jim leftwich -- of course the asemic is absurd
OF COURSE THE ASEMIC IS ABSURD
If I am writing about the word "asemic", I am thinking about patience
and persistence. I am thinking about failure as a source of energy, as
that which keeps an absurdist idea of enlightenment alive and almost
thriving. Standing in the absurd center of the asemic universe, we are
surrounded by unexamined exits and entrances, unexplored
starting-points, multiple escape-routes leading out in all directions.
We need to synchronize our watches, then throw them all away. We need
to get on the same page of the same map-book, then throw all the maps
away. We need to set our compasses, and throw them away. We must
promise each other to get together, at some unspecified time and
place, later in our lives, to define our terms and make public our
consensus definitions. Until then, we have some exploring to do, some
making and some thinking, some reading and some writing.
Tim Gaze wrote, in an email responding to my recent texts
(05.21.2021), that "asemic is an absolute state, whereas desemantizing
is a process or matter of degree".
He also wrote in the same email that he "consciously let go of asemic
writing several years back".
On January 27, 1998, I wrote to Tim, saying "the asemic text would
seem to be an ideal, an impossibility, but possibly worth pursuing for
just that reason."
Desemantized writing is not an ideal, is not an impossibility. It is a
very specific kind of writing, produced for very specific reasons. To
desemantize writing is to intentionally make it less readable, less
capable of participating in the language-game of giving information.
We might aspire to the absolute state of asemic writing, producing
beautiful and/or provocative failures in our quest, but we achieve
desematized writing, to one degree or another, whenever we choose to
do so.
In response to my recent texts, John M. Bennett wrote (05.20.2021) "i
like 'desemanticized' better than 'asemic' myself; the latter term was
always a bit misleading, even downright wrong sometimes, I thought;
except perhaps in a few situations..."
In the late 1990s, "asemic" was not the word I wanted or needed, but
it was the best I had at the time. For the past 20 years or so I have
been exploring alternatives to the word "asemic". For now, and for my
purposes (which are not necessarily the same purposes as those of some
likely readers of this text), "desemantized" (or "desemanticized") is
an improvement, a step in the right direction. It is a provisional
solution to a problem.
These days, the term "asemic writing" is very widely used, and is
surely in no danger of being discarded or replaced. My thoughts about
the term "desemantized writing" will circulate, if at all, within the
context of the global asemic writing community. As I write this, in
the late spring of 2021, the theory and practice of asemic writing are
not in any sense dead, the possibilities have not been exhausted. The
Sisyphean struggle to attain the absolute state of asemic writing,
absurd though it may be, continues to yield moments of existential
fulfillment, and perhaps every now and then even a kind of happiness.
My hope for my recent writings is that they might invigorate an
increasingly faceted vision of the world of all things asemic.
jim leftwich
may 2021
posted by jim leftwich at 2:06 PM
