CoL49 (3) "I'm the projector at the planetarium" [PC 62]

[Dave Monroe]

>From P.D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum: A Key to the Enigmas of the
World (trans. E . Kadloubovsky and P.D. Ouspensky; New York: Vintage,
1982 [1920]):

   "Imagine a man in an ordinary cinema theatre.  Let us suppose that
he knows nothing about the workings of a cinema, is ignorant of the
existence of a projector behind his back and of small transparent
pictures on a moving strip.  Let us imagine that he wishes to study
the cinema and starts by studying what he sees on the screen — taking
notes and photographs, observing the sequence of pictures,
calculating, constructing hypotheses, and so on.
   "To what conclusions can he come?"
   "Obviously to none at all until he turns his back on the screen and
begins to study the causes of the appearance of pictures on the screen
until he turns his back on the screen and begins to study the causes
of the appearance of pictures on the screen. The causes are in the
projector (i.e., in consciousness) and in the moving strips of
pictures (our mental apparatus).  It is they that should be studied if
one wishes to understand the 'cinema.'" (p. 90-1; cited in Milutis,
Ether, p. 51)

http://books.google.com/books?id=XuePsRdTkR8C
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0905&msg=135630