I'm in a restaurant. I read in the menu: blin. Blin? Yes, blin. Just a blin. Of course, I've heard about a blin. However I have never tasted it. Have I ever eaten a blin? No, probably not. Surely not. With no doubt I have eaten no blin in my entire life. So, I don't know what a blin is. So, I know only the word blin. So, I know only the notion blin. Or maybe even a part of this notion. Because I read blin and nothing is happening. I hear with my internal ear several phonemes assembled in a sound cluster causing no image in my mind. Only some vague association. A noodle? Something like a big dumpling? A patty? A kind of pancake? Something stuffed with something? ....... I will order it. I will get it, I will taste it and I will know. Am I sure I will ALREADY know? And if I went to the kitchen and saw how a blin was being made? Maybe then I would know more. Maybe I would go home and make it by myself and then I would know even more. And if I made a huge, enormously huge blin and went inside it and saw it from inside? But then I would be inside a real blin, not in a notion blin . . . . . . . . Why blin? Why not flin or bombol? What a boring old question! Boring not because repeated ceaselessly, but because still having no answer. No satisfying answer . . . . . . . Such a huge blin? Could be difficult. Could be impossible. Where would I cook it? Must a blin be cooked or fried or roasted or stewed? Or maybe pickled? No, one doesn't pickle a blin. Something prompts me pickling has nothing to do with a blin. What does prompt? . . . . . . . . . Blin. Blin. Blin . . . . . . . Dublin. Dęblin. Norblin . . . . . . Do they make a blin in Dublin? And in Dęblin? More probably in Dęblin than in Dublin, but who knows, who knows . . . . . . . . Or maybe they make a blin in Norblin? No, nothing has been made in Norblin for years. But years ago they could make huge iron blins. Or silver! Noble blins! Noble blin! No blin! NO BLIN! . . . . . . . ! ! ! ! ! ! ! . . . . . . It's an old factory transformed into a museum . . . . . . . Imagine you are in a hall called now A 1000 TONS HALL. Imagine a 1000 ton blin. A 1000 ton iron blin! . . . . . . Fantastic associations. Mad etymology. Troublemaking sound relations . . . . . . . But this is also a part of the notion blin . . . . . . . . What is a notion? It is something spongy, very soft, sticky, muddy, hands dipped in it like in a lump of dough, fingers smeared, can't feel anything . . . . . . . face smeared, eyes smeared . . . . . . . blind blin . . . . . . . . ears smeared and stuffed . . . . . . . mouth full, you can't breath . . . . . . . . . go out! go out! at once – get out – wash – clean - . . . . . . . . And I will go out, I will clean myself and being so clean what will I know about greasy, soft, clay-like Plasticine-like blin?





Why Norblin?
Because it is. I know where it is and I know how I can get into it. And I don't know where I can find a blin – nor I know how I could get into it. It's also important, that Norblin contains libro, it means “a book”, while there are no books in Dublin, Dęblin or Lublin. If a book is hidden in Norblin, there is nothing else to be done but find it. Looking for it will mean writing it. And if it is inside Norblin, it should be written inside Norblin. Or on Norblin. Literally – not metaphorically. On the walls, floor, pillars. Certainly not directly on them and not with spray or oil colours since it is a monument ...... I think of hanging on the walls transparent films and writing on them. Then the text will not cover images. Then the image will take part in telling the story having the same rights as the text ...... although I will see the wall through the text, but the text will all the time keep a certain distance to the image – the distance real and physical that can be measured in centimetres or inches – it's important, it's very important ....... I can write also on wide stripes of paper which will hang down from the wooden roof-truss thus forming additional walls and barriers, additional labyrinth, a structure that will either veil or unveil, make passages, tunnels, will guide the reading – well, should a reader be guided? should I suggest certain directions? or maybe I should let a reader move freely, grope and err, look for the exit ....... I will put different elements found on the walls: a lever-hieroglyph, a device-pictogram, half erased letters, signs, letters-fetters... in my text. I will be writing with colour chalks on the iron floor – what I will write will vanish slowly erased by the visitors' shoes, by the readers' shoes, by the reading shoes – well, it's interesting: this work will have to disappear and it will disappear, nothing will remain, maybe a few words somewhere in a distant corner . . . . . . . . And so on. Then such literalness will be the metaphor of entering the notion, of getting into the notion. So, I will also find myself in the metaphor . . . . . . . . And then I will have to leave this labyrinth. However, first I will have to get into it. And write everything in one go. Leave the space only when everything is written, it means when I get off the notion in which I have rushed . . . . . . . . The unity of writer's drama and main character's drama. The unity of time, place and action of describing and being described. The unity of the one who is writing and the one who is being described. So there will be neither the one who is writing nor the one who is being described. Who will be then? . . . . . . . . There will be no description, no describing, since writing itself will be action, drama, adventure – and the place of action, of this drama-adventure-event will be in fact my mind – the mind of the writing-and-described-one . . . . . . . then the plan of this old factory will be the plan of my mind . . . . . . a 3D model . . . . . a mock-up . . . . . . .
Well, well, it's getting intriguing.
And it should be warm.
What would it look like? I enter Norblin for example on June 1st and I leave it for example on June 10th. Norblin is transformed into Libro 2N. And then? Then Libro 2N must be transformed into Norblin. What will remain after cleaning? Almost nothing. That's good. Maybe a documentation: film, pictures, sketches. A trace in memory.
2N.
Neither – nor.
2 x nothing.
Nowakowski x Nowakowski.
I spent in The 1000 Ton Hall the first decade of June because I was to spend there just ten days.
The first day I was suspicious and careful.
The second day I was horrified.
The third day I wanted to run away.
The fourth day I discovered the reasons of my frustration and weakness, of chaotic running from one wall to another: it happened for the first time that a book I was writing was many times bigger than myself – until then I had always been many times bigger than a book – I could always easily crumple a sheet of paper and throw it away – now I could be crumpled and thrown away and this is what nearly happened -
The fifth and sixth day I was at home to print the impossible (or blinpossible) words on pages which were to form a streak of light across my head . . . . . . . . . .
The seventh day I was calm, maybe little bit dreamy.
The eighth day I was even delighted that what I was doing was almost ideally needless.
The ninth day nothing special happened, as usually, only the idea of a slide multinovel came to my mind, also absolutely needlessly.
The tenth day I resigned enthusiastically. What I created deserved to be labelled a sketch. I would have to spent in Norblin ten years to create something that would deserve to be considered a work completed to a large extent and made meticulously. Certainly it is not possible now. For various reasons. Mainly because I prefer to spend next ten years of my life somewhere else. Whereas it is highly probably that in next ten months a new book, again many times smaller than myself, will be completed, a book describing not only those ten days that shook nothing and nobody.























photo by Klara and Żuk Piwkowscy