Spieces of Spaces - Open Book Discussion

[Glenn]

Please feel free to post your own observation, question, comment, creative outburst. There's space enough for all!

In the few pages of Species of Spaces, Georges Perec included Figure 1: Map of the Ocean (taken from Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark).

This "map", by the way, is an empty square - At least in the Penguin Classics edition.

Next comes 52 varieties of space, listened from top to bottom. all in caps. The first 10: SPACE, OPEN SPACE, ENCLOSED SPACE, OUTER SPACE, SPACE SUIT, SPACE AGE, LIVING SPACE, PROJECTIVE SPACE, SPACE CAPSULE, LACK OF SPACE.

In the Georges Perec spirit of "there's enough space for everyone," the game here is to come up with your own varieties of space not listed. For fun, as I did, give yourself a 5 minute limit.

Here's what I came up with: INNER SPACE, EMPTY SPACE, SPACE STATION, TAKING UP SPACE, SPACE ALIEN, MY SPACE, SPACE IN BETWEEN, GIVING SPACE, TAKING SPACE.

[Glenn]

In his Forward, Georges talks about infinite outer space and the space on the Paris Metro - and all the many spaces that can exist for us between. For me, the most fanciful quote from the Forward is the last sentence: "To live is to pass from one space to another, while doing your very best not to bump into yourself."

When it comes to space, two of the most provocative observations I've come across are:

from Physics - If we enlarge an atom to the size of a room then the nucleus is the size of a baseball in the middle and the electron is an occasional hand-sized blip on the wall. All else is space.

from the Buddhist and Yoga tradition - Our minds sets up artificial limitations. Without these blockages, our mind (and sense of inner space) can expand out billions of miles up, down, front and back. For Buddhists, this speaks to "no self," - in other words, our limited identities are created by the mind. When we can inhabit the space beyond our concepts, we have first-hand experience of our unity with the universe. In the Yogic tradition, taken from the Upanishads, the language used is: Atman is Brahman.

[Glenn]

THE PAGE
"I write: I inhabit my sheet of paper, I invest it, I travel across it."

The three main forms of writing in the past 400 years:
1) using a pen to write on paper
2) using a typewriter keyboard to type words on paper
3) using a computer keyboard to type words on a computer screen

Georges died in 1982, so no computer for Georges.

With the advent of the computer, writing has become much, much easier. Thus, the number of writers has grown exponentially. The ease of rewriting on a computer- making edits, correcting misspellings, etc. etc. - is a writer's dream.

Yet, blank space is blank space, on paper or on a computer screen. If someone lacks the skills to write well or lacks the inspiration to write - any blank space, either on paper or computer screen, is difficult to fill with writing worth reading. Some things never change.