Another read on reading, the first page of Nico Vassilakis' manuscript The Nothing:
"RIFFICULT DEAD: 1
The nature of (four) possibles (in the beginning was a texture; historically alphabets are for advertising; and so the world entertains by involving everything) dictates that if (five) there are lame pulp novels (sheet music plummets from the sky) in those recognizable dimensions and textures, there should exist (6) their opposites (complex knots or the nautical tops of pies) too. That's not to say that (seven) difficult reading ("like jelly-fish," "like turbines provoked") is better; it's subjective. Difficult reading is (the written language MAKING its way up, then falling, collapsing) deliberate, sometimes (eat) not -- sometimes it's the head of a writer (lost in its own reverberations, the continuous literature of movement) expressing in the only available (none) way.
Difficult reading does not afford convenience, and in (tent) doing so (it is near the epicenter or is fog), becomes a challenge. It is the lack of instant (offer them on floating cork; pulled from a box) satisfaction that labels it. It's too hard, too much work -- I need an easy read. Difficult reading has an (level) air of (the anticipation of light inside the funambulist) academia to it. It reminds you of the assigned (twelve) reading (ecstatic sugar of ears) you struggled with in school. So why repeat an unpleasant experience? The unraveling (one pencil equals speech rarely) is its own reward. Being forced (when the eyes align mountains are subject to moving is verbs) to comprehend (thirdteen) is itself a growth process. Solving puzzles (a pulley system elaborately hinged; a lull between adventures; preferring decorative calligraphy) is a sign of brain (4deen) activity, or perhaps I'll use 10 harlequins as a pillow and sleep. (Or probably it won't escape this page. More often the results are the same. There is a difference in language that makes the situation impossible.)"
I've been reading and re-reading The Nothing. I can't count how many times I re-read just the preface, the "list," every time wishing I could write such a thing, forcing/rewarding complex attention, difficult reading fiercely interrogating itself, never easing off, yet somehow goddamned simple and clear. I asked more than once: how does this page do it? Hypothesis as I go through the manuscript: it's in the puns, the wordplay, the weaving, the layers that make liars of the surfaces...
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