CHARLES DE BROSSES - Kouroo Contexture · February 7, Monday (1708, Old Style): Charles de Brosses...

CHARLES DE BROSSES

NARRATIVE HISTORY AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Charles de Brosses

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CHARLES DE BROSSES CHARLES DE BROSSES

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February 7, Monday (1708, Old Style): Charles de Brosses was born. He would be, among other things, comte de Tournay, baron de Montfalcon, and seigneur de Vezins et de Prevessin.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

1709

Charles de Brosses Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project

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Charles de Brosses became president of the parliament of his hometown of Dijon, France.

1741

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Charles de Brosses was sent into exile because he opposed the French monarchs claim to absolute power.

1744



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Charles de Brosses became a member of the Acadmie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres of Paris.

1746



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Charles de Brossess LETTRES SUR LTAT ACTUEL DE LA VILLE SOUTERRAINE DHERCULE ET SUR LES CAUSES DE SON ENSEVELISSEMENT SOUS LES RUINES DU VSUVE offered a list of the archeological discoveries made in the excavation of Herculaneum, discoveries which included some ancient inscriptions in the Oscan language.

1750



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A year after awarding the prize to Jean-Jacques Rousseaus essay Discourse on the Origins of Equality, in which the Academy of Dijon had been urged to find a way to send naturalists along on expeditions into the unknown portions of the earths surface, Charles de Brosses of the Academy of Dijon was recommending in his HISTOIRE DES NAVIGATIONS AUX TERRES AUSTRALES. CONTENANT CE QUE LON SAIT DES MOEURS ET DES PRODUCTIONS DES CONTRES DCOUVERTES JUSQU CE JOUR;... offered a survey of everything known about previous voyages to the Southern seas and petitioned for a new campaign of exploration in these waters. This treatise includes what may be the 1st appearance of words such as Polynsie and Australasie. He suggested that natural philosophers be taken along on all long-distance voyages.1 (Surely this is no coincidence.)

A YANKEE IN CANADA

Thomas Carlyle had denounced touring expeditions which are now blinder than ever, and done by steam, without even eyesight, not to say intelligence. But theres an important distinction to be made between travel and travel. Some of our journeys, such as the group fare into Canada which would be taken advantage of by Henry Thoreau and Ellery Channing, have been made not under any particular duress but as circular and temporary escapes from local ennui and as techniques for learning, which is to say, as a sort of self-definition. Mass tourism was just starting, taking as its ideal model the pilgrimage rather than the crusade and taking as its material model the logistics of the military expedition rather than the opportunism of hermit wandering. However, other of our journeys have been one-way journeys made either under the push of duress or under the

1756

1.It has been alleged that this book induced the French explorer Loui-Antoine de Bougainville, then a soldier in Canada, to become a sailor and, in his own terms, do something great.

TERRA AUSTRALIS COGNITA ITERRA AUSTRALIS COGNITA II

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pull of allure or both simultaneously, but as real matters of fate and necessity. Which is self-definition of an entirely different order. When we remember these prior paths of our forebears, we see them as portraits of the forces which have controlled us and which have been defining the lives of our families. The journeys of Thoreaus ancestors had been of that one-way sort the flight from France to Jersey had been definitively a push-journey, since it had been made under the lash of religious bigotry, and then the adventure from Jersey to Boston had been definitively a pull-journey, an adventure in economic self-determination. Given this, we should expect a Thoreau who is ambivalent about travel, rather than merely fascinated with it. This is especially pertinent in regard to this adventure into the littoral of the St. Lawrence River, since the north shore of this river had been one of the refuges of the Huguenots escaping religious persecution in France, and since some of Thoreaus relatives, the Guillets, were even then living along this littoral.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? NO, THATS GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIANS STORIES.

LIFE ISNT TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.




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Charles de Brossess DU CULTE DES DIEUX FTICHES OU PARALLLE DE LANCIENNE RELIGION DE LEGYPTE AVEC LA RELIGION ACTUELLE DE NIGRITIE, which offered a materialist theory of the origin of religion, represented one of the 1st theoretical works in the discipline now known as Ethno-Anthropology. This treatise includes what may be the 1st appearance of the term ftichisme, which would be accessed by Karl Marx in 1842 and deployed in 1867 in DAS CAPITAL.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

1760


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Charles de Brosses became a member of the Acadmie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Dijon.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

1761




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Charles de Brossess TRAIT DE LA FORMATION MCHANIQUE DES LANGUES ET DES PRINCIPES PHYSIQUES DE LTYMOLOGIE provided a materialistic theory of the origin and the evolution of language in which the meaning of a term was considered to consist in an image of the physiological articulation of sounds. This attitude toward language would find expression in 1775 in Etienne Bonnot de Condillacs LA GRAMMAIRE.

In all the dissertations on language men forget the language that is that is really universal theinexpressible meaning that is in all things & every where with which the morning & evening teem. As iflanguage were especially of the tongue. Of course with a more copious hearing or understanding of what ispublished the present languages will be forgotten.

How Enlightened French Savants Enlighten Thoreaus WordplayIn all the dissertations on language men forget the languagethat is that is really universal the inexpressible meaningthat is in all things & every where, complained the youngThoreau (23 Aug. 1845). He was familiar with Enlightenment

1765

DE BROSSES, VOLUME IDE BROSSES, VOLUME II

CONDILLACS GRAMMAIRE

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/T/HDT.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/explanation.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/ActiveIndex.pdfWhenever and wherever you see this little pencil icon in the pages of this Kouroo Contexture, it is marking an extract from the journal of Henry David Thoreau. OK?

Michael Wests _Transcendental Wordplay: Americas Romantic Punsters and the Search for the Language of Nature_, (Ohio UP, 2000, page 32ff).

http://books.google.com/books?id=j4tDAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=falsehttp://books.google.com/books?id=QR4SAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:EtzeZSR0TBQC&hl=en&sa=X&ei=k6BhU6evBangsAS-6YHQCA&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=falsehttp://books.google.com/books?id=o6gXAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false


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speculation, when savants spawned such dissertations by thescore. Like most other literate Americans he owned a copy ofHugh Blairs LECTURES ON RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES (1783), amassively influential work that saw Fifty American editions by1865. In the two lectures Rise and Progress of Language Blairsingled out the Frenchman Charles de Brosses as the Author, whohas carried his speculations on this subject the furthest.Thoreau no doubt read the summary of de Brossess theories withclose attention. Very likely he accepted Blairs invitation toconsult the two-volume TRAIT MCHANIQUE DE LA FORMATION DES LANGUES ETDES PRINCIPES PHYSIQUES DE LTYMOLOGIE (Paris: Saillant, 1765).De Brosses sought to show that the basis of universal languagealready exists (I:xxii, my trans.). Downplaying Condillacsgerminal language of action, he argued that names were firstattached to things by a process neither arbitrary norconventional but rather through a true system of necessitydetermined by two causes. One is the formation of the vocalorgans, which can only render certain sounds analogous to theirstructure; the other is the nature and property of the realobjects that one wishes to name. This obliges us to use for theirname sounds that portray them, to establish between the word andthe thing a rapport by which the word can excite an idea of thething (I:xii-xiii). The result was a classic bow-wow theory,for according to De Brosses the essence of all language isonomatopoetic imitation. Since there are few things that do notmake noise, they acquired their original names as the cuckoois called from its cry (I:7). This primary principle accountedfor most names in aboriginal speech, De Brosses believed(without realizing that it left primitive man inhabiting apastoral pandemonium fit to drown out the hubbub of Paris).As for noiseless objects, the organ assumes, as much as it can,the very appearance of the object that it wishes to paint withthe voice: it gives a hollow sound if the object is hollow, orrough if the object is rough; so that the sound that resultsfrom the natural form and movement of the organ put in that statebecomes the name of the object, a name that resembles it by therough or hollow sound that the chosen pronunciation carries tothe ear. Thus the voice employs organs that properly representeither the thing or some quality of effect of the thing thatit wishes to name (I:8). De Brosses concludes that thereexists a primitive language, organic, physical, and necessary,common to the entire human race, which ... constitutes the firstfoundation of the language of all countries; a foundation thatthe immense superstructure of accessories built upon it hardlylets one perceive (I:14-15).Devoting nearly a thousand pages to this theme, de Brosses wasjust erudite enough to make it plausible, for his knowledge ofEuropean languages let him buttress it with examples while hisrelative ignorance of non-Indo-European data left him serenelyuntroubled by doubts. He held that sounds have inherent semanticmeanings. A rapid global survey of several score languagesconvinced him that similar labials and dentals were always used



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for the first childish words Papa and Mama. After this atypicalparadigm case he confined himself largely to the Indo-Europeanfamily, providing lengthy lists of European words supposedlyexplaining why N, the most liquid of letters, designatesanything like navis that acts upon liquid; why FL naturallydesignates fluid motion in air, fire, or water; and why otherphones and consonant clusters like SL, SW, R, G, SR, H, S, andSM have various inherent meanings that form the basis of theprimitive universal language.Though many of his etymologies were erroneous, just as many weretrue and illuminating. What might Thoreau have learned from him?Consider again Thoreaus remarks on the language of our parlors...

While sporting with the French root of parlor, palaver, andparliamentary to demonstrate that our words are fetched too farfrom the kitchen, he interjects, The dinner even is only theparable of a dinner, commonly. Why this slightly strainedlocution? As de Brosses admirably explained, the French parlerand all its derivatives come from and , wordscomposed from the primitive which itself derives from theroot Bal, which has produced numerous other branches verydistant from this one and itself has no connection of any kindwith the idea expressed by the word parler (2:436-38). Even agood classical scholar might not recognize that parler andparable both derive from Greek paraballein = throw together, viamedieval Latin parabola = discourse (cf. such Romance cognatesas palabra and parole). Standard English dictionaries availableto Thoreau traced our Romance derivatives to the French parler,then gave up the chase. That Thoreau could consciously exploitthis recondite etymological connection corroborates thelikelihood that he had read de Brosses; it certainly testifiesto his interest in comparative philology.When de Brosses derived parler from a primitive root BAL, he wasrelying on the work of his friend Antoine Court de Gbelin,Franklins collaborator in publications urging Americanindependence. Influenced reciprocally by de Brosses, Court deGbelin conceived the ambitious plan of his MONDE PRIMITIF ANALIS

WALDEN: It would seem as if the very language of our parlors wouldlose all its nerve and degenerate into palaver wholly, our livespass at such remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors andtropes are necessarily so far fetched, through slides and dumb-waiters, as it were; in other words, the parlor is so far fromthe kitchen and workshop. The dinner even is only the parable ofa dinner, commonly. As if only the savage dwelt near enough toNature and Truth to borrow a trope from them. How can the scholar,who dwells away in the North West Territory or the Isle of Man,tell what is parliamentary in the kitchen?



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ET COMPAR AVEC LE MONDE MODERNE. Its prospectus appeared in 1773. Hepromised subscribers what we call an anthropologicalencyclopedia. All knowledge about primitive culture fell intotwo divisions: the first embraced words, while the second dealtwith things. Envisioning etymology as the key to prehistory, heproposed first to elucidate the development of languages bycomposing an introductory treatise on the physical Principlesof Language and Writing, a Universal Grammar, a Dictionary ofthe Primitive Language, and a bevy of comparative etymologicaldictionaries introducing his analysis of primitive arts,science, and folkways. Today his huge quartos seem artifactsmore remote than the primitive world. Few read them now; indeed,few subscribers read them then. But one who did plunder thisstorehouse of misinformed wisdom was Thoreau.

WHAT IM WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MINDYOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF




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Charles de Brosses, a close friend of Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, was prevented from entering the Acadmie Franaise by Voltaire, a personal antagonist.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1770




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Charles de Brosses was sent into exile a 2d time because of his sustained opposition to the absolute power of the French monarch.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1771




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Charles de Brossess translation into French of Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartass HISTORIA, under the title HISTOIRE DE LA RPUBLIQUE ROMAINE, DANS LE COURS DU VIIE SICLE, PAR SALLUSTE, EN PARTIE TRADUITE DU LATIN SUR LORIGINAL, EN PARTIE RTABLIE ET COMPOSE SUR LES FRAGMENS QUI SONT RESTS DE SES LIVRES PERDUS.

May 7, Wednesday: Charles de Brosses died.

1777



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In four volumes, Baron Joseph-Marie de Grandos DES SIGNES ET DE LART DE PENSER CONSIDRS DANS LEURS RAPPORTS MUTUELS (Paris: Goujon fils, Fuchs, Henrichs, date on title-page given according to the French Revolutionary calendar as an VIII) would be an elaboration upon his prize-essay in which he had generally followed tienne Bonnot de Condillac in regard to the relation of signs and thought, while on many points taking issue with him. He found that there were four types of ideas, the least problematic of the four being the ideas of simple modes (his version of Lancelins measurable ideas). Comparing the process of analysis with the process of synthesis in mathematics and in metaphysics, he came down in favor of the sort of analytic process found in algebraic proofs, because algebra permits us to display the relations between quantities while eliminating all extraneous information. It is the mathematicians who know what they are talking about. He presented a careful reprise of the various proposals then current for a philosophical language and an algebra of thought and attempted to determine which of the proposals were feasible, and of the feasible proposals, which were desirable. He did not favor the conceit that it was flaws in language that were causing errors in thinking, but instead that it was our wrongheaded thinking that was creating these imperfections of language. The agenda to cure ourselves through the construction of an artificial philosophical language, an algebra of thought, would be impractical if it were not utterly preposterous (if only our Logical Positivists had heeded him on this!). Linguistic reforms were all well and good but, if we could cure our thought, we can be confident that our language will follow right along.

Bill Richmond was one of Britains highly-esteemed pugilists, despite being a black man. A natural middleweight born on Staten Island in 1763, his fighting skills had come to the attention of General Hugh Percy in 1777 when as a 14-year-old he had vanquished three of Lord Percys soldiers during a barroom brawl. The general had taken Richmond to England with him in 1778, and Richmond had taken up prizefighting in 1791. In 1805 he had fought Tom Cribb for a purse of 25 guineas, but had lost and had turned to managing a tavern the Horse and Dolphin and training other black fighters: If a man of color cannot fight for the English title, then at least I can be a [teacher]. Richmond-trained fighters included Tom Molineaux of Virginia, Sam Robinson of New York, Joseph Stephenson of Maryland (plus a Sutton, a Massa Kendricks, a Bristow, and a Johnson).

In approximately this year cash prizes for wrestling contests were being introduced, presumably during the Highmoor games at Wigton. Jemmy Foster of Alston was instanced as one of the best Cumberland wrestlers in England. Foster was merely 57 tall and weighed merely 150 pounds but had been able to win county championships for seven years in a row (weight classes for contestants would not be introduced until 1835).

1800



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January 19, Thursday: David Henry Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, the 1st volume of John Callanders TERRA AUSTRALIS COGNITA: OR VOYAGES TO THE TERRA AUSTRALIS, OR SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, DURING THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS OF THE PEOPLE, AND THE PRODUCTIONS OF THE COUNTRIES HITHERTO FOUND IN THE SOUTHERN LATITUDES; THE ADVANTAGES THAT MAY RESULT FROM FURTHER DISCOVERIES ON THIS GREAT CONTINENT, AND THE METHOD OF ESTABLISHING COLONIES THERE TO THE ADVANTAGE OF GREAT BRITAIN, &C. WITH CHARTS (CONTAINS A CHART OF SOUTH COAST OF NEW HOLLAND). (3 volumes, Edinburgh: Printed for the author and sold by Hawes, Clark, and Collins, London, 1764-1768), a translation into English of Charles de Brossess2 HISTOIRE DES NAVIGATIONS AUX TERRES AUSTRALES. CONTENANT CE QUE LON SAIT DES MOEURS ET DES PRODUCTIONS DES CONTRES DCOUVERTES JUSQU CE JOUR;... (1756).

There is no Frigate like a BookTo take us Lands away

Emily Dickinson

1837

2. Charles de Brosses was the scientist who had first ventured to suggest that language could be understood as a product of the physiological organization of the human being. But that was in another book, not in this one.

IN FRENCH, VOLUME IIN FRENCH, VOLUME IIIN ENGLISH, VOLUME I

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/T/HDT.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/explanation.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/ActiveIndex.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/17/50DECADE/56/1756_TerraAustralisCognita_I.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/17/50DECADE/56/1756_TerraAustralisCognita_II.pdfhttp://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/toc/?PPN=PPN265771382


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Professor Michael Wests TRANSCENDENTAL WORDPLAY: AMERICAS ROMANTIC PUNSTERS AND THE SEARCH FOR THE LANGUAGE OF NATURE (Athens OH: Ohio UP, 2000).

In all the dissertations on language men forget the language that is that is really universal theinexpressible meaning that is in all things & every where with which the morning & evening teem. As iflanguage were especially of the tongue. Of course with a more copious hearing or understanding of what ispublished the present languages will be forgotten.

How Enlightened French Savants Enlighten Thoreaus WordplayIn all the dissertations on language men forget the languagethat is that is really universal the inexpressible meaningthat is in all things & every where, complained the youngThoreau (23 Aug. 1845). He was familiar with Enlightenmentspeculation, when savants spawned such dissertations by thescore. Like most other literate Americans he owned a copy ofHugh Blairs LECTURES ON RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES (1783), amassively influential work that saw Fifty American editions by1865. In the two lectures Rise and Progress of Language Blairsingled out the Frenchman Charles de Brosses as the Author, whohas carried his speculations on this subject the furthest.Thoreau no doubt read the summary of de Brossess theories withclose attention. Very likely he accepted Blairs invitation to

2000

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/T/HDT.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/explanation.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/ActiveIndex.pdfWhenever and wherever you see this little pencil icon in the pages of this Kouroo Contexture, it is marking an extract from the journal of Henry David Thoreau. OK?

Michael Wests _Transcendental Wordplay: Americas Romantic Punsters and the Search for the Language of Nature_, (Ohio UP, 2000, page 32ff).


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consult the two-volume TRAIT MCHANIQUE DE LA FORMATION DES LANGUES ETDES PRINCIPES PHYSIQUES DE LTYMOLOGIE (Paris: Saillant, 1765).De Brosses sought to show that the basis of universal languagealready exists (I:xxii, my trans.). Downplaying Condillacsgerminal language of action, he argued that names were firstattached to things by a process neither arbitrary norconventional but rather through a true system of necessitydetermined by two causes. One is the formation of the vocalorgans, which can only render certain sounds analogous to theirstructure; the other is the nature and property of the realobjects that one wishes to name. This obliges us to use for theirname sounds that portray them, to establish between the word andthe thing a rapport by which the word can excite an idea of thething (I:xii-xiii). The result was a classic bow-wow theory,for according to De Brosses the essence of all language isonomatopoetic imitation. Since there are few things that do notmake noise, they acquired their original names as the cuckoois called from its cry (I:7). This primary principle accountedfor most names in aboriginal speech, De Brosses believed(without realizing that it left primitive man inhabiting apastoral pandemonium fit to drown out the hubbub of Paris).As for noiseless objects, the organ assumes, as much as it can,the very appearance of the object that it wishes to paint withthe voice: it gives a hollow sound if the object is hollow, orrough if the object is rough; so that the sound that resultsfrom the natural form and movement of the organ put in that statebecomes the name of the object, a name that resembles it by therough or hollow sound that the chosen pronunciation carries tothe ear. Thus the voice employs organs that properly representeither the thing or some quality of effect of the thing thatit wishes to name (I:8). De Brosses concludes that thereexists a primitive language, organic, physical, and necessary,common to the entire human race, which ... constitutes the firstfoundation of the language of all countries; a foundation thatthe immense superstructure of accessories built upon it hardlylets one perceive (I:14-15).Devoting nearly a thousand pages to this theme, de Brosses wasjust erudite enough to make it plausible, for his knowledge ofEuropean languages let him buttress it with examples while hisrelative ignorance of non-Indo-European data left him serenelyuntroubled by doubts. He held that sounds have inherent semanticmeanings. A rapid global survey of several score languagesconvinced him that similar labials and dentals were always usedfor the first childish words Papa and Mama. After this atypicalparadigm case he confined himself largely to the Indo-Europeanfamily, providing lengthy lists of European words supposedlyexplaining why N, the most liquid of letters, designatesanything like navis that acts upon liquid; why FL naturallydesignates fluid motion in air, fire, or water; and why otherphones and consonant clusters like SL, SW, R, G, SR, H, S, andSM have various inherent meanings that form the basis of theprimitive universal language.



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Though many of his etymologies were erroneous, just as many weretrue and illuminating. What might Thoreau have learned from him?Consider again Thoreaus remarks on the language of our parlors...

While sporting with the French root of parlor, palaver, andparliamentary to demonstrate that our words are fetched too farfrom the kitchen, he interjects, The dinner even is only theparable of a dinner, commonly. Why this slightly strainedlocution? As de Brosses admirably explained, the French parlerand all its derivatives come from and , wordscomposed from the primitive which itself derives from theroot Bal, which has produced numerous other branches verydistant from this one and itself has no connection of any kindwith the idea expressed by the word parler (2:436-38). Even agood classical scholar might not recognize that parler andparable both derive from Greek paraballein = throw together, viamedieval Latin parabola = discourse (cf. such Romance cognatesas palabra and parole). Standard English dictionaries availableto Thoreau traced our Romance derivatives to the French parler,then gave up the chase. That Thoreau could consciously exploitthis recondite etymological connection corroborates thelikelihood that he had read de Brosses; it certainly testifiesto his interest in comparative philology.When de Brosses derived parler from a primitive root BAL, he wasrelying on the work of his friend Antoine Court de Gbelin,Franklins collaborator in publications urging Americanindependence. Influenced reciprocally by de Brosses, Court deGbelin conceived the ambitious plan of his MONDE PRIMITIF ANALISET COMPAR AVEC LE MONDE MODERNE. Its prospectus appeared in 1773. Hepromised subscribers what we call an anthropologicalencyclopedia. All knowledge about primitive culture fell intotwo divisions: the first embraced words, while the second dealtwith things. Envisioning etymology as the key to prehistory, heproposed first to elucidate the development of languages bycomposing an introductory treatise on the physical Principlesof Language and Writing, a Universal Grammar, a Dictionary ofthe Primitive Language, and a bevy of comparative etymological

WALDEN: It would seem as if the very language of our parlors wouldlose all its nerve and degenerate into palaver wholly, our livespass at such remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors andtropes are necessarily so far fetched, through slides and dumb-waiters, as it were; in other words, the parlor is so far fromthe kitchen and workshop. The dinner even is only the parable ofa dinner, commonly. As if only the savage dwelt near enough toNature and Truth to borrow a trope from them. How can the scholar,who dwells away in the North West Territory or the Isle of Man,tell what is parliamentary in the kitchen?



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dictionaries introducing his analysis of primitive arts,science, and folkways. Today his huge quartos seem artifactsmore remote than the primitive world. Few read them now; indeed,few subscribers read them then. But one who did plunder thisstorehouse of misinformed wisdom was Thoreau.

MAGISTERIAL HISTORY IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY




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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this read-only computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace resulting in navigation problemsallows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the Stack of the Artist of KourooProject, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at .

Prepared: April 30, 2014

Its all now you see. Yesterday wont be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.

Remark by character Garin Stevensin William Faulkners INTRUDER IN THE DUST

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/T/HDT.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/explanation.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/ActiveIndex.pdfmailto:[email protected], tomorrow is such and such a date and so it began on that date in like 8000BC? Why 8000BC, because it was the beginning of the current interglacial -- or what?

Bearing in mind that this is America, "where everything belongs," the primary intent of such a notice is to prevent some person or corporate entity from misappropriating the materials and sequestering them as property for censorship or for profit.


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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot Laura (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.



HDT WHAT? INDEX

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinarywriterly process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place requests with . Arrgh.

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/T/HDT.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/explanation.pdfhttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/ActiveIndex.pdfmailto:[email protected]

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CHARLES DE BROSSES - Kouroo Contexture · February 7, Monday (1708, Old Style): Charles de Brosses...

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