VV(11): Outside the Pattern

[Dave Monroe]

"Stencil fell outside the pattern." (V., Ch. 8, Sec. iv, p. 225)

Il n'y a pas de hors-pattern?  An interesting claim ...

>From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary ...

http://m-w.com/

Main Entry: sten·cil
Pronunciation: 'sten(t)-s&l
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English stanselen to ornament with sparkling colors,       
   from Middle French estanceler, from estancele spark, from (assumed) 
Vulgar Latin stincilla, alteration of Latin scintilla
Date: 1707
1: an impervious material (as a sheet of paper, thin wax, or woven fabric) 
perforated with lettering or a design through which a substance (as ink, 
paint, or metallic powder) is forced onto a surface to be printed
2: something (as a pattern, design, or print) that is produced by means of a 
stencil
3: a printing process that uses a stencil

How precisely is a stencil "outside" the pattern traced inside it?  The 
pattern as the trace of the stencil, stencil as arche-pattern?  A stencil 
as, after Derrida (after Kant), a "parergon," "ouiside-the-work," "something 
which comes as an extra, exterior to the proper field," an hors d'oeuvre, if 
you will (or even if you won't) ...

Derrida, Jacques.  "Parergon."
   The Truth in Painting.  Trans. Geoff Bennington
   and Ian McLeod. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.  15-148

"A parergon comes against, beside, and in addition to the ergon, the work 
done..., the fact..., the work, but it does not fall to one
side, it touches and cooperates within the operation, from a certain 
outside. Neither simply outside nor simply inside." (p. 54)

Herbert Stencil not as a paragon, but, rather as a parergon?  Vs. Benny 
Profane's a-ergon, argon?  Hm ...

"The word 'deconstruction,' like all other words, acquires its value only 
from its inscription in a chain of possible substitutions, in
what is too blithely called a 'context.' For me, for what I have tried and 
still try to write, the word has interest only within a certain
context, where it replaces and lets itself be determined by such other words 
as 'ecriture,' 'trace,' 'differance,' 'supplement,' 'hymen,' 'pharmakon,' 
'marge,' 'entame,' 'parergon,' etc. By definition, the list can never be 
closed ..."

Derrida, Jacques. "Letter to A Japanese Friend."
   Trans. David Wood and Andrew Benjamin.  Derrida and
   Differance.  Ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi.
   Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1988.  1-5.

http://www.hydra.umn.edu/derrida/letter.html

Perhaps to that list can be added, "stencil"?  Hm ...


"this grand Gothic pile of inferences he was hard at work creating." (p. 
226)

Main Entry: stencil
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): sten·ciled or sten·cilled; sten·cil·ing or sten·cil·ling 
/-s(&-)li[ng]/
Date: circa 1828
1: to mark or paint with a stencil
2: to produce by stencil
- sten·cil·er or sten·cil·ler /-s(&-)l&r/ noun

"The palindrome of Stencil is Licnets," i.e., "license," as in "poetic"?  
And keep in mind the Gothic fascination with decay, the decadent, yet 
another product of a "decky-dance" ...


"Of course there were his 'leads'" (p. 226)

Not only can I not help but hear Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross and/or 
Gil on "The Simpsons" here ...

http://gils-world.tripod.com/

But there's that flicker at "leads," "leads" as in ...

Main Entry: lead
Pronunciation: 'led
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English leed, from Old English lEad; akin to Middle High 
German lOt lead
Date: before 12th century

3 a : a thin stick of marking substance in or for a pencil

Rhymes with "Stencil" ...


"the ultimate shape of his V.-structure"

Er, wouldn't it be "V"-shaped?  Or, recalling that "figure envelope" from 
Ch. 1, Sec. v., p. 37--well, let me know, is all ...


"Naturally about drives as intellectualized as Stencil's there can be no 
question of instinct: the obsession was acquired, surely, but where along 
the line, how in the world?  Unless he was purely the century's man, 
something which does not exist in nature." (V., Ch. 8, Sec. iv, p. 226)

Il n'y a pas de hors-nature?  "Naturally" vs. "acquired" = "nature" vs. 
"nurture," "century's man" vs. "nature" = "clock," "calendar time"," "man," 
"human" vs. "nature."   And, of course, note the echo of The Education of 
Henry Adams, not only Stencil's (as focalizer here) apparent third person 
narration of himself, but also Adams as "the century's child."  See ...

http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EHYPER/HADAMS/eha01.html


"It would be simple in Rusty Spoon-talk to call him contemporary man in 
search of an identity.  Many of them had already decided this was his 
problem." (p. 226)

By the way, note that Pig Bodine is conversant in Sartre, but not Plato (p. 
130).  But ...


"The only trouble was that Stencil had all the identities he could cope with 
conveniently right at the moment" (p. 226)

Again, cf. Judge Schreber, e.g. ...

Schreber, Daniel Paul.  Memoirs of My Nervous Illness.
   New York: NYRB, 2000 [1903].

Freud, Sigmund.  "Psychoanalytic Notes Upon an
   Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia
   (Dementia Paranoides)."  Three Case Histories.
   Ed. Philip Rieff.  New York: Colliers, 1966 [1911].

Santner, Eric L.  My Own Private Germany:
   Daniel Paul Schreber's Secret History of Modernity.
   Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1996.

http://www.dhalgren.com/Doom/ch09.html

http://www.bizarremag.com/lives/schreber.html

And a nifty set o' hyperlinks @ ...

http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EHYPER/HADAMS/eha01.html


"he was quite purely He Who Looks for V. (and whatever impersonations that 
might involve)" (p. 226)

"He Who Looks for V." sounds vaguely Gothic itself, sort of H.P. 
Lovecraftian, no?  If not, then what?  Again, let me know ...


Oh, by the way, my Horriblescope this week ...

"The first ten weeks of 2001 have been brought to you by The Anarchists' 
Coloring Book, for generous troublemakers who hate to color inside the 
lines. This next week is brought to you by The Equalizers--smooth, beautiful 
stones meant to be thrown at heaven."

But, like I said, I'm a bit behind schedule here, so ...
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com