“As if a man should dissect his own body, and read the anatomy lecture.”
Abecedarian Ignorance
The thought of doing some sort of project with the dictionary had been in my head since at least 2006, when I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and when I received a condensed but complete copy of the Oxford English Dictionary for Christmas. The preponderant tome had nine pages reproduced on each side of the thin sheets, and came with a bulbous magnifying lens to aid reading. Initial explorations yielded etymological treats, quizzical, comical words of yore, and a flyby of the white guys of English literature. But, since I wasn’t in prison, the dictionary went up on the shelf. I mean, did I actually think I would read an entire reference book straight through hahaha ha ha?
The idea lay dormant until 2013. I was a month away from dropping out of a part time (post bac) stint in art school when I put this ‘dictionary comic’ notion in action. I got down the big book and the fish-eye lens and started looking through ‘A’. Luckily, the titular word was near the beginning. What I wanted to create was an alphabetical book of interesting words: an abecedary, n. Moreso, the related adjective ‘abecedarian’ described how I felt at the time about my artistic ability: novice, inexperienced and requiring instruction. The Abecedary could be a project where I indulged amateur word-sleuthing and worked toward professional illustration. The Montaigne quotation produced in me a strong visual, (this would later prove to be the most productive way of selecting words,) and I doodled the above cartoon in one frantic sitting. It was, iirc, very late at night.
Time passed. Over a whole year in fact. Obviously I returned to the Abecedary, and picked up at ‘B’, which you can see...
NEXT WEEK!! SAME ABECEDARY TIME* SAME ABECEDARY CHANNEL**!!!
*maybe **online
“There is a kind of Abecedarie ignorance preceding science: another doctorall following science.”