Continuing notes from the Concordance to THE COMPLEATE WORKES OF QUIN [spelling John Donne's].
We find below a continuation of the passage dated 11/20/2003 followed by notes from the Concordance.
from Quin, 11/20/2003
Note: Had Vonnegut any notion of String Theory when he wrote Cat's Cradle? (one)
Beth suggests to me that in Austin my derogatory usage of the term 'suit' causes concern.(2) In Austin? (3) Known to much of the world through the movie 'Slacker'? And C. Wright Mills wrote all his best stuff before I was born? (4) Into this Wasteland, which was demarcated by my idiot Cousin Tom way before that? (5)
I reason my strings must got all the wrong knots and I be in some other dimension which is why everything seems so fucked up and strange. (6)
Notes from the Concordance:
(one) Here, as in many cases, Quin mixes his metaphors, or at least combines ideas in his usually, unusual fashion. We note, however, that this fashion is only unusual until the reader is enlightened as to his parabolic meaning. In this case, Quin combines in meaning the hot, but not so new idea in theoretical physics, String Theory--basically the next step smaller from quantum mechanics, and the small novel by Kurt Vonnegut, CATS CRADLE. [ recent edition available as: Vonnegut, Kurt. CATS CRADLE. Delta, New York: 1998] We will list further, references to String Theory below, but first, wish to clarify Quin's thinking on the confluence of these two, seemingly dissimilar things. The CATS CRADLE allusion is fairly obvious, and so we'll start there. A 'cat's cradle' in western games and folklore is the game played with bits of string, often by children, to create a basket like shape within the fingers. We are not absolutely certain as to how the title of this novel relates to the content--a fictionalized version of Baby Doc, or Doc or whomever the dictator was in the small country about which the novel is written. As further reference for the reader of Quin, we provide two further notes. First, that it is reported anecdotally that Quin read this novel aloud to Beth on their honeymoon. We question the credibility of this, however, as Quin scholars dispute the fact of a honeymoon between the two, indeed of the fact of their marriage, and of the fact that 'Beth' exists at all except in the function of fictionalized narrator/character within the greater context of Quin's work. On the next point, however, there is no dispute. Quin began [it's completion is in the dark] a novel referencing Vonnegut's CATS CRADLE, the working title of which was CATS LANDING. The last known siting of the work was in Dallas, circa 1986. It is believed lost. The working premise of the novel was the quarantining of terminally ill and contageous patients of a new plague. As always, we find Quin's writings prescient in the extreme. We believe that the novel, or parts of it, may exist in the hands of one of Quin's many Dallas syncophants and collectors. If this be the case, we welcome the publication of exerpts in this venue. No questions will be asked. It is far too important to attempt to piece together this early, and perhaps seminal work, to ask any questions.
A word about String Theory. We attach a lengthy and quite readable summary below. String Theory has been touted as the possible solution to Einstein's desire for a Universal Theory, and is is now popularly titled, 'The Theory of Everything.' Proponents of String Theory believe that, although the theory appears to be scientifically 'unprovable'--some argue that it fares better in the category of philosophy than of 'hard physics'-- that it may be the long awaited missing link which can reconcile quantum mechanics to Einstein's theories of relativity, theories of the true nature of gravity, old style Newtonian physics, and the like. The attached is from http://www.superstringtheory.com/basics/basic4.html. We apologize for the length in this format, but there just didn't seem to be anywhere to cut out a nice cogent paragraph.
Think of a guitar string that has been tuned by stretching the string under tension across the guitar. Depending on how the string is plucked and how much tension is in the string, different musical notes will be created by the string. These musical notes could be said to be excitation modes of that guitar string under tension.
 In a similar manner, in string theory, the elementary particles we observe in particle accelerators could be thought of as the "musical notes" or excitation modes of elementary strings.
In string theory, as in guitar playing, the string must be stretched under tension in order to become excited. However, the strings in string theory are floating in spacetime, they aren't tied down to a guitar. Nonetheless, they have tension. The string tension in string theory is denoted by the quantity 1/(2 p a'), where a' is pronounced "alpha prime"and is equal to the square of the string length scale.
If string theory is to be a theory of quantum gravity, then the average size of a string should be somewhere near the length scale of quantum gravity, called the Planck length, which is about 10-33 centimeters, or about a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter. Unfortunately, this means that strings are way too small to see by current or expected particle physics technology (or financing!!) and so string theorists must devise more clever methods to test the theory than just looking for little strings in particle experiments.
String theories are classified according to whether or not the strings are required to be closed loops, and whether or not the particle spectrum includes fermions. In order to include fermions in string theory, there must be a special kind of symmetry called supersymmetry, which means for every boson (particle that transmits a force) there is a corresponding fermion (particle that makes up matter). So supersymmetry relates the particles that transmit forces to the particles that make up matter.
Supersymmetric partners to to currently known particles have not been observed in particle experiments, but theorists believe this is because supersymmetric particles are too massive to be detected at current accelerators. Particle accelerators could be on the verge of finding evidence for high energy supersymmetry in the next decade. Evidence for supersymmetry at high energy would be compelling evidence that string theory was a good mathematical model for Nature at the smallest distance scales.
(2) In this case, it is obvious that 'Beth' is a fictionalized character, as others have come forward and reported that this conversation about Quin's usage of the term 'suit' came directly via conversations with them (the others). We note that it is often the case that great writers seem to channel information through their major characters, and often assert that they 'speak' to them. One would at first assume that this is a symptom of neurosis, however since so many writers seem to say this same thing, one must assume that there is some validity in the claim. [editor's note: while this may be true, it is also the case that many writers do seem to evidence signs of neurosis in its many and various forms.]
(3) Here, Quin seems to question the possibility of a conservative viewpoint arising in the city of Austin, known to him in his childhood as a very with it university town. Loaded with people not wearing suits. [Further note: Followers of Quin will recognize his use of the term 'suit' to identify those who wear them, usually persons who hold positions of authority and demonic control. . . managers of grocery stores, lawyers, corporate managerial types and the like. We note that this does often seem to be the case, and that we actually have heard the use of the term 'suit' to designate workers of this sort in speaking with inhabitants of Austin. For the most part, those who use the term in this manner are not required to wear the said uniform in order to assert authority over, and or, conform to the established social mores of their working environment.]
(4) For further information on C. Wright Mills, see: http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Mills/.
(5) Quin frequently references THE WASTELAND, by T.S. Elliot which he read at an early age, approximately 8 years old, and which has been highly influential in his world view. Especially that recurring bit about Michaelangelo. We have been unable to date, to establish any blood relationship of Quin to Elliot, despite Quin's description of the poet as 'my idiot cousin Tom.' Perhaps, again, this is Quin's use of metaphor to establish an artistic relationship, and or literary lineage to or from Elliot.
(6) Here, brilliantly, Quin guides us back to the beginnning of his original thought in this passage as he references, all three of his extended metaphors, these being, the literary reference, here morphed from the original Vonnegut allusion, to Elliot's Wastland, the literal image of the child's cat's cradle and playing with string, or less literally, one's own attempts to play at life by stringing it together, and, as is often the case, getting the knots all wrong, and, finally the reference back to String Theory in his mention of another dimension. Indeed, String Theory proposes up to ten simultaneously existing dimensions as of this reading.
[As a final note to this excerpt of the concordance, we give one last note. It has once again been brought to the editor's attention that some readers think that we are making up all of this stuff about String Theory and the like. To those of you to whom this assertion applies, we suggest humbly that you take a look at the blatent attempt to make this all accessible in the series aired on your Public Broadcasting Station, entitled, we believe, THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE. In this work, besides going on and on about how elegant the universe is, many high level physicists go on ad finitum about String Theory and what it means to you and me. They do this on a number of mirrored and revolving sets which are designed to transmit the comforting feeling of the Sci fi channel, and none of them wear a traditional suit. What this means, we do not venture to say. We do submit, oh gentle reader, that truly, most of what Quin has written is simply a reworking of what has gone before. As he was frequently heard to say before his most recent hiatus, "I didn't make this stuff up. It's not my fault."]
12:43:47 PM [Macro error: The file "E:\www\#itemTemplate.txt" wasn't found.]
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