Betraying Gestures #15
a gesture of comparison betraying that betraying gestures is taking a breath
Elif Batuman has a newsletter called The Elif Life. I saw an Instagram post of hers that says she is on a plane over Denmark brainstorming new logos for her newsletter. And the link to it. I love planes; I live in Denmark; I like logos. Three verbs that start with the letter “L". I finished her book Either/Or on a plane a few weeks ago, flying over the Atlantic (described in Betraying Gestures #13), a book I slowly read through the last four months and that was crucial for Betraying Gestures. Selin, the main character, loves/lives/likes betrayals. I didn’t count the way I did in Counting Gestures, but I’m sure the word "betrayal" was used hundreds of times in Either/Or. In the first half, mostly to convey disloyalty or a break of trust; in the second half, unintentionally revealing or being evidence of something. I learned this second meaning of "betray" from her. This week I’m close to my books. My books are distributed in three or more places. The place I have the most of them is the house I lived in for six years, which I learned this week I can still call home. Among them, on the bookshelf, my friend saw The Idiot by Elif Batuman. Elif, in the description of her newsletter, writes: “Weekly dispatches from the author of The Idiot. (Not from Dostoevsky; he is no longer living.)”. My friend said, "Look, the book of...". Referring to someone we mutually regard as an idiot. Elif publishes every Tuesday. Her last letter was Thoughts on Publishing and Form. She reflects on publishing from when she worked in the copy editing department of a big publishing house in the 90s, when publishing involved tonnes of paper and "writing meant print”, to today's possibilities in Substack and her previous experience with Twitter. I didn't find as much for me in her text as I did on her Instagram post or in Either/Or. Publishing, writing, and readership on Substack, for Betraying Gestures, deal with very different possibilities and conditions than for her. Obviously. I betrayed a bit of what it means for Betraying Gestures doing the package for Betraying Gestures editions in the art book fairs in which it will take part, for when someone buys one of the editions it is circulating. They are letter envelopes with the Betraying Gestures logo stamped on the left front side and "Betraying Gestures" on the right; on the back, centralized, I stamped the link for this newsletter in three lines of ten characters each. I made several hundred envelopes. As a good prelude and a way of practicing a form of publishing that maybe belongs more to the 90s Elif describes in her text. Talking about conditions and times, Elif wrote that "different forms generate different contents that wouldn't otherwise have been expressed." This week was a week of taking form, taking the form of the environment I'm living in, and giving form to Betraying Gestures, such as in the envelopes and finalizing some of the editions. I sometimes forget, but Betraying Gestures is modeled on what it does. Having a conversation with a friend who is a reader of Betraying Gestures, I was reminded of something that was naturalized as writing the newsletter became easier and Betraying Gestures started aiming at art book fairs—“writing meant print”—that Betraying Gestures is voice, fiction, and performance. The content this week’s form generated was the shortest so far; last week was the longest. A week to take a breath, which fortunately found something to compare forms and models with. On the inside of the flap of Betraying Gestures' envelopes, I stamped “the envelope and letter”. A little
secret that betrays publishing, writing, and readership (a term I used in the first Betraying Gestures editions but that was gradually replaced by "reception") for Betraying Gestures—my thoughts on publishing and form. I bought a stamp that comes with attachable rubber letters, so I can stamp whatever my patience with putting little letters together with little tweezers allows me to. Elif’s newsletter made me realize Betraying Gestures has no manners; she opens by saying "Dear Readers" and closes by thanking her readers for reading. “Thank you for reading.”