99: The New Meaning — Walter Abish

Fiction. Art. Five collage textswith six photographs by Cecile Abish. The five stories that make up 99: THE NEW MEANING are created entirely from fragments of other works. From Abish's introduction: "These works were undertaken in a playful spirit not actually 'written' but orchestrated. The fragmented narrative can be said to function as a kind of lure given the constraints, anything else would be beyond its scope. In using selected segments of published texts authored by others as the exclusive 'ready made' material for these five 'explorations, ' I wanted to probe certain familiar emotional configurations afresh, and arrive at an emotional content that is not mine by design."