In the end of April, in the year of pandemic, the Congress of Conology didn’t take place. No matter how bizarre it might seem, it was not more bizarre than many a congress. Conology is an unknown branch of science and the congress was to begin its triumphant march through margins of all kinds. Many a congress had an incomprehensible topic. Many a congress was cancelled and didn’t take place at all. Many a congress was unnecessary. The good reason to arrange the congress was the presentation of TUSCONY. Of course, the book has not been presented, because there was nobody it could be presented to. So, it can be written straight and with no hidden intentions that nobody liked the book. With no doubt it would be better if the book had not been written at all, or at least not printed on time. Alas, the book was written, and a few copies printed on time, even in advance. The presentation would be very short, because just this book doesn’t need a special manual, it’s quite intuitive to be handled. Since Tuscony is the first attempt to describe the conical world with triangular base, it seemed to deserve something like a congress, all the more this attempt was not successful, really, in fact rather awful. The congress was to initiate serious and fruitful studies that would result in much better descriptions of this phenomenon. Unfortunately, K.M., the renown connoisseur of antiquity, the translator of Eucid, Heraclitus and Parmenides, did not give a lecture on Archimedes and his conoids (or on something else – Archimedes as a choice seemed obvious, hence banal, while K.M. doesn’t look like someone whom banal obviousness can satisfy, really not). J.S., my university friend, eminent connoisseur of architecture, urban design and political labyrinths, didn’t tell anything about conical buildings, neither reversed nor turned, and about their hidden presence everywhere, either. S.Z., an expert on art and digital (conical?) photography, didn’t prove the superiority of conical brushes over the cuboid ones, so we don’t know if this was really what she wanted to prove. K.S., an excellent gambist didn’t play the concert and thus convinced nobody that viola da gamba is an ideal instrument to play the conical music; we don’t know, either, which variant he had chosen, or maybe would proposed something that had not been described in the book. Only R.N. showed  in the garden four samples of big (non)classical Tusconian liBerature – he didn’t show in the house any samples of the small liBerature, what a pity - was he lazy or not convinced? The first one was quite good, though the place for the text was chosen casually:

leafless not shameless at the precipice of drought on the edge of spring I delight unwittingly I shine delicately I rustle silently

The second was much worse, mainly due to the fact the text was not a ring, the last word dropped off and spoiled the effect. The play of words makes the translation impossible and useless.

ale szczy na mnie słońcem niebo bezczelnie bezchmurne

The third, the biggest one, was too similar to a pyramid, due to not enough wooden poles. There was also an inconsistency in the lack of end: the band should have bifurcated, like a snake’s tongue, and run in opposite directions, unfortunately it was cut too early, too short, probably due to absent-mindedness – why was the author not careful enough?

One day, nobody knows if sunny, windy, foggy, cloudy, warm, hot, rainy, nobody knows if spring or summer (with no doubt not winter, since winters vanished, if not for ever then for quite some time), not specific day which can be any of such days, a strange structure appeared in this chaotic, not neat garden. It reminded a conical, primitive lodge – a wigwam compared to it would boast with its sophisticated construction – however not empty, filled with twigs and branches, as if wanted to make it clear nobody should enter it, everybody should walk around it. A colossal naivety it was to think the degenerated human desire to to penetrate any possible and impossible place would be harnessed that way. Nevertheless, so far the structure succeeded enormously. The people who gathered here not in great number to experience just for one afternoon the immense pleasure, so doubtful for so many others, of communing with abstraction and absurdity of theory and imagination, were walking around showing no desire for any brutal and destructive acts which only pretend to be delicate and respectful. The lodge was wrapped by a material similar to paper and fog – paper is a condensed fog ensuring infinite erring, isn’t it? - but it has not made the lodge even a sketchy mock-up of the Tower of Babel. A text has been written on the band. It started near the top and ran down spirally to the base which was a pentagon composed of five concrete poles that had once been supporting the wooden spans of ordinary picket fence. The pentagon didn’t imitate a circle, it was what it was, an ordinary curb surrounding and protecting the bonfire site, not a mysterious pentagram that so many people would like so much to believe and notice. Such stream of text made the readers to orbit this bizarre book, however not like planets do orbit the sun, for their heads had to be lowered and lowered, their backs leaned more and more, the orbit dropped gradually causing additional dizziness and chaos. Yes, that’s right, superfluous, for the basic ones were generated by the question which shouldn’t be asked, but everybody, everywhere and always used to ask, especially in situations like this one: WHAT IS THIS FOR? The question WHAT IS THIS? didn’t have to be asked, because everybody could see this, and if saw then know. Nobody saw there a space vessel that had arrived form a distant corner of the conical universe. All could see a stack of almost equally long hazel boughs thinner than a human arm, wrapped in whitish textile with colour letters on it. What are these colours for? An old lore would prompt they are to mislead the enemy, while another old lore would add, getting ahead of next question, that the enemy is everywhere, and everything and everybody are the enemy, so we need to be vigilant. A hypothesis, that the author of this work has prepared the stake for himself to be burnt at it at his own discretion, not at someone’s, would be considered absurd, even in this preposterous land; such an idea has come to nobody’s head, hasn’t even knock at, approached enough to be seen, heard, smelled, touched, or detected intellectually. It’s not the point, either, to burn down ceremoniously and quasi-ritually a classic work of Tusconian literature, since this lodge of letters and words was not such a work. Setting this stake, this pyre, on fire would cause a flame so high and violent, reaching even above the tops of the trees growing here abundantly and lushly. Flames would burn a hole in the sky, would also devour the whole garden, and this is what nobody wanted and desired, even most secretly. It was not the point, either, to make the tale wet and disappear together with dissolving letters. It would have been a real downpour, while they have not been seen here for quite long time, and should not be expected soon. Well, it would suffice to spread the paper-fog on the grass, no construction, no spatial structure would be necessary, to accomplish the act of dissolving, of washing away… Pondering these and some other problems was getting hard and painful because now the readers had to crawl, almost, which encouraged them to accept the simplest solution: most probably this work has been made to be as incomprehensible as the Phaistos disc – doesn’t matter the Phaistos disc has not been deciphered yet while the Dolna cone can be read with no problems at all. Well, it is clear, this is but a camouflage, a concealing work, which in its essence is something totally different than it is, and what it really is we will see, it’s enough to follow the track, and this track will guide us nobody knows where to. We have reached the cone’s base, and we can’t see the tale’s end. This is a sort of basic incongruence, the parts and elements of this tale don’t fit each other. How will the tale unfold? And the readers have begun to unfold and unroll it expecting exciting actions and fascinating verbal duels by the characters who would emerge from the paper-mist; simultaneously kept pondering where they would be taken to: either deep into the wild garden, to the sunny meadow and then to the abyss of huge forest, or to the skyward labyrinth having climbed before not so sinuous stairs? . . . . . Especially now, when the structure looked more and more like a wizard’s cap. Where to? . . . . . Where to? . . . . . Where is where? The fourth one was the best. Well, that’s the matter of skills and experience. I wish there were a few more. I wish there were lights, bulbs or candles, inside them – spirits and ghosts of Tuscony would visit in the night the garden waking up to life.

am I happy, am I not?     hidden in the bushes     wrapped by mist of words     who can know it?     who can not?

Yes, with no doubt everything could be made better, much better… R.N. knew it was but a sketch, a sort of rehearsal, a momentary installation that would be dismantled almost at once… Frankly writing the trees didn’t need to be dressed, wrapped tightly, especially now, right before the spring explosion of burning green. The numerous birds seemed happy, too – nobody would disturb them in making their art. Thank you very much, my dear non-participants, for your readiness and enthusiasm.