Currency of Paper. Alex Kovacs

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       THE CURRENCY OF PAPER

       ALEX KOVACS

      “. . . labour is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He is at home when he is not working, and when he is working he is not at home. His labour is therefore not voluntary but coerced; it is forced labour. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labour is shunned like the plague. External labour, labour in which man alienates himself, is a labour of self-sacrifice, of mortification.”

      —The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx

      CONTENTS

Observing the Progress of Time

A Short Essay Written by the Protagonist

I Promise to Pay the Bearer

Details of Some Principal Coordinates

Growth Towards the Ceiling

Aspirations to a Complete Inventory

Writings in the Mode of Realism

General Advertisement to the Locality

Possible Uses for Pockets

Occurrences of an Afternoon of Leisure

Beyond the Turquoise Door

Concerning the Utmost Privacy

       The Faded Glamour of Certain Stairwells

       Views of a Forgotten Building

       On What Has Been Discarded

       Time Signatures Affect Desires

       An Unexpected Encounter with Trevor

       To Be Accepted As Truths

       Mobilizing the Labour Force

       Abandoned Projects of Minor Significance

       Brief Communications with the Populace

       Things He Made no Record of

       The Repository of Words

       On the Planet Everybody Calls Home

       Acts of Industrial Sabotage

       Window, Bicycle, Lamp Post

       Habitual Practices that Cannot be Ignored

       Notes on Inconsequential Occasions

       Broadcasts Received in the Outer Regions

       A Speech Delivered to a Small Audience Gathered Inside an Abandoned Ballroom

       The Rebuilding of Ickenham

       Rumours of the Neighbourhood

       Enactment of an Unknown Epic

       What Will Happen at this Juncture?

       It’s Never Impossible to do Something for the First Time (If You Haven’t Done It Before)

       Transcription of an Afternoon Walkie-Talkie Conversation

       Relations with the Absolute

       Instruction Booklet Discovered Inside a Large Box

       The Pleasures of Examining Ice

       Occasional Wardrobe Combinations Discovered

       The Invisible Expanding Galaxy Band

       Visual Responses to the Period in Question

       The Museum of Contemporary Life

       Thoughts Emerging from the Contemplation of Clouds

       The Ignoble Procession Backwards