which only rarely gave them the credit they undoubtedly deserved. He was at pains to point out how complicated the act of making a pencil was, citing the fact that a single modern pencil goes through about one hundred and twenty-five separate manufacturing processes before being put onto the market. Discussing the early history of the pencil, he told his prospective readers that for hundreds of years there had only been a single mine in all of Europe where graphite of a suitable quality for making pencils could be found. This was at the Borrowdale estate, in Cumber-land, a resource that had been so precious it was frequently subject to thievery and was for many years protected at all times by a steward armed with two blunderbusses.
In the autumn he undertook a sustained consideration of magnets. Firstly, he discussed the origins of the word “magnet,” its probable emergence from Greco-Roman antiquity, specifically from a town in what was then known as “Asia Minor,” named “Magnesia ad Sipylum,” standing adjacent to Mount Sipylus, the source of the ores which were used to create the first magnets, objects that originally bore the name magnetes, later evolving into magnitis. Next, he discussed individuals of the Victorian period who had claimed to live within bodies that possessed magnetic properties, so that they could make spoons, irons, and kettles stick to their outstretched limbs. Additionally, he outlined the theories of Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, later known as Paracelsus (although both names were pseudonyms) a man who was a physician, botanist, alchemist, and astrologer who wandered relentlessly throughout Europe in the early sixteenth century. He had proposed the theory that magnets possessed magical healing properties, believing that magnetic forces could “draw out” diseases from the body. Maximilian’s essay was founded on a great deal of conjecture.
In writing the essays, he wished to be continuously uncovering new layers of reality so that he might always have new ways in which to experience his everyday life. Each topic he took up hid a multitude of stories, and in the course of his research he would discover some of them, rooting them out from the murk of obscurity before depositing them into the deeper obscurity of his unknown manuscript, where they were destined to reside, neglected, for many years to come. Working on the essays fed his limitless curiosity for facts, and for encyclopaedic classifications of the world.
He believed that it was sufficient to produce a single book during the course of a lifetime. If anyone managed to write a single work of any lasting interest they would have succeeded in embellishing their existence with a little meaning, even if the work were to remain relatively obscure. In some ways he supposed that it might be preferable for every author to be restricted to the writing of a single book, as this would perhaps focus each author’s mind upon the importance of the task being undertaken. Surely far fewer minor works would be written under such conditions, and there might be far greater variety, with less insistence upon the dictates of genre. Perhaps every book would then become interesting simply because it was a document of how a given individual had chosen to express his or her lifetime within lines of print. Maximilian thought that if this had been instated as one of the cardinal rules of literature many centuries previously, then perhaps the entire course of the development of civilisation might have been different. Egotism, competition, and hierarchy might have been replaced with a sense of sharing and equality, at least within the confines of the literary realm.
He learnt so many things. He learnt that the first go-kart was invented by Art Ingels, in California, in 1956; that the tallest species of cactus is Pachycereus pringlei, which has been known to grow up to 19.2 metres tall; that the oldest known canoe is from the village of Pesse in the Netherlands and was constructed at some point between 8200 and 7600 BC; that the word “telephone” is derived from the Greek tele (far) and phone (voice); that in 1874 the daily newspaper the New York Herald had published a front-page article claiming that animals had escaped from their cages in the Central Park Zoo; that the source of cinnamon (Ceylon) had been kept secret by spice traders in the Mediterranean for centuries in order to protect their monopoly on the substance; that radars were first patented in France, in 1934, by Émile Girardeau, receiving French patent no. 788795; that there are approximately eight hundred different species of eel; that since 1979 the World Backgammon Championship has taken place every year in the Monte Carlo Grand Hotel in Monaco; that the first plants on earth evolved from shallow freshwater algae in the region of four hundred million years ago.
General Advertisement to the Locality
(1957)
Maximilian stuck the following notice to the centre of an unlocked door that led from the street into a property that he owned in Islington:
PREPARATORY NOTES TOWARDS A GENERAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE SITUATION WHICH YOU FIND YOURSELF IN
initially it is probably worth remarking that you may well have been followed today. it frequently happens to people who end up reading this notice. if it didn’t happen today, then most likely it did the day before, or perhaps it will happen tomorrow. the sole inhabitant of this household delights in following others through the streets and observing their habits and rituals. he studies mannerisms, listens to conversations, observes the goods and services which individuals choose to purchase.
all newcomers are advised that any cheering messages, cryptic intimations, secret bulletins and genuine grievances may be placed in the letterbox below. you can live secure in the knowledge that they will be received kindly and attended to with heartfelt thought and ceremony. written communications are treated with utmost respect in the place before which you are currently standing.
it is true to say that if you stare at a thing hard enough, paying very careful attention to what lies before you, that thing (anything) can become transformed into another entity altogether. a similar thing occurs when you repeat a word to yourself aloud enough times. the concrete meaning of the word blurs and eventually disappears. the sound becomes mere babble, a series of rhythmical noises. somehow this sound has taken possession of a thing we have mutually agreed is knowable, tangible and commonly understood. this moment of your reading of these words on this door might be the time to commence an experiment related to this phenomenon.
after reading this notice, perhaps fifty times, you may find that many of your ideas about what a door is will have shifted inalterably. this might be an experience that you would find rewarding.
A CONCISE EXPLORATION OF WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WALK THROUGH A DOOR
we open doors and walk through them. we move from one place to another. when we open a door we expect to find certain things there. for most people it is a rare thing to walk through unknown doors. perhaps, when we do walk through a door for the first time, it should be regarded as a privilege. in doing so, in taking these steps, we have obtained access to another room, another fragment of the world.
rooms are often very similar to each other, but it is impossible for rooms to be identical to one another. at the very least they can never occupy the same positions in space. when walking through doors we should attend to the differences we can see in the space beyond them, however small these differences may be. we should always try to enjoy things that are unfamiliar to us. life should contain, amongst other things, a long series of adventures in which our ideas about ourselves and the nature of the world evolve continuously. this can begin to happen whenever we open a door, if we walk through a door in possession of the knowledge that we are walking through a door. we will only discover ourselves in our encountering the unknown. every door we arrive at offers this possibility.
doors are usually viewed from the outside. in this role, as an object-to-be-viewed-from-the-outside, for a moment or so, they are neutral objects, hiding nothing remarkable. consequently, doors frequently find themselves engaged in the act of looking as ordinary and respectable as possible. but let us not forget that doors are more significant entities than is commonly accepted.
AN
