A frigid Sunday afternoon, and I’m reading Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte online. That’s what I sat down to do about an hour ago, and I made it through the opening lines of chapter one: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
Since reading these lines, I have learned a number of things. These I will attempt to enumerate, as facts of a far more mundane order of history. Let’s call it a history of consciousness—what my therapist benevolently refers to as “flypaper consciousness.” I list only the historical facts that have accumulated over the past hour, stuck to my own little strip of flypaper:
1. Marx never wrote “history repeats itself,” a footnote reminds me. It’s unclear how the garbled version came about, but apparently an early instance comes from a letter to Engels. I find it oddly comforting that Marx was willing to repeat himself.
2. Soon I’ll have to get ready for a social event at a neighbor’s house. My spouse and I are new to the neighborhood, so this invitation registers as an imperative. I find myself longing for open-ended time, no constraints.
3. Four of my friends have birthdays today, but I recognize just three of them from their profiles, and only one is someone I communicate with regularly. I have sent that person a text wishing them a happy birthday.
4. I’ve just learned about an edition of René Crevel’s 1929 surrealist novel Êtes-vous fous?, translated by Sue Boswell as Are You All Crazy? I love René Crevel. Why wasn’t I aware of this?
5. Another translation of Crevel’s writing also came out recently, a collection titled Scattered Leaves. The cover price is $14.00.
6. I’ve placed both books in my shopping cart. But it feels profligate to order books at the moment. I received several in the mail only yesterday, one of which is lying on the table beside me.
7. The book next to me is Lindsey Stewart’s The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic. I haven’t started it.
8. Nor have I bought any holiday gifts yet. Last year I sent my parents a cookbook and a history of piracy. I wonder who might enjoy The Conjuring of America. There’s still time to shop, but I need to be quick. I’ve added this to my to-do list.
9. If I knock out a few emails now, I can concentrate tomorrow on the most egregiously overdue ones. Some maniacs purportedly manage to clear their inboxes each night. I find this unimaginable.
10. I am notified that The Guardian has nearly reached its $2,000,000 end-of-year fundraising goal. I have managed to stay away from the news for 18 minutes.
11. Chapter two of Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire begins, “Let us pick up the threads of the development once more.” What were those threads?
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Art by Lara Schaberg
