Philament Issue 6: Retrospective

5pm. Friday 5 November, 2004.

The deadline for Philament contributions to the most recent issue is right now.
This very instant. Well, that previous instant. No, the one before. When I
wrote the number. 5. I was in time. Or so my watch says. I wonder if the man on
the phone would have agreed. Too late now. It's done. It's written. Can't take
it back.

I've checked the email (philament_at_arts.usyd.edu.au, that is) so many times
today. Each time the anticipation builds, each time it's different. I'm
nervous. So I've been holding off for a couple of hours, and now this is the
last thing I'll write before I check for the final time. I'm wondering what
people have written about. Are writing about. Will write about. I'm getting
weary. From too much staccato.

Perhaps there are some papers out there specifically about mnemonics, or the
institutionalization of them, like in advertising. Or maybe someone's writing
their own testimony about memoirs – personal or cultural ones, either way, I'm
interested. Surely there's someone working on nostalgia, or déjà vu, or the
retrospective classification of the cannon – commemoration, immortalization…
but I won't know if they don't send them.

I'd have written a review on a retrospective art exhibition if I could recall
any that I'd seen. I could have written about the "collected works" of an
author or a "best of" music collection. I've got them in print. Indelible.
Words, that is, not just print. There's no temporality to a word. Or is there?
I guess you could say there is a 'timeliness' to them - in terms of
contemporaneousness, and efficacy. But are they really temporal? Do they change
over time? I mean the actual words, not the meanings. Maybe if the page is worn,
if the black is faded. But then that's just the appearance of the word in time…

Isn't writing immortalization? Publishing with us certainly is. Barthes would
kill me for that. And so blatant too.

If the web crashes there can be a long time in purgatory before reincarnation.
It takes a while to boot up, my computer, and in the meantime it's all black
screen. I hope that doesn't happen now. I'm running short on time. I sure hope
I backed up. If not, I'll have to write this all again. I'll never get every
word the same. There's too much staccato here. Did I say that already? Déjà vu.

What was my point? …ah, yes, the new Philament issue… Retrospective.

Make it memorable. www.arts.usyd.edu.au/publications/philament

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Received on Sun Oct 24 2004 - 21:09:43 EDT