Sir Thomas Browne was a Mason. Alfred Hitchock was undoubtedly a Mason. Tippi Hedrin is most likely a Mason. Of course, Andy Griffith is a Mason. Kevin Killian was a Mason, but has since converted, or been excommunicated, depending on whom you ask. Laird Hunt is a Grand Inspector, GrandMaster, or a Grand Director of the Ceremonies. Duncan Dobbelmann aspires to be a Mason, but cannot "pass the river." Haye Hinrichsen, whoever he may have been, must have been a Mason, "May thy soul attain to KHNUM." While Henry Gould out-Masons the Masons (he's a Rosicrucian) and the Editor owns a certain Encyclopedia of Freemasonry in which are described some certain "Magic Squares," the negative dialectician Theodor Adorno only now regrets...

"The same authority that was once excercised over tribal societies by cult art reappears in the guise of an immanent law of form in the most authentic products of autonomous art."—I was originally trying to locate the passage in Aesthetic Theory in which, I believe, Adorno contrasts meaningful dialectical analysis of the experience of art with the Masonic gestures of artists in mutual approval of their works but have had to rest satisfied with the quote above. What is negative dialectics after all?

"Magic itself, free of any claims to be real, is a facet of enlightenment: its illusion disenchants the disenchanted world. This is the dialectical ether in which contemporary art lives as best it can."—Welcome back to The Transcendental Friend. The journal has been redesigned, in part to make it a little more printer-friendly (try printing a page from your browser).

A new section, Rosetta, will present textual artifacts by individuals in moments of a lightness & lucidity so extreme that it twists into a kind of obdurate darkness. If only these texts were understood, would we have the key to Literature. Nil nisi clavis. Peter Constantine proffers a 1934 text by Haye Hinrichsen translated from the Hallig Friesian. Hinrichsen was apparently a prolific author. This is about all we can tell you about him, however.

Henry Gould, who earlier wrote on Vocation, and now offers an article on Labor in this issue's Critical Dictionary, is not really a Rosicrucian. He's a Mason.

Built around an excerpt from The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk and texts by Leonard Schwartz, Heather Ramsdell & Joe Eliott, Camille Guthrie provides this month's contribution to Mote. (The links in Pamuk's text allow you to maneuver among the various layers.)

The fabulous Bestiary, edited by Laird Hunt, features work by Dan Machlin, Sir Thomas Browne & Tim Atkins.

Duncan Dobbelmann's translations of two works by the Belgian Paul Van Ostaijen are featured in the Report from Afield. The second piece here should answer questions raised elsewhere in this issue.

Schizmata—works written for multiple voices—presents the first of three parts of a piece by Kevin Killian called "Cut," in which personages various & interesting appear.

(Jen Hofer's translations of three poems by poet Ana Belén López were slightly skewed in the last issue of the Friend, so we are offering them here in a new layout in an Errata section.)

This issue's Project features some Free Masonry.

Previous issues of The Transcendental Friend are available from the Files page.

For general and contact information turn to the Contact page. And if you haven't done so already, please take a moment to Subscribe to The Friend (it's free).

Garrett Kalleberg
B.D.W.P.H.G.S.