pressure studies
Thu Feb 05 2026
:
I should set this in the present tense : One theorem : I meet or am going to meet another man. This is a man who is trustworthy. We pass each other, walking in our separate directions, acknowledge each other with a nod and a slight smile. We could be the same man. He is wearing a suit, and in that he is different from me (in that I’ve worn a suit, for real, once in my life – and that seems a mistake now, to have worn that suit ever). The situation is a living room that is crowded with detail. It is no fancy living room – middle class, average in a way of the middle class in that it has nice things, but nothing that stands out. Nothing ostentatious. But is it crowded with detail, a sofa, a coffee table, there is green vegetation, there are people coming and going – quite a lot of them in fact. But these are all background people. They’re vague, see-through, no one stays. It is bright near the high window, where the sunlight comes in through, and I can see what must be the branches of deciduous trees outside. But beyond the sunlight beam, there is dark. It’s like a tunnel or a warehouse of dark. People come out of the dark and they go back into it.
The man in the suit and I pass each other some distance from the scene of the living room, back towards the dark, half-enshrouded by it. He is leaving the scene of the living room, while I am coming toward it.
[For word generator, guitar, field recording, blandishments]
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com
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: I should set this in the present tense : One theorem : I meet or am going to meet another man. This is a man who is trustworthy. We pass each other, walking in our separate directions, acknowledge each other with a nod and a slight smile. We could be the same man. He is wearing a suit, and in that he is different from me (in that I’ve worn a suit, for real, once in my life – and that seems a mistake now, to have worn that suit ever). The situation is a living room that is crowded with detail. It is no fancy living room – middle class, average in a way of the middle class in that it has nice things, but nothing that stands out. Nothing ostentatious. But is it crowded with detail, a sofa, a coffee table, there is green vegetation, there are people coming and going – quite a lot of them in fact. But these are all background people. They’re vague, see-through, no one stays. It is bright near the high window, where the sunlight comes in through, and I can see what must be the branches of deciduous trees outside. But beyond the sunlight beam, there is dark. It’s like a tunnel or a warehouse of dark. People come out of the dark and they go back into it. The man in the suit and I pass each other some distance from the scene of the living room, back towards the dark, half-enshrouded by it. He is leaving the scene of the living room, while I am coming toward it. [For word generator, guitar, field recording, blandishments] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit briancshort.substack.com