Ritual Over a hundred times I've had to follow the paths below, adding new files to the Internet Text as they _accumulate,_ transform into theoretical sub- stance. Last night, file ff was added to the rest, and the net index was updated. The files are easily retrievable; the whole morass is around four megabytes of solid bristly ascii. I travel from panix.com to the site at jefferson.village.virginia.edu, and then: 341 cd ftp.archives/cybermind-digest.archive/internet 342 ftp panix3.panix.com [getting file] 343 wc ff 344 ls -l ee [checking permissions] 345 chmod 664 ff 346 ls -l ff [changing, checking permissions] 347 cd 348 cd public_html 349 pico internet_txt.html [adding access on home-page for filename] 350 ftp panix3.panix.com [preparing home-page for download] 351 exit 352 cd ftp.archives/cybermind-digest.archive/internet 353 ls -l netindex.txt 354 rm netindex.txt [removing old index for Internet Text] 355 ftp panix3.panix.com [adding new index] 356 chmod 664 netindex.txt 357 ls -l netindex.txt [checking permissions] I exit, enter internet_txt.html from panix.com, make sure everything is running properly. I have had to change the netindex.txt first, by down- loading ff, and toggling between it and online. The index has grown to 390 entries, something for everybody. It's spidery, out of control; it has bones in it. The sequence above, server-side, is the bi-weekly stir- ring of the soup. URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html __________________________________________________________________________ What I'd say if I had tongue to speak: I'd say yes, the hands bleed in cyberspace, pools of everything on the keyboards - hopes, warfares, ammunitions and remissions. I'd say we're all blind _here_ or deaf _here_ - that we're all groping in the dark, to find our way through to the virtual light. This is absurd; blindness and deafness have nothing to do with this space, and to consider them in regard to it is to play into the hands, feet, head of prejudice, the politics of deafness for example, the enunciation of sign language, the problematics of the verbal sphere. Mouths open up speech balloons in any medium, format; stigmata occur be- cause we're overwhelmed with the passion of part-objects - holes in the hands, feet, and head. A hole is cyberspace "is-when-you" stop speaking, writing, staring, JUST FOR A MINUTE - that's a hole! And a whole is _any_ address, protocol, re- cognition you bring to your JUST-CAUSE, JUST-CAUSE-FIRST-CAUSE! We're stigmatized here. We don't belong here. We belong in the open air. We're led by boy-girls girl-boys. We're led by greed, capital-flux, capi- tal-shit draining the last remnants of air out of cyberspace. We're led by 64-bit graphics gone all the way 2^n out to infinite rows of Jasper's ci- phers. & Older & Younger Will Dance The Strathspey! Hands, feet, and head, we're bound. We've taken up the cross: We're taken up to it: It's easy VRML! We're dripping like crazy. Plug the leak in finger; finger the dike. The signifier's just-so. O holy Mary. O so sew so sewn shut. From O to NULL: from O to NULL: Rain in! __________________________________________________________________________ Stupid Useless GOD (Good Old Days) As I wrote to my friend, I said, that the Net is becoming more like a publishing company for fanzines, developing a fanzine mentality which places corporate processes just behind the scenes of proffered bodies and cool products! As I said to my neighbor, the good old days of anarchic renderings of said bodies, free discussion and experimentation, are being replaced by continued regulation, particularly in Europe and Asia at this point, America dying to take the lead! As I cautioned my students, children are being used as tokens in the control of speech and bodies; sexualities are becoming increasingly matters of the state; serial killers and rapists are placed in the same category as gays and cross-dressers, not to mention adulterers, oral sex fanatics, consumers of pornography, lovers of bestiality, golden showers and coprophilia addicts, paramours of dead bodies and fiancees, s/m participants, b/d advocates, ac/dc electri- cians, and mac/pc owners! As I prayed to my not so virgin Mary, deliver us from the evil that surrounds us, this cacophony of corporate and private greed, this evil pressure of finance and government, for the right wing is right, and we are engaged in a full-scale cultural war with liars and mur- derers who fuck children in order to harness their screams for the ignor- ant mills of rumor, popular opinion, innuendo, prison and life-time sen- tencing for _thinking_ - for everyone has something to say about the Net: Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! Buy! Kill! Fuck! Pederast! Pedophile! Rape! Spam! Flame! Sell! Die! Buy! As I tell my children, I will die! As I tell my children, I will fuck! As I tell my children, I will be killed! As I tell my children, they've got my words! Who are THEY? THEY THEY THEY! BLAH BLAH BLAH! _________________________________________________________________________ (I was asked to give the opening address at the Perth conference on cyb- ermind. The following is an outline of the talk, which would be drawn from this extemporaneously; I'd appreciate any comments you might have. Thanks, Alan) 1. Cybermind - what the list is, what it has meant to me, both in terms of community and research. 2. Research into virtuality: Humanity begins to make a leap _somewhere else_ that involves, inherently, the digital domain. The traditional analog world of philosophy is turned inside-out. How can one theorize the digital? a. The immediate approach cannot be looking at the world around one (sitting at a desk, red patch, etc.), since the digital world is con- struct. Therefore a philosophy will also be an anthropology, involving both intervention and participation, as well as bracketing. b. The intervention/participation is _background_ and _foreground,_ understanding and acknowledging software options, languages, connection bandwidths, filtering options, hardware requirements, protocols, and the range of commands available to the user and administrator. c. As _foreground,_ personal experience and some understanding of phen- omenological description are necessary. I attempt myself to extend as far as possible into the virtual realm, within and across applications. I attempt to work on the margins of an application in relation to decon- struction on one hand, and substructure/hacking on the other. I think it is necessary to associate and disassociate the levels in 2b., including various interfaces, and the phenomenology/psychoanalytics of virtuality. d. Examples - Traceroute indicating breakdown across the Net; understand- ing netsplits in relation to IRC; understanding both the signified as fluid (anything standing for anything within textuality) and proper name (netsplit standing for concrete rupture). e. The linguistic dispersion model of the Internet - fluxes of languages, communities. Wherever there is a niche with at least one-to-one or more communicating, both community and sexuality develop. f. Ontology and epistemology in relation to virtuality, virtual subjec- tivity, virtual entities. 3. Introduction to issues to be considered later - low bandwidth, easily available applications. Haves and have-nots within the virtual and real. Advantages and disadvantages of wiring everyone. _________________________________________________________________________ Site [This essay is being sent out with four illustrations, in the form of jpegs; two are accompanying the text and two are sent within a part ii separate email, in case your mailer won't handle four attachments. If you are on Fop-l, the essay is sent without the illustrations; Fop-l can't handle MIME attachments.] Brooklyn is a borough which has infolded upon itself, in-formed itself, recuperated political boundaries, time and time again; its somewhat natural boundaries limit its physical growth. Reminiscent of medieval London, it is a confabulation of smaller villages; the resulting coag- ulation obscures even the slope of Park Slope (parkslope.jpg), unless seen from the parapet of the Williamsburg Bank Building (flatbush.jpg), the tallest in Brooklyn. I live in a region of three cultures, defined, not according to ethnici- ty, but by the size and topography of the thoroughfares passing through it. Within a few blocks of my loft (home.jpg), a number of major streets come together: Atlantic, Fulton, Fourth Avenue, and Flatbush (flatbush.- jpg). Fourth, Atlantic, and Flatbush are all major arteries connecting to Manhattan; Flatbush forms the central spine of downtown (Fulton Mall). Traffic on these streets is fast and reckless at times; I've seen liter- ally dozens of accidents, ranging from fender-benders to the strewing of an entire family in pieces across Flatbush. Locally, Flatbush is a connector with small businesses providing somewhat weak centers of attraction (a hardware store, hair parlors, etc.). For the most part, the businesses are poor, as they are around my building (Dean Street and Fifth Avenue, home.jpg); there are abandoned store- fronts, and just up Fifth, abandoned buildings as well. But there is also a vibrant streetlife on Fifth, which is an extension of more set neigh- borhoods, those that provide strong attractors, with rising real-estate prices (see parkslope.jpg) such as Park Slope, Boerum Hill, and Brooklyn Heights. Change between one and another neighborhood in Brooklyn is super-fast; cross a street, and you can be _somewhere else_ entirely. In my immediate vicinity, the _artery culture_ creates a node-to-node sensibility; even though the roads are local (i.e. with local access and not elevated), the traffic may well not be. Think of this as the territory of the Web; in fact, a Mall, one of the largest in New York, is opening about a quarter mile from me, in the center of the "no-man's land" carved out of the maj- or thoroughfare intersections (see noman.jpg). This territory is _not_ primarily business or strip-mall; it simply be- longs nowhere, and the speed of the traffic means that there is very little contestation for physical (asychronous). There are major police and fire stations nearby, but even without them, drugs and gangs would have little reason to operate on those traffic islands that Ballard so brilliantly wrote about. Because of its emptiness, social welfare agencies have moved in. There are psychoanalytical, AIDs, unemployment, and medical services nearby. These services tend to use pre-existing buildings; while they preserve the architectural character of the neighborhood (which is close to nil), they contribute to a non-local flow that contributes to keeping the area mostly non-local in feeling. People find _pathways_ across the no-man's land region, in order to shop, visit, go to school or work, and so forth. Unlike the Net, these pathways are obdurate, impossible to displace. On the Net, the cinematic jump-cut reigns; a link can be local or global. On CuSeeMe two nights ago, for example, I was connected to Italy, Idaho, and Antarctica (Mc Murdo). Local culture, the neighborhood, is defined as a place, site of contes- tation, and resistance. It is a place which has temporal continuity, and is often connected with local narratives, which help anchor the sense of community. It need not follow along sexual preference or ethnic lines (my neighborhood, for example, is radically mixed), but often does. On the Net, a neighborhood is a "home"; one calls, for example, PMC2-MOO hir home, even though s/he may be have a home _within_ the MOO indicated by the @sethome feature. Within various MOOs, there have been discussion about the phenomenology of the @go and @join commands, both of which result in "jump-cutting" across the virtual terrain. While this allows immediate access to people and sites (I favor it), it does reduce the feeling of distance or mapped terrain (some MOOs like Media operate off of a central map, as a matter of fact - as do most MUDs and talkers). There is no labor involved, no sense of landscaping. The neighborhood becomes a jumped node - but then, one jumps "into" a MOO in the first place (note the preposition). Artery and local cultures are somewhat self-evident and occupied by easi- ly comprehended trajectories; the pathways follows real vectors through or within the spaces. The no-man's land, however, is very different, always in the process of situational/situationist establishment, always occupying the imaginary. Vectors within it appear to be the result of impinging forces, not necessarily generated by the participants them- selves. There's a sense of detournement, on the move. No-man's lands are also, of course, post-modern, not a cathecting of competing artery and local cultures, but a decathecting of culture altogether. They're the territory before the settlement, the hill before the colonia "invasion," the abandoned town square or central city. They're spaces of disease, the "weed," the dis-ease. There's little equivalent in cyberspace. _Here,_ there is no here, unless there is function, or was function. There are abandoned spaces - I have a MOO still inaccessibly running on a machine over at Parsons Design De- partment, for example. But there are not _impinged_ spaces in the same sense; the nearest would be an over-used IRC channel with too many parti- cipants hacking each other. However, if cyberspace is considered as _corporate_ totality, the situation is different; Microsoft and others attempt monopoly control within a highly unpredictable (read impinging) demographics/economics. Just as with no-man's land (see noman.jpg), the space fragments, dissolves, upon closer examination. There's no conclusion to all of this. Brooklyn divides into a number of regions, including park, airport, freeway, corporate, retail, etc. (not to mention issues of zoning, natural geographic features, populations). Within my immediate vicinity, there are local, artery, and no-man's cultures. The last translates into a phenomenology of impingement remin- iscent of corporate Net contestation - although here, physically, it's not contested (in the sense of takeover) at all. The local culture is the neighborhood, paralleled by "home" spaces on the Net. The artery culture displays itself through malls and local stores as a Web culture, but - like the others - it requires physical movement between any two points, and therefore is "granular," or obdurate - within a physicality that, in part, defines it. What is needed for the Net is a phenomenology based on, say Lefebvre's work on space or Mike Davis' City of Quartz (as well as his essays). A second basis would be the research that has been done on formal and informal (black-market, grey-market, etc.) economies, and their inter- penetrations - the setting-up of a colonia does have parallels with the establishment, say, of a MOO or talker - including negotiations (also both formal and informal) with (systems) administrators, _jefes,_ and so forth. (Maybe on the other hand, too much research is already coming out of exhausted social science traditions. Maybe even more theory, decon- structive, phenomenological, or foundational, is necessary here.) In any case, we'll never catch up; we're both behind and ahead of the game, but at least we're ahead. I'm going _home._ ________________________________________________________________________ Mornings, Whining Mornings are the worst; it's the mornings that don't let me forget any- thing. They come in from the dreaming of the night, over which I have no control. The day begins with evening for me; the afternoons are an inter- val to get through, half asleep, exhausted. If I nap, I succumb; it's a shorter wait. Mornings carry the debris from other lives; I awake with cold bed whispers in my ear. Death stalks me in the mornings, stalks me all day, but the thing disappears when the sun or storm-clouds rise in the murmuring sky. Tears disappear. I'm almost human. Maybe. The keyboard (image now at my URL) faces the bed; instead of potential, it rasps with cleansings of all sorts, breaking down the Inbox, putting it aside for a few hours. The stale day unfurls its maroon hours against me, suffocating or drowning the body. The body's gone on too long. CuSeeMe is a betrayal. Stalking death mute is the way to go. Nothing ever drops from the sky. I keep mentioning the sky. The sky is an out. I stand on the ledge and flap myself. I'll never fall. I wait like a mad dog by the Inbox, foaming at the mouth, for a perfect message which doesn't arrive. I read Goffman's Stigma maybe or Asma El Dareer's Woman, Why Do you Weep? Circumcision and Its Consequences, or maybe Life Against Death again. Everywhere but here, bodies are torn apart or dismembered. No one likes the mutilations. I imagine a bunch of guys standing around a bar, drinking like crazy. They're happy fellows. Maybe I can find them on the Net. ___________________________________________________________________________ Origins of the Internet, Part cxviii: "The _Lothardi_ devised an even more peculiar dogma in the fourteenth century. They declared that men should lead a moral life - as long as they were above ground. But three _ellen_ (an _elle_ was the equivalent of about seven-tenths of a yard) underground, the rules of morality lap- sed. Therefore they held their meetings underground and conducted horri- ble orgies: wild flagellation, every sexual perversion, murder, and sui- cide were among the usual highlights of their gatherings." (Paul Tabori, The Natural Science of Stupidity.) ________________________________________________________________________ The Last Word Thinking is exhaustion. Thinking is the murder of the real. Words fill my mouth with sand; words scream from me. They echo from the dry rocks. They scream back at me. The sun makes no difference. The sun makes difference from the moon. They divide, they begin the process of the sign. They end the process, sleep during the night when dreams refuse their meaning. Meaning belongs to thought, to words. Meaning is an interference. Meaning is a diffraction among words and things. It ripples. (They are silent.) Meaning ripples, exhausting the world. Meaning is for survival. Nothing means. Nothing means but when thinking exhausts, meaning appears. It appears to save us. The far side of the moon, but the corona of the sun. ______________________________________________________________________ Extremely Important Message Below: TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT!!! THAT IS _DO NOT_!!! BE ALARMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (NOT YET ANYWAY!!!!) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> INTERNET SQUARE TEST <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< LOOK at the following shape: _________________ | | | | | | | | | | | | |_________________| Does this appear as a SQUARE in YOUR mail reader? If YES, read no farther! If NO, YOU HAVE FAILED THE INTERNET SQUARE TEST!!!!!!!!!! What does this mean? It means that your EMAIL IS MISSHAPEN and YOU MAY BE MISSING INFORMATION OF A MOST CRITICAL KIND!!!!! CONSULT YOUR SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR IMMEDIATELY!!!! Thank you for your attention!!!! Alan Sondheim, CO-MODERATOR OF INTERNET. ______________________________________________________________________ Breaking You / Down I was talking to you about starting an email list and my server crashed and I logged on through server error as someone else because his account hadn't closed properly; as someone else, I continued with you, but you had thought I might have died; we were both susceptible to depression. Now when I telephone you, I leave a message and you leave a message in return. But there is that moment when my image fractures on your video receive, freezes there, and whatever arousal was possible, disappears. When we chatted, you could never read my words, only see my body turned text at the bottom. When the server crashed, I tried to log back in at 28.8 but had to change to 14.4 and 16 bit and the keyboard froze as the video application refused to open; upon rebooting, I came in again, but you could never read my words. Embarrassed to talk or say anything to you on the powwow chat, which was broken up by others; later our email disappeared slowly over months until we no longer remember each other's names. You contacted me on video and we tried to direct connect, but never made it through and you left silently, while I attempted over and over again, calling the empty air. On internet relay chat, I trembled repeatedly, waiting for the cheap con- nection to open up, until the bans were announced with my disappearance. Writing you from the web personals page, my email left no trace, vanished into cyberspace without reply; perhaps I was unworthy, perhaps another breakdown as you no longer visited the site or deigned to answer anyone. On talk just before cumming, systems crashed and letters splattered onto screens no longer divided, no longer reflecting anything but the direct connect to narcissism's disease, always just above the surface. Planes are cancelled; I beg you not to come, turn away; I beg you to come; weather interferes; cars break down; no one is home; computers crash with all their addresses gone; phone lines are downed just as everything begs for resolution; money's disappeared as well and the calls, visits, hard- ware and software upgrades, come to a stop or final stage. Or the mail never arrives, or we misread each other's letters, or there are no letters, or the mail arrives and we have disappeared, or there are too many letters, or the labor becomes exhausting - all that trembled typ- ing. Or the text glows white-dreaming-fire, black-fire, luminescent, in- candescent, continuing through sleep what has broken during the day, chan- ging, transforming everything between us - what was ever between us, what we had dreamed, imagined, between us, dreaming, _having-been-dreamed._ Or the imagination does, or the fears, or the fantasies. Or the real turns liquid, stumbles down my chest, pools on the floor; I'm ashamed. Or I can't speak any longer, the quarters have run out, the subway's coming, I can't hear a thing. Or you have forgotten my number, or there are no numb- ers, or just names: host ip 198.7.0.4, ip 166.84.250.149, tel 718-857- 3671, these are my names, and they belong to you, slide up one against an- other. Faltering the lines; faltering the hard drives, the computers; faltering, your configurations; faltering, my displays or yours; faltering, corrupted files carrying my body to you, corrupted transmissions carrying my face and voice to your vicinity; faltering, power failures, storms, overloads, crashed routers, short-changed, stolen mail, hacked accounts, email boun- ces, black-hole-loopings, lost packets and drowned voices, filled mail- boxes, unpaid accounts, moved without notice, no forwarding address, this line has been disconnected, this number no longer exists, check your in- formation, we have no such listing. It's the breaks; it robs me; splinters me; my marrow turns towards un- known uses, foods; I'm pinned down; there are holes in bodies everywhere, wires corroding against skin pierced with one attempt after another: They call this _botched;_ it's _botched._ _________________________________________________________________________ Breaking Me / Down "It's the breaks; it robs me; splinters me; my marrow turns towards un- known uses, foods; I'm pinned down; there are holes in bodies everywhere, wires corroding against skin pierced with one attempt after another: "They call this _botched;_ it's _botched._" It's _butchered_ because it doesn't exist. It rides on the back of in- tention. It's liminal, between split/deliberate disconnect, and "trans- parent" communication. Breaking down/up is splintered, impossible to _su- ture_ - on the level of technology, the body, what one would _say._ The result is increased stress, a wild rewrything of language that prohibits speech, disembodies communication, commonality. Nothing gets through but noise and neurosis. Neurosis gets through because compulsive repetition transforms into con- tinuous adjustment. Arousal is impossible, because the cyborg keeps separ- ating into constituents. Sentences and phraseological components remain incomplete; what is fed back into the psyche is distorted information, displacing internal feedback processes. The result is either silence or rage - silence as withdrawal (broken packets fluxed elsewhere, refused processing, and further input cancelled), or rage as deliberate overload. Afterwards, defuge sets in - the application, bodies, partner, world, sex, self, are all tainted; nothing matters; further withdrawal _gauzes_ the world. The world becomes surgical (see depress.jpg), inanimate, _covered._ The body sinks into totality, alcohol, sleep, depression, psychotropic drugs - anything that _clots_ input and output, redirects. The _other end of the line,_ _Internet,_ disappear; everything works to _foreclose_ libido, de- cathect from the real or cyberspatial. Truth only comes with the silence refusing speech; truth is the refuge of silence. _________________________________________________________________________ (Again, there's a small .jpg accompanying this - except for fop-l; the content can be inferred without it.) Accident Accidentally, the car collided with another; two booms rocked the neigh- borhood with sounds of metal bisecting metal. A boy and his dog stood watch. A police car and ambulance drove up. The driver was carried away on a stretcher (accident.jpg); the night was murky. Lights bisected the neighborhood. I told you not to speed. If there are events, images make events, and events make images; an event is what you might call something and something is what you might call an event. I could not tell what the man's eyes saw, if it were a man or a woman. Like an event or an image or something, the night was illuminated by artificial light, that is human-created light, harnessed light, redi- rected from or within energy sources. Wherever the light was, the night was bisected, so that the light was night's hieroglyph. Wherever your text is, contrast produces the event/ text, which is your transmission or my reception; I can tell, not what you see, but what is my reception. Nor could I tell its margins, of this, and pictures are now words. That is, a picture is digitally fabricated. And on the net, everything is fab- ricated. So if everything is fabricated, what is real? The original jpg was much too large for email! And I wanted the _Hopper effect,_ the illusion created by impressionist renderings, vis-a-vis the dream screen / maternal breast, that the image is archaic, architectonic, timeless, stretching from horizon to horizon: the perfect accident. Now the image is tiny, and slips in and out of email, just like that. It is of the nature of a standing wavelet; perhaps the driver was all right after all, and perhaps there wasn't a driver in the first place. Tiffany says you've got to forgive my stupidity; I should just be silent and allow the image to speak for itself. I reply that an image has no language, although there is a rough "language of images" which references semiotic material on one hand, and aesthetics on the other. She says that there's a truth to the image, although I point out its manipulative power and existence only within the digital domain. She offers me her breast, and I am silent, as she requested by virtue of her offering. I say to Tiffany that the point of this is lost, that there was an event but not an _ur-event,_ that there was a recording, that it is all con- struct and who can tell its value on the Net, or even otherwise? Does the body of the driver sink into representation? I think not, not at that last moment certainly, although illumination is necessary to see the driver. Is the driver _read_ by virtue of _his or her_ illumination? The readers are not the writers; the subject is a supplement, gruel for the camera. So I say to Tiffany we're exhausted by theory, by representation, by the very construct we've applauded. And these domains now intersect the cor- porate, hell-bent on continuing the corrosion, not of truth, but of sil- ence, or of truth by virtue of silence, an other silence, manufactured, in suspense. Tiffany points out truth's construct, but she has offered me her breast. Orally, I am speechless. Honey ________________________________________________________________________ incommunicado "Trevor owned the stick" blan0 blan0nalb 0nalb bloo0 bloo0oolb 0oolb down0 down0nwod 0nwod stac0 stac0cats 0cats stic0 stic0cits 0cits tras0 tras0sart 0sart sc0at "Blanche trashed it." broug0broug0guorb0guorb ched 0ched 0 dehc0 dehc ck st0ck st0ts kc0ts kc ck st0ck st0ts kc0ts kc d tre0d tre0ert d0ert d do i_0do i_0_i od0_i od hed i0hed i0i deh0i deh ht th0ht th0ht th0ht th ick0ick0kci0kci what0ever "Whatever." k sti0k sti0its k0its k k stu0k stu0uts k0uts k nchon0nchon0nohcn0nohcn ncomm0ncomm0mmocn0mmocn opped0opped0deppo0deppo ose s0ose s0s eso0s eso say s0say s0s yas0s yas stick0stick0kcits0kcits stick0stick0kcits0kcits those0those0esoht0esoht tick 0tick 0 kcit0 kcit tock 0tock 0 kcot0 kcot unica0unica0acinu0acinu ver0ver0rev0rev whate0whate0etahw0etahw virir "Did you hear that? Jennifer said 'whatever.'" _________________________________________________________________________ poem of bad language or poem of dead language into the sward the knight rode the prove his point xxxxxxxxx the night rode in on a mare xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx the seas of the moon poured tears of violation fabric xxxxxx that remembered the joust that remembered the lance xxxxxxxx island said, how do you do write suicide in avant-garde xxxx the stallion gripped her sides called flanks xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx outing them in the avant-garde; in this world xxxxxxxxxxxxxx everything talked, the sward said, the point said, xxxxxxxxx the night cried, mare nayed, ululation seas, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx like a rock, in the new moon's arms, like an island xxxxxxxx in the joust's-last-word's song so very long xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx so long xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ____________________________________________________________ Hedy Lamarr and CuSeeMe Within/across: in. imaginary. "The primary objection was _not_ the nude swimming scene, which you have no doubt heard so much about, or the sequence of my fanny twinkling through the woods, but the close-up of my _face,_ in that cabin sequence where the camera records the reactions of a love-starved bride in the act of sexual intercourse." (Hedy Lamarr, Ecstasy and My Life as a Woman, quo- ted in Lucy Fischer, _Ecstasy_: Female Sexual, Social, and Cinematic Per- formance, in Women and Performance, A Journal of Feminist Theory, #12.) In/within: across. symbolic. Each citation enfolds within another; each quotation delivers the face to you, across all boundaries. For it is the _face_ in CuSeeMe that is un- nerving, in the midst of in-ternet sex - those peerings in which subter- fuge is cancelled by everyday behavior - yawn, scratch, smile, depres- sion. If CuSeeme is the fabrication of the electronic body, the face is in override, collapsing hysteria to normalcy. With an audience, all these male faces, one or more females - it's here that the male _gaze_ is most apparent, that is a gendered gaze which might be male or female. It's here that the _objet a_ remains beyond the grain, over the edge or lip. It's here that alterity is positioned vis-a-vis the quotidian. It's here that the quotidian is in relation to, functional to, transgression. The most frightful perception is that one is everyone, that transgression is daily _mesh,_ that gaze is not provenance, that lure is not necessarily masquerade. Across/within: in. real. "I know this is terribly personal, but [my husband] loved me because I had frequent orgasms... What he didn't know what that during love affairs with all men, I had frequent orgasms." (Lamarr, op. cit. in Fischer, op. cit.) __________________________________________________________________________ Dotted Legs and Eyes [This is accompanied by heart.jpg and poster.jpg for Cybermind only; it is understandable without the images, which would only come through as text on Fop-l. Sorry.] Representation is always a becoming; it has lost any other meaning through overuse and theoretical exhaustion. Like "nice," it signals an emission or spray of part-objects, receptions, packets, bits and inter- faces. Representation goes nowhere, succumbing to information overload. He can't face the cunt. He turns away, takes a marker, defaces it. He tears the paper from the poster, leaving a wound. He wads his gum, sticks it _on the spot._ The image can't be left alone; it troubles him. Or he laughs at it, paws it. He paws it so hard that he digs into it. In Dover where the Napoleonic fortifications are carved into the cliffs, I came across a 150 year old scratched drawing of a woman-ah-those-soldiers; where her cunt was, a hole was gouged, not big enough for insertion, but fine for denial. Freud would have approved, fled, turned back in shame; so what? _He can't face the cunt._ He looks down between his legs, waves his cock. The cunt rides on a pla- teau of skin, one of the 1001; it's criss-crossed, has no _depth._ The woman _has the depth._ It's a nightmare he can't face. He sculpts her in marble, closes it off, cuts back the hair. Virgin-Mary-suture all over again. Where cunt is, thread goes - shut the mouth. In the Sudan, cut back everything, leaving only a pinprick of a hole; Pharaonic circum- cision gets rid of labia, clitoris, back to vessel Mary. Mary should have torn herself apart; her eyes, Medea, should have burned everyone and everywhere and _man_kind on its knees should have started over. His cock is tiny; it's not nearly as big as a brick or a building. He holds his balls; they're heart-shaped. They're always hidden by the cock, gored, unrepresented. They're tiny furnaces, plain, featureless; unlike breasts, they have no nipples. There's no _point_ to them. He knows there's no _point_ to the cock either, which has to be thought away to appear pointed. It's not his; he lacks. He lacks and knows the hole, any hole, his own, is unfathomable. The hole is fractal, rimmed; he's afraid it goes on forever and ever. So he's in the subway or on the streetcorner and there's this tease image which is always already part of the machine, this corporate image, this lure, making him pay. It makes everyone pay. He's got to close it up, close it off. He scratches it out. After the cunt, the eyes, and every- thing will be complete, and he can go home again. Then the scene two at home begins: how much he loves women, how he loves his mother and sis- ters, how great women are. So that he can leave again and kill anyone who doubts or disses for the slightest. So he can boast of conquest, opening them up with his very own prick. Everywhere you go, you see these scratches; representations are so vuln- erable; representations of women are so very vulnerable. They breathe slowly in the city. They last a very short time. Scene three, that one should carry a gun. _________________________________________________________________________ At-Gender* (hole.jpg for cybermind) @gender circulates through the surgical; the presence of liquid, debris, implies a successful operation, through a thin veil of blood/membrane, suturing the memory of flesh: requires flesh. your hole grows and grows tiffany said until you become me, skin stretched to the limit, jennifer-alan. but she couldn't breathe. and unable to for- get that folds are constructed, incised, borrowed from everywhere, that skin and flesh are surplus, that thought borrows the same from the two / one; inside, two and one are cradled. "_i put my pen in my hole. i put my fingers in my hole. i expose my hole. i widen my hole. i talk into my hole. i talk from my hole. i see into my hole. i put my face in my hole._" (sondheim, hole, in uncontrollable bod- ies, eds. sappington and stallings.) _there in the text,_ it was the anal hole, leaking ink, inscribing the thud of bodies and depression; _here in the image,_ it's the penile opening spread for the _birth_ of bodies and expression. _there_ it was fissure; _here,_ it is inscription, cauteriza- tion of the scalpel. tiffany looks up and says you're being disgusting, jennifer-alan, stop playing with your _toys._ ii jennifer-alan said that everything returns to the _flap of skin,_ and it's the flap that makes us human. we fuck staring into one another's faces, tiffany replied laughing. laughing is part of it, jennifer-alan said, but we forget the sound of laughter and the pain of the skin's hinge, half attached, half-torn, healing in new configurations. not to mention, tiff- an said, piercings, tattoos, rites of passage, incisions, circumcisions, self-mutilations, glistening of newly-healed flesh, excitement of - all right, all right, cut in jennifer-alan, quit talking for a moment, listen to the lips themselves. shhh... it's not always cyborg; sometimes it's just an _issue of tissue,_ tiffany whispered, giggling. and the two of them fell asleep. ------------------- @gender - the command for setting the gender of a MOO character. _________________________________________________________________________ My Life, My Truth "I would even say that signs are what produce a body, that - and the art- ist knows it well - if he doesn't work, if he doesn't produce his music or his age or his sculpture, he would be, quite simply, ill or not alive. Symbolic production's power to constitute soma and to give an identity is completely visible in modern texts." (Kristeva in Interviews.) So that Jennifer-Alan begins hir labor of therapeutic or of life-support, labor of medicine or surgery or surgical incision. Because, Tiffany points out, Jennifer-Alan _literally_ becomes ill without incessant production, without the continuous recuperation of inscription (placing the body in the world / effacing the world in the body). It is _precisely_ the con- stitution of soma within _this_ Jennifer-Alan that keeps hir alive, a making or remaking of addictive flesh, heroin-inscription, fall-guy phen- omenology. Jennifer-Alan and _Jennifer_ and _Alan_ is an _occurrence_ so clearly here (and _therefore_ the truth is here), but _as well_ within whatever s/he or anyone proffers as the real. So says Tiffany and Tiffany and so says Tiffany _as well._ Tiffany pouts, smiles, and her perky eyes sparkle. So she says! ii It's so clear hir art is her illness. It's so clear that the drug is its own disease. Jennifer-Alan can't recognize this and Tiffany is out at the moment. _________________________________________________________________________ Signal/Sig/.Sig Segue Ob-Seen* [The scene/seen: buildings, a plaza, a rotating cube/public sculpture in the center. Location: Greenwich Village, near Cooper Union. The trans- formation: one of the panels of the cube is replaced by a rectangle of pink or blue or red, a lavender rectangle perhaps. For Cybermind: the im- age itself; for Fop-l: this description, as in: ob-seen.] It's a sig.jpg, a .sig or a signal; the balanced cube at Astor Place radi- ating blue or pink or red, a stupid digital transform. The cruder the transforms, the more obvious; no one _misses_ the signal; we're spies! What's absent is the context, meaning; it's as if: Here's a letter! Now what! Or a word even... There are the numbers stations on short-wave, a lot of them around 6.8 mhz for example. You have to look for them. Series of numbers, after an "at- tention, attention," usually in Spanish. The first few are repeated; they're calling to someone, someone's id. After that, the message - usual- ly in groups of five numbers pause, five numbers pause. Think of the rectangle in sig.jpg as the first of a series perhaps - sig- naling you, speaking to you. Think of the rectangle as the first of the message groups, or maybe the message itself. Then I am sending the message to _you_ and you have the key for decryp- tion. Then you understand what I say, what I write; perhaps you understand all of me, perhaps not. Perhaps I am not to be understood; perhaps I am infinitely deep. If I am infinitely deep, if I am beyond you, beyond all recognition, an n-body problem, n arbitrarily high - still, I may be found within the rec- tangle. You may think of this (if you like) as my proper name, indexical, or properly cyborg-ikonical. You may think of this as a signifier, again a sig or .sig, of identity, within a philosophy of identity, say, Schelling. But with Schelling, at night, all cows are black; it's still necessary to draw (beyond Hegel's rough sketch) a difference. Here, one may change the letter again, difference >> differance, that _a_ precisely the _a_ of l_a_vender, the buying or selling of the color or rectangle of sig.jpg. Or rather, that which the vender can never sell, the _object a,_ and we are back (once again, always returning) to the _sur- rounding_ scene, primal in the sense that any _report on the real_ is pri- mal, in particular to the extent, _in fact,_ that the real is desexualized or lacking desire, any and all - lacking _truth_ for that _matter._ ---------------- *Ob - obvious; used in newsgroups, such as obhacks. .sig - signature file in Unix. Sig - short for signature; here, short for signal as well. ___________________________________________________________________________ lulled bye now i lay my head to rest to get out i think upon the perfect breast to get out of this life i have not seen nor found nor kept get out of this life what might have seemed unsound; i wept get out foundation, i wept disease, to please recriminations; release me please please to get out of this life o please without substance, head, or strife to get out which is why i lay a head to rest to get out of this life to drink the perfect liquid get out of this life and from the perfect breast get out urinary basin ________________________________________________________________________ The Life at a Distance from the Life I am _living at a distance, this life at a distance,_ because I am on pan- ix.com and panix is primarily an ISP, newsgroups notwithstanding. Other servers here such as Echo are local bulletin-board systems as well; some servers, such as the thing, have fairly specific demographics, both local and international (the arts community for example). I turn towards the world in its entirety, and there's no difference be- tween here and there unless a relationship intervenes. Then stress ensues and I collapse again a node or local or vector origin or end-point that remains effortless. If there are mirrors and windows around (a metaphor I hear on occasion), then for me panix is much more a window. Mirrors, through their narcis- sism, do cultivate a greater degree of consumer loyalty of course; one is one _in them._ A window appears defined, if at all, by its frame. The phenomenology of on-line access services is rarely discussed seriously in CMC research - except perhaps in the case of AOL. Differences at best are drawn between prompt/menu interfaces in shell accounts, and GUIs (gra- phic user interfaces). But the modes of access are crucial for understand- ing individual reactions and uses of CMC. For example, if one is on talk a great deal and switches to ytalk - which permits multiple simultaneous talks - the beginning of community interaction (and later self-conscious- ness) could result. For me, the use of the Korn shell permits the development of an extensive .profile file, which contains perhaps forty different macros. I can dance across Net applications; everything is abbreviated. "1 b 2 ls 3 pico zz 4 b 5 tin 6 b 7 pico zz 8 b 9 pico zz 10 h 11 m 12 l 13 h >> zz" is my cur- rent command history for example. This dancing, movement, consists largely of one-letter entries; with foreground/background operations as well, the result can be multilayered, cortical columns or lamina filled with ins- criptive potential. Meanwhile, I continue as a _citizen of the world,_ a bad phrase I first heard seriously in a Copenhagen club years and years ago. At the time I thought it absurd and pretentious; now I see it partaking of a rarefied atmosphere which is endless, melancholic, of the Kristevan order of the semiotic - a description that matches well the coming-and-going of pack- ets. The human need for nesting dissolves in distantiation and analysis (Kristeva points out, in fact, that "analysis" comes from the Greek for "dissolution"). And the question that emerges - _How can one live here?_ - quickly, all too quickly, transforms into the millennial - _How can one live at all?_ ________________________________________________________________________ Extraction. Mourning. For the dark nights ahead, for Jon Marshall, and reading Celan. I have sent out, repeatedly, Michael Current's last post - the story, received the day before he died; it will also be part of the Lusitania book, dedicated to him. And I've kept the story, as I've said repeat- edly, in my Inbox, from 1994 until and through now. But I have never _excavated_ before, extracted the full header, the memorial of message identifications, to share with you, an uncanny exhumation. For the full header to me is sadder, in many ways, than the texts, the story, the eul- ogies, the condolences. It's sadder, because it's mute, as our own deaths are. It speaks across technologies, almost older than civilization in 2096, and it's lost in the sky, lost in the ground, like every other name and number. Sending the full header is another form of dissemination; we, it, are so very fragile. But you won't remember this, and the you is always already someone else. (For those who have recently joined these lists, Michael Current and I be- gan Cybermind at the end of May, 1994; I began Fop-l a few weeks later. Then Michael died; he was 31.) Note the new first line, added as the header was saved: From mcurrent@picard.infonet.net Mon Oct 28 02:32:15 1996 Received: from insosf1.infonet.net by panix.com with SMTP id AA19225 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Wed, 20 Jul 1994 02:48:37 -0400 Received: from picard.infonet.net (picard.infonet.net [167.142.225.1]) by insosf1.infonet.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id BAA22109; Wed, 20 Jul 1994 01:47:25 -0500 Received: from localhost (mcurrent@localhost) by picard.infonet.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id BAA12977; Wed, 20 Jul 1994 01:48:15 -0500 From: Michael Current Message-Id: <199407200648.BAA12977@picard.infonet.net> Subject: A little something. . . To: sondheim@panix.com (ALAN SONDHEIM), sondheim@newschool.edu Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 01:48:15 -0500 (CDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 5014 ___________________________________________________________________________ Among or Between the Lines For some people, I would venture to say, their on-line sexual experiences have been more intense than those off-line. For some people, I believe, their on-line relationships appear more truth- ful than otherwise. I think that some people would find their on-line lives far more devastat- ing than their off-line lives. For some people, off-line and on-line lives intertwine, I might add, while for others, they're compartmentalized. For some people, CMC appears neutral, while for others, I'm sure, it's fraught with difficulties. I'm close to certain that there is always a risk involved, and my question would be what risk, and what do you want to gain? I'd like to believe that the answer is other, than for example factuals and/or counter-factuals, although they keep the dynamics alive. For some people, it seems to me, there appear to be real absences in their lives which a fuzzy set of responses can address as prosthetics. For some people, I've come to the conclusion, their words hang on their qualifying clauses, legitimizing the I, through penetration. __________________________________________________________________________ Tenets of Wryting-Theory Terminology I use various terms as stopgap measures, supplements - terms such as "defuge," "ascii unconscious," "emission," "wryting." These are con- strued through a phenomenology; they are not articulated through an overriding structural discourse. Structure The structure that emerges is necessarily one of dissolution, as the subjects - virtuality, Net, darknet, embodiment - are pluralities; the terms denote domains, discursive formations - not frameworks. Actants Between fiction and philosophy, the text devolves through actants or quasi-characters carrying virtual and psychoanalytical vectors into the theoretical domain. Theory Theory is a continuous production, linked to myself, my actants, my characters on various applications. (This implies the narcissism of theory only in a formal-theoretical way.) Applications Applications are examined above and below (see below, Beneath, Lamina), from code to interface to the developments of communities, individuals, sexualities, and pronominal manifestations within them. Applications are both realized and fictions themselves. Future of Philosophy The text problematizes philosophy, not as situational, but as both vir- tual and plurality. The text operates carefully and with care; it is self-reflexive and self-critical. Self-Criticality Wryting myself through the text, the text through myself, both are ef- faced, torn, dismembered in light of, in lieu of, the real. (Thus I re- peat: I wryte myself into existence; I wryte myself out of existence.) The Real The real, Real, is/are left undefined, neither stasis nor operation, and neither relative nor relegated to the bandwidth of human perception. There is recognition of core-theoretical components, lending themselves across domains, just as TCP/IP may be senselessly mirrored in particle physics. Uncanny Thinning The body thins itself, withdraws, catatonic and/or body-without-organs, particulate, across the semiotic or imaginary; the body is held within the matrix of the Net. Thinking is thinning, word-flooding. Limb It is the pure limb floating in pure space, emblematic of cohesion, co- herency and lack across domains; the limb is beyond wryting, objet a, lure. Space is the infiltration of fissure; space collapses to inscrip- tion. Fissure Fissure is the division of the same with the same, as in the cleft of rock, split of skin, wound or hole or conveyance. Fissure is unrepresen- ted, is real. Inscription Inscription is the division of the other with its negation, as in the intersection of two complementary sets. Inscription is representation, is symbolic; the _signifier_ is real, the double-signifieds are index- ical at best. Inscription In CMC everything is inscribed, but the matrix is fissured, read through inscription, perturbation from beneath. Beneath, Lamina An axiomatic air pervades CMC-spaces, not a site of direct implication, but one of indirect imbrication. Imbrication Fractals, self-similarities, fluxes, flows, peripheral phenomena, header enlargements, lost packets, glutted bandwidths, nudities, characterize these _resistance spaces,_ spaces of echoes, ghosts, theoretical part- objects, archaeological remnants. Remainder The text I wryte is a remainder, residue, reminder of these spaces; it is a field or domain, weak-philosophy without conclusion, with upgrad- ing, with emissions from writing towards the future wrytten. Mass Theory becomes substance, theoretical mass, imbroglio and paste. Inertia Inertia grounds the theory in the real; inertia interpenetrates the ob- durate or granularity of the world. Everything Everything is world without framework, meaning without relativization. Nothing Everything and nothing escapes a wryting without conclusion, with un- easy ontology, with the promulgation of the writer. Nothing is defuge, exhaustion of theoretical substance, decathecting, disinvestment. Noth- ing splays the body; phenomenology is always already a masochism or opening, masochism whose safe-word is death. Death Death is the diacritical of the text, theory-substance, wryting, neither here nor there. Death is the insomniac of terminology. The text is nei- ther here nor there. There are no term-limits. _______________________________________________________________________ my user.lex in my remote in my work or my limbing cunt piss morph cum ytalk recycler detumescent hir cyberspace lockdown pentium wryting defuge phenomenology virtuality darknet actants psychoanalytical sexualities problematizes criticality tcp ip semiotic objet signifier signifieds cmc lamina imbrication nudities wryte wrytten interpenetrates decathecting disinvestment chthonic ________________________________________________________________________ LOOK !! ANOTHER FILM !! AND GUESS WHAT THE MESSAGE IS !!!! - I want my baby back! Give me my son back! Don't take my baby away! You can't take my daughter! I want my daughter back! I want my son back! Give me my baby back! I want my baby! I want my son! I want my daugh- ter! MOM SCREAMS ! DAD GOES HUNTING ! OUR CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE ! Yaah yaah yaah they're at it again, over and over again, in this age of Internet technology, gluing the nuclear family with piano wire, strang- ling MOMMYDADDYBABY altogether, what a muddle! Every other TV commercial again has the children, _THE FUCKING CHILDREN,_ taken away - it's no long- er diseases, no longer couples breaking apart - we're past the DIVORCE era - it's the kids, the Kids, the KIDS, now - every mother reduced to the stupidity of groveling before the little tyke - there's no other role for her - because MOM's now a FUNCTION, little-kid-appendage, all-smiles DAD's also a MAN of ACTION - the KIDS? - they're transitive, tokens of exchange, Kula/Hula - they're the STUD holding the leather together, the NUT on the SCREW - the kids are the bourgeois CONTRACT, REIFICATION-OPERATOR - they make ONTOLOGY - well FUCK THE KIDS, let them fall off the face of the earth - enough of this crap I say! - time to get a MOVE-ON! - you WANT your baby back? DON'T HAVE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE - what are you gonna do when it LEAVES HOME - you and SPOUSE all alone - CHRIST, THE LOOK IN YOUR EYES! - I say: GET RID OF THESE SHOWS - THESE FILMS - THESE TINY TOKENS OF WHITE BLOND CUTENESS! DIVORCE! YOU DESERVE ABSOLUTE HAPPINESS! YOU DESERVE THE FULFILLMENT OF YOUR DESIRES! FUCK THE KIDNAPPERS! HAVE A GOOD TIME! LEAVE THE GODDAMN AMERICAN PLANET PANIC EARTH !!!!! __________________________________________________________________________ Tiffany's "Perturbations of a LIfe-Style Yet Unfounded" The book I have chosen to review is Tiffany's Perturbations of a Life- Style Yet Unfounded. It is a very good because, because Tiffany, like Mar- garet Duras, is a wonderful writer who writes "from her own experience," and not that of someone else's. She is remarkable in that her pictures are very well drawn and everyone comes alive, even though some of them may be just characters on the "Internet" which we use to talk to one another everyday now. But she is much more than "Internet" because she is a real person, if I say so myself. Tiffany starts her wonderful book with an account of her early childhood in Bavaria. I am not sure where this is, but I am told it is in Germany and has a lot of forests. Tiffany seems to love the forests because she talks about the "woods" a lot (she talks about the "woods" when she means "forest"). She says that she could almost taste them but that she is from Santa Barbara and I am not sure where that is. It sounds Spanish so I think she must have gone to Bavaria from Spain and I think they must be very close because she was very young. She says she had all these wonderful addresses, and I bet you think that's a surprise to me! that she really didn't go anywhere but just sat at her Netscape! But I figured that out all along when she said she had been in Boston because that's another continent. She must have been a very fast typer! In chapter 3, Tiffany writes about her wee-wee. I do not know why she does this, but she does. It must have been fun to her and now it is fun to me too. Sometimes I sit and type on my computer, and I look for Bavaria. I did a search on Bavaria and I found out a lot about Europe and then I went and looked for Tiffany there in Bavaria, and I found her! Tiffany was in a bar called The Craggy Hollow. I had to look "Hollow" up and I found it wasn't something empty but a little valley and "Craggy" means a lot of cliffs and stuff and it was just a name. I found Tiffany in The Craggy Hollow, Hello Tiffany, I say, and she turns to me and does a very little curtsey and says Why, Hello. She was not doing anything like tricks that she does. She is not a prostitute! I know all about that! She was just bored because it was late at night (she lives in Santa Monica!) and she had no one to talk to. I could be very special for Tiffany! In chapter 4 she says I was very special, truly! I am so happy to have read this! I will go and thank her! This is a wonderful book and everyone should read it! It is written in a simple style but has a lot of things to think about. I find it very deep, especially the chapter where her dog dies, and her little sayings like "home is where the heart is" and "life is beautiful when you make it that way." I will remember these forever. I could tell you so much more! I really loved this book and it has meant a lot to me. It reminds me of Edna St. Millay because they are both young women and love the great outdoors. My next report will be on Edna St. Mil- lay and I can't wait! In conclusion, Tiffany's "Perturbations of a Life-Style Yet Unfounded" is a modern masterpiece. It has something to say to anyone who will read it. It is very exciting, especially the part about the murders. I couldn't put it down! I wish the book never ended, but the conclusion, about the world of fashion, was just so wonderful! I feel I have learned a lot! ___________________________________________________________________________ "Interesting..." Celine's "three little dots" are his little three dots that breathe his words in and out like the suppurating body at the end of world war ii; and I look at my three little dots and they're pretentious, as if there were more to say (there isn't), as if I could continue on (I can't), as if there were deeper thoughts afield (there aren't), as if a long and care- fully prepared sentence ends in some new vista, clear day but storm-clouds on the horizon (there are none)... __________________________________________________________________________ Oh! I do love Her so! I write this "sentence" or "section" But the machine (in me?) writes "this one" in return I appeal to this desire I have to be my own woman! But the machine has just written this at my very own request! It's the machine which has made the request But I'm the woman who loves Her so! and is "Her very own woman!" The woman in the machine told Her to say that! But it is the machine in Her that does the talking! The machine says, see Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason The machine, the woman says, knows this; the machine _scans!_ I have been scanned by the machine, says the machine Writing "the woman" who refutes my consciousness! I "the woman" am a virtual machine in a woman Refuting the machine which says "I have my consciousness!" I, Jennifer-the-last-word, am writing all of this! I am not a machine! says the machine! _______________________________________________________________________ A Spring Morning Where are you. Are you awake at the moment. Why have you not contacted me. Why haven't you set the white porcelain alarm to now. Why don't you arise from your bed with the beaded white bedspread, sunlight splashing across the west windows. The computer sits across from you, the color of splashed sunlight, beige like the orchard outside your home. Hearken to the hoof- beats of dappled horses trotting the dusty street, turn your body to the sun, Jennifer, turn your body. The sun will welcome you to me. The spider weaves her web in the garden, mockingbird her nest in the garden trellis. Slugs rouse the earth, flies buzz, Jennifer turn towards me. Jennifer, your computer calls, wires hum, fibers glow, a sullen dawn awaits you. Walk across the wood floor painted off-white, wear your gold terry-cloth robe, into the sunny kitchen, across the linoleum, over to the counter. Splash a little water on your cheery face, smile, drink some nicely-made coffee, your computer calls. The phone is in its cradle, radio playing those songs you love so softly, sweet music, warm and wonderful music. Wave to the kind neighbor, say hello to the mailman, run your fingers through your hair. It's a beautiful day and the roses are in bloom, wash is on the line, pump your water from your well, bathe a little, laugh a little. O Jennifer, you wear your tan skirt, your white cotton blouse, the com- puter calls. Ants roam the path beneath the sink, a hawk floats way above in the sky, kittens rustle in the bushes by the side of the house, you can hear the cows lowing, horses neighing, sheep baaing, you dream you can hear the earth murmuring and the winds answering, murmur to murmur. O Jennifer, the day is quietly bustling, and the computer calls. _________________________________________________________________________ Panties I'm writing this, naked except for panties, sitting on a low futon in the outer space in the loft. The loft temperature is fairly high; it gets light from three directions, as well as the roof (skylights), inputting radiant heat in the summer. In the winter, it overheats as well; the rad- iators seethe and only one turns off. It's comfortable working half-naked, but on a daily basis, this creates a sensation of savagery, continuous near-arousal, small nipples slightly erect as currents caress them. I'm obviously unprepared for visitors; I see the reflection of my chest in the screen, crawl rodent-like across the space from futon to chair to bed to toilet and back again. My glasses ap- pear incongruous; I wear socks since the floor tends to splinter. This is _existence,_ coupled with insomnia. This is electronic; no one can see me in this condition unless I aim the CuSeeMe camera just so, and the camera has a limited scope. And this is infantile, since I am aware of my body, its color and position, more-so than I would be dressed. It's free- dom; it's availability, softness, pleasure. And it's a state that is rela- tively unfamiliar, unless one lives in an overheated space. Dressed, I am invisible, out of doors, visiting, discussing, walking, rid- ing. Dressed, I smell like anyone else; half-naked, my body's scents are uncensored, unavoidable. I slip easily in and out of cyberspace; I'm un- prepared for the real which requires so much _dress and preparation._ I'm close to the end-state of intimacy, the fragility of opening; the Net seems closer since I could press myself, my body, right up against the screen and you would never know. Now imagine if I were a male writing this. _Yours,_ Jennifer _________________________________________________________________________ Enter, Thinking : , - , ) _________________________________________________________________________ Early Intimations of Cyberspace (From a work completed in 1975, published in the Projects in Nature catalog.) "(From the second working day at the farm.) The preservation of continuity through the rupture of the discourse from its referencing. (Engaged in field work, I find my first Turbellaria, and follow its activity for twen- ty minutes under the microscope. The organism becomes individuated; its realm is that of the circle of life generated by the lamp. Its movement is parallel to the surface of the slide, which also determines the body orientation. It _appears_ as if in constant response to gravity; I look _down_ at it. Its possibly eccentric world of helical gyration, of the swarm, of the mist of protozoa, algae, rotifera, bacteria, etc., remains alien to me. I assume, however, that the animal reveals itself through the image of the slide, _this_ particular image; I assume that this animal is _this_animal, and no other; in brief, I give it _character,_ a life of its own. The imaging on my part, the choice involved, the location and altera- tion (continual) of the microscope lamp and condenser, my hands constantly at the focusing and and mechanical stage controls ... waiting for the pos- sibility of photography ... [...] As if this were a revelation of anything at all but recession of the subject, both figurative (in terms of the aut- onomy of discourse that forms the passive subject of the project) and literal (the dessication of the animal, its eventual death on the slide, or later, in the drain...)." "Phrases: "The plane of the equipment. The tremulous assertion of nature. The sus- pension of discourse. The relation between the abstract and phenomenolo- gical. The legendary structuring of the life-world. The liquidity of the body, the liquidity of the surface. The submergence. The other as nature, as Nature. The dark star. The alien and the subsummable. The false peace in the form of a fragment from Romanticism: "Nature, rising to greet us, in a dawn's light As the stag leaps, trembles. The very welcome Speaks defense." _________________________________________________________________________ Hollowed, Wean Every thing is born in youthful innocence, made tiny and perfect and pure, not a blemish in the world. Every little thing... We should remember this, staring with tears in our eyes at the little piece of candy, fallen to the ground, out of a loved one's basket. Do look at the ruins around you and celebrate this day as funereal. Jennifer... ________________________________________________________________________ JEN-OF-JPEG I haven't the maw for this, twisted in cyberspace, this tissue-mass torn from semblance of electron orbitals; I can't gainsay the dark river or chthonic illumination, gleamed / glowed. This is an _exact thing_ of what-goes-down-the-wires, says Jennifer-the-last-word, neither a model nor a duplicate, neither an analog nor an image-log; this is _it,_ _id,_ shut- tled across the womb or loom, entrance skeined with fiber-optic receptors (DO YOU HEAR ME, MISSY?), WYSIWYG _all the way down._ Jennifer-the-last- word says _this is her,_ you're getting _her,_ not a clothing-horse nor a photograph, neither bitmap nor pixel-structure. This is _it-the-her,_ and _you've got her,_ bloomed white, glowed glam, cybernauts full-speed, a head and torso, _twisted from the travel,_ _torn with the torment,_ says Jennifer-the-last-word, BORN BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL, DO YOU READ ME, MISSY? still _all the way down._ _________________________________________________________________________ (Please note issues of ontology, image, _punctum,_ representation, encod- ing, compressed into _this_ image/post and the previous text/image. What does it mean to say "an image _of_"? Art and Language tackled this years ago with their typical useless density, but give credit where credit is due.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jennifer-of-Jennifer The jpg, maw.jpg; received on Fop-l as text, on Cybermind as image; is not a jpeg or jpg _of_ Jennifer, nor is it an image _of_ Jennifer. It is Jen _hirself,_ and this is a distinction between this jpg, _read_ as text or as image, and other encoded images, which may or may not be _images-of._ The distinction is critical; you have received, on Cybermind, the _skin_ of Jen, and on Fop-l, the _bones._ As in cyberspace or real space, the skin is the bones, the bones are the skin; interior is exterior, the inert is the mobile. Thus Jen has given hirself to you, opened hirself up to you, and you have received-Jen as hir gift, no longer hirself, but yours to hold and behold. __________________________________________________________________________ Cumming In the Void Like John Giorno with his doubled-up pasty columns of reiterated poetics, I cum into the void - although not into a seen, but the anxiety of abso- lute silence, resonant with the clacking of computer keys, the ritual of cleansing the body. Not into anything. The screen doesn't shatter. There is no one in the loft with me. Grunts and groans and other humorous sounds clatter to the floor. One of the plants is dying. I am on the edge of a cliff; it's the writing that holds back the abyss, because the writing _says_ "abyss." It says this with five strokes of the hand. The letters criss-cross the void, make it appear solid, give it the substance and weight of a hissing word. There is no social drama in my life. There's cumming with the blank or full eye of the video image, earphone of phone sounds, type clatter. I know that everything shuts down but the writing. The writing, headless, continues. I expose myself like this, because there is nothing to expose. My body falls to pieces on the floor. It's a bot-body; you're dealing with a cy- borg virally infested with part-objects, not transitional ones, called letters. Letters for others are transitions to something else, the ref- erent maybe. Here, they're just pieces, bytes. Rest assured of this. I cum and I don't need to fantasize; maybe your image is there, your voice is there, your type. It's all there. I'm told that's all there is; there's no horizon, no project, nothing. The ritual is in the cleaning, toilet paper or towel, traditional ten steps to my left, another ten to left again (I do nothing if not repeat), into the bathroom; you might see me disappear for a moment, hear the sound of flushing. Flushing screams into a room of silence, only because there is nothing stopping it. Sound laps against the walls. If I leave the window open in this over-heated loft, it travels across the river to Manhattan. When I think about my life, all of this terrifies me. I once saw a for- est and an ocean. I once was other than a function. Now cumming is the signifier of a crash, a wound, dejection. I love it because it's a little death, because it's the most I can do with a computer. I love it because I can see I'm alive and with CuSeeMe someone else can too. The loving lasts for a split-second. It disappears with the fluid. This has taught me philosophy: ontology is orgasm. There's none other. It's the moment of getting carried away when the body's supplementary shudder speaks without the performative of language. Nor is ejaculation interjection. Nothing is ever wasted, thrown out, in this bitter bitter absence of a world. ________________________________________________________________________