Panic Signs

4. We have not gone to the moon

Prologue POETIC SYSTEM OF THE BOOK According to the dictionary (the only book which has been constantly rewritten) signs are actions or signals which reveal what is hidden. The dictionary adds a delightful detail: strong signs are those that prompt one to believe or surmise something, in such a way that they themselves are proof or semi-proof. Man is a hunter of signs which are the clues, the keys, to interpret life and reality, since it’s impossible to imagine existence without interpretation . We all act as private investigators following signs that point us closer to the hidden meaning of things, since only banality is transparent. Our duty is to put some order into these scattered and disparate clues, and such ordering is the specific duty of the writer. We live surrounded by signs: dreams, simple quotidian acts, anecdotes, presences, absences, fantasies; it is true that dialogues reflect individual circumstances but they are also a key to something more profound. No catastrophe, no feeling, no idea is surprising or unforeseeable in itself; there were signs which we didn’t see or failed to consider. Reality is a palimpsest which, perhaps out of laziness, cowardice, self-comfort, or obtuseness, we read superficially, our senses accepting the most obvious signs or misinformation, which, for some reason or other, is not always misinformation. To read those signs (and we will never know if our reading has been correct, considering all the possible readings), to make them out, to unravel them, means to possess a vision of the world, without which the kaleidoscope is disconcerting, often contradictory, always risky. So there is no single reading, and the signs are multiple, infinite, endless. This allows for a plurality of books, paintings, poems. A world governed by one read- —— 1 —— ...