INSTRUCTIONS
FOR THE PROCEEDURAL ALGORITHM IN FORMING
THE PATTERNS FOR THE SUIT (PART ONE)
1) EXTRACT ALL POSSIBLE, USEABLE SHAPES FROM THE HISTORICAL INSURANCE MAP (FROM ALL PERIODS). MAKE A POINT OF USING ALL POSSIBLE OUTLINES -- BUILDINGS, ROADS, RAIL LINES, TOPOGRAPHY ETC. (THIS GIVES US 41 BASIC PATTERN SHAPES).
2) NUMBER THESE SHAPES AND ALPHABETIZE ALL POINTS ON EACH SHAPE.
3) USE THE HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF ARNOLD PRINT WORKS COMPANY TO DETERMINE THE MULTIPLES OF EACH PIECE AND THEIR SCALE:
A) NUMBER THE LINES OF THIS TEXT TO CORRESPOND TO ALL 41 SHAPES (E.G.
USE THE FIRST 41 LINES).
B) THE FIRST WORD OF EACH LINE DETERMINES THE NUMBER OF PIECES EMERGING TOWARD A PATTERN PIECE.
C) THE NEXT NUMBER OF WORDS, (AS INFORMED BY THE FIRST WORD), DETERMINES
SIZE MULTIPLICATION OF EACH PIECE BY COUNTING THE NUMBER OF LETTERS IN
THESE WORDS).
THIS PRESENTS 197 PIECES (MULTIPLES) OF THE ORIGINAL 41 IN DIFFERING SIZES.
4) USING THE W.B. POLLOCK MEASURING DEVICE, (PATENTED 1895), BY FLATTENING THIS DEVICE INTO A SYSTEM OF 34 VECTORALIZED LINES. NUMBER EACH LINE AND ALPHABETIZE POINTS ONE CM APART ON EACH.
5) USE THE FIRST PARAGRAGH OF THE TEXT (SECOND VERSION OF THE HISTORY OF ARNOLD PRINTWORKS) TO DETERMINE THE 20 COMPOSITE PIECES MADE, (ADDING 6 TRUMP OR FAVORITE PIECES CHOSEN BY THE COLLABORATORS).
6) TAKE THE ROD SERLING TELEPLAY "PATTERNS", AND SELECT 20
PASSAGES, WHICH ARE PERTINENT, EPISODES TO THE SUBJECT:
A) SUPERIMPOSE THE ARNOLD PRINTWORKS HISTORY/ ALGORITHMS OVER THE 20
SERLING PASSAGES. AND DELETE THE CORRESPONDING WORDS FROM THE "PATTERNS"
TEXT.
B) COUNT THE NUMBER OF WORDS BETWEEN EACH DELETION THIS DETERMINES THE
CORRESPONDING PIECE NUMBER TO BE SELECTED.
C) IN APPLYING THIS TO ALL 20 PATTERN PIECES ALLOWS A NEW FORMULA OF
COMPOSITE PIECES TO EMERGE.
7) MAP THESE PIECES ON TO THE FLATENED W.B. POLLOCK DRAFTING SYSTEM DIAGRAM.
8) TAKING THE JASON SIMON LETTER, THE PIECE NUMBER DETERMINES THE WORD SELECTED FROM THE SIMON LETTER WHICH DESCRIBES HIS UNCLE'S PLAY, (BARNEY SIMON) "THE SUIT".
A) THE LAST PARAGRAPH ACTUALLY DESCRIBES A SCENE THAT WAS OMMITTED FROM
A VERSION, WHICH PLAYED IN NEW YORK CITY LATE 20TH CENTURY.
B) EACH PIECE NUMBER FINDS A WORD; THE FIRST LETTER OF THE WORD IS TRANSLATED
INTO A NUMBER, WHICH DETERMINES WHICH VECTOR IN THE FLATTENED POLLOCK
SYSTEM IS USED.
C) THE LAST LETTER OF THE WORD DETERMINES WHICH LETTER OF THE VECTOR
THE PIECE LANDS ON.
D) THE SECOND LETTER OF THE WORD DETERMINES WHICH ALPHABETIZED POINTS
OF THE PIECE CORRESPONDS TO THE PREVIOUSLY SELECTED ALPHABETIZED POINT
ON THE VECTOR (POLLOCK SYSTEM).
Date: February 17, 1904 2:12:49 AM EST
To: jmorganpuett@earthlink.net
Dearest Morgan,
I think your project sounds great. I have two responses, both arriving to me after our chicken dinner, in the middle of the night and with little sleep. Firstly, I still don’t see how I can collaborate in this structure as it has nothing to do with anything I have done. E.g. Vera, which is about a compulsive clothes shopper, could be of interest to you given its themes. But clearly this project is about the process you have designed and the work in the show must come from that process, and although I see how Vera, just as an example, could be shown similarly to the way you plan to show Patterns, it still doesn’t seem to connect with your process. I also don’t see how I can "interpret" my uncle’s play—it is a play that has been taken on by preeminent theater professionals and I am not one of them. I would frankly be angering the gods if I tried to insert the play by way of some quotation or half-accomplished gesture that could only give a poor shadow of his work.
The director who brought my uncle’s play to New York was neither sensitive nor respectful of my uncle’s work but was keen to take advantage of the play’s reputation. He did not see the contradiction in this approach. It only had a couple of performances in a festival of South African theater and for this I don’t know if it was merciful or a disgrace that his production was seen by so few here. In the play, a hard working husband has a young and optimistic wife at home. She, however, has almost daily encounters with a local dandy who has fixed his eye on her and does not take "no" for an answer. One day, the husband catches his wife in bed with the young man, who runs away to escape the husband, leaving behind his suit. The husband does not reject his wife, but in the days and weeks that follow he forces his wife to treat the suit as a third person in their home, to set a place for it at meals, to carry it with her in public, to put it to bed at night. The husband wears her down with this insistent and inspired cruelty, but over time he also seems to tire of it. Finally, he seems to relax his rules and she can slowly begin to free herself from her empty companion. He decides to have a party--I can’t remember the occasion, perhaps his birthday
or hers. And she does her best to make the party a success, anticipating a bit of joy for the first time in a long while. At the party, surrounded by their friends, the husband sees his wife finally restored to her self, and so he suggests that she find a dance partner. He makes her dance with the suit. In my uncle’s production, the climax of the play is her dance with the suit, turning and swaying with the empty cloth as she realizes she will
never be free, that her husband will never release her, and so her mad dance at the moment when she saw her freedom return, becomes instead a dance of despair. This scene, the dance, was cut from the New York production. I politely asked the director why he cut it and he said he didn’t see how it worked with the story. I could never forgive him his ignorance.
My second response to your project has nothing to do with interpreting the play except to the extent that the cut scene could provide you with a way to show your suits when they are complete, that is, to have your participants, your collaborators, your "involvements", dance with the empty suits. How you would do this is up to you.
I hope this doesn’t frustrate you or make you think I am being reluctant—again, I think your project sounds great. Have a good dance.
Jason
9) ONCE ALL PIECES HAVE BEEN POSITIONED, THEY ARE THEN ENLARGED INDIVIDUALLY AS PER PREVIOUS DETERMINATION. THIS PRESENTS THE FINAL OUTLINE OF A COMPOSITE PIECE, WHICH IS A USABLE PATTERN PIECE IN THE SUIT.
* Red Shapes indicate original size of piece, Black outlines indicate the size they were scaled to.
