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OCTOPUS COMMISSION REPORT NOV 3TH 2101
can itself be used as a pure signifier. shown that it is an alloy of aluminum,
Dr Zam: In poetry? zinc, and magnesium. A quick search
Dr Recht: You are ahead of me! That was also revealed that it used to be called
exactly where I wanted to take you. Just ergal, and its lightness and mechanical
to give you an example, which I take strength meant that it was mainly used in
from the history of Italian poetry, think of the aerospace industry.
the hoopoe. The cheerful bird slandered Dr Zam: So, can we say that in addition to
by poets, writes Montale, reproaching the obelisk and the cross, the totem has
Foscolo for having made it a lugubrious something of the rocket?
nocturnal bird that inhabits the sepul- Dr Recht: The fact that it reaches upwards
chers, when it is actually a colorful bird, confirms this.
that is anything but gloomy. The que- Dr Net: It does not resemble much to Sa-
stion is what it is that drove Foscolo to turn V, but I give you some credit on its
make such a mistake. Clearly, the sound material.
of the word and its almost onomatopo- Dr Recht: I must agree with you too, it
eic resemblance to the owl’s cry; the si- does look very little like you. However,
gnifier, not the meaning. The example is we must now come to terms with the
blatant, but it prompts us to think, that tendency towards mixing and the multi-
driving the poet is not reason in search directional symbolic overabundance of
of meaning, but language in its musical, Schwarz’s body of messages, which we
signifying, therefore fluctuating and con- are accustomed to. It is not surprising
tradictory essence - in a word, crazy. that the totem pole is somewhat deco-
Dr Mart: Do you want to tell us that rated.
Schwarz is a poet? Dr Zam: So, let’s start with the dodecahe-
Dr Recht: Somehow. As he is codified, dron.
he does not want to convey information Dr Recht: Yes; twelve faces made up of
or meaning, but move towards the crazy regular pentagons. If we draw the dia-
signifier of the poetic, the sacred. His ye- gonals of each pentagon, we obtain
arning to become a body is therefore an golden triangles inscribed in the figure
act of pure poetry. of the starry pentagon. These are clear-
Dr Net: In addition to the haiku and the ly hermetic and Pythagorean references,
video signal, we must not forget the to- for two reasons: the presence of golden
tem pole. The more I look at it, the more proportions, and the creation of a smal-
confused I get. Honestly, it seems to me ler regular pentagon at the intersection
to be a discontinuous jumble, and folklo- of the triangles, wherein - by drawing the
ric at best. diagonals again - a new star is created
Dr Zam: Of course, it’s an assemblage. with a new, even smaller pentagon, and
It’s a material rendering of the fragmen- so on, in a recursive manner.
tary jumble with which Schwarz reveals Dr Zam: This would seem like a referen-
himself to us, and I understand that it ce to moving towards the infinitely small.
may be irritating, but I would suggest gi- Dr Recht: That is a good interpretation,
ving it a second look. especially if we consider how much
Dr Mart: The first thing I notice is that he Schwarz loves the coincidence of op-
also has something relating to the obeli- posites. In fact, the dodecahedron is the
sk and to the cross. Platonic solid related to the quintessen-
Dr Zam: I’m not surprised. Schwarz’s re- ce, to the universe, to light, to space, to
ligiosity seems to me like an established the cosmos. Therefore, the infinitely lar-
fact. ge and the infinitely small, the microco-
Dr Mart: Faith and reason. sm and the macrocosm, coexist within it.
Dr Recht: Yes, and here I would not over- Dr Mart: What about the numbers 1 to 4?
look the totem’s material. Analyses have How should we interpret them?
OCTOPUS COMMISSION REPORT NOV 3TH 2101
