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LOGORHYTHMIC















For Horia Cornean

I want to say to you: “all theorems are trivial, even when they seem colossal.” You will quote in turn that witty fellow of Guy Davenport: “every force evolves a form.” What else is there to do, then, other than drink to that? And stuff ourselves with goat meat in ginger and turmeric. Lick our fingers afterwards, get our noses sprayed by Pol Roger, and then turn to fresh raspberries. I then see color in the black hole, and you can also swear that you see a light. Right then and there. We’re ready for a cult. Our empire of the senses. A black hole has no information, so if we want to get something out of it, we had better start believing. We then go over to Taittinger and then and hence start philosophizing on identity and relationships. Then I want to say to you: “linking identity is the sum of divergence and entropy,” but then I know that you will quote me: “cut the crap.” So then I say instead: “Kafka was a vegetarian. And then he thought success is the biggest disappointment.” My reflection in the mirror is searching for the power function of this inverted logarithm. Who wants who to come? Oh, I so do. I do. Then you will. You will.
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Anonymous said…
I do! Do I??!!
November 28, 2008 at 12:28 AM
Camelia said…
You are the mathematician. You figure it out. I only have an aesthetic understanding of math. That's all. I see you've used 3 exclamation marks, and 2 question marks. Your "I"s also look like inverted exclamations marks, which would make 5 of them. And what is it that they say about the number 5? Oh, wow, don't mess with the perfect prime. It's the telluric site of the mystic whose prime business is to calculate the level of excitement in resonance. Cosmic resonance. Thus the mystic would say: the 2 ballooning signs for questions mark modulations of thought that don't have an equivalent. So the mystic will stay silent on that, as a mathematician. As an aesthete, however, well, the mystic will forget Wittgenstein and his talk about remainders, and simply answer, OF COURSE.
November 28, 2008 at 1:11 AM
Anonymous said…
Now honestly, why do you say that all theorems are trivial? I guess that the same can be said about any other thing, or concept or whatever.

For me a theorem is just a path which goes from A to B. The longer, the more sinuous, the harder to find your way through the labyrinth, the greater is my pleasure. I don't care much about the relevance, or importance, or beauty of A and B. The hunt is important. The kill.

And I am a goddamn dangerous hitman. So beware, don't let me prove something in your neighborhood :)
November 28, 2008 at 1:56 PM
Camelia said…
My dear hunter, hitman, hyorick. Of course all theorems are trivial in the sense that when they really really work, and at least until someone proves them wrong, they state the obvious. And the obvious, my dear, is always trivial by definition. I don't mean to suggest that simplicity, which, when it really really works in terms of understanding it as a reduction to pure form and in terms of its being a necessary condition for the obvious, is a bad thing, or trivial in the trivial sense. Quite the contrary. So, again, a theorem which is trivial is also mighty simple, or colossal, as I said - and don't make me repeat things - because it makes things appear so obvious that one cannot argue with their state. Things stated in such a way have the potential to approach the kind of sublime truth that we, in spite of knowing better, so like to believe exists. So there, happy wandering through terse labyrinths.
November 28, 2008 at 2:36 PM
Anonymous said…
Are all proved statements necessarily obvious just because some theorem implies them?

This equates the action of proof with an operation of obviousness which transform any given mystery into a well established, universally accepted, boring truth. Just stitch together a theorem leading there, anywhere, true or false. Then no one will even bother to check whether a theorem is true or not. Why should one challenge the obvious?
November 28, 2008 at 4:26 PM
Camelia said…
Indeed, indeed. Thus spoke the sage, truthfully, and obviously.
November 28, 2008 at 4:29 PM
Camelia said…
"If I were asked which of all the mysteries will forever remain impenetrable I would not hesitate to answer: the obvious."

Edmond Jabès: The Book of Shares (1989)
December 3, 2008 at 10:39 AM
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