To My Thoughtful and Invisible Readers

And especially to you, my Invisible Man, I thought I would tender this briefest of introductions to preclude any possible misunderstanding about the nature of my writing.

It has been manifestly my intention, in these pages to entertain you with nothing other than the most accurate, most unadorned, most truthful possible account of my life and opinions, much after the fashion of Descartes' Meditations, or the author of Tristam Shandy. It is paramount to me that the truth and accuracy of these experiences and insights reach you unadorned, unembellished and uncontaminated with any foreign meaning that might be imbued by the simplest literary device. Indeed, like Socrates, I have affected no style, but presented myself to you in the simplest language possible, even eschewing the device of the philosophical dialog for fear of the rhetorical distortions inherent even in that limited dialectical drama.

Rather, I have hoped to present something with the integrity of journalism and the clarity of mathematics, something with no riddles, no mysteries, no hidden allusions. All the words, thought and situations presented here are wholly my own and wholly original; nothing has been borrowed or transposed from another's work, ever. There is no magic and no trickery to this honest enterprise: the events happen exactly as human language will allow me to describe and the opinions presented are wholly owned by me and are my true thoughts. Everything is spoken in properia persona and no other. There is no hidden homuncular author who manipulates me as some unreliable narrator, no "trick" or "catch" to anything expressed here, and everything expressed here is done so clearly and univocally: opinions presented here always mean themselves and never their opposite, nor is there trecherous game where one sincere complement is followed by a fraudlent narrative, some difficult and indeterminate mix of real and false experiences and opinion: my narratives are simple, they are made of one single unitary substance: the truth. All the pertinent facts relating to a story are presented in them. Finally, and above all, there is no insidious, vitiating irony, dissolving away the apparent true meaning as water does sugar. For nothing is invisible here, but rather perfectly transparent: please rest assured, dear reader, I am no actor upon a stage whose words are written for him to some unknown purpose that you must riddle out and phantom meanings do not haunt us by speaking just out of earshot or between the lines.


Thus given you my word and reassurances, I might clap you on the shoulder and I might now relate to you my most recent meditation, not wholly occasioned, but surely made more excellent by the thoughtful response of one of my readers who recently posted a comment to a previous excursion. I am honestly grateful for all responses, so much so that I have, without fail, responded substantively to all of them, in the comment section, or in personal correspondence and once by riding my horse to that person's house: if you leave a comment, or email me, I thank you and will always promptly and courteously respond. The "Invisible Man"'s thoughtful comments occasioned some discussion among my friends and peers, which I try to treat of truthfully and accurately below. As always


your humble,


Archimago