Topical Guide 180
Mark Dorset
Toys: Model Airplane: Piper Cub
Projects: Demanding
Projects: As the Transcendental Part of the Historical Spirit
I felt the dizzying happiness that I later felt when I turned round and round, guiding my gasoline-powered flying model Piper Cub in a wide circle at the end of its tether.
Little Follies, “Take the Long Way Home”
“Get back to the Presents.”
“There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths; … And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not to, would skate on Farmer Giles’ pond and did and drowned …”
“Go on the Useless Presents.”
“… Easy Hobbi-Games for Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! …”
The sense for projects‚—which could be called aphorisms of the future‚—differs from the sense for aphorisms of the past only in direction, progressive in the former and regressive in the latter. The essential thing is the ability to idealize and realize matters immediately and simultaneously, to complete them and carry them out partly within oneself. Since the word transcendental refers precisely to the unification and separation of the ideal and the real, one could easily say that the sense for aphorisms and projects is the transcendental part of the historical spirit.
Friedrich Schlegel, Literary Aphorisms
You can follow the building of flying model of a Piper Cub, step by step, on YouTube! (Ignore the ads for drones, body-building, and such.) The YouTube episodes follow the picture of a finished model and the detailed plans, below.
See also: Toys: Models: Ship Models TG 36
[more to come on Tuesday, January 25, 2022]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” and “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” the first six novellas in Little Follies.
You’ll find an overview of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.