The Year of the Pig: in three partsFebruary 16, 2007

Above is a collage of Don Quixote, a novel which is considered to be not only the first modern novel, but one of the most masterful. It contains every discernible fiction writing tactic seen in modern fiction today. It was published in two parts in 1605 and 1615. This painting, I think, is one of the most appropriate uses of the see-one-thing-then-you-see-another style of collage.

(Moving on.)

Let’s think, for a moment, about the power of the circle. Prompt: Why can’t we draw perfect circles? Let’s discuss.

YOU: But I can’t even draw a straight line, why should I be able to draw a circle?

ME: Because lines are not important. If you can draw a straight line from one place to another, that would probably mean you are a deliberate, focused person who follows through in tasks. Or perhaps it would mean that you are one who secretly yearns to draw perfect lines, but you are embarrassed by your obsession so you secretly draw them at night by fading candlelight, when you are alone and no one can know. But there is no meaning in that kind of nonsense.

YOU: And there’s meaning in drawing circles?

ME: There is meaning, and power, in perfect circles. Circles are the most efficient two-dimensional shapes. It’s the most amount of area to the least amount of perimeter yardage.

YOU: I don’t like geometry.

ME: Neither do I.

YOU: Circles are boring.

ME: You’re wrong. Observe:

Just look at the native American medicine wheel. These ancient marvels were made by arranging stones in enormous circles that were sometimes up to 75 feet in diameter. Every wheel found has this basic form, but each one is also unique and has its own style and eccentricities. Experts are not entirely sure what these massive wheels were for, but they could be part of the ritual vision quest. However it may be interesting to note that some medicine wheels mark the longest day of the year. The oldest wheel dates back 4500 years.

And the Goseck circle is a Neolithic structure in Goseck in the district of Weissenfels in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It consists of a set of concentric ditches 246 feet across. Its functions were similar to that of Stonehenge, (foretelling the sunrise and sunset positions at the winter solstice) however it is thought to be from the Neolithic age, which makes it 500 to 1000 years older than Stonehenge. Stonehenge is famous of course because of its enormous protruding stones, but the Goseck circle contains the same sort of beauty in its simplicity — and besides, what’s more permanent than a hole in the ground?

And now look at the wheel. Most important invention in history. But even more incredible is this: the Inca people, who by 1527 had an empire of 15 million people who had built countless colossal stone structures, never used the wheel in any practical manner. How they moved and placed enormous blocks of stones is a mystery.

(This concludes our discussion.)

Post Script: If we could draw perfect circles, we would know not only perfection, but what it is like to create perfection. We create every day, but our fruits are flawed - our words misunderstood, our pot roasts overcooked, our children misjudged. Our lines slanted.

Borges tells us in a short story about the writing of the god. It is a signature of the creator, and this writing serves to be the only wholly perfect thing in our physical world. But the writing is not writing as we know it, it could present itself in any form. It could be the veins in an oak leaf, the arrangement of sacred stones, a spiraled seashell, the pattern of stripes on the side of a tiger. But perhaps the writing of the god is not a thing we may find in nature, apart from ourselves. Perhaps it is a thing we may only discover if we become the creator, (without the use of a compass, only with our own free hands) of a perfect circle.