In class response to "Carnival" by Steve McCaffery

In response to the first prompt, about the destruction of a book to create a panel, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoy the procedure described. Really, what is a book? If one takes clay and shapes it from a square to a rectangle, it is still clay. I find that the same would be true about this book, and about the physical manifestation about writing. If a word is written, but the letters are all out of place (for example, instead of helicopter if one wrote cpeltiorhe) then the word remains, however its meaning is lost. McCaffery's book is not about the meaning of the words though, but about their form, their structure, their letters or lack thereof. Therefore, I would say that one is not destroying the book, just changing its shape. To destroy the book, one would have to do something to the book that would make it impossible for a reader to understand the writer's intent or meaning in the work. It is interesting then that the author uses the word "destroy" in the directions. I think this means that the destruction is of the form "book", the sequential nature of the pages, not really of the idea "book".