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fixed format the
changes in his ideas, perspective, and even moods.
    His fantasies of being an avant-garde editor turned out
not to be futile, as many of the ideas arising from them were incorporated into
the format he finally chose; and the “installment” plan was very hospitable to
all of them, an additional reason to opt for it.
    Illustrations were one of those features he wanted
to incorporate. The idea came from some plans he had discarded, such as the
figurines (and others), but it was also a natural for installments. When has
anybody ever seen installments without illustrations? Once he’d heard of a
dictionary that had been published in installments, but besides this seeming too
absurd to be true, a dictionary was ideal for illustrations, it carried them
within, virtually, for a dictionary is a systematic catalogue of examples.
    Needless to say, he himself would make them. He would
never even dream of asking an artist to collaborate, so great was his horror of
relinquishing absolute control over any aspect of his work. He was reasonably
skilled at drawing, which he practiced every day; however, they always turned
out abstract. Only by accident did his drawings ever represent anything.
Nevertheless, he could, like anybody else, draw a comprehensible diagram, though
he only did so when he was planning to fabricate something. Recently he had
filled a notebook with plans and models for fantasy garments, some in color.
    These garments, which in reality had nothing to do with
the Miracle Cures, as they were imaginative and highly elaborate items of
clothing conjured up with the exuberance of fantasy, nevertheless constituted an
important part of the project. In order to explain how he made them (because he
had also had to invent this explanation, ex post facto), he had to start with
the value of a text, any text, and by extension, of the one he might write about
the Miracle Cures. Reflecting on the roots of value, he reached the conclusion
that it was necessary to include an autobiographical component. This should
never be missing, and not out of narcissism but rather because it was the only
mechanism that would allow the writing to endure; and he wanted, oh, how he
wanted! for his writing to withstand time, this also not out of intellectual
narcissism but because with time his installments would take on the value of
antiques, a value in and of itself, independent of the uncertain values of truth
or intelligence or style.
    As opposed to other objects, texts withstand time only
when they are associated with an author whose actions in life — of which their
texts are the only tangible testimony — excite the curiosity of posterity. Such
posthumous curiosity is created by a biography full of small, strange,
inexplicable maneuvers, colored in with a flash of inventiveness that is always
in action, always in a state of “happening.”
    In any case, one day, out of the blue, while he was
watching television, it occurred to him how delightful it would be to fabricate
some garments, though more than garments they would be wire frames that would
hold colorful fabrics — as well as wreaths, horns, halos, and bells — that he
could wear at home to relax in or to energize himself or for any other purpose
that might occur to him; the purpose didn’t matter because the goal of this
one-man theatrical wardrobe was to provide an interesting anecdote . . . The
purpose would formulate itself, and it would fit perfectly into his
aesthetic-theoretical-autobiographical system and contribute to the creation of
his personal mythology. It didn’t matter what an enormous blunderthis would be (even if in the privacy
of his own family); at a certain point, he was willing to sacrifice himself for
his work. Moreover, by taking this route he would reach a stage where the
blunder, the fear of making a fool of himself, all of it, would be neutralized
by being absorbed into the normalized and accepted figure of the Eccentric.
    The fact that these