The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes! A better course of procedure is to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a résumé, a commentary. […] More reasonable, more inept, more indolent [than other authors], I have preferred to write notes upon imaginary books.
— Jorge Luis Borges, preface to The Garden of Forking Paths, in Ficciones (New York: Grove Press, 1962), 15-16.
See also the Cubeland Mystic’s notes for an imaginary movie:
How about a two man movie? It could be called, Matthew, JOB, and Bourbon. You sit out on Matthew’s patio drink and discuss important stuff, but with a twist. The session turns into a discussion about the perfect movie, and then as the screenplay develops amidst shots, your dialogue would be interspersed with the actual scenes from the finished product that you are developing on the fly. It ends with the sun coming up over La Mesa. The last scene of the movie is Mrs. L picking up the empty bottle of bourbon throwing it in the trash, and saying something like “I wish they’d do some real work.” or some such. That’s the whole movie.
Let’s write it, right here in this post.
— Cubeland Mystic, ‘Comment 14746’, Godsbody (September 2008; republished in Korrektiv).
Sounds like somebody’s looking for a reason not to write Temple & Grand…
Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay!
I know Potter’s a librarian, but I don’t know if you can just holler at him until he helps out.
I see what you did there.
I sho’ do miss that Cubical Guy…
JOB
Ditto.
He was the life of the party.
Great stuff.