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1. We Descend: Archives Pertaining to Egderus Scriptor, Volume Two

   Every writing addresses someone; this someone is often said to be the author's Ideal Reader. But "ideal" connotes a conceptualized, even perpetrated entity that is an entirely different creature from the real person one addresses when speaking. Now it may be useful to make this distinction in order to discuss, in the abstract, the *process* of writing, but the *practice* is wholly different: in writing anything, you address a real person, and, by addressing, conjure that person into your presence — the "materiality" of this being is, well, immaterial. When a real reader (in contrast to an ideal one) takes up an author's writing, she encounters not a voice speaking to *her*, or not to her directly: she comes in on a conversation already in progress, between the author and the person he is addressing in the writing. Given a sense of the occasion she has just joined, she will wisely keep still at first and pay attention, not just to the author's voice, but also to the silence of the other person listening to him at that moment. Thus she comes to know them both.

   Eric Dean Rasmussen - 14.06.2012 - 16:09