Cover Story
“Just as resignation looks to see that the individual has an absolute direction toward the absolute telos, so does the persistence of suffering guarantee that the individual remains in the correct position and preserves himself in it.”
–Søren Kierkegaard (1846)
Image – Pisces Full Moon. September 18, 2024. Photo: Gavin Keeney.
I.
On September 12 an offer came through from [REDACTED] for a [REDACTED] Travel Award. Clicking through, I found a roundtrip fare of 356.00 USD (using [REDACTED]) from JFK to LHR (and LHR to JFK) for early October (return in early November). I had been waiting for such an offer since late July. Teaser emails kept coming in from [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [REDACTED] throughout August and early September. Apparently, the summertime is not such a good time to expect such things. I had canceled a conference in Rome, for early August, the total cost approaching 1,000.00 USD, and then canceled my intended return to Ljubljana, Slovenia, for the convocation on September 9, wherein I would receive the distinction of [REDACTED].
Neither trip had added up. A [REDACTED] booking to VCE from LHR made on August 30, well after the Rome option had been canceled, had to be kicked down the road. The initial fare of 165.99 GBP (reduced to 156.99 GBP using [REDACTED]) was subsequently upped to 223.99 GBP (295.43 USD) after paying the change fee of 67.00 GBP. The initial booking for LHR to VCE put me into VCE at 0:35am, leaving LHR at 9:15pm. I wondered what arriving at VCE at that hour would be like, and whether I could wander down to the pier where the water shuttle came in to watch the waves roll by in the dark of night, circling back to catch a [REDACTED] shuttle to Ljubljana, probably dropping me at the Main Train Station at about 5:00am. I would then have had to wait about six hours to check in at the [REDACTED] in Bežigrad, where my school had kindly booked me four nights gratis. It all fell apart, however, when the August taunts from [REDACTED] regarding “something in the air” never panned out.
The two canceled events were:
1/ FORTHCOMING/WITHDREW – “Fate + Grace,” [REDACTED], Rome, Italy, in association w/ [REDACTED] – August 1-8 – August 7 presentation
2/ COMPLETED/SENT SOMEONE ELSE – Convocation, [REDACTED], Ljubljana, Slovenia – September 9
JFK-LHR-JFK fares remained ridiculous until the September 12 “gift.” JFK-VCE-JFK fares remained absurd and never entered into the subsequent equations. Affordable LHR-LJU flights via [REDACTED] became well-nigh impossible to find, and it was only after booking the JFK-LHR-JFK flight that I managed to nail down an affordable exit flight from LJU on [REDACTED] for October 18. Their punishing algorithm became more and more punishing regardless of when you dared to take a peek at their rates. The only reason to look was to find a loophole in their game – typically via studying both “flights in” and “flights out.”
Nevertheless, by the Autumn Equinox an itinerary had fallen into place. I had managed to escape arriving in VCE at 0:35am.
It looked like this:
1/ JFK-LHR – [REDACTED] – LV 7:45pm, Sunday, October 6; AV 8:05am, Monday, October 7
2/ LHR-VCE – [REDACTED] – LV 11:50am, Monday, October 7; AV 3:00pm, Monday, October 7
3/ LJU-LHR – [REDACTED] – LV 7:45pm, Friday, October 18; AV 9:10pm, Friday, October 18
4/ LHR-JFK – [REDACTED] – LV 10:10am, Wednesday, November 6; AV 1:29pm, Wednesday, November 6
II.
However, I hoped to never take the November 6 return flight back to JFK. In-between October 7 and November 6 there was all manner of intrigue. The trip was essentially meant as a research sojourn to test the waters of the post-PhD prospects for the Edition of One (EO1) project. It was time to go out on a limb again with a saw, to see what was possible. This was a time-honored principle in the dance with Fate + Grace undertaken across decades, but most prominently from c.2011 forward. This time-honored, High Romantic rite was also hard to define at times. It certainly, on occasion, resembled playing chicken with Fate. Grace only kicked in when all rules of engagement fell apart, and the absurdity of the dance became self-apparent. Fate + Grace is a metaphysical faux-matheme. It exists only in the imagination. It cannot be tracked, and it cannot be presumed upon. It operates “out of bounds.” It is existentialist in the extreme. It is a case of being blindfolded and pushed out into the slipstream to see what might transpire in spite of all expectations. It notably includes what appears to be absolute and abject “failure.”
The eleven days in Ljubljana would be followed by twenty days in the UK. The eleven days in Ljubljana were meant to see if the EO1-SI operation could be established. The twenty days in the UK were meant to see if the EO1-UK operation could be established. Both tests were based on Expressions of Interest in the EO1 project, but with full knowledge that such Expressions of Interest when examined up close and personal might simply vanish. The twenty days in the UK included a trip “back to” NW Wales, where I had been going since 2013 to escape the ravages of the academic version of the dance with Fate + Grace, except it was most often in NW Wales that Grace kicked in through a well-timed “time-out” (time out of time). The Slovene and English sojourns also included research projects on what had come to be called the “indicative projects” of the EO1 agenda.
These included:
1/ PENDING – Research – “W(h)ither the Avant-garde?” Ljubljana, Slovenia – TBD
2/ PENDING – Research – “The Icons of IRWIN: Third Session,” Ljubljana, Slovenia – TBD
3/ PENDING – Research – “Eric Hobsbawm’s Avant-gardes,” London, England, UK – TBD
4/ [REDACTED]
Beyond November 6, and justification (perhaps) for never taking that return flight to JFK, there were several projects and events “looming” (i.e., in the proverbial pipeline).
These included:
1/ FORTHCOMING – “No Rights” (video presentation), [REDACTED], Hong Kong (SAR), China – Registration deadline November 15, 2024 – December 16-18, 2024
2/ SUBMITTED – “Edition of One (EO1-IN),” [REDACTED], Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India – January-February 2025
3/ SUBMITTED – “Edition of One (EO1-US),” [REDACTED] – Notification November-December 2024 – January-October 2025
4/ SUBMITTED – Research – “Dante + Franciscanism,” Research Fellowships, [REDACTED] – TBD
They extended all the way to India and back. The key events, however, were the Expressions of Interest. To test these, it was essential to simply show up.
There were three:
1/ PENDING/EOI – “Edition of One (EO1-SI),” [REDACTED], Ljubljana, Slovenia – TBD
2/ PENDING/EOI – “Edition of One (EO1-UK),” [REDACTED], London, England, UK – TBD
3/ PENDING/EOI – “No Rights,” [REDACTED], Grenoble, France – TBD
Whatever might come in (unforeseen, unhoped-for) via the submissions pipeline could only add to the intrigue/nightmare. The hope was, however, for the immemorial unhoped-for – i.e., that sign from Else-where that these High Romantic prospects were not simply a case of classical vanitas – an idealist fantasy. How one could ever know “which was which” (“what was what”) is beyond all mere human comprehension. If the goal is to promote works and life-works (versus egos), it is more or less axiomatic that the [REDACTED] would see such promotion as vapid self-promotion. “That” is, however, their problem.
[…]
So, a “cover story” (scare quotes required) in honor of [REDACTED]? Would it succeed, despite all the fears of it failing? Would it cancel itself? Who knows? Time would tell …
OUTTAKES