The Age of Wire and String
NS Library | Book | Ben Marcus | 1995
IDEA | BOOK
Language turned on its head and used to document a culture in an alternate universe. Marcus makes you question what words really are. These familiar arrangements of symbols used to communicate massive, invisible, infinite concepts the human mind isn’t adequately equipped to comprehend.
It inspires a nuanced form of humour. Subtle. As our reality is deconstructed it becomes some absurd joke. One that we’re all blind to because we live in it, or rather, we are it.
This is how an alien language would appear to us. A string of symbols and patterns infused with meaning and traces of consciousness. And the most impressive part, Marcus uses English, his own native tongue, to achieve this experience.
PASSAGE | G - D
It is a mode entered by flaxen tree tools from three to twelves lawns long, sometime curved slightly, with conical bore and a cup-shaped godpiece. It produces only the natural angels of the city, slightly modified, however, by the material of the landbound heaven. North of its leaves, the tool is used to call wasps into the bore to shape the angels as they are wept against the grass.
INTERVIEW | CHICAGO HUMANITIES
Although this interview with Adam Levin took place around the release of Marcus’ book Leaving The Sea, there are many insightful comments made on writing, language and the creative process.
Ben Marcus
Ben Marcus is a wordsmith who mines for truth through a process of deconstruction and reassembly.
N.S. Library
Nothing Serious Library is an archive of recommended literature. Ideas in paperbound form. A store of all genres, from the philosophical to the profane.
Take a book off the virtual shelf. Absorb a passage. Scan a quote. Get to know the author. Find your way into their ideas before a full plunge is made.
Books demand more of our time than most other art. But it should always be a two way conversation. Consciousness engaging consciousness. It can help to date a long-form idea before we marry it. This is Nothing Serious Library.