESIS
6. FURTHER DEPARTURES
7. THE APOSTILLE
8. THE APA AWARD
PART THREE — THE SACRED HEART
1. WOLF FULL MOON
2. THE THIRD EYE
3. LARGO DESOLATO
4. THE RETURN
5. HOLY VIGIL
6. “BLUE VENICE”
7. PAYSAGE MORALISÉ
8. THREE EVENTS
9. POUR VOTRE VOUS
10. ROME, LUCERNE, NEW YORK
11. ROME-ASSISI
PART FOUR — “PROOF OF CONCEPT”
1. PROOF OF CONCEPT
2. THE BATTLE
3. AUTHORIAL ABSENCE(S)
4. MICHAELMAS
5. “THE BRIDGE”
6. THE EDITION OF ONE
EPILOGUE
[…]
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
In the order of appearance
JŠ-R — Slovene PhD supervisor at ZRC-SAZU
“N” — Slovene scholar and mystic
“OE” — Israeli-Slovene architect and professor
“V1” — Slovene student of “OE”
“DC” — American expat in Slovenia
“PČ” — Slovene professor of Architecture
“MM” — Famous Slovene artist and musician
“MD” — Famous Slovene academic and philosopher
“AZ” — Famous Slovene academic and scholar
“SŽ” — Famous Slovene philosopher
“OO” — Irish OOI-MTA member and architect
“MJ” — Irish wife of “OO” and architect
“AP-M” — London-based, Greek scholar of law and performance artist
“IM” — Italian librarian at the renowned Cini Foundation
“CC” — Italian program director at the renowned Cini Foundation
“A” — Lisbon-based academic and friend of “AP-M”
“R” — Italian, Venice-based filmmaker
“PW” — Welsh architect and artist
“REK” — American sister of “GK”
“GK” — American scholar and OOI-MTA member
“HB” — Indian OOI-MTA member and designer
“JDC” — London-based, English witchdoctor
“AE” — Athens-based, Greek polymath
“TŠ” — Italy-based, wandering Lithuanian artist
“IJ” — Indian OOI-MTA member and architect
“FR” — Dundee-based scholar affiliated with ZRC-SAZU
“JS” — New York-based, former English flat mate
“YM” — New York-based, Japanese ceramicist
“AT” — 93-year-old wisecracker and garden lover
“DJ” — Australian former PhD supervisor
“MZ” — Italian gatekeeper at the renowned Cini Foundation
“FK” — American-based, German Anthroposophist
“TV” — Slovene guardian angel at ZRC-SAZU
“V2” — Mother of “N”
“J” — American expat in Slovenia and market gardener
“S” — Ukrainian waitress at a Venetian café
“C” — Manager of the residence hall at the renowned Cini Foundation
“F1” — Venice-based Italian guitarist
“F2” — Director of the CSCS at the renowned Cini Foundation
“TS” — Italian-born, London-based British scholar
“ZF” — French-American Jungian analyst
“L” — Maître d’ at a Venetian café
“MR” — Director of a conference in Rome
“JD” — Rome-based, Slovene Franciscan monk
“D” — Keeper of Domus Helena, Rome
“RK” — Director of a workshop at a conference in Rome
“AF” — Dutch, former dean at CEPT
“GW” — Indian-Dutch, former professor at CEPT
“LT” — Slovene academic and philosopher
“RB” — Slovene academic
“MGM” — Slovene academic and reputed witch
“LS” — Slovene artist and graduate of AVA
“RC” — American nephew of “GK”
“PG” — Slovene mystic
“GČ” — Slovene lawyer
“PR” — Founder of Apokalipsa Press
“EC” — British artistic researcher
“ST” — London-based, SimCity aficionado and warrior
“SV” — Slovene gatekeeper at AVA
“PK” — Iranian-American architect and artist
“HM” — Slovene artist and graduate of AVA
[…]
INTRODUCTION
0. THE LIBRARY
“The books arrived by themselves, arranged themselves accordingly, showed me where to look, taught me what and who is not important, and guided me through a maze of disputation by the usual suspects (the art historians). At the last moment (i.e., last Friday), Dante arrived to guide me through the last patches of nonsense.” Note to “JŠ-R,” April 2, 2023
[…]
“That dawn was, like others, empty of people. The Library began its complicated ceremony of exposition. The heavy bookcases began a movement much like a disorganized dance. The books changed places and the pages, and in the transfer one of them fell and exposed an undamaged page. I did not pick it up, moving dancing shelves in order to get near enough to read it….
“The Library exists ab aeterno. From that truth whose immediate corollary is the eternal future of the world, no one can reasonably doubt. Humanity, the imperfect librarian, can be a work of luck or of malevolent demiurge; the universe with its elegant dosage of cupboards full of enigmatic tomes, indefatigable ladders for the traveler and latrine for the sedentary user, can only be a work of a god.
“The imps affirm that the babble is normal in the Library and that the reasonable (even a humble and pure coherence) is almost a miraculous exception.
“The Library is limitless and temporary. If an eternal voyager traverses it in any direction, he would prove that at the end of the centuries the same volumes are repeated in the same disorder (which, once repeated, would be an order: an Order). My loneliness becomes joyful with that elegant hope.”1
[…]
“The Library of Aguascalientes is the beginning and the end of the spiral and it does not have a defined entrance nor exit. I mean to say that in the gigantic spiral which Tacho described in order to explain the architectural origin of Aguascalientes, the Library is in the beginning and the end. The safe-house which ‘kept the greatest secrets of the organization,’ is at the other end and beginning of the whirl. I run my eyes over the gigantic spiral in which the construction is aligned and I imagine that from a special satellite one can appreciate the spiral that ‘calls from the jungle.’”2
[…]
“All of a sudden, the blue sails of Aguascalientes caught a favorable wind. I turned toward the command post but it remained empty. The sea thrust its waves against the keel and the creaking of the chains of the anchor could be heard above the wind. I climbed on starboard and took the rudder in order to free it from the labyrinth of the spiral. Was it leaving or arriving?
“The emerald of the library went out.”3
1 — Subcomandante Marcos, “The Library of Aguascalientes,” La Jornada, January 18, 1995, p. 15; with reference to Jorge Luis Borges, “La biblioteca de Babel” (written in Mar de Plata, 1941). The section concerning the Library is in a postscript that dwarfs the actual letter addressed to the authorities who are in the process of trying to buy off the insurgents via “peace agreements.” It opens with: “He remembers a previous morning and a cold interior. One night of tanks, planes and helicopters, I was in the library of Aguascalientes. Alone, surrounded by books and a cold rain which forced the use of the ski mask, not to hide from anyone’s eyes, but to hide from the cold. I sat in one of the few chairs which was still intact, and contemplated the abandonment of the place.” The image of the revolutionary huddled against the cold in an old library is a masterful mnemonic device, true or otherwise, used to counter the governor general and his bodyguards huddled in the governor’s palace plotting to threaten and/or cajole the Zapatistas into submission. Translated by Cecilia Rodriguez, National Commission for Democracy in Mexico, Flag Blackened, n.d., http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/marcos_library_ jan95.html.
2 — Marcos, “The Library of Aguascalientes.”
3 — Ibid.
[…]
PART ONE — THE GIFT
[Full content currently withheld]
EXTRACT SIX — FROM PART ONE: EPISODE THREE
Photo-reconnaissance of Veronese’s The Wedding at Cana at the Palladian Refectory, San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice.
PART TWO — THE HEART
[Full content currently withheld]
EXTRACT FIVE — ARRIVAL IN VENICE
Return to Venice en route to Ljubljana.
EXTRACT FOUR — OXFORD
A research sojourn in Oxford.
PART THREE — THE SACRED HEART
[Full content currently withheld]
EXTRACT ONE — ROME-ASSISI
A journey to Rome and Assisi, an absurd academic conference, and yet another timely escape from the EU to the UK (and the USSA) before running out of Schengen Days. Includes a visit to a Franciscan convent in Rome and the Upper Church of the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi.
EXTRACT TWO — “BLUE VENICE”
A one-month research sojourn in Venice, Italy, regarding the peregrinations of El Greco.
PART FOUR — “PROOF OF CONCEPT”
[Full content currently withheld]
EXTRACT SEVEN — FROM PART FOUR: EPISODE FOUR
A dance with ultra-contingency as Michaelmas 2023 closes in.
EXTRACT THREE — PATTI SMITH IN “NOVA GORICA”
A trip to Nova Gorica for a Patti Smith concert.
EPILOGUE
[Content currently withheld]
[…]
