In Praise of Scribble

   Scribbles are the lianas of the forest of our selves. Clinging
 to them, the primate still in us frolics free.

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Knotting has always been a form of governance, of exercis- ing power over others. Eliot Weinberger recalls a Second- Century Chinese tomb where the inscription states that the God Fu-Hsi ‘conceived of knotted laces in order to rule everything between the four seas’. The ancient mariners tied and untied ropes to tie and untie winds. One knot undone lifted a breeze; two, a gale, three, a storm. The man who carefully fastens his shoe-laces, determines the direction of his steps, takes charge of his destiny. Whoever tightens his belt, controls his base passions. A neatly knotted tie deters verbosity. The woman who wraps a scarf round her head owns her own thoughts, the one wearing a foulard will keep her head. Who does he govern, the man playing with a line, looping it, pulling it? What does he govern? Is to scribble to govern?

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To scribble is to scratch the pane of glass steamed up by the breath of the ineffably immediate.

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Protowriting, dadagraffiti, archaic trace, Freud’s fluff, the squiggle twists, wriggles, like a new-born babe on the diaper of the blank page.

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Scribble is a microphotograph of the procession we all carry inside us. Stripe without tiger. Frown without forehead. Larva of creation. Caricature of abstraction. Visual Jitanjaphora. Rubric of freedom.

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If a wound, what does it open? If a scar, what does it close?

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Daniel contemplated the face of God in the form of light- ning. A graphic doodle: a shadowy beam, a snapshot of the Devil, a Lucifer in charcoal.