j.a. van wagner :: wordobject :: imagetime

Concerning one who has written of oneself time and again in the guise of writing of the writing one has done; how one felt concerning it, how the writing seemed to examine itself, in serial fashion, up and down, forward and back, in both retrograde and inversion, transposing animals, plants, minerals, all the kinds of things; never, though, for the sake of themselves, but always as something or another thing that could be written; as examples, as lessons on the more obscure points of writing, delivered with morals on the conduct of writing laid out for the reader, oneself, in diagrammatic, almost geometric, form, with abundant prescriptions for future writing as well as proscriptions laying out what to avoid, having in the past failed to avoid pitfalls, gaffes, awkward constructions, bland gestures, and so forth, in an attempt to answer the child’s question in the story of the child and the father, in which, and here is the story, the child, suddenly nervous about receiving a splinter from the table at which they are eating, asks the father if it is safe to touch, and the father, gently taking the child’s hand in his, places it on the smooth surface and explains that yes, it is safe, the table is smooth, you see, because it has been sanded; but the child is not satisfied, withdrawing its hand, and asks the father, why isn’t everything sanded?