#E1523D

The wonders of Possibility, sci-fi anthology, under the supervision of Sergio Solmi and Carlo Fruttero, Einaudi Edition.

calyx:

Raymond Queneau. First page from Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes, 1961

From Wikipedia: They are printed on card with each line on a separated strip, like a heads-bodies-and-legs book, a type of children’s book with which Queneau was familiar. As all ten sonnets have not just the same rhyme scheme but the same rhyme sounds, any lines from a sonnet can be combined with any from the nine others, so that there are 10¹⁴ (= 100,000,000,000,000) different poems. It would take some 200,000,000 years to read them all, even reading twenty-four hours a day. When Queneau ran into trouble while writing the poem(s), he solicited the help of mathematician Francois Le Lionnais, and in the process they initiated Oulipo.

mythologyofblue:

Georges Perec, Map of chess moves he used to compose his novel Life: a user’s manual.

Raymond Queneau

Georges Perec at Place Saint-Sulpice cafè, photo by Pierre Getzler

October 1974, Saint-Sulpice Square in Paris. A man is sitting on a terrace. On his table there’s a notebook, which he is conscientiously filling in with everything happening in front of him: letters, like K, L, M, or P (for parking). Symbols, and numbers: 86 for the bus, a 6 that indicates that we are in the 6th district in Paris; fugitive slogans from advertising; a stone for the fountain; the church, buildings; trees; a piece of sky; pigeons; vehicles; human beings; dogs; bread (Baguette), a salad. Colors: red for cars, blue for bags, green for shoes, blue for taxis.

Simultaneousness of actions or micro events: postures, gestures, discussions with two, three, sometimes more people; a man with a briefcase, two men smoking pipes, a woman with a coat, people that are gathering in front of the church, a man with a bow tie, three children coming from school, a priest, a man stopping to stroke a dog, a woman waiting for a taxi, two beaming Japanese tourists, a couple, a man with tics, a policeman with a bike. Every kind of activity: to wait, to stroll, to wander, to walk, to run, to go, to look for something, to hesitate, to stay, to wait for the bus, to stand, to get up.

Elements like a fountain, a kiosk, and a group of trees are all standing at a center. The surroundings are historical buildings, with a church on one side. There is a possibility to make a plan, to make an order, a framework with elements fixed in space, grounded in space, lifeless: Saint Sulpice Square is organized as a cube.

Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges