by Alex Kovacs
With the first essay he wrote, on mirrors, he found himself plunged into a proliferating universe of reflections and doublings, soon realising that he was studying a subject that involved every last single entity that was visible, including the infinity of things only barely perceptible to the human eye. He learnt of many facts; that “catoptromancy” was the name given to acts of divining performed by staring into a mirror; that Pythagoras was a devotee of this art, said to possess a mirror that he held up to the moon before reading the future in it; that the Aztecs had performed human sacrifices to a god named Tezcatlipoca, who had a mirror in place of a right foot and wore a mask containing eyes of reflective pyrite; that the ancient Chinese believed mirrors could be used as a charm to ward off evil spirits; that Louis XIV had owned 563 mirrors; that Asian elephants are capable of recognizing their own features in mirrors but that African elephants are not; that in 1781 the planet Uranus had been discovered by Sir William Herschel after he had built a telescope containing a parabolic mirror measuring six and a half inches in diameter. Ignoring all mention of psychology, his essay gravitated instead toward mysticism, exploring the fantastical realms supposedly contained within the frenzy of reflection. He concluded his essay with a number of bold statements about the “transcendental leaps of perception” possible for the individual who truly apprehends and understands the meaning of mirrors.
Naturally, he next turned his attentions towards the subject of pencils. He focused on the fragile and ephemeral nature of the object, expressing his anger at the common assertion that graphite should be considered inferior to ink because it is usually used to leave mere temporary traces and footnotes rather than indelible markings and incisions. Subsequently, he argued, pencils had been overlooked and taken for granted by society, which only rarely gave them the credit they undoubtedly deserved. He was at pains to point out how complicated the act of making a pencil was, citing the fact that a single modern pencil goes through about one hundred and twenty-five separate manufacturing processes before being put onto the market. Discussing the early history of the pencil, he told his prospective readers that for hundreds of years there had only been a single mine in all of Europe where graphite of a suitable quality for making pencils could be found. This was at the Borrowdale estate, in Cumber-land, a resource that had been so precious it was frequently subject to thievery and was for many years protected at all times by a steward armed with two blunderbusses.
In the autumn he undertook a sustained consideration of magnets. Firstly, he discussed the origins of the word “magnet,” its probable emergence from Greco-Roman antiquity, specifically from a town in what was then known as “Asia Minor,” named “Magnesia ad Sipylum,” standing adjacent to Mount Sipylus, the source of the ores which were used to create the first magnets, objects that originally bore the name magnetes, later evolving into magnitis. Next, he discussed individuals of the Victorian period who had claimed to live within bodies that possessed magnetic properties, so that they could make spoons, irons, and kettles stick to their outstretched limbs. Additionally, he outlined the theories of Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, later known as Paracelsus (although both names were pseudonyms) a man who was a physician, botanist, alchemist, and astrologer who wandered relentlessly throughout Europe in the early sixteenth century. He had proposed the theory that magnets possessed magical healing properties, believing that magnetic forces could “draw out” diseases from the body. Maximilian’s essay was founded on a great deal of conjecture.
In writing the essays, he wished to be continuously uncovering new layers of reality so that he might always have new ways in which to experience his everyday life. Each topic he took up hid a multitude of stories, and in the course of his research he would discover some of them, rooting them out from the murk of obscurity before depositing them into the deeper obscurity of his unknown manuscript, where they were destined to reside, neglected, for many years to come. Working on the essays fed his limitless curiosity for facts, and for encyclopaedic classifications of the world.
He believed that it was sufficient to produce a single book during the course of a lifetime. If anyone managed to write a single work of any lasting interest they would have succeeded in embellishing their existence with a little meaning, even if the work were to remain relatively obscure. In some ways he supposed that it might be preferable for every author to be restricted to the writing of a single book, as this would perhaps focus each author’s mind upon the importance of the task being undertaken. Surely far fewer minor works would be written under such conditions, and there might be far greater variety, with less insistence upon the dictates of genre. Perhaps every book would then become interesting simply because it was a document of how a given individual had chosen to express his or her lifetime within lines of print. Maximilian thought that if this had been instated as one of the cardinal rules of literature many centuries previously, then perhaps the entire course of the development of civilisation might have been different. Egotism, competition, and hierarchy might have been replaced with a sense of sharing and equality, at least within the confines of the literary realm.
He learnt so many things. He learnt that the first go-kart was invented by Art Ingels, in California, in 1956; that the tallest species of cactus is Pachycereus pringlei, which has been known to grow up to 19.2 metres tall; that the oldest known canoe is from the village of Pesse in the Netherlands and was constructed at some point between 8200 and 7600 BC; that the word “telephone” is derived from the Greek tele (far) and phone (voice); that in 1874 the daily newspaper the New York Herald had published a front-page article claiming that animals had escaped from their cages in the Central Park Zoo; that the source of cinnamon (Ceylon) had been kept secret by spice traders in the Mediterranean for centuries in order to protect their monopoly on the substance; that radars were first patented in France, in 1934, by Émile Girardeau, receiving French patent no. 788795; that there are approximately eight hundred different species of eel; that since 1979 the World Backgammon Championship has taken place every year in the Monte Carlo Grand Hotel in Monaco; that the first plants on earth evolved from shallow freshwater algae in the region of four hundred million years ago.
General Advertisement to the Locality
(1957)
Maximilian stuck the following notice to the centre of an unlocked door that led from the street into a property that he owned in Islington:
PREPARATORY NOTES TOWARDS A GENERAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE SITUATION WHICH YOU FIND YOURSELF IN
initially it is probably worth remarking that you may well have been followed today. it frequently happens to people who end up reading this notice. if it didn’t happen today, then most likely it did the day before, or perhaps it will happen tomorrow. the sole inhabitant of this household delights in following others through the streets and observing their habits and rituals. he studies mannerisms, listens to conversations, observes the goods and services which individuals choose to purchase.
all newcomers are advised that any cheering messages, cryptic intimations, secret bulletins and genuine grievances may be placed in the letterbox below. you can live secure in the knowledge that they will be received kindly and attended to with heartfelt thought and ceremony. written communications are treated with utmost respect in the place before which you are currently standing.
it is true to say that if you stare at a thing hard enough, paying very careful attention to what lies before you, that thing (anything) can become transformed into another entity altogether. a similar thing occurs when you repeat a word to yourself aloud enough times. the concrete meaning of the word blurs and eventually disappears. the sound becomes mere babble, a series of rhythmical noises. somehow this sound has taken possession of a thing we have mutually agreed is knowable, tangible and commonly understood. this moment of your reading of these words on this door might be the time to commence an experiment related to this phenomenon.
after reading this notice, perhaps fifty tim
es, you may find that many of your ideas about what a door is will have shifted inalterably. this might be an experience that you would find rewarding.
A CONCISE EXPLORATION OF WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WALK THROUGH A DOOR
we open doors and walk through them. we move from one place to another. when we open a door we expect to find certain things there. for most people it is a rare thing to walk through unknown doors. perhaps, when we do walk through a door for the first time, it should be regarded as a privilege. in doing so, in taking these steps, we have obtained access to another room, another fragment of the world.
rooms are often very similar to each other, but it is impossible for rooms to be identical to one another. at the very least they can never occupy the same positions in space. when walking through doors we should attend to the differences we can see in the space beyond them, however small these differences may be. we should always try to enjoy things that are unfamiliar to us. life should contain, amongst other things, a long series of adventures in which our ideas about ourselves and the nature of the world evolve continuously. this can begin to happen whenever we open a door, if we walk through a door in possession of the knowledge that we are walking through a door. we will only discover ourselves in our encountering the unknown. every door we arrive at offers this possibility.
doors are usually viewed from the outside. in this role, as an object-to-be-viewed-from-the-outside, for a moment or so, they are neutral objects, hiding nothing remarkable. consequently, doors frequently find themselves engaged in the act of looking as ordinary and respectable as possible. but let us not forget that doors are more significant entities than is commonly accepted.
AN OUTLINE OF WHAT YOU MIGHT EXPECT TO FIND ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS PARTICULAR DOOR
unusual things lie behind this door. amongst them are articles which possess the ability to shock, jolt, quicken, abstract. you may wish to encounter them. in particular, those of you who enjoy collecting cigarette cards will find a great deal to enjoy.
at least accept that in choosing to NOT open this door you are enacting a protest against curiosity. you will remain forever bereft of this particular form of knowledge.
nevertheless, it may be worth remembering that almost every door we encounter in our lives will remain closed to us. there are reasons for this, although it is not always clear what they are. but we should be mindful nonetheless that there are a great many consequences arising from this fact.
A CERTAIN FEELING OF CAUTION IT MIGHT BE WISE TO ADOPT BEFORE PROCEEDING ANY FURTHER
it would be wise for readers of this notice to consider the many possibilities present when one is still at the stage of anticipation. it is not always better to rush ahead, to be in a hurry to begin.
if you decided to walk away from this notice and only return once your anticipation had peaked, when it became impossible to stand the tension any longer, perhaps your enjoyment would also be increased. using this technique it would then become possible to imagine what lies beyond this notice and so invent your own room, which in your imagination may well seem a more perfect room than the one which you might actually encounter. this perfection can linger as long as you will allow it to and need never be shattered. to walk through the door now will only result in the disappointment of it being different from the ideal room that you will have fashioned in your mind.
still, a confrontation with the actual, tangible truth is surely preferable to fanciful flights of the imagination. perhaps you should simply discover what lies beyond the door and accept it for what it is.
THE ACCURACY OF PREDICTIONS BASED ON ACTS OF INTUITION
it might be possible for you to guess what lies beyond this door. or perhaps ’deduce’ is the more appropriate term. you would be working from nothing more than various clues left in this notice. you would have become a sort of detective. not that there is anything deliberately hidden in these words. there is certainly no elaborate system of hints for you to follow in order to guess what lies beyond the door. i am only suggesting that it may be, in theory, possible for you to anticipate with some degree of accuracy what you will find on the other side.
if you do successfully manage to intuit what lies beyond the door i hope you will be made happy by finding your suspicions verified. considering the vast unlikelihood of this happening, i hope you might, in that instance, venture to take it as a particularly positive omen.
it is difficult to gauge precisely from where our intuition arises. perhaps what we refer to as intuition is in part an entirely rational process involving the ordering of facts of which we are already in possession. using these facts we grasp at the most likely possibilities through processes that are concealed from our conscious minds, employing a series of no-less-analytical and precise methodologies and forms of reasoning that we have however long since interiorised and forgotten.
this couldn’t of course account for those things that are wholly unknown to us but of which we still manage somehow to grasp the truth. even if it is only a truth perceived vaguely, opaquely, seemingly untrustworthy. somehow, within this fog, we nonetheless arrive, sometimes, at the facts.
A COMPARISON OF THIS DOOR WITH EVERY OTHER DOOR IN THE WORLD
perhaps every door in the world has its own piece of writing, of a more or less similar length to the one you are now reading, scrawled in invisible letters across its surface. each such notice is doubtless different from every other, just as no two snowflakes are the same and no two people, etc. each notice presumably corresponds to the people who live behind each door, or the people who have lived there in times past, to the things that have been done there and the words which have been spoken inside.
perhaps, in each case, the words are waiting to be written, already existing, tentatively, in an indefinite future. these words are waiting to be caught and pulled from the air and brought to rest upon a series of notices like the one you are now reading.
in many cases this writing should probably remain invisible. imagine if words suddenly appeared upon the surface of every door in the world. the weight of the world would increase to an enormous extent!
so many subsequent actions would be affected. the continual temptation to ”read” every doorway might cause an epidemic of indecision and doubt. it would take some time for humanity to adjust and feel comfortable in such an environment.
gauging the relative importance of each notice would be a difficult enterprise. going about from day to day, completing one’s chores and necessities, as one did previously, might suddenly seem an insurmountable task.
it feels almost immoral to go about encouraging such forms of behaviour.
feel content in the knowledge that writing will only appear on doors as and when it will. this will happen from time to time. that is the way of these things.
Possible Uses for Pockets
(1958–1959)
For a relatively short period of time, Maximilian became addicted to a strange practice for which he never coined a name. He wondered if, in fact, he was the first human being to engage in this activity, whatever it happened to be.
Riding underground trains during the afternoon rush hour periods, he would, for short durations of time, become the opposite of a pickpocket. With enormous care he would slip tiny objects into the pockets and bags of unsuspecting commuters. Sometimes these were merely slips of paper bearing quotations or messages that he had screwed up into tiny balls, often liable to be mistaken for pieces of litter. On other occasions he deposited small enamel lockets that opened to reveal picture puzzles cut out from the backs of matchboxes, or pieces of card upon which he had written lurid predictions of the distant future, or else discs the size of a fingernail emblazoned with barely perceptible swirling patterns and shiny-bright colours.
He would prepare these objects late at night, drawing the shadows and the hush of evening close around him before retiring to bed. Seated in an armchair, drowsy with the pull of dreams and oncoming sleep, he would find himself in a very particular mood, one in
which his imagination felt free to wander far afield and grasp hold of new ideas. In some cases he would spend weeks preparing a single object, chipping away at its edges, licking it gently with a tiny paintbrush, holding it up to scrutiny through the lens of a magnifying glass. Whenever he had produced something that he felt especially proud of, he was very careful to reserve it for the “right” person, the individual for whom it would be most suitable, and who would, in turn, most deserve it.
Any object would do, so long as it was interesting enough, and then small enough not to be detected. This came to include examples of many tiny knick-knacks, odds and ends discovered in junk shops, in forgotten old shoeboxes, or lying discarded in heaps upon suburban street corners. It never ceased to bemuse Maximilian, the range of objects that he could find belonging to no one.