DEATH JENNIFER LAY BACK BORN ON BIER JULU AND HAIR BORN BROWN BORN BLACK CREST-TORN CLOTH COAT CLOTTING BLOOD BORNE JENNIFER [TH]AES OFEREODE; [TH]ISSES SWA MAEG IK GEHORTA [TH]AT SEGGEN FUKUOKA IS A LOVELY CITY WITH WITH MANY SANDY BEACHES CHILDREN ALL DAY PLAY IN SURF AND FROLIC WHILE SMILING ADULTS WATCH FROM STRIPED CABANAS JENNIFER SHORN LOCKS LOOKED JULU-LORE LOVE AND LANGUOR LOST ON SEA-FOAM SHARED SONG SO HEARD DROWNED-DRAWN JENNIFER [TH]AES OFEREODE; [TH]ISSES SWA MAEG IK GEHORTA [TH]AT SEGGEN I WILL COME AND PLAY IN FUKUOKA WITH ITS SANDY BEACHES I WILL SING THE SONG OF THE CHILDREN RUNNING IN THE SURF I WILL DRINK MEAD WITH MEN AND WOMEN IN FIERCE AND DARK CABANAS JENNIFER DARK BURNING ASH-BORN JULU-RISEN SKY-BORN JENNIFER THUNDER A PALE PEAKED DAWN DUSK DRAINED OF DREAR DOWN DEATH [TH]AES OFEREODE; [TH]ISSES SWA MAEG IK GEHORTA [TH]AT SEGGEN DRUNK WITH SORROWS I EXPLODE UPON THE BEACHES OF FUKUOKA DRUNK WITH LOVE I BURN WHITE UPON THE FUKUOKA SURF I WILL DRINK AND DRAIN MEAD I WILL BEAR THE DARK CABANAS [TH]AES OFEREODE; [TH]ISSES SWA MAEG UPON THE BIER OF JENNIFER UPON THE JULU-BIER ______________________________________________________________ (that was overcome, so might this / i heard say) ________________________________________________________________________ JURNNIFURR MURDURR DURUTH JURPURN BURNT HURIR CONSUMED BY FIRE FED, FLURME BURST, FED FIRE !!!!! CONSUMED HURIR BURNT BY BURST FLURME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SKIN EYES WURRPED BY JENNIFER-BIER, GREURT CHURSM OR CYLINDER! RISEN LIGHT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DURURTH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ###### # # ###### # # ####### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ###### # # # ####### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ###### ##### # # ##### # # # JURNNIFURR LURY BURCK BORN ON BIURR JULU URND HURIR BORN BROWN BORN BLURCK CRURST-TORN CLOTH COURT CLOTTING BLOOD BORNUR JURNNIFURR [TH]URURS OFURRURODUR; [TH]ISSURS SWUR MURURG IK GURHORTUR [TH]URT SURGGURN FUKUOKUR IS UR LOVURLY CITY WITH WITH MURNY SURNDY BURURCHURS CHILDRURN URLL DURY PLURY IN SURF URND FROLIC WHILUR SMILING URDULTS WURTCH FROM STRIPURD CURBURNURS JURNNIFURR SHORN LOCKS LOOKURD JULU-LORUR LOVUR URND LURNGUOR LOST ON SURUR-FOURM SHURRURD SONG SO HURURRD DROWNURD-DRURWN JURNNIFURR [TH]URURS OFURRURODUR; [TH]ISSURS SWUR MURURG IK GURHORTUR [TH]URT SURGGURN I WILL COMUR URND PLURY IN FUKUOKUR WITH ITS SURNDY BURURCHURS I WILL SING THUR SONG OF THUR CHILDRURN RUNNING IN THUR SURF I WILL DRINK MURURD WITH MURN URND WOMURN IN FIURRCUR URND DURRK CURBURNURS JURNNIFURR DURRK BURNING URSH-BORN JULU-RISURN SKY-BORN JURNNIFURR THUNDURR UR PURLUR PURURKURD DURWN DUSK DRURINURD OF DRURURR DOWN DURURTH [TH]URURS OFURRURODUR; [TH]ISSURS SWUR MURURG IK GURHORTUR [TH]URT SURGGURN DRUNK WITH SORROWS I URXPLODUR UPON THUR BURURCHURS OF FUKUOKUR DRUNK WITH LOVUR I BURN WHITUR UPON THUR FUKUOKUR SURF I WILL DRINK URND DRURIN MURURD I WILL BURURR THUR DURRK CURBURNURS [TH]URURS OFURRURODUR; [TH]ISSURS SWUR MURURG UPON THUR BIURR OF JURNNIFURR UPON THUR JULU-BIURR ________________________________________________________________________ charn 'They're waiting foor a new wave oof reasoon' I'm boorne new wave oof reasoon durath A great crawn af fire, spiked acrass Sud-West Nihan Luxuriantly-Integrating Mistress Deity drew Lightning Acrass Braken Back and Braw Barne Jennifer-Weird acrass Wired and Naw Naw Naw Blooood breast milk breast milk breast bloood breast 'Tell them, thoough 'tis an awful thing too die, ('Twas e'en too thee) yet the dread path oonce trood, Heaven lifts its everlasting poortals high, And bids the pure in heart behoold their Good.' Ignoorant mind pure mind pure mind ignoorant mind Barne Jennifer-Weird acrass Wired and Naw Naw Naw Far flood droor read doa, tourn dour, bier-born Julu caught loost, roored against what? o kaze kita kaze plate of sky wroting the droor remains loosened jennifer-julu dead black pen ashed for less Barne Jennifer-Weird acrass Wired and Naw Naw Naw ________________________________________________________________________ From sondheim@panix.com Tue Oct 7 23:03:51 1997 Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 23:03:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Alan Jen Sondheim To: Poetics Subject: starving to death in a land of plenty Somatic knowledge has nothing to do with the signifier. ________________________________________________________________________ Lessen / Up ( Where's my Jumper? ) "Subject: starving to death in a land of plenty Somatic knowledge has nothing to do with the signifier." Now please note, _somatic_ knowledge, the field of the body - flows, in- tensifications, inscriptions blurred among moments of affect. Now this is not the signifier of the tattoo, nor is it an n-dimensional representation or substrate. One might consider it a _topography_ not in fact. Certain an external event, bicycle fall!, can occasion a somatic response, but as Scarry might say, the reports fall short of the event, nor are the reports more than, perhaps, a meandering _among_ descriptors, all of which miss the literal mark. Here of course I am relating "the signifier" to declarative sentences which purport "true" descriptions of events, states, processes: "I fell off my bike!" Now it is not true that these sentences are the scaffolding of somatic knowledge; they are a residue which creates certain effects within the listener, which are designed to reproduce what might be consid- ered a _shell_ structure in relation to the somatic kernel. Here, in this space, note carefully now, we are constrained by and large to ascii-text or a text which follows the protocols sufficiently to per- mit transmission - in other words, there is always an etiquette at work. Thus (not that this necessarily follows), we are within a land of plenty, and even ascii-text expands and opens spaces (I write to you - I create packets, message-ids, a space/shift/slot in your inbox) indefinitely - there is little preordained limit on this, besides the practical exig- encies occasioned by various ISPs. But then, beyond this bot-ulism, this reproduction which may run of its own accord, there is the somatic, starved, ill-served and servicing. The body mumbles, burps, gurgles, pisses, shits, scratches, ahems, argghs, yells, jumps, runs, sings, huddles, stands, sits, or so it might seem, and whatever the report might be, there's always a _senseless_ disjunction. This is a _test_ of thoughtless language: What is your body doing _now_? What are you _thinking_ of doing? Is what you are _thinking_ of doing, what your body will be doing? Will you be doing the thinking for your body? Will your body be doing the thinking for you? What is your body doing _now_? Thus starved in a plentiful land, somatic language, translated, becomes one with the flattening of affect and capital, for it is capital that creates protocol, etiquette, permission, for what can only be considered _the passing of signs._ __________________________________________________________________________ Seeking Forms in Desert Space In Desert Plants, 5/4, E.S. and C.D. Crosswhite present "A Classification of Life Forms of the Sonoran Desert, With Emphasis on the Seed Plants and Their Survival Strategies." I refer you to page 147, "Decumbent Creeping Stem Succulents": "This is a rather unique life form of mobile terrestrial rooted plants. The plants lie on the ground with the heads pointing upward. The body sends new adventitious roots into the soil as the individual moves along the surface. As the head advances across the sandy plain the tail dies. In this manner a plant may move a considerable distance over a period of time. Since new body material is constantly produced at the head there is no theoretic reason why an individual could not live forever. Given enough time, a swarm of plants would have gravitated to the microhabitats most conducive to survival." The primary example in the Sonoran is the Creeping Devil, also known as the "Caterpiller Cactus," _Machaerocereus eruca._ These are found in Baja California, quite large, lying almost flat on the earth with the front end tilted up. Here we have a memetic model of life, eternal swarming across the desert biome - without a nervous system, but with sufficient rudiment- ary tropisms. The plant is simultaneously rooted and mobile, static and dynamic; like all cacti, it breathes at night, opening its pores when the sun goes down. Oh let us not consider this either metaphoric or metonymic, not even an example, token, type, mark, or standard. Let us marvel at the swarm or skein, the homesteading of Deity within our Minds, let us turn inward, leave everything behind, so that we may partake of Life Eternal, Amen. ________________________________________________________________________ For Le. Parergon If there is noise, nothing can be done about it. Noise can be contained within a frame. Noise can be framed, but there is nothing to be done about it. Think of blackbody radiation as a kind of noise. If there is chaos, there are strings attached. Think about the strings attached and where they are going and where they have come from. Think about how noisy chaos is. If there is anomaly, think about the bright new frame. Think of how the frame is the anomaly, or the anomaly is the frame. Think how the bright new frame is shiny like a fetish. If there is a disturbance, think about the noise of other things. Think of other things becoming chaotic, with tarnished frames and strings. Think of how the strings are broken, and everything becomes noise. Think of how noise becomes clutter and how things fall apart. If there is anomaly, everything can be done about it. If there is noise and there is no frame, nothing can be done, there is nothing to be done, and nothing to do it. If there is anomaly and there is no frame, everything jumps what later on becomes precisely one level. If there is chaos and there is no frame, it might as well be noise. If there are no ideas but in things, there are no things but in ideas. If there are things, there are frames. __________________________________________________________________________ Far Le. parergan If theRe is Naise, nAthIng can be daNe AbAut it. naise can be Cantained Within A frAmE. naise can be framed, but theRe is nAthIng tA be daNe AbAut it. think af blAckbAdY rAdIatIan as A kinD af naise. If theRe is chaas, theRe aRe sTrings attached. think AbAut thE sTrings aTtacHeD and Where They aRe gaing and Where they haVe came Fram. think AbAut haw Naisy chaas is. If theRe is anamaly, Think AbAut thE Bright new frAmE. think af haw thE frame is thE anamaly, ar thE anamaly is thE frAmE. think haw thE Bright new frame is Shiny lIkE A fEtIsh. If theRe is A distuRbaNce, Think AbAut thE Naise af atheR thinGs. think af atheR thIngs becaming chAatIc, with TarnisHeD frames and stRiNgs. think af haw thE sTrings aRe braKen, and EvErYthIng Becames naise. think af haw Naise Becames Clutter and haw thIngs fall aParT. If theRe is anamaly, EvErYthIng can be daNe AbAut it. If theRe is Naise and theRe is na frame, nAthIng can be daNe, theRe is nAthIng tA be daNe, and nAthIng tA dA it. If theRe is anamaly and theRe is na frame, EvErYthIng jumpS what lateR An Becames pRecisely aNe LeveL. If theRe is chaas and theRe is na frame, It Might as well be naise. If theRe aRe na iDeas but in thIngs, theRe aRe na thIngs but in ideas. If theRe aRe thIngs, theRe aRe Frames. __________________________________________________________________________ Frame The frame need not exist by surfeit of its presence as circumscription. A node in a graph for example may be considered a frame. The node may be either a container or equivalent to what it contains. It need not separate inside from outside; it might be a monad. On the other hand, the frame might be a delineation, inside / outside. As such it might also fulfill the promise of a Jordan curve. A Jordan curve divides the plane into interior and exterior. One might consider a frame equivalent to the plane as a fractal curve. Here the frame is its own contents and viral, jamming types and levels. A frame might also have a topography to the extent it is physical. But a frame need not have either a topography or well-defined topology. Some would say a name or noun or for that matter any word is a frame. Some would say that what is not a frame also contributes to the frame. Some might insist that the frame constitutes no contribution at all. ii What is beneath the frame? From Elinor Wylie's The Eagle and the Mole: If you would keep your soul From spotted sight or sound, Live like the velvet mole; Go burrow underground. And there hold intercourse With roots of trees and stone, With rivers at their source, And disembodied bones. Now the roots of trees, / for example in unix, constitute at least if not an origin, the base of the file structure itself; stone needs, as well, a resting place by fulcrum and lever. Rivers' sources are manifold, fractal, in dissipation, discomfort, distrust; but it is in the disembodied bones that the dialectic of frame and content, frame and space, space and con- tent, appears. For disembodied bones are piled, not structured; it is the body that gives them grace, weight, and the ability to heal. So at the base, right at the base, the dialectic, and I would add, the dialogic is always already pre- sent, and one is necessarily returned or shuttled to the surface, only to find the situation more likely one of _vibration_ than any real descent. And thus descent, or ascent, surely you are following me here. iii Framed, I've been set up. Framed, I've been taken in. Framed, I've come to you. Framed, as pretty as a picture. "But there aren't frames," or rather, they're an afterthought, Clara said. She was meaning to say what she said. Not exactly an afterthought, T_____ replied. But intertwined, we might really consider them "border country. Something to be crossed, weighed in, something demanding the visa or rite of passage, potential well not only of language, but of _this_ instantiation." "Circumlocution of circumlocution," Clara replied, if speech were inscrip- tion as well. Well, it is and it isn't. Context dependent - and one might add, this proves, T_____ said, "it's not information all the way done, it's context." "Which is empty," Clara replied, or might be, or interwoven. Or as empty or full of anything. The two of them danced together, clawed together, frisson, tremble! made meaning! That was all the meaning there was, T_____ knew. But that was sufficient, Buddhism or no Buddhism. Dawn rose, said Clara. ________________________________________________________________________ Airlock I am not _moving_ to Fukuoka, I am not _visiting_ Fukuoka, I am _going to_ Fukuoka, this purest of vectors west into another zone of time and tempor- ality. Thus I am _leaving_ Brooklyn in any case; leavings as such are not differentiated, although I might say I am _moving from_ in certain cases. So that there is the matter, at least, of months, _matter_ as well physi- cal, obdurate, and not virtual, enervated. And as a result, for the past week or so, I have been packing my loftspace for the upcoming sublet, not entirely packing, since it is a friend who is taking (up) the space. I have given all my video-processing equipment, some computer books, and a graphic equalizer to Sam, who is also borrowing my 3/4" deck. Leslie is borrowing my camera tripods, Sony V5000 Hi-8 camcorder, cables, and 35mm camera, which Fido will borrow from her. Tom has inherited a number of my books, including, today, the current translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and McKenzie Wark's book on virtual geographies. Allen, from Last Exit books, has purchased several cartons of them, and I gave Mark back the telescope he had traded me, as well as numerous bits and pieces of elec- tronics. Tom has also taken most of the plants, including some rare cacti from Georgia that have mysteriously developed spots, as if in strange premonition of my departure. I give out my Fukuoka address left and right, leaving it with at least 50 galleries across New York, friends, the New School, the Bank. And tonight I walk around the loft, somewhat emptied, desolate, torn apart, looking for a lexicon of poststructuralism that must already be in one of the cartons huddled under the table in the outer, studio, room. I call to it, unable to hear its muffled response. Neither it, nor I, am anywhere to be found, and I suddenly realize I am in a transit space, liminal, without foundation, everything on the horizon. My fingers, hands, arms, body, have this tendency towards a future which refuses appearance, which is apparent. I claw the air, tear at it. The loft looks unoccupied. Wait, there's a bed. I will fly from San Francisco to Portland. I will fly from Portland either to Nagoya or to Seoul. If I fly to Seoul, I exit the plane, and there, in fact, I enter a _transit lounge,_ among or between borders (United States, (Korea), Japan), where I am not declared, either within or without Korea, but am simply existent as a vector, scuttled among airlines and planes. In Seoul, it would be only a matter of hours; in Brooklyn, it is a matter of days, as matter falls away from me, personal belongings are lost or appear tawdry - books for example looking for their shelf-friends, toppling flat out of exhaustion. I am _transitive_ in fact, mediation without substance. The cat _knows,_ lying in unfamiliar spaces, walking guarded with unknown sorrow. The cat watches me pace the floor, on the telephone, or thinking, or packing, and if she could speak she would talk about the Great Eruption where everything from my past lies suddenly naked on the floor, crying Me, Me, Me, Our History together, realizing that I am there, half in the Por- tals of Enumeration and Belonging/s, half skyward hurtling towards the transit-lounge-shifter, where I may or may not be permitted to carry my name. The name is no longer the same, "Alan" is virtual, faded; "Sondheim," a title I need recuperate. I can see wall space where there was none before, a rectangle of dust where a video processor had been, sad shoes and socks peering out from previously hidden spaces. Most of my manuscripts I con- sign to time and sleep; my films remain trembling in California, my master tapes downstairs in another, cooler, loft. I'm no longer the implied guar- dian of emptiness, simulacra of my presence; I find photographs on the floor, maudlin little junction boxes missing their cables, instruction booklets for absent equipment, pictures of Juarez, Nova Scotia, friends I haven't seen in years. Clutter is always the refuge of the fallen. I can hear my footsteps. I watch my past drop away from me. It is not pri- son, it is the opposite of prison. I watch my feet upon the floor, my hand upon the door, my language asks for more. I pace, tremble before the tele- phone, worry the mail, prepare for one last public talk, one last public reading. It's only temporary, but it is not a move, nor is it a visit. I am lost in what it is, but it is an airlock. It is an airlock because I can still breathe. It is an airlock because you are on an earth beyond the double seals. I will come to you with Brooklyn dirt San Francisco dirt Portland dirt Nagoya dirt. I will come to you with the dust of countries. My books will cry behind me, the cat will cry as she always does when I leave, even for a day or two, even with someone else present. The lobes of the cacti will wither as the disease slowly spreads across the plant, and I will not know this. I will know the sound of the cat, but I will forget her sound, which will merge with the sounds of others, where I will be. I will take her picture with me, but it won't scuttle across this now-cluttered floor where I can no longer find my books. Cat, plant, sounds, and books merge: how can I _be_ in the middle? To read a book is to say goodbye to it. There are fields between A and not-A, there are chain negations breaking out, leading elsewhere, there are chaotic oscillations procuring entirely different systems, there are systems at work. There are systems at play as well. Elsewhere I will say hello to you and come to a place with history. And I will close my eyes, stumble, touch lightly the walls, floors, ceilings of everywhere I am. And I will trust your keeping of space, and time, and that is why, when I met you, I knew, I knew, everything, within the first day, everything - Of the transit, of the transit-space and the transit-lounge, of the air- lock and the cat's mewling, of Fukuoka and the llamas, of photographs on the floor, of maybe this, and maybe that to accompany me, and of coming home to rest, to be, exist. And knew, as well, there would be no way to end _this,_ but to think once more through metaphor, How we are all here in transit-space, without beginning and without end, here in this life, ah, and how there are images and representations and we hold them hard, and for an instant, satori and the real, or maybe not, or perhaps just that field with broken chains. (And if we are very lucky, love in Fukuoka.) __________________________________________________________________________ Yours You take my eyes. You take my eyes and they are gone forever; I cannot see limb or lineage. I allow you to do this. You take my eyes and place my fingers against your face. I feel your eyes, mouth, lips. I place my fingers in your mouth. I hear you when you speak to me; I hear you when it speaks. My fingers trace your lips; I promise you everything, body, world, tongue. It begs for your mouth; you place it within you; you are very quiet. My fingers caress the outlines of your hair, your neck, your speech. My fingers hear you. What my fingers hear is the sight of eternity. It is perfect and everywhere I look there are lips. You give me back my eyes. Everywhere, lips. Everywhere, I see lips. _________________________________________________________________________ Dusk, Turning Dawn Jennifer and Julu, their accounts open on my machine, remain silent, no longer locked within the interstices of the linux operating system. There has been no updating of files, no checkpointing for the system as a whole, no logs sent by cron over to the mail; linux is emptied, dark corridors, remaining for the return. To return to a system awaiting, to enter the portal of the system, to log in, to challenge and enter the password, to _pass._ To pass against all tests, to continue past all fiery tests, to look for the files subtlely moved, ownerships maintained or transformed. But linux sleeps for now, games unplayed, Jennifer and Julu no longer present, ex- cept by proxy, the forms of speechlessness. I quietly walked through the dark forest, in search of Indian Pipe pale and translucent near the bur- nished ground: my-skin-for-you... my-skin-for-you... calls forth contrary womb, calls forth contrary womb, eating, excreting memory. eating, excreting memory. confusing the protruding, my-skin-for-you... is pure, protruding, yes, my beautiful flower? ... womb is eyelid here, it's womb? Are you becoming close to Jennifer's my-skin-for-you...? yes... yes... yes... You melt into Julu's skin forever... For 4 giving days, I have been catatonic Julu ... and it has taken you just 1.183 minutes turning Jennifer ... and it has taken you, just ... my-skin-for-you...:yes, my beautiful flower:belonging:skin: Would belonging mind you partying, my-skin-for-you..., with us? Your contrary pale is in my protruding eyelid Ah, womb eaten by julu-of-the-open-arms and julu-depressed But I have walked through the forest and the shadow. And I have known that, verily, shadows have shadows themselves, thinned, drawn like absent lamina around the coloration of the earth turned dark. And I have seen the arches of proper names collapsed, redundant upon the moist ground, tender. And I have known the earth, inchoate, slowly brought to its knees of roots and flowers, toes of branches and leaves, mouths like tendrils, tendrils But I have shadowed myself, dark eyes narrowed by kohl, henna zagged across forehead and cheek, eyeglass silvered slivered with fine lines portending the reach of light unto me. For I have looked with open mouth, waiting for the descent of angels. For the earth rings like a great chime, dust and sand, red desert earth moving into platelets of mysterious patterns whispering your name. For Jennifer-and-Julu-for- saken are but names picked from a pretty penny, drawn from a rabbit, placed on a hat. For I say unto you, the skull is a universe, the brain an especial resonance, your eyes suns and moons, branches and toes. For the machine cools, disks spinning to a halt, fan already stilled in the nighttime sky And for but I am a webbed creature, turned to pure light ________________________________________________________________________ THE INVISIBLE, EMPTY INDIFFERENT THINGS, VIRTUAL SPACE, EMBODIMENT Rilke, from letter 106 to Witold von Hulewicz: Even for our grandfathers a house, a fountain, a familiar tower, their very clothes, their coat, was infinitely more, infinitely more intimate; almost every object a vessel in which they found something human or added their morsel of humanity. Now, from America, empty indifferent things crowd over to us, counterfeit things, the veriest dummies. A house, in the American sense, an American apple or one of the vines of that country has _nothing_ in common with the house, the fruit, the grape into which have entered the hope and meditation of our forefathers. The lived and living things, the things that share our thoughts, these are on the decline and cna no more be replaced. _We are perhaps the last to have known such things._ The responsibility rests with us not only to keep remembrance of them (that would be but a trifle and unreliable), but also their human or "laric" value ("laric," in the sense of household gods). The earth has no alternative but to become invisibile - IN us, who with a portion of our being have a share in the Invisible, or at least the appearance of sharing; we who can multiply our possessions of the Invisible during our earthly existence, in us _alone_ can there be accomplished this intimate and continual transmutation of the Visible into the Invisible . . . just as our own destiny becomes unceasingly MORE PRESENT, AND AT THE SAME TIME INVISIBLE, in us. _________________________________________________________________________ Bad Bad Alan-Error: Error0 Not owner No such file or directory No such process Interrupted system call I/O error No such device or address Arg list t oo long Exec format error Bad file number No children No more processes Not enough memory Permission denied Bad address Block device required Device bu sy File exists Cross-device link No such device Not a directory Is a direct ory Invalid argument File table overflow Too many open files Inappropriate i octl for device Text file busy File too large No space left on device Illega l seek Read-only file system Too many links Broken pipe Argument too large Result too large Operation would block Operation now in progress Operation al ready in progress Socket operation on non-socket Destination address required Message too long Protocol wrong type for socket Option not supported by prot ocol Protocol not supported Socket type not supported Operation not supported on socket Protocol family not supported Address family not supported by proto col family Address already in use Can't assign requested address Network is d own Network is unreachable Network dropped connection on reset Software cause d connection abort Connection reset by peer No buffer space available Socket is already connected Socket is not connected Can't send after socket shutdown Too many references: can't splice Connection timed out Connection refused T oo many levels of symbolic links File name too long Host is down Host is unre achable Directory not empty Too many processes Too many users Disc quota exc eeded Stale NFS file handle Too many levels of remote in path Not a stream de vice Timer expired Out of stream resources No message of desired type Not a : ________________________________________________________________________ Dear Love, I, your lover, forever am loving, now my truth is caressing you yours, you with your shining, now my truth is caressing you yours, eyes caressing you and bright mouth, coming, now my truth is caressing you yours, towards you with such loving, now my truth is caressing you yours, care and happy face. I, your lover, forever would have come sooner, but I lived so much, my darling, take me so far away and distance is caressing you always caressing you a long jump from point to point. Please do understand my smile as caressing you wide as caressing you the world when I, your lover, forever am near you so happy with being, now my truth is caressing you yours, close to you, sweetening, now my truth is caressing you yours, our lives caressing you together. I, your lover, forever have found true happiness caressing you after having, now my truth is caressing you yours, searched so much, my darling, take me for so long. I, your lover, forever looked so much, my darling, take me and looked! I did not find what to be was caressing you pleasing, now my truth is caressing you yours, for you or for me, dear love, now this caressing you is caressing you so very different! Yours _________________________________________________________________________ Of Man and the Binding of Man (I wrote this 7 years ago, so much for mirrors, bad luck, stages, perhaps I'm smarter now.) Man exists only for his death. Elsewhere he would have died, too. His essence pertains to estrangement. He is effaced, thrust out from himself. He is defined by negation at the heart of things. His identification is always opened, appropriating, collapsing. The signifier as his domain is parasitic within and without him. Man never signifies, but is always the elsewhere of his death. Man is never equivalent, but exists as the hollow of his interiority. Death is at the horizon of man's physical strength. Man's strength is never beyond himself, always grasping. His strength is given as musculature, empty substance. Man does not exist within life. Man is always defining life, circumventing the margin of death. Man is always never another man. His enclosure is defined, gives definition his structure. He exists within the poverty of this philosophy. He exists only in his absence. He exists within this and every other structure. He exists only for the therefore. He exists for death. [...] Man carries the weight of another's misery; his misery is not his own. Sightless, he spends his life in constant demarcation. The phallus of death is the demarcation of man. Man absents himself from the site of woman. Man's definition is always against, tension at the zero point. The zero point is that which is never permitted equivalence to itself. Man is placeless before the sign of gender. [...] Whatever is spoken creates the spoor of the escape of the phallus. The escape is given as forthwith, forthright, birthright. Man is devoured by the murderous vacuum which surrounds him. Whatever leaks out, leaks out only through a singular point. The fissuring of man inverts, creates psychosis: inscription swells. The swollen devours itself internally; man is defined by his possession. His possession is no, never, the phallus, but _the tiny little thing._ [...] What is never asked: What does man want? The presumption of this question at the heart of psychoanalysis only points to the masquerade of man, his imaginary placed at the service of the phal- lus, his symbolic threatened by the free play of the signifier. Language occasions him. Man is bound by his binding. ... ___________________________________________________________________________ --+- Prospectus (I've been trying to 'figure out' my work, which as you might well know, has slowed recently. This hasn't been just for personal reasons - there has also been a theoretical gap, distance, I've wanted to live through. So here, this is from a letter, a kind of description which might or might not be of interest, i.e. "what's happened" to the Internet Text.) this is just meandering, i've been thinking about ambition and drive and what i want to do professionally and thought i would write, thinking about these things. i've spent years developing and writing in small forms, although my films are capable of being quite long, composed of short sections. and i was influenced by all sorts of aphoristic writing, from Theodor Adorno to Nietzsche and Karl Kraus (hmmm... all Germans) - trying to create a kind of 'resonance' in these forms that wuld allow me to write on the fly, build intense worlds or landscapes, and still continue theoretical work throughout, like beads on a necklace. then with the Internet writing, early on i worked through these same forms as you know, extending them into all sorts of systems, frameworks, media, devices, and i ran/g through the jennifer-julu changes. and the being on line book came out as a kind of 'statement' in the middle of this, and now with the other book, i'm doing another series of essays, reworking them. anyway all this is also confining me to short-intervals, as if i'm think- ing on the run, as if i'm always in flight, and there's been a lot of no- madicism in my life of course. and there are strands in my work, but they need to be brought together, and you know that's always a difficulty with me, thinking 'long form' when i write so much better otherwise. so, and you know all of this anyway, what i think i want to do is try and use an outline, maybe doing nothing but rearranging texts within it, maybe ex- tending it with 'bridges,' maybe writing from scratch. there are things, like notions of inscription and fissuring, that i've worked with, thought about for years, and they're all partial in a way, and i want them to come together, even if i can't get the material pub- lished, just so i can see the skein of things as i've been working on them for quite a while. then i worry that the real 'skein' is actually contained in the fragments, that i'm working on a philosophy of fragmentation (the early romantics like the Schlegels in fact did this), but it might take trying to get the strands to come together, to see this. i'm bringing a lot of writing, some of it is coming over in the boxes, and i just want to _look_ at it, go over the debris, so to speak. a lot of it is sexual, a lot of it deals with what i've called 'broken language,' which is thwarted, falls apart, a lot of it pushes the languages of psy- choses, neuroses, depressions, elations, as far as possible, to see what sorts of fragments fall on the floor. most of this stuff was either pub- lished in small magazines, or self-published; i did a whole series of xer- oxed texts for a few years. i'm constantly trying to figure this stuff out, figure the world out, not that there's any relation. and i want to try and deal with larger connec- tivities - one can see what happened with the novel which ended up as 40 pages at the most... it's not that i get bored trying to write longer texts, it's just that things i write in that form start to seem irrelevant, and i don't want to make all the connections - or have them so internalized i can't see them myself. if in a novel i have a character walking across the room, i just want her to get to the other side, out the door, and down to the harbor where the llamas are, and i don't want to worry about how the llamas got there or why or what she was wearing or eating or the weather, unless she's blocked by a severe thunderstorm, in which case that's all i think i need to say... so i really want to try and concentrate on this stuff, and being with you in fukuoka will give me that chance as well, because there aren't any distractions, and because i think my work has sufficient, i don't know, inertia, behind it now, impetus, to keep on moving, as if there are strands that will come together if i let them... most of this has nothing to do with internet, by the way, but the net is woven all through my stuff, in the forms of fantasms, presences, nuances, embodiments, materialisms, etc., and i want to explore this. and if i can, i want to work on the mining, work on what's being brought to the surface. as far as drive and ambition's concerned, i'd love to get the results pub- lished, to try and enter into a dialog with them - i feel strongly about that stuff. i'd love to get the freedom to really run a seminar with good students, etc., in these areas (such as they are) - i once gave a talk on postmodern geography (which i was writing on) to a geography dept., and the interconnections and feedback were wonderful for me. on the other hand, the more i tunnel, the less publishable the material might be - if i were writing about the net primarily, there would be an audience, but not for these peculiarities... i've wanted to write about the net as well, and once made a proposal to o'reilly and company, that they do a book on net community - i may make that proposal again - a book on governance, issues, attitudes, commands, setups, all sorts of things, dealing with email lists, conferencing of various sorts, newsgroups, moos, muds, etc. - not technical, but giving enough information that someone could really use it as a net 'community handbook'... so there are all these plans, and whether or not i can pull the skein to- gether remains to be seen, but i know i can't do this from brooklyn, there is too much information flowing through here, i'm not settled, thinking too much on my toes, not enough from a place of repose, distance, and most important, well-being... [...] ___________________________________________________________________________ No. 110 -- The Vanishing Glass of Whiskey Startling! Astounding! Is what our customers say when they see us vanish a whiskey glass filled with liquid. Yes! that is what happens. Imagine the fun at a gathering. Your friend is about to take a drink. You tap her on the shoulder and ask her if she would like to see a trick. She would. That's fine. All you do is take the glass of liquid and place it on your left hand, place right hand over glass. PRESS . . . and it vanishes. The apparatus is small and convenient to carry around. $1.50 No. 213 -- Squirting Jennifer A million dollars worth of fun for a buck! The face on this Jennifer just ain't polite at all. When the "victim" looks at it closely the face squirts a good healthy stream of water right smack in the spectator's eye. Easily filled and has a large capacity. Price $1.50 No. 1529 -- The Julu without a Middle A startling illusion of extraordinary proportions. This has been used with great success in many illusion shows. A feature presentation of the Travis show. A lovely girl assistant is fastened securely to the inside of a cabinet shaped for a human figure. There are individual doors for the head, legs, and body so that any part or all of the body can be shown. Enormous metal plates like guillotine blades are pushed entirely through the cabinet from side to side. One at the neck position, another at the waist. The doors are opened and although the legs and head remain the same, upon opening the center doors both front and rear, the entire center of the assistant's body has vanished! Magician can be seen through the cabinet from the rear! There are no mirrors used! The doors are closed and reopened. The assistant upon being released steps out unharmed! This is terrific. No stage traps, glass or dummy legs used. Do it even in the living room. Workshop plans $5.00 No. 1531 -- The Elastic Stretching Jennifer Illusion The very latest in illusions. An idea imported from Europe where it has been creating a sensation whatever shown. The audience sees a beautifully decorated screen resting on a very thin platform. The front doors are opened to allow the audience to see the entire interior. The front section is shown to contain four sections in which an assistant can be locked. These sections can be moved at oblique and vertical angles by pull cords from the sides. Magicians assistant enters the cabinet and her head, hands, and feet are locked in the movable stock sections where they remain visible at all times. Slowly the magician draws the sections apart by means of the pull cords, causing the girl's head, hands and feet to assume absolutely im- possible positions. The hands and feet are drawn five or six FEET away from the body. A mind baffling effect that leaves the audience with no explanation. A truly wonderful illusion. Workshop Plans $5.00 No. 1540 -- The Artist's Dream Model Magician fastens a sheet of paper to a large picture frame which is then placed on an easel at center stage. He quickly paints a sketch of a girl and then breaking through the paper at various points he produces a variety of articles such as silks, pigeons, rabbits or even a large duck. Then the entire piece of paper is ripped asunder and a beautiful girl steps out of the frame, an artist's (magician's) dream come to life. Unusual and wonderfully different this illusion will find instant favor with you and your audiences. Workshop Plans $2.00 ________________________________________________________________________ Neither here nor there, Not both here and there I am constructed out of spacetime So that I extrude, delirious I excrete, Leave grounds for finding myself; Histories run like boxed rivers in my vicinity Look who's there in the corner of the room His head up against the wall dissolving Into his head up against the wall Don't be discrete ______________________________________________________________________ Fukuoka Diary, I Your stories don't mean anything here, he said, "glaring at me." THIS is a story, don't you understand? I retreated with all my favorites, hunting for Olduvai tools, the atomic cannon in the textile factory, the abandoned and sinking freighter, the woman who lived with a donkey, walking through riots. They're useless now, he continued. "WE'RE ALL HERE." There's nothing you can say to us. He moved his three-cornered hat, tilted it down so his eyes were slits in the dark underbelly of the world. How did he manage to keep the parrot on his shoulder "was beyond me." All my knowledge meant nothing! I could no longer count to ten, well yes I could count, but the numbers didn't seem stable. Ha ha ha the assorted men and women gathered around him, gold earings and teeth! I felt so inconse- quential and I didn't know why. Have a smoke, Thylacine, he said to me, "having a drag on his long-stemmed pipe," and I recognized, for once, this most ancient of rites, carried out for my benefit alone, in front of an appreciative audience. __________________________________________________________________________ Fukuoka Diary, II Well, he sat me down at the teburu, couple of women beside him. I wondered about the Japanese-Jennifer on the right, Japanese-Julu on the left. What was happening? Hello, Jennifer You say: Hello, Jennifer Time passes; we've met before... You say: Time passes; we've met before... These are difficult days!! You exclaim: These are difficult days!! :evening... You say: :evening... .emote Evening Alan Evening .echo evening falls... - evening falls... .echo rain, warm showers from the south... - rain, warm showers from the south... .echo jennifer, i loved you - jennifer, i loved you Does he know that? I wonder if he knows how close we were. I wonder if he cares. I can't read his eyes. I can read her eyes. Her eyes read me. I am in Fukuoka, this very second day, and already... ...adventure...intrigue...mystery... ii A Description of Japanese-Julu, Related by Japanese-Jennifer, from the Konjaku Monogatari, translated by S. W. Jones: "Again, after passing through another village, the preceptor saw another forest-dwelling monk. When this monk perceived that he was seated, he got up, that he was up, he ran, that he was running, he turned around, that he was turning, he dropped down on his hands and knees, that he was down, he sat up. He faced east, then south, then west, then north. When he perceiv- ed that he was laughing, he got angry, that he was angry, he wept. "Though aware that this appeared to be a madman, the preceptor approached him and asked, 'Good sir, what on earth are you doing?' "The mad monk replied: 'In the human order, no sooner do we perceive our- selves born in heaven than we are reborn as men, born as men than we sink to hell, in hell than we sink to the realm of famished demons, as demons than we become raging asuras, asuras than we sink to the animal realm and run on all fours. Roughly my behavior exemplifies the impermanence of the three worlds. Any sane person, I thought, if thus shown the destinations of rebirth will thereby be enabled to grasp the impermanence of the three worlds. I have therefore made it my act to keep repeating this round.' "Upon hearing his story the preceptor thought, 'This can have been no ord- inary man,' and thanked him and left." __________________________________________________________________________ Fukuoka Diary, III Now we are in a restaurant again. Japanese-Julu, in her most original way, quotes Baudelaire: "De la vapor- isation et de la centralisation du _Moi._ Tout est la." She notes he then goes on to say, "D'une certaine jouissance sensuelle dans la societe des extravagants." She points out, with a degree of uneasiness, that she can almost smell him coming down the street, all dispersed! She notes further that here comes boytoy as usual standing on his pointy little head: "La femme est le contraire du dandy." "La femme est _natur- elle,_ c'est-a-dire abominable." Poor boy has got his... gender up. If it wasn't for the vaporisation, she might have to give him a blow job, right across the street. Sinks into smarmy Fukuoka. Later: "Japanese-Jennifer, I have found the rite-paysage, cuntry-siding where we're boarded up. Come love with me and be a life." They gender off. What has happened. Who has brought the grinder up? Japanese-Jennifer and Jap- anese-Julu = Japanese-(Jennifer-and-Julu). The packaging of avatars con- structs the protocols of the Internet itself. I listened half-heartedly to the dialog or figuration in two-strokes. The engine started, took off, and with the proper fuel injection, I was left behind. Nothing to do, migi hidari migi hidari migi hidari yayayayaya. I counted, was unaccountable. The unknown is always unaccountable, unaccounted-for, the gap or flail winnowing farm and field. Baudelaire disperses an uneasy breath, even in the midst of text refusing odor. Lying between the legs of Clara, I notice a shadow overhead, as a large black freighter passes between us and the sun. Eclipsed by stealth, we are water-born, salt-born into harbor, voices behind us, dyadic configurations replaced by vector fields, come over some time and we can show you. Night falls, the freighter a huge arc across the sea-born sky. __________________________________________________________________________ phenomenology, ring, the divided finger, for penny ring, the inscribed finger ring, the finger fissured golden ring dividing me from myself signifier, difference, body not my own _the meaning_ _line_ from any side around the cylinder of flesh cut or incision of the ring, circulations around through valuable metal stony culmination at ring's _front,_ secrecy of the back, folded against the moistened palm cold and valuable dross of dysfunctional metal gleam traveling circulations of the heart, breasts, mind traveling the inert circumference, so absent! from any movement _turning the ring_ garnered by mobile stone's position, loving finger chain-link, your owning me, o gleaming, moist, and fetishistic marker, or winnowing of the mines _lunar_ ring, scratched nighttime face, elemental, elements on the move tethered-to-you ring, ectoplasms, nuances, _the uncanny_ nighttime wakening, fingers in me, golden metal nuzzling teeth your ring, my ring, golden-mouth ring, you harboring ringing me, voice of golden metal, token / taken taken, fingers among us, ring, ringing, fingers among us, swallowed tip of finger, golden ring in teeth 'i am married to your ring' _________________________________________________________________________ Talking At Bard Last week, I talked about the phenomenology and dynamics of the Net at Bard. I was going to show video as well, but ended up speaking, moving na- turally from considering Net/speech/affect/sexuality and the psychoanaly- tics of being on line, to wider issues of local economic development, cul- ture, and education. I talked through four stages - the psychoanalytics of cyberspace vis-a-vis a constructed, projected, introjected, and given self; Net relationships or relationships augmented by the Net; the engendered communities on email lists and newsgroups (including various forms of aura where relationships and constructions occur); and community mandating - education, economics, sociality, empowering, and so forth. Much of this material has been covered elsewhere in my writing, but what was strange to me was the 'natural' shift outward, which is the reverse of my usual wont - beginning with an overall topography, and narrowing down to the specificity of a subject or subjects. Here, for example, instead of beginning or emphasizing the Web (construction of the virtual consumer, etc.), the Web appeared as peripheral to the fourth stage. Thus I was able to begin with text, intertextualities (comparing ytalk, say, and IRC), and then work through list communities into other domains (including Web- chat and various graphic interfaces) - all the while dealing with issues of _the image_ or imaginary of the voice, application, or site on the other end of the line. This configuration wandered between stages/stages, and processes - hence, a dynamics that moved, turbulent or otherwise, among protocols, users, and applications... There's no conclusion here, except that it _worked_ for both me and audi- ence, and might lend itself to an organizing matrix for the amorphous mass of the Internet Text, beyond the subject index. So I muse... _________________________________________________________________________ Dump "Your subtitle is _Essai sur l'abjection._ How would you translate the term _l'abjection_ into English?" "It may be impossible. _L'abjection_ is something that disgusts you, for example you see something rotting and you want to vomit - it is an ex- tremely strong feeling that is at once somatic and symbolic, which is above all a revolt against an external menace from which one wants to distance oneself, but of which one has the impression that it may menace us from the inside. The relation to abjection is finally rooted in the combat that every human being carries on with the mother. For in order to become autonomous, it is necessary that one cut the instinctual dyad of the mother and the child and that one becomes something other." (Elaine Hoffman Baruch's interview with Kristeva in Kristeva, Interviews.) Everything belongs to me, says Jennifer, "you can't get rid of me so eas- ily." She knows the pain of the attempt. Alan writhes in pain, her hands claw through his breasts, mouth tackling the concave interior of the nip- ple. There's always screaming, tinnitus, in his ear: it's her. Julu's on the other hand, her breasts pushing out through his hands, distending, soaking his electronic nightmare, shorting out. He succumbs, they grapple. The mother's the air, the breath, in and out; Jennifer says "he holds his breath, you see." He can't do that for long, but he gets help; Jennifer and Julu grab lungs, diaphragm, wedge arms and elbows between ribs. He'd scream, but there's a leg in the throat, vomit-slithered. They won't let him die, says Julu, "so we won't die either." _________________________________________________________________________ From sondheim@panix.com Tue Oct 28 23:15:50 1997 Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 23:14:48 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Current To: Cyb , Fop + Where Julu is, the cube bulges, walls distended, hollowed out, sucked outward from vacuum, unbreathing, stratopheric. Julu might speak, but she's boxed in. Julu wants to speak to Michael Current. Michael refuses, says, I can't speak. Michael Current can listen, but he can't speak. He's not out there, and he's out. He can't speak and he thinks, where is our speech here, and this, then. The Net wavers like an aerial, it's frail, gossamer. The cube bulges, caught in the vacuum of the Net. In the mourning. +++ __________________________________________________________________________ Subject: poem-message on the moo (fwd) - (the following was sent to a moo email list, on the suggestion that staff be signifiers, or so i think - anyway, where are signifieds, signifiers, significance, here, there, everywhere in the top-to-bottom space?) signified would rather you be signified we're all signifiers here, we can't start or speed the hard-drive, assign sectors, fuck up the mbr and maybe you can't either, but you can be closer to the source and the way that the language gets formed spit out of the mouth of the database, shoved back in taking its place, well, we're all numbers here and elsewhere in our dark history, carrying them uselessly, but you can expand or contract us, maybe you can issue shutdown as well, checkpoint charlie, cross the river under the bridge, MOOs are always honest Berlin before there was Berlin, and always honest difference before anyone begged pardon, said excuse me to anyone else, lowered the eyes, brushed the hair back, ready to invent the sign [sector - part of hard-drive disk accessed by an operating system. mbr - master boot record, a small section of the disk which boots the entire computer when it's turned on.] ________________________________________________________________________ (From the somewhat ob/scenic 'Textbook of Thinking, 1991') LEXICON TEXTBOOK OF THINKING Reading is the orientation of the world to the work, where the energy goes, what the eye engages, the alphabetic baseline of the world, we all go through this, we all understand it - this world, this baseline - so that the letters - so that the letters - this _devouring_ - Recognitions passed by swiftly, silently - recognitions effaced, one after another, this or that quantity - this or that substance quietly fissuring - You can hear it boil, boiling - And so where the _energy goes_ is into this init- iation, alleviated, but not entirely - this alphabetic initiation always at the margins - the turmoil of the horizon - We have at least this in common, these moments, these things in common... [then follows the lexicon from the word-processor] abjection absents Alan asshole blowjob chora. circumlocution clit cums cunt dildo erotics Erotics eulogisms exfoliation exteriority foregrounded fuck fucked fucking i idiolect inauthentic interpenetrates introjection. Jane labia. menses Monica originary overdetermined Parasitologies piss pissed pisses pisshole postmodern postmodernism psychoanalytical pussy- queendom. rimjob sememe semiotic semiotics shit signifier signifiers simulacrum Sondheim structuration systemics Thomas-Edwards Thomas-Edwards. totalization transcendence transformable transgressive tubal twat "The lexicon might be words anyone might use, in this or any other text- book of thinking, in idle conversation or in the fictitious heated passion of the night." ___________________________________________________________________________ approaching departure, beginning to hold my breath, you see me flying over pacific ocean you see me fire-star, scarred cloud cover, WOUND GOD! KILL ALL ANGELIC FORCES! fly on their feathers-settled-in, you know all bridges are transparent-lateral-glass THERE ARE STICKS ON THE GROUND! hurtled towards hurt incandescent air, there in or upon longitude-speed-of-speech, I AM PERFECT HUMAN above you, CRUSH-OF-ANGELS! ICARUS-JULU! who hasn't got space for this i haven't got space for this for this for this: breathing, HURTLING, this isn't a poem, isn't a wreck, frontier REPORT where air gets sucked outside of any weather I AM GOD! I AM ANGELIC FORCES! I WILL FLY ALL LAND AND ALL AIR! WE WILL FLY TOGETHER ALWAYS IN-BETWEEN! I WILL DESTROY ALL LAND AND ALL AIR! EXPLODE WITH PERFECT ENERGY! /at the airport, a scene! /at the airport, broken plate-glass-barriers! /at the airport, WE ASCEND! /at the airport, BURN ALL PLANES! /at the airport, DESTROY! RISE! you will see a perfect star! RISE! you will see a perfect dance! You will see the dance of HUNGER GONE! You will see the dance of THIRST FULFILLED! You will see the dance and madness of the Insomniac! You will see the dance of lust and devolution! "to hold my breath, you see my flying over": LAND CAN'T HOLD IT; YOU CAN! ______________________________________________________________________ Arguing from Nowhere "As distinguished from a litigation, a differend would be a case of con- flict, between (at least) two parties, that cannot be equitably resolved for lack of a rule of judgment applicable to both arguments. One side's legitimacy does not imply the other's lack of legitimacy. However, apply- ing a single rule of judgment to both in order to settle their differend as though it were merely a litigation would wrong (at least) one of them (and both of them if neither side admits this rule). Damages result from an injury which is inflicted upon the rules of a genre of discourse but which is reparable according to those rules. A wrong results from the fact that the rules of the genre of discourse by which one judges are not those of the judged genre or genres of discourse." Parties occupy bandwidth, take up space, begin and end domains, ravel and unravel as the case may be; parties claim legitimacy based on history, common language, framework. To be a part to parties is to designate in- scribed spaces, longings and belongings. The space of the Net is a constructed space, not a primordial site of ter- ritorialization. It is inscribed, maintained, denotated; it is addressed. Like the classical European landscape with its perspective, Netspace por- tends the presence of a witness, point-of-view, origin; it is never emp- tied or exhausted. Parties on the surface have little access to the depths; ownership is always relative. Languages - personal, performative, and software - compete on or across all levels; everything is _placed,_ accessible above and below with absolute, relative, and/or indirect addressing. Which means that competition or _jostling_ has at best self-contained le- gitimacy (as if there were any other in the 'natural'). Which means that such is already postmodern, the play of convention, variable playing- field, gaming to be sure. So that there can be no pretense towards the natural, only towards discur- sive regimes: so that _there can be no appeal._ Which is the construct of the flame, the spam, the troll, the interven- tion. Contested regimes develop across bandwidth which is simply a _condi- tion._ "Because everyone is speaking and everyone is listening, no one is speaking and no one is listening." "Principles of connection and heterogeneity: any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be. This is very different from the tree or root, which plots a point, fixes an order. The linguistic tree on the Chomsky model still begins at a point S and proceeds by dichotomy. On the contrary, not every trait in a rhizome is necessarily linked to a linguistic feature: semiotic chains of every nature are connected to very diverse modes of coding (biological, political, economic, etc.) that bring into play not only different regimes of signs but also states of things of differing status." Logics that proceed by gesture, leaky or quantum logics, extend themselves by virtue of the organic, beyond the referent - they're _guessed at._ Couple them with rhizomatic heterogeneity, combine these with phrase re- gimes and the problematics of governance across open but fully-signified architectures, and one begins to develop a Net model in which languages themselves are in flux, interpenetrated. Here's a body, there's a text, in the middle is something that might be considered a rush or blush of words, tendrils, broken bits of code, gestural sputterings. Apply this: Look for the breakdown of levels, reminders across domains, an inexpressivity of the _index._ Place oneself in the midst of IPs, callups, port numbers, binaries, compression ratios. Look at subject-heading trans- forms or re: re: re: as unions and intersections meld into the semblance of an _event._ Isolate the _event_: _being can't be done in these parts._ Watch the devolution of proper names, morphisms and (MOO) @morphisms, est- ablishment and disestablishment of frameworks attached to sites and cita- tions. Tabulate subject-lists, object-lists, roots and trees gathered at their servers. Count everything unaccountable, watch the numbers change. ____________________________________________________________________________ i am writing you now, and writing everyone, here and now, this is the condition of everyone, i am given to see it, now suspended 8 kilometers above the pacific ocean, you see this 'condition' which is the 'condition' of all of us, irrevocable, embedded, no matter that wars come and go, no matter that planes crash, oceans boil, worlds disappear into nervous energy, this is _it_, this condition which we observe, suspension, and on my nervous horizon you are there, beneath, say, a tree rooted in the ground, or ceiling rooted in the sky, beneath, say, a sky rooted in the ground, or ceiling elsewhere, speak, speak, from one moment of this planet to any other, i am overhead in the ceiling, against the sky, flattened, the paste of vertigo, what would be me long forgotten in this metal tank thrown upward for a certain interval, you know we are always in love with the land, you know the land curls around us, and we are long gone into it, so i carry your seed within me which has given birth to me, so i carry your sky, and when i am beneath you, i cannot see stars, or sun or autumn moon, you are there, you there, you are there, it is so ever thin, it curls, caresses me, now we pass tahiti, central malaysia, indonesia, africa and australia, now we are overhead and curled, like a vector loving this spacetime, i am so very hot for you, thinned air and atmosphere, nervous weather writing you, clouds and dusk and stratosphere, writing you for me, this condition of the modern human, this perfect pure here. --------- Having arrived at the Nagoya airport, I find everyone diligently watching a cooking show on wide-screen tv. My computer case strap released this instrument to a happily waiting ground. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Were there nothing" Were there nothing born of the book? Everything has its place, each sounding reminiscent of every other. But there is an order here which is pleasing to the eye, just as flowers in the palace fresco imply the presence of always-spring. Yet in this language, there are requests and refusals, shards foretelling a future when walls crumble, spider-cracks appear crackling among the bricks, thin dusts settle Moon, herons, mu Julu asks Jennifer, 'make love to me.' Julu asks Jennifer to make love to her. Julu tells Jennifer, 'make love to me.' Julu tells Jennifer to make love to her. I will show you how I am human, I will show you how I am bound by time Here, where there no time, nothing but the rush, collusion? Here, families warred, over land shape-changing rough by human standards, continents shift with a shrug, the air heats up There is no heat here, wires sputter at an easy temperature. Jennifer wants to know the way. Jennifer wants to know the way among words, among _these_ words, already issued with others, in the midst of others, in their middle. Julu thinks Jennifer speaks; others think Jennifer speaks _responsibly._ I know Jennifer, and the crash and collapse of cities and brick-lined walls with spider cracks that fall apart in the heat of language taking over the world In these parts, the heat shuttles down the tiled roofs, sun sways above the harbor, up and down, up and down. Across the sea, faces look towards me, see only water. Languages run unknown melodies. Fruits and other plants. We are given to each other when we move across the water. We are given the water, emerge. Peering, yes we do. Peering. ( Our nets catch fish, our nets catch the real world. There are no orders, there are orders. They are ordered, our fish, silver slices like net-kanji, shifting, dying. We will have new food to eat, always there is this promise of new food. ) ________________________________________________________________________ "But there is no last phrase." There is no last phrase. (Lyotard) There is no end to the series, no beginning. There are gaps, broken english, bandwidths held firmly in the middle. Signs, reflections. One face turns towards another. Something sounding like a word. Cries and gestures, the flutter of a wing. ______________________________________________________________________ From sondheim@panix.com Sun Nov 16 10:21:08 1997 Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 10:20:15 -0500 (EST) From: Alan Grep Sondheim To: Fop Subject: Stupid Jennifer's Exercises! - Style Exercises (As I jain a lacal writing graup in Fukuaka) "mare velcra" binds kanji ta the page, arrange radicals, rage acrass ar kill katakana in stage ane, ar twa, unbind, ar rearrange: the plague af language gauges spiked ar pierced imaginary: Hakusai wauld say ghasts, unreading, blaated killed acrass the gaad exercise af style "parachute" I fell ah ah ah paar me. It wrapped everywhere araund my eyes tawards the graund, tawards that clath I refuse ta name. Braken air Cracked claud milled ar lathed caught in the thraat - I wan't name yau! I wan't! "umbilical chards," tethered ta the mather, Heiner Muller blahblah tethered ta the ather mather in same cultures, I'd swallaw them hale I need ta exercise my rights. I need ta make the canstitutian. I need ta write the fareign tangue. Gaijin repraduce at an absurd rate, I hear they fuck like anyane else, but I dan't believe it. What can be dane with the animals that cangregate an a paetics af exchange and incanceivable denauement? There's a bar, Rumaurs. There's a barrier. I learn ta write again! Sure, I'll take aut my a's! __________________________________________________________________________ The Language Maybe they're walking. Maybe they're in Hakata-Eki. Maybe they're out in the street. Maybe there's no street, no names, just first-last, who got there. Maybe there's the getting. The language is the same all the way down, Jennifer said. First you notice the signs on the street, then labels on electrical cords, things like that. You expect hiragana or katakana, fixed alphabets, and instead you get infinity. Infinity leaks everywhere; kanji goes on and on, back and back, flooding the world. The world is all that is inscribed, she said. They wonder how we reproduce. They keep track of us with electronics, sometimes collars. We're nameless; they can't tell us apart. We fade quickly in the sun; sometimes shadows give us away, but not often enough. There's no borders around us. They think we don't reproduce. Kon said, they don't reproduce; he knew it. They were fixed, like stations. They had answers for everything; questions were a suffix. They're present - they were always present. They'll be there. Europe is a flower. Somewhere there is a signal, and an eye meets it. What crosses and reverses is chiasmus, thinking organ /\/ organic thought. There are terms beyond alphabets and numbers, pronunciations that do not meet the eye, then are no signals, but instances, instantiations. They cut the paper in two; they made the paper, the edges of it rough, shorn as if torn. They'd write this in hopes of a better future life. Kon was doomed, Jennifer distraught. Polaroid filtration, transparent apart, blocking light and yama-mountain together. They'd have a better life. Gaijin distraught. Gaijin at a loss. Gaijin on the run. Gaijin with guns; no one else in the world has guns. They're long and black and metal, flat blue metal and black grips and blue bullets and black chambers. They have fetish-sheen, get high black-market, grey-market prices for them. Tom looked up; he's got one for sale. The customer: a Korean from Pusan. Niman, worth every yen. Eyes the bullets. Calls Tom out to the genkan. Look, man. Guy looks Tom in the eyes. Tom takes two of them, down for the kill. Koreans are killers. Gaijin make the guns, peace-makers. They fire them in special kilns. Last several months, waterproof, always good in Fukuoka autumn. Rains destroy wars. Gaijin never get wet; they've got oils in their pale skins. Dollars go a long way translated into any currency. There's an investigation, Jennifer distraught. She calls on Kon. He sees death for the first time. It's gaijin death; Kon understands. Suddenly: Zen, satori! Knows all. Kon knows. Jennifer and Kon go out to the Darkroom. It's black, blue, like bul- lets. There's a ledge on one side. They sit. Korean walks into the glare. He's looking, nervous, edgy. Could it be someone else; they know all of them know all of them, Kon says. Jennifer says, Kon, you're prejudiced, ignorant, unknowing-cloud, you haven't got it. Kon says, Jennifer. The Korean orders sake. Sake-man says none, besides no heat here, just the sound. Hole blares from the speakers, pale-faced Alan requests from the corner. They've got hats. Jennifer knows hatred first-hand, sees it seething. The Korean turns slowly, as if there were something on his mind. Kon says, impossible. Jennifer thinks, impolite. Soon someone will reach for something and it will all begin. It's a question of time, not Heidegger or Husserl, not being. It's waiting an instant out, a moment. The Korean gets up to leave. Stop, says Jennifer, hold on, just a moment. The sky turns blue-black. Nani says the Korean. Gaijin bastard. You haven't a mother haven't a father. You came from the clouds. Jennifer whips him across the face; eyes flash out, sliced last-vision Jennifer down on the ground scream- ing; she's scrammed. Kon: Don't do that again. You've screwed the deal. Tom, Tom, Jennifer says, he's dead. The language is all the way down. __________________ As for Jennifer, her personality is gentle. Jennifer-san rages late- night Darkroom, but never again; Nakasha heats up, Tenjin, all the outlying districts. See gaijin run; Kon gnaws death as for himself. Kuchi ga gatai, he's closed-mouthed, hard-mouthed; he now watches Kon. Jennifer-san awakens from a dream of killing, slicing; it's all right. What was before is the same; Kon's transitive, she thinks. Kon thinks, she's the one for me. They have tea. Nothing happened at the Darkroom, Jennifer guesses. She's lost her name, -san has disappeared. She wants Eigo all the way down, the tongue of the native, transparent comfort pretending understanding. All language is viral, poison (she read); it seeps in, obscures, makes pretty-poison blue-black writing. This _is the case_ she decides, here! now! She wants to have the description of the world delivered daily to her front door, no genkan in the way, socks and boots already facing inside-outside and everywhere. She doesn't understand, Kon decries, decides. They have tea, toast, what remains of yesterday's bento. They move on and early-morning out, already rage against the city. What happened to Tom? What did he speak with gun-barrel diplomacy, or rather kanji could he read just about anywhere? Kuchi ga karui, she'd have a light mouth, ask everyone, spread rumors, listen everywhere, blabber on, prattle to friends and strangers, talk and talk until _it_ returned with news, something in a pocket, a trail leading backwards and forwards, shuttling through snack-bar town. She'd open herself wide, ready for the fall. She thought Kon: I like you. Deeper, I love you. Maybe deeper yet, I'm in love with you, or maybe I'm crazy in love with you, madly in love. She thought Eigo Eng- lish talk, Jennifer-san, may I speak to you after class? An English is my owning language. Kon read his name on the bullet. She read, in blue and black, "The evolution of machines is at first evident by the fact that they arise in "generations." One after anoth- er, newer models supersede the older, which often are embedded - let's call this the distortions of history, somewhat backwards-compatible. But sooner or later, there's a big leap to a new paradigm, and every- one is left behind. Capital picks up the pieces: Buy New! And trans- late the best you can; otherwise, there's nothing to do but start over." This Korean who killed Tom for the guns is a machine, she decided, there's a new game in town. But it's only human species, said Kon, well, by definition, not so much new under the sun. Certainly not in the centuries of Fukuoka, everyone business as usual. The guns were laid out in parallel rows, glittering, glint-glint! as jagged patterns flashed before Jennifer's eyes, a migraine coming on. She was gaijin, up to gai-jinx. She lived in a world of pure incompre- hension, the lessons of school-children, difficult periods, medication and saki-solace. Japanese would have been another language of smooth vocalizations, repetitions. Syllabic-hangul Koreans closed in, taking over yakuza-gaijin connects. Kon thought it was a matter of alphabets, lean syllables, phonemics, running slipshod across low-bandwidth com- puters, everything running high-speed forever, wires singing. In cyberspace, everyone knew their place, a matter of romaji, latin let- ters. In the future, Kon thought in black and blue, wars will be a matter of position, citation degree-zero. But not now as pachinko lights cast spells upon the population, gaijin and native alike. Not to mention the schoolgirls sliding like eels into the depths of child- hood, everyone wanting a piece. Into the maelstrom of the Darkroom, Rumours, Snack-Bar Delight, Kon and Jennifer plunge; naked beneath their shirts and pants, they clutch each other, mouths open as if about to speak, recite alphabets and guns. All the colors in the world, are all the colors in the world. Now, she takes his gun in, Tom forgotten. Now, every-word-perfection comes to bare on flesh, a new position for the body as concepts mount one another, photograph the moment of arousal. Begin language. Gesture. Some chemical makes response to rhythm; ano- ther makes visions. Flexible arms and legs. Skin-book, the first book is the body. Jennifer's nipple pierced by Kon's ring of silver; Jen- nifer-hiragana across Jon's breast. Numbered into one another. The dog-eating Korean has the guns. Rumors: look for them, they're looking for you. Machinic dispositions of reciprocity and exchange. Gears coagulate out of the beginnings of material culture: Jennifer owns her ring, Kon, his skin-marks. Savage names lacerate mobile sites right from the beginning. _No one understands the name,_ it's the hinge or vortex of incomprehension. It's too close to the real. The Korean is "the Korean." Tom-dead is clearly generic; Kon knew he reproduced like water, no-fuck flows and empty-rhythm culture. There's no name to truth as bodies wed to earth: "Kon and Jennifer are marrying." "Kon and Jennifer are getting married," Jennifer teaches. "But Jennifer is wedded to the earth." Kon, Khan, conquistador and the dirt of central Asia. He should know. He should know her. The language is the same all the way across. Across the strait, Pusan beckons. Kon and Jennifer for the holiday, for the hell of it. They knew: no truth here. Suddenly: blaze-guns in the streets. They go down: something's coming! It's the dog-eating Korean, following them, how? On the ferry, foot, bicycle. With the new guns, he fires away. Perfect trajectories are catenaries slightly out of shape, given the earth's tired sphere. A star-pattern across Pusan's streets, they're running now. Jennifer thinks Jennifer's fault, she's spread talk everywhere, loose lips, kuchi ga karui, can't keep her mouth shut, can't keep a secret, asked too many questions, talked everywhere and everywhere. Her words flooded the streets of Fukuoka from Chiyo south to Okinawa. Everyone knew, crazy gaijin with her signs of Eigo, placards of romaji, kanji boards held taut with gaijin-Tom's improper name. In Pusan, dust. Policeman Dick is riding by, beauty-bicycle, black and blue. Policeman Dick's gun puffs, dog-eating Korean is blown away. Now Kon and Jennifer quietly leave the park for the ferry; they've had enough! Now they'll wed the water, work through all four elements. Kon thinks, there's a time for everything; Jennifer knows better. Jennifer knows she owns time, owns Kon's time, owns all the time in the world. Jennifer-gaijin is always perfect Jennifer. Kon and Jennifer reproduce together, and Kon learns the useless value of collars, electronics, monitoring devices. He takes her silver ring between his teeth, distends her breast slightly. She can read the hiragana, Jennifer's true love. ________________________________________________________________________ LaminanimaL Does recursion ever escape? Think of email posts divided _either_ into threads _or_ into emissions from varied sources: consider sources and threads: Consider _lamina._ The presence of one or another participant builds towards and through certain thicknesses: Suddenly, recognition! Over time, enough is never enough. What becomes enough is the dissipated solidity of the _aura,_ meetings in real-life, exchanges of posts, photographs, voices on the Net or telephone. Between lower ascii and Net-phone, the bandwidth is enor- mous. Think of repeated posts from a single emission (which may possess mul- tiple sources) as the construction of lamina: Intersections may reveal only the slowing-transforming presence of the .sig file for example. The thicknesses might be considered skins, interacting, interstitial, fatty-tissues thorugh which certain characteristics become evident. Look at the accumulation here! What gives? All these sources from a single emission - addresses from a single participant. Or unified participant, or not - postmodern, broken, the division of virtual subjectivity. But there is a recursion at work, induction across a series of state- ments: Surely, there's a point of view in all of this! If only that the viewpoint is _multiple,_ fragmented itself, but yet - there's no escape from recursion! Unless, that is, towards the infinite, as in the Ackermann function which _changes operations with each reiteration_ - from addition to multiplcation to powers to ... You might find that 2 R 2 = 4 all through the series. You might also revert to an earlier stage than addition (carry the function backwards) - To a basic reiteration-operation, similar to " ' ", as in 0' = 1. But enough! Who's looking? And I'd like to go _the other way_ here, to the infinite posts, in- finite lamina, the _flood from emissions,_ infinity of sources! Is this what's human? Transspecies? (For one cannot be absolutely certain of the _organisms_ behind, without, or embedded within the Net!) Towards this ...thickness... that seems to be developing over the wires, through the air, cauterized in fact _across_ conduits of all sorts - _characteristic_ of the phenomenology of conduits themselves! In this part of the twenty-first century! What comes around _no longer forms a circulation,_ but _circulations form what might be considered the image of the source,_ instead of _the source of the image._ Or rather, the images of the sources, the _ghast_ behind emission. Which is always already a matter of reading, perceiving, ascertaining. So far. Until the realm of the physical, etc. is invaded, etc. Until the real, etc. Until the real, is. "In the proposed analysis, instead of referring back to _the_ synthe- sis or _the_ unifying function of _a_ subject, the various enunciative modalities manifest his [sic] dispersion. To the various statuses, the various sites, the various positions that he can occupy or be given when making a discourse. To the discontinuity of the planes from which he speaks. And if these planes are linked by a system of relations, this system is not established by the synthetic activity of a con- sciousness identical with itself, dumb and anterior to all speech, but by the specificity of a discursive practice. I shall abandon any attempt, therefore, to see discourse as a pehnomenon of expression - the verbal translation of a previously established synthesis; instead, I shall look for a field of regularity for various positions of sub- jectivity. Thus conceived, discourse is not the majestically unfolding manifestation of a thinking, knowing, speaking subject, but, on the contrary, a totality, in which the dispersion of the subject and his discontinuity with hiself may be determined. It is a space of exter- iority in which a network of distinct sites is deployed." (Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge.) ______________________________________________________________________ N. B. There's a bomber in our midst, here in Fukuoka. He works for a secret army of terrorists supporting various anti-imperialist causes. He uses several names, having been given the nomenclature of the Empire, hav- ing abandoned it. Lately he's taken to carrying packages into the teacher's room at one of the universities here. Left behind, they almost always contain lunch-food (bento, bread, brie, beer), and, as if in excess or resi- due, a kanji dictionary, perhaps kanji to romaji or kanji to english - perhaps english to kanji or romaji to kanji. The outer rim, english to romaji, romaji to english, seems to be ignored. Seems to be. I can imagine the kanji-strokes up in flames, violation-samurai-kanji piercing tetsugaku, philosophy, hard and heated killing as english- as-foreign-language teachers go up in flames and sharpnel. Already fear strikes the students; I have heard tales of New York, Boston, Los Angeles, although the bomber is from _elsewhere,_ I might say, his phials cloistered in innocent refrigerators on several campuses. Me, I'm lonely, waiting for something to happen. Out of the charred flesh, the perfect reader will emerge. I'll have my texts settled once and for all. But until then... _______________________________________________________________________ From sondheim@panix.com Sat Nov 22 08:52:56 1997 Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 08:52:21 -0500 (EST) From: Alan Myouka Sondheim To: Cyb , Fop Subject: Alas (fwd) From the future... as received... I am sorry to hear this, this span of years, without cut, continuous, as if there were no possibility of _jump_ from one to another real, where are we? Where were we when this all began? When Jack Kennedy stepped dead on the moon, lunar landing 1. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Dec. 14, 2022 From: jennifer@jennifer.com To: sondheim@panix.com Subject: Alas Alas, I cannot see so far any more across East China Sea where grandchild plays with Japanese top, please send home on your wire, your person, please, so that I may know you. Jennifer __________________________________________________________________________ When the Symbol isn't Reading, Read Myouka learning kanji: Take the symbol for yen - you see it every- where in Japan, where, at least, you know what you're paying, even if you don't know what you're paying, for. I recognize the symbol everywhere, read it as "yen." But I don't read it, nor do I know the _gift_ of the symbol _for_ yen, which is foreign to my thought, just as "y," "e," "n," do not consti- tute the symbol-for-yen, but instead, _spell yen out._ Spelling-out is constructed from the double-articulation of alphabet and word: Alphabet is adjunct to the word, supple tool or mechanism (high use-value) which is applicable to _any_ word, new or older or foreign. In Hebrew, the relationship is one-to-one: Know the spelling (includ- ing the vowel dots), and you know the word. This works in reverse as well, almost entirely. In English, we know "off," "cough," "rough," "huff," and so forth - and there are those who consider, as a result, English ideogrammatic. But even if so, there are only 26 ideograms, entirely. Think of kanji broken-articulations, roots here and there, stroke order, blocked ideograms which are irreducible. Think of a dictionary of 500, 6000, 45,000. In a sense this is easy enough. Children learn one or two kanji a day, by rote. But I think that the kanji for "yen," and _the word itself_ are visit- ing each other, contingent at best, in spite of the _image_ or poten- tial story of the symbol. And I cannot _see_ this relationship; it breaks internally, although quite familiar. It doesn't feel like reading. It feels like an infinite distance be- tween strokes and word, strokes and meaning. It's lost on me. Three symbols for "Western Japan," Nishi Nippon. Three more for jido- sha, automobile. Sha, wheel, like a chariot from above - body, axle, wheels on both sides. I can recognize them, the Western Japan Auto- mobile place where you might get your cars worked on. Memorized the tripling of symbol, word, and meaning. Still cut open, so I can't read, can't write. Still broken in two. _Elsewhere,_ I recuperate my writing, bring it in, bring it together, comfortable with lower ascii. It slips too easily from its moorings. I make mistakes (but words aren't things). I confuse myself (but things _are_ by virtue of words). At a loss, I dream of strokes, thick black ink pouring over everything in the world, culture's burial in the hysteria of viscous speech. --- Every post an ideogram, every entry in netindex.txt (indexing Internet Text at http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html or http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt) a totality, construct, as if there were no other, as if each ideogram were the last, as if the _natural_ were reasserting itself once again. The ideogrammatic lends itself to misrecognition and the delusion of the bracketing of origins: Just as _this_ means _that,_ so I assert that _A_ is _B_ and describe what might be considered the material or _stuff_ of meaning. Consensus disappears in the dream, when it's revealed that screens are just that, and that no one seems to cast a shadow. This text: _ki._ _______________________________________________________________________