Seeming, Seeming: The Disappearing Act

Extract

Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?

St. John 4:11

What we want to show is not only the structure we have come to but the conceiving process in the structure, what led to it and what leads back to its sources, in the world, in us, in the friction between us, the work, each other, the rage, the work, each playing upon each other, receding, the world, our gravity; a memory trace in a spoor of association, the thinking through. There is always the haunted and critical moment when what we're after seems almost not-there, the moment of Appropriation, the stepping back: “Is this not something more than fantasy?” Act? how? why? where? what for? for whom? and to what End? Why are we doing this in the first place? and can we? and since there is always the likelihood that nobody is listening or, if listening, cares what it means, what difference does it make? It may be that we are all listening to different voices, this candle, that flame; not for love or money the same light: Even before detente, one loved the Russians.