THE DAY AFTER 39

CLOCKWISE (LOGIC)

I'm waiting for the clock to strike 12 midnight, so that I can post my fragment. Here, it's done. I'm 39 now. I've always had a strange relationship with the idea of celebrating a birthday. I've never seen the point, that is. Days that pass repeat our existence - the only thing that's different is difference itself. I look at myself in the mirror: I'm not fat, but could be thinner; I'm not wrinkled but could be smoother; I'm not wise but could be smarter. And so it goes. I'm trying to think about a particular phrase that I repeat these days: we all have some such. It occurs to me that I do have one: "The older I get, the more..." I look at my white clock on the wall, a Jugendstil, German pendulum clock that has a resounding chime that always reminds me of cathedrals - which is why I bought it in the first place. I was much younger then. I turn to my husband and tell him: "the older I get, the less I like old things". In fact, if there is something that really irritates me, then it's the whole retro fad. "Nothing new in that," he says. I continue: "the older I get, the less patience I have for everything." "Clever move," he says. "Who wants to come full circle?" - we both ask. We sound like the Simpsons. In one of the numerous lists of quotes on the Internet that gather brilliant Homeric wisdom I read the 39th entry: "Remember, you can always find East by staring directly at the sun."

It occurs to me that I don't have a clue as to why people make such a fuss about what they call round anniversaries; 39, and 49 are numbers that sound much rounder to me, both phonetically and typographically. There is also the sense that you approach things vertiginously. Although there is no time to dwell on what these things might be. You don't need to 'find' yourself. What a tediously boring phrase. The only thing worth finding is a way that consolidates your belief that we live by attitude. Knowledge is dead. Aging is an acknowledgement of the fact that what remains behind, or to be lived - the only thing worth finding - is excess. Writers such as Nietzsche and Bataille knew a thing or two about that. And if I have to mention a female philosopher, then, it would have to be my mother. She was a formalist to the bone, which means that she was a pragmatist, and the finest logician I've known. It's a shame she died without publishing anything. What my mother and the above mentioned gentlemen have in common is Boolean logic (after the French mathematician George Boole who invented it; most search engines use 'and', 'or', 'not', and 'near' to make the process of finding easier). In my opinion excess lies in the combinatorial permutations that we can make across these conjunctions. Genius too.

It occurs to me that I'm about to turn into my mother - as they say one does around this age, whether male or female. Between the age of 39 - which is the age my father had when he died - and 49, my mother changed the whole furniture in our apartment every month. Today I've signed the papers for a new car - I call it Chanel - white and black, and written all over it 'camelia' - stylewise. It's my birthday present. My husband kisses me: he likes logic and hates philosophy. We're a mismatch made in heaven. We look forward to death by numbers. "Je est un autre". Now, there's a logician for you. Rimbaud cracking the clock. Meanwhile - some philosophers should be writing some more about this adverb - my 24 year old beautiful niece's comment, "I wish I'll look like you when I'll be your age," posted on hi5, pleases me. Many happy returns, or remains, to myself. Lagerfeld will take care of the style, my husband of the food, my mother of the fancy, and I - I'll take care of the Eastern sun.

THE FRAGMENT: IN AND OUT OF PERSPECTIVE

A lot has been said about the nature of the fragment; most often in its relation to a totality. But if the fragment is viewed from the perspective in which symmetry with a whole is missing, we discover that what we often take for granted - an undisturbed relation between parts and wholes - has to do with our imparting (un)divided attention to bits and pieces, rather than focusing on the big picture. In other words, putting things in a nutshell, making concise points and synthesizing theories, is more often than not, not the result of our exercising our capacity to think logically, but to think wittily. When the point works, that is. Or when the fragment fragments, as it were. Let's have more writing done - which uses the fragmentary form - to situate what is interesting in a thought in the combination between the mind that has a system and the one that has none. In an even more fragmented form, this means that what we are looking for here is a thought which is both able to be and become at the same time; a thought that is disastrous and continuous insofar as it is beyond our reach; a thought that gives us a feeling of vertigo as it goes towards infinity, stops there and yet expands. A thought that - as I've said - tends towards - but is already witty - and makes us laugh - creates physiognomies - defies gravity - makes us thin - axing us around a million dollar thought - which awaits grounding in the economy and materiality of writing.