David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


03 April 2009

BLACK MIRROR, Gail Jones

.
A note inside my copy of Gail Jones' BLACK MIRROR records
the following :
- Wed 19 March 2003 -
I'm sitting in Borders bookshop in Carlton, Melb
looking at a copy of "Black Mirror" by Gail Jones
having heard a very interesting interview with her
a few hours ago on ABC.RN

A man on a mobile phone walks by. He says,
"... it needed some new fat tyres and so on,
so I thought 'Damn it, I'll get a new one' ...
It's a black, a metallic sort of black...
yes, that's right, it's Melbourne..."

BLACK MIRROR, Gail Jones, page 211 :
THE BLACK MIRROR STORIES

Music that arises out of abandoned places
Your space is under the earth, inside the earth,
inside the stars.
Where do images go?
Why does a mirror gather light for thirty years
and then hold nothing?
(Peter Boyle, Light From Beyond)

BLACK MIRROR, Gail Jones, page 213 :
Victoria said:
I have several Black Mirror stories and I will give you three.
What are the Black Mirror stories, my Anna-lytical?
They are myself, unrecognisable. They are myself, writing disaster. I looked into a miror and darkness looked back.

One more scanning schema : this time a light box is placed over the object. Yes, it effectively obviates a heavy shadow registering at the base of the book, but its fluoro lights produce a muddy yellow-green-blue white so I've desaturated and lightened that section of the image.