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^I suppose that I should write my own comments in the margins. Not an easy task: my blog word processor only gives me the possibility of writing in the center. I should do a lot of different operations in order to be able to write along the margins. And even in that case, the result would not be the optimal.

I am still trying to create the questions I really want to ask. Namely, not what did they write in the margins, but rather why did they decide to write in the margins. There are many possible answers, like, for instance, the more ingenuous "they were available, whereas the center was already occupied by a text." Isn't that right? Well, yes, it is. Very much. But when they copied a certain manuscript with notes in the margins, they did not decide either to erase the notes nor to set them in the center, but to carefully set up the caodex so that it could have the right amount of room both for the text in the center and the text in the margins.

Early, they, the margins, became a place. And a specific one.

Now, let's read two books signed by Jacques Derrida. The first one, Marges de la Philosophie. The second one, the Circonfession written at the foot, in grey, in a different typography than it's "host" book, Geoffrey Bennington's Derridabase (we should probably read this set along with Derrida's Otobiographie -a biography through the ear-). What's hapening in the margins of these two (or three) books? Why these margins have been opened as a place where "something" is possible? What is it that is possible in the margins? I do not have answers to these questions, and this is the reason I wanted to ask them.

Instead, and only in order to start thinking about it, let's try, at least, to read the "contract" between Bennington and Derrida:

_{Ce livre suppose un contrat. Et le contrat, lui même établi ou stabilisé depuis un pari amical (défi, surenchère ou relance), a déterminé certaines règles de composition. G.B. a entrepris de décrire, selon les normes pédagogiques et logiques auxquelles il tient, sinon la totalité de la pensée de J.D., du moins le système général de cette pensée. Sachant qu'il devait y avoir du texte de J.D. dans le livre, il a cru bon de se passer de toute citation et de se limiter à une exposition vient de l'informatique: G.B. aurait voulu systematiser la pensée de J.D. au point d'en faire un logiciel interactif qui, malgré sa difficulté, serait en principe accessible à n'importe quel usager. Comme l'enjeu du travail de J.D. est de montrer en quoi un tel système doit rester essentiellement ouvert, cette entreprise était d'avance vouée à l'échec, et l'intérêt qu'elle peut avoir consiste à faire la preuve, à faire épreuve de cet échec. Pour démontrer la nécessité inéluctable de l'échec, notre contrat a voulu que J.D., ayant lu le texte de G.B., écrive à son tour quelque chose qui échappe à la systematisation ainsi proposée, qui la surprenne. Il va de soi que G.B. n'avait pas le droit, por essayer de rendre compte de ce nouveau texte, de refaire après coup son travail, qui, -se dit-il après coup, surpris- n'a été fait que pour provoquer et accueillir cette surprise. (p. 3)}

Pedagogy. Contract. Impossibility of the pedagogical system. The margins ask the center about the mere possibility of its being systematic. The center cannot change. Failure. These are some of the key words. Along with them: even the failure is worth a contract of voices.