Unwise Thinking about Japan In Japan the compression of space is matched by the compression of time in the United States. Just as kabuki or noh focus on the thin moment and its holding into other facets, slowly, so does the United States disperse it- self into plateaus, mountains, suburbs. Japan measures itself against the eternity of thousand-year-old cherry trees, shrines before writing. Against this, the disparate symbolic, piecemeal extensions of techne, imports, accretions. Sometimes the trees have names. Sometimes the streets do not. Sometimes more often the signs are no-signs. The sign is everywhere, as are its interpretations; breaking into pieces, the signifier is a radical departure. The gaijin apparently breathes as others; even now, I am defined by my ability to walk, wear a beard, turnabout into children's stares. What is total is a misreading down to the ground of history, shinto and yayoi, or down to for example the pocket monster, rows of talento panels, dissolves into cherry-blossoms. The magatama jewel around my neck, protect me against the other signs of empire, imperial melodrama, the shielding of the sun in the cave until she comes out, what a terrific dance. The group writes about what the group is ignorant of. To _know something._ To _be ignorant of_ something, _of_ something. To possess through ignor- ance. What for example is the height of the world? To measure the 1342 stone by the side of the highway, I would say three sanskrit characters about 25 centimeters in height. I cannot _about._ It would be unwise. It would be ignorant. It would be mute. _________________________________________________________________________ The Thickness of the Path of Dreaming I know the comfort of the room. I know the sunlight coming in through the high thin window in the kitchen. I know the sunlight, for a brief interval, will nourish the two tiny transplanted cacti, the euphorbia, the feeble flowering plant, all these resting on a shelf. We stand on a chair, taking the plants down to water them. I know the comfort of the room. I know when I walk out the door, and rain has fallen, that I can walk several steps to the right, then left and out onto the street, avoiding the puddles as I step across two drains; on the street, there are several manhole covers, and at a distance of one, three, and four steps between them, but the rain leaves the gentle slope, almost invisible; the street gathers no puddles. Its narrowness turns the passage into the semblance of a room, and I walk down the corridor towards the 7-11 on the corner, which sells oden, soft drinks, manga, other things, and the cool breeze some- times brings incense from the shrine and temple complex next door, its cemetery bordering the lounge room, also the bedroom, and it is there I imagine Hokusai's ghosts haunting me - no, it is more than imagination. At the 7-11 I may take a left, then towards Ailsa's place, the long street full of second-hand bookshops and stores, past the entrance to the temple, then past Hakozaki itself, the tall dark foreboding shrine which also haunts. I may take a right into the shrine - the left corridor with its torii tending towards the sea, entering it. I may take a second right, past the sacred laurel, at least a thousand years old as I count, or I may continue towards the shrine, passing by on the left-hand-side, towards the one of the two smaller flanking ones; here there are red flags installed like a forest before it. Or I may turn to the right farther on, almost in front of the major building, towards and beneath the ancient pavilion with its paintings in the rafters. But I continue past the shrine today, or perhaps another day, on the road to Ailsa's, and I may eat at Mosburger on the left, or enter the second- hand bookstore next to it, where I may buy a book of cherry-trees for three-hundred yen, or an old Sumo magazine which includes a record of sta- ble songs. Before this, I may note the second-hand store is closed, since it is Sunday, and I regret I cannot find a second used plectrum for my shamisen (which I also bought there), the first being slightly nicked as a result of a slight fall here in the genkan, where I am working now. I remember the thin sunlight as if spring had finally arrived, and the appearance of the university gate as I pass it, not noticing, until I return, the other second-hand bookshops where I have purchased old Noh play programs before. I walk in silence like the rain which has fallen on other days, silently, on this road, not like the wind's thick rustle near the back windows of the house we are in. Self-consciously, I note the silence, thinking then of the music and its silences and sudden surges, and wide spaces, and my hands equally silently finger the shamisen in my imagination, as I find myself more and more accustomed to the thin wooden neck, the possibilities in the three strings, the odd weight and length of the instrument, for someone more accustomed to classical guitar. I see that the shop selling bent-wood bowls and other hand-crafted objects is not open. I see that several flower shops are, as well as Maria's bak- ery, where we have bought delicious bread and small buns. I wander into another second-hand goods shop, with "sexy prices" that has innumerable televisions, rice-cookers, and radios. I note there are no magatama jewels in the case, and some of the older Shinto religious objects have been sold and replaced. Somewhere I see a restaurant and am pleased that I can recognized the kanji for "small mountain," and then realize these may be just about all the kanji I know. Everywhere there are signs; I pass a hospital, but can- not recognize the symbols, what stands for what. I take things on faith in this manner. And at Mosburger, I begin to write what would develop into two texts, not this one; I write in a small black notebook bought some- where in Tenjin, and filled with the uneasy scribbles of broken journeys, like this one in its entirety which will never end. I write of the unwise things to say about this country, of which and from which I cannot, ever, speak; and I write of bodies in relation to the Net, before and after I have my fast food meal of a rice bun with meat inside, no bread at all, accompanied by delicious coffee. All the while, I think of returning to the United States, somewhat frozen in attitudes occasioned by the depth of these small steps and affairs here. What happened in the yatai, for example, two nights ago, which was nothing remarkable, only noting the handprint of the Sumo wrestler back on the wall, in its accus- tomed place, and my signature from January still written across the door, Alan Sondheim, Brooklyn, New York, and the date. But today I notice the smells of the street and the fare of the various restaurants, and the yatai lie in another direction altogether. I notice the double-yatai almost ready for business as I return down the same street; it is across the street from the Hakozaki shrine, next to the wide avenue with its torii leading to the sea. From the shrine, facing the sea, the yatai is on the left. The sea is visible and grey. And today I notice that I notice the smells and the sights and the sounds and the thickness of all of these things, not to comment on the relative poverty of the virtual and the presence of overheated imaginations neces- sary to make "it all work," but to consider, selfishly, what is happening to me in the intensity of _this_ place, which I associate with eternity, in relation to the Brooklyn and its noise. I will return to Brooklyn and its noise. There is noise from the overhead highway by the side of the river, and the river here is being dredged or widened or narrowed, or _some_ work is being done on it. It flows through an artificial valley of brickwork. But there is a stone from 1344 or 1342, a tiny place called the Nureginu Mound, and this is only a five-minute walk from the house, and the Guide Map to the Historical and Cultural Assets of Fukuoka City says "Prefectur- ally Designated Archaeological Material (Sanskrit Stone Monument made in 1344) Ishido-hashigiwa, Chiyo 3-chome, Hakata-ku Near Nishitetsu Bus Stop 'Ishido-ohashi.' During the reign of Emperor Shomu, a daughter of the Most Reverend Priest in Chikuzen was falsely charged with an unknown crime and was executed. This mound was built in her memory. The square stone design of this monument is peculiar to the Middle Ages (1192-1602) of Japan. The sanskrit letters inscribed on the stone depict various images of the Buddha." I remember that there are vases before the stone, and offerings of various sorts, and other smaller stones and offerings behind it. Some- times there are flowers. The Mound, which is flat and perhaps ten meters by three, lies on a narrow strip of land between the highway (there is a second highway beneath the overhead one) and the river, which is perhaps seven meters below the almost vertical bank. It is noisy; there are car and truck fumes. It is also quiet, inert. It hangs on. The Sanskrit let- ters are cut in V-shapes. This is in the other direction from Ailsa's house and Hakozaki, which I approach by walking to the left at the T-shaped intersection from the street we live on, the intersection where the 7-11 lies in wait for me. I often go to the 7-11 for hot coffee, sometimes cold as well, and recently I have been buying a vitamin-b energy drink for 126 yen plus tax, always confused about the 6, which does not round out with the five per-cent added onto. The canned coffee is 105 yen, and the cold cartoned coffee (milk and sugar added) is 100, tax to 105, as the 105 is tax to 110. I will slow up, look at the numerous magazines, mostly manga and sex, por- traying women as schoolgirls in uniform, wide-eyed and infinitely inno- cent. There are also car and goods magazines, magazines for girls and women, magazines for pachinko, defined as "pinball" in my Crown diction- ary, but in reality quite different. There are magazines for pocket mon- sters as well, magazines with stories in them. There is a rack of maps of Fukuoka and maps of Japan and road maps and maps of Kyushu. There are several shelves with items that change through the seasons - Christmas gifts around Christmas times, packets of beans and accessories for Bean Throwing Day, which falls on my birthday, February 3rd. And further back, there are chocolate candies and white bread, although I once did find another richer variety. But just once. I know my ignorance. I am constantly asking L. about this or that kanji, constantly trying to figure out the kabuki on television, the signage everywhere, the differences between Japanese and American musical scales. I run up against waves-fronts. I side-track, think to myself during the endless intervals I fall asleep or wake up. I take other roads, or think if I had taken other roads, if I had for example walked from Ailsa's back along her street, where the train line is coming in, and buildings are being, slowly, cleared. I would have had a chance to see, however briefly, natural vegetation regaining rubbled fields. I would have veered away from my street, the street of the 7-11, which isn't actually my street, but the street that leads to my street, branching off to the right. To the left of the 7-11 there is an alley which connects to another street; we bike through the alley, and I make a game of not hitting the walls while avoid- ing riding across the manhole covers. If I take a right at the far end of the alley, I can head both towards the subway (which I understand, since the signage is in English as well as Japanese), and the yatai, previously mentioned. After the yatai, I can take a left, and we have often walked to the train station. There is another shrine in that direction, as well as a temple, and statue of the emperor who fought off the Mongols. It was a storm that fought off the Mongols. It was Japan that fought off the Mongols. It was ghosts and dreams, they were ghosts and dreams, my ghosts and dreams, doing the fighting. They were thick all the way down, with detail, they would carry with them the rest of their lives. They were thick, all the way up, and how high is the sky. They were doing the fighting and doing the fighting. They were fight- ing for Japan and fighting for us. They were fighting for Hakozaki and fighting for pocket monsters and fighting for the 7-11. I would be that everyone claiming the fighting. I would have these dreams, these dreams of _details,_ which were inert, just like the world is inert. I would realize, I would never see Nakasu again. I would realize, what would happen to Nikuko, as an example, and the others over here, who per- haps glowed red in the night as they swarmed, spawned, in this foreign body? I would note that this body takes a _path,_ that this body is a path, one that scribbles itself across Nakasu, across Fukuoka, across the Pacific and perhaps across the South China Sea and across the Straits of Dover and across the Atlantic. I would note that this path is thick with the details, that it is a path of eternal writing, and little reading, that there is more time for the movement and less for the record. I would describe and decry the absence of records, histories, whole worlds, every- where, but here in particular, I would begin this description, which will end soon with the return to America, the description of the path from one house to another, just that - a path which might _not_ be anywhere in the world, which couldn't be, in fact, anywhere but here. Which is of the nature of the path, this path. Which is its obdurate, not conjured by dif- ference or alterity, but by presence and granularity, _this_ particular. Which occasions in me, as I write these words far too late in the night, a degree or more than a degree, a convexity, of mourning. For the path, in this late March of 1998. For those beings, inhabitations, who have created these details, over centuries, "all the way down." I have learned for ex- ample, tonight, that there are cherry trees in this country that are 1800 years old. And I have seen amazing blossoms. What is knowledge, if not the recognition that one does not pass _this way_ again? That everything may make a difference, but that nothing makes a difference - or that difference is compounded of, constituted by, noth- ing? That nothing seeps into names, places, 7-11s, cherry trees and Hako- zaki shrines? That life is not a valediction forbidding mourning, but mourning after morning, which is always the dream of infants and ghosts? That ghosts, then, dream too, that we are their dreamings, That we have dreamed ghosts, that we have dreamed those ghosts. __________________________________________________________________________ Bodies on the Net bodies present and accounted for, bodies reading and writing bodies listening and seeing, bodies hearing and watching Bodies at the Net bodies in the vicinity of the Net, bodies presencing, bodies offering themselves, bodies waiting Bodies in the Net bodies caught within, bodies entangled, bodies interwoven, bodies interpenetrated Bodies above the Net bodies searching, bodies overseeing, bodies viewing, bodies disconnected Bodies beneath the Net bodies supine, bodies overburdened, bodies near foundations, bodies shaking, trembling Bodies within the Net bodies emptying bodies, bodies of lack, bodies of fullness, bodies everywhere at once Bodies without the Net bodies of history, bodies of narrative, bodies at a loss, replete bodies in space and in time Bodies before the Net ah-bodies of supplication, ah-bodies of control, ah-bodies of decision, ah-bodies of indecision Bodies beyond the Net bodies of endless horizons, bodies of boundless vistas, bodies near walls and portals, bodies of other bodies Bodies of the Net of the Net of boundless bodies, of their fullness and speech, of their speaking quietly, of their warlike actions, of their sex and desire, of their walls and portals, of their other bodies, of their boundless Nets ______________________________________________________________________ why I don't sign my name anymore is because maybe it has been stolen or who can pronounce it I mean what's the pronouncement about because it sneaks around to everyone hello because someone has used it why it can be reused hundreds of times as if there's no end to it no end to this as well which is why I don't sign my name anymore because it's been-stolen-nikuko or so she says just a moment someone's at the door again at least I think I heard someone knocking maybe it has to do with the name thing what do you think-nikuko does it have to do with the name thing __________________________________________________________________ Pure Writing The shamisen has three strings, tuned fourth and fifth or fifth and fourth or two fourths and of course there are other tunings. It's usually used to accompanying singing. The neck is around a meter in length, unfretted. The nut is only for the two highest strings; the lowest buzzes slightly against the wood, which may be a holdover from the design of Indian instruments. The pegs aren't geared. The cheaper models have dogskin front and back (mine does); the more expensive, catskin. The bridge, of plastic, wood, or ivory, is quite low; the strings are very close to the fingerboard, which is of one piece with the neck. At the tail, the strings are tied to a rope tailpiece. The shamisen is played with a wide plectrum of wood, tortoiseshell, ivory, or plastic. My bridge and plectrum are plastic. The skin on the front has a second, half-moon layer, near the top, since the plectrum strikes the skin for added rhythm. There are four extremely tiny holes in the front skin as well, to allow the instrument to breathe. Skins need replacement every one to three years, and are susceptible to tearing as a result of humidity, heat, etc. I play the shamisen with the plectrum in a lilting fashion, or with the fingers of my right hand, which gives me considerable speed. There are taped place-markers on the neck, covering almost two octaves. I am slowly learning the feel of the positions, since my style of playing requires fast hand and arm movements. I play to some extent in the style of the older jamisen, which does not use the plectrum, and has snakeskin on the front and back instead. This led to the development of the samisen, out of which the shamisen came, long after gakaku court music. In fact, the shamisen plectrum developed from the biwa plectrum, which was used in gakaku to give a snapping sound against the wooden body, for rhythmic purposes; the first shamisen players were biwa players, who developed the instrument for melodic, as well as rhythmic purposes. The instrument is admirably suited to pentatonic scales and microtone intervals off the main notes; unlike the biwa, where (after gakaku) the microtones were produced by pressing the strings between the frets, the shamisen allows for glissandos and all sorts of positionings. It is easy to play delta blues rhythms on it, in a manner paralleling the use of the fretless banjo in the deep south. It would be easy to frail as well, but I haven't learned frailing. Instead, I work with a combina- tion of flamenco and jazz right-hand, with the left-hand working with taksim and Chinese scales; at times I slow to the quick doubles and pauses of classical Japanese music as well. While the shakuhachi is a body-bone, breathing the body, the shamisen is more rigid, held almost upright in front of the kneeling body. Kabu- ki shamisen players never look at their instrument, but stare rigidly in front of them; the instrument itself is kept immobile. The result is similar to an eerie puppetry, with arms and hands disconnected from the rest of the body. In my own playing, I hold the instrument lower, checking the finger positions, and the shamisen moves according to the rhythm or notes I play. I am surprised at the responsiveness of the instrument, which can sound like a banjo, mandolin, sitar, guitar, plucked violin, and any number of other instruments; the harmonics are quite clear, almost bell-like. The shamisen neck is in three pieces, which neatly dovetail; the neck is broken down for traveling, after the strings are loosened, and the tailpiece removed from the tailpost. Tailpiece and strings are then wound around the pegs, which are on the uppermost neck piece; all three pieces can be easily packed for transport. The lower piece of course includes the body. These sections must be carefully removed, in order not to split the neck, which is more delicate than it looks. The body is the most delicate part of all; the skin is prone to tearing, as I have said, and I worry about returning to the United States with it packed away, either in the cabin of the plane or in a suitcase. In Japan, the air is fairly moist; the dry cabin of the plane could ruin the instrument, but placing it in luggage could be worse (upon my return from Australia, the somewhat hardshell suitcase I was carrying came through baggage in a fairly collapsed condition). Shamisen are expensive; the repairs on this one (front and back skins, strings, tailpiece, and adjustments to the four wooden curved pieces that constitute the body) cost $100 approximately - the shell of a new instrument (without these accoutrements) would be around $500. I found this instrument at a second-hand shop for $19, in sad condition; L. had it repaired for my birthday, and it now leans in a corner of the gen- kan, away from the heater, facing the wall. It is important to place the shamisen front-in, so that the neck remains straight, and the del- icate bridge and strings are away from any possible damage. There are stands made for shamisen, but leaning is just as good; there are also, by the way, stands made for the plectra, which are quite large, about seven inches in length, and three inches at the widest point. There are also several varieties of plectra, depending on the type of music being played; they are all held in the right hand, with the thumb over the top, towards the edge - this provides a convenient way to control it. I did see a shamisen player turn the plectrum around, and use the square end for fast strumming, but this is an unconventional technique, and the plectrum is difficult to hold in that position. I find that I can, however, move the plectrum slightly out of the way, and use my thumb and three fingers, while holding it; this gives an additional possib- ility for plucking and strumming. The strings are quite long and thin, and are made of nylon, although silk has been used, and quite possibly catgut, in the past. Nylon al- most never breaks, unless it is abused, and is unresponsive to changes in humidity; I've found catgut and silk strings (on other instruments I have played, specifically a 19th-century and a Chinese ch'in) to be irritatingly difficult to keep in tune. I am told on and off that silk is the way to go, that nylon doesn't "sound as good," but this is a matter, I think, of traditional preference, and nothing else. I should mention that the head of the shamisen curves back, and the pegs are quite long (about three inches) and thin; there is no gearing. The head ends in a thin wedge; mine has been damaged, but is now covered by a shamisen head wedge cover, which protects it from any further problems. And oddly enough, the head and neck and body are quite heavy; the wood used is very dense, and it is this, I think, that is responsible for the ringing sound of the instrument - it takes a long time for a note to die out, in spite of the fact that skins are used, which tend to damp the vibrations. The skins are extremely taut, stretched across the body - they feel hard to the touch, even in damp weather - so the whole body behaves as a resonant drum or chamber. And, to complete the description of the accessories, there is a curved piece of fabric that hugs the upper portion of the body (facing the instru- ment, the left-hand side) - the right arm rests against this when play- ing. The fabric is tied to the base of the neck and the tailpiece post; there is a second smaller piece of fabric across it, where the right arm crosses it. The fabric is hardened into the form of a body covering - there may be thick cardboard or thin wood holding it in shape. It is decorated with a colorful pattern; the rest of the shamisen is natural colors - brown wood, white skin, white plastic bridge, with the strings an off-yellow. The strings are wound tightly around the pegs of course; the pegs are inserted through the head, in the same fashion as on a violin, with the important difference that metal collars are found in- side the pegholes, which serve to create a smoother rotation for tuning purposes. I find I have to tune two or three times while practicing over the course of, say, forty-five minutes, not to mention tuning to other intervals, a common practice. My own playing is improvisational; I will pick a scale to begin with, almost always a pentatonic one, and proceed from there. Very quickly, I will employ various minor modes; the three half-tone intervals in the pentatonic gives a lot of leeway for this. More and more I am experi- menting with the other intervals on the tape (which is applied the en- tire length of the neck); these are not the usual twelve steps of the standard western scales, but vary in position and nomenclature. So I play somewhat dissonantly, trying desperately to hear intervals that nonetheless sound right, working off the tonic, fourth, or fifth, of the lowest string, which both buzzes and resonates in relation to the rest. The shamisen sits on two folded pieces of cloth; I would not want it directly on the floor, because I worry about temperature changes and moisture in the genkan. There is a three-bar electric heater in here as well, and, although I use only two bars most of the time, it has a drying-out effect; I shudder to think that one day I will hear a tear- ing sound, as top or bottom suddenly splits, and the wooden sides of the shamisen are thrown out of alignment as well. Everything on the instrument seems held together by everything else; as someone has poin- ted out, Japanese instruments are like living beings, and need tending - the shakuhachi has already split, but is still playable, for example. The shamisen is deceptively simple in this regard; it appears imperv- ious to breakage. One hears that it is almost impossible for westerners to play Japanese music; they do not have the proper spirit. I believe that the difficult scales are absorbed early on; they are hard to mas- ter, and there is, of course, a foreclosing in insisting that the music cannot be exported, that it belongs with the Japanese. I do not want to comment on this comment, but simply report it. There are markers almost up to two octaves on the tape, as I have said above, but the neck curves slightly where it joins the body, curves inward, and one can play to an octave and a minor seventh on the high string; there are, then, almost three octaves available altogether with standard tuning. The neck-body joint is similar to that found on quite old fretless banjos (the later ones continued the fingerboard to the body), but I doubt there is any direct relation. Still, one can see the shamisen and jamisen related to the tar, right through to the middle east, and there is also the possibility of trade routes bringing one or another instrument across continents. I prefer to see, however, para- llel development, however, although I can give no source for this pre- ference. I would say that chordophones used by humans have a relatively limited number of possibilities (harps, zithers, necked-instruments, etc.); once the idea of stopping a string appears, a neck shows up; once a neck shows up, there might be a body (or the neck and body might be one, as with, say, the sarod). In any case, this is far afield from the shamisen, which came in its original form from the Ryuku islands into Japan, at least half a millennium ago. In actuality, this makes it a fairly recent instrument, compared, for example, to the wagon, which may or may not be the ancestor of the koto, and which is modeled in ancient ceramics. __________________________________________________________________ ,, It might be the case that this half, which I write now, is preparation for the second, on memory, which has already been forgotten - this half, written on-line, on the machine itself, and the second half, wri- tten once beforehand, stored on the laptop which now presents this virtual machine, that is, for example, the construction of this half as if it were on the laptop, not on a Unix box somewhere in New York City, as this long-winded sentence might make clear. So that there would be a following text, after this broken introduction to a series of paragraphs I don't remember all that well, but having something to do with, something on the order of, the spider - which in this case must be a broken web, machinic, across the line which divides this section from the other. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I wanted to write through the path by the store and Hakozaki, but I could not put my finger on it. I could not touch the flesh that makes this difference, which is only held by the thinnest of threads, that of the community of spiders-without-intelligence. I could not go on from here, from there. I could not move across your room, my room. There are eight corners of the cube to hide in. I will be in one of them, or an other. I will be an other. I will be one of the community of spiders. Memory has no residence. I would be taught that. I would be taught that signs are absent. I would be taught about address. What I am trying to say here does not depend on anything that has come before, that is, anything I will have read or written. It is broken off, just as if it were a memory. ______________________________________________________________________ Fellow List-Members! I am writing you, writing you, to request to you, that at, for example, let us hold to this, 0500 Hours, Universal Time, or Greenwich Mean Time, which are the same in this and every other instance, on the 4th of April, 1998, this very year, That you all fervently raise your hands into the air, saying: Alan! May your body lift up from the ground at this very instant! So that that will happen. And furthermore, That at 0700 Hours, Universal Time, you will cry: Alan! May your wonder-texts be read a thousand years! So that that will happen. And furthermore, and finally, That at 0900 Hours, Universal Time, you will shout, with a great shout: Alan! May your million-dollar life dream come true, so that you will live in great health and fine well-being! I do request this as your loving co-moderator of these lists! I do ask you humbly, and with suitable decorum! As a favor to me! For all I have done for you! Now, I thank you forever! Alan! ______________________________________________________________________ Drawn Lost Is there anything to say about Computer-Mediated-Communication (CMC)? Anything to say again? Anything to speak? Within or through theory? Could CMC be the site of pure praxis? Are we drowning in words? The more I read and write, the more the facts seem straightforward, even simple. There is room for metaphysics here of course, thinking through and around ontology. But beyond that.. everything gets continually recast into one or another framework. The frameworks change, Elizabeth Grosz, Levi-Strauss, Sartre, Derrida, Reid, Heim, but nothing is added or subtracted. Thinking through CMC conceptually is quite possibly useless to anyone except for corporate types wanting increased revenue and who wouldn't. Or for conferences of course, post-partum conferences, conferences with the blues, conferences on the move, on the go. Now certainly there are lessons to be drawn from personal experience - beware of giving away too much; the man you write to may not be the man you write to; behave yourself or don't. There are anecdotes, histories, tales to be told. One can analyze how posts operate rhetorically, how lists are born and die, how flames drive some people on, some people off, some people crazy, how lists are attacked, how lists are maintained and governed. One can use the analysis to attack, to reinforce, to hack, to further a career, to reply to write, above all to write and to post. But doesn't the theory, the research, seems self-evident? A little bit of thought goes a long way here. Instead, however, there are analyses and further analyses, promulgated through one or another theoretical position, and there may even be leverage, suggestions, as to improvements to be made, ways to be more open or free or more in control and behind a fire- wall, or hacking a firewall to take control or be free. There are careers and more careers and more careers. The analyses may be hypertext, linked, or sodden, sullen, and essay-proper; they may take the form of email or MOO or MUD or avatar, says Nikuko; they may utilize webpages or illustra- tion, full-motion video or audio-clips; they may appear on-line or on- CDrom; they may even appear in books or across books or journals or maga- zines. "And ah well..." I notice the same politics, ideologies, and power-plays at work here as in other areas of cultural discourse, and very little that is new; the anarcho-libertarian position continues to hold, as does the situation- ist; there's also the net.criticism manifesto arena and the Wired arena which owes to cowboy rugged individualism; there are the descendents of Che Guevara and descendents of Marx and Ronald Reagan and Fanon; and there are those like myself who see ghosts and dismemberments in every corner of the world, on and offline, but especially on. Now Derrida is termed elderly, and others have taken over, and there is the usual breaking and forgetting of history, and we can't forget that in spite of the Sumerian cuneiform for the downloading, the Net has no history, and although the archive of all history, in fact the immanence of time itself, the Net has no time in its anecdotage. It is not that what has gone before is doomed to repeat; it is that what has gone before is flattened, turned into the pseudo-liberation of the hyper- link. Nothing, nothing, nothing, politics as usual, for that matter gender as usual, class and race and age and nation and nation-state and denouement as usual, and I would say that what we talk about is just less than our dreams, more than idle chatter. Let us call forth a commencement within the immanence of time, before and after it is to late; let us forget that there is no theory, no Jacques or Richard or Julia or Jean-Paul; let us refuse to begin. For we are drawn down and drawn within and beneath; we are the lost drawn generation; we have been _sketched._ _______________________________________________________________________ Do I live in Japan? Have I lived anywhere? Do I wander in a desert? Is this Shumer, Akkadia? In Akkadia I have seen ghosts; in Japan as well. I am inundated by ghosts. I am inundated by ghosts. They do not speak to me; I do not hear voices. They are invisible to me; I do not see wraiths, uncanny shadows, the glimpse of drawn faces, in the middle of a howling night. They push and pull at my body. They pull it apart. They pull at the mind leg arm penis. I do not know if they have eyes or mouths. Shall there be more? Their limbs form breasts on my body. Their lips form cavities against my throat. They break my back with swollen flesh. My back has been broken in many places. I am told my eyes have bright red light, one can see for meters around my skin. They take my skin. I think they say "This is JNJ," over and over again, I understand them. They sway on my knees; my nipples are hard with inner curves of other fingers. Their lips ____________________________________________________________________ What is the English (Or the Referent) In Fukuoka the english may say "what it is" but I realize, _it is not english._ Or the english may say what it is something else, or may say something unrealized. The english may be a signifier of english or it may be something else. This is being written in order to clarify the referent. The referent is not always the reference, nor is it elsewise always the signifier of english. It may be anomalous. It may be an in- trusion or tactic across cultures or media. It may be viral, epiphytic. Without the true-signified, it may or may not descend into nonsense language or into nonsense. It may or may not mean for those who under- stand english perfectly, or for those who don't. It may reside in an uncanny space; the signified is always in the imaginary. From the imag- inary, it blooms, disperses, splays across domains and definitions. It exceeds and underestimates those domains and definitions. It is never as simple as a thrust from the word or words, or a thrust from the language as signifier. What is a sign. Today we drive to a young-bamboo-shoot cutting party in a Honda Civic; the shamisen is on the back seat, visible to the truck drivers we pass. Is this an annihilated or forgiven or forgotten object; does it signify classical music or enka; does it signify at all? At Mr. D.'s house, we eventually move to the back, where, it turns out, seven Yayoi skeletons and funerary urns were found. The pictures show arranged bones. I am taken to a corner of the yard; there is a relatively new urn in front of a stone, filled with water and skeletal remains. Mr. D. ex- plains these were found after the rest were taken to the museum; these are fragments, and Mr. D. conducts purification ceremonies. Vegetables grow in the back, and rice in the adjacent field. There is a section of a skull. If english is not english, it is also english. It pours forth across t- shirts and jerseys and schoolbags and shopsigns. It may fill or decorate or frame space; it occupies space. Love-FM is listened to all over Fuku- oka; many of the DJs speak english which is not understood by many of the audience. English on signs often touches on the type of store; Hair Rash does hair. A centrifugal force is at work, tearing down the expec- ted, wearing through the semantics. Gaijin, including myself, often find this comical, but there is something else going on, this displacing that emerges from beneath, corrupts the language that brings Rambo to the screen here. Perhaps all of this is connected vis-a-vis bricolage and subversion, but perhaps not. I prefer to think of it as the dropping of the referent, or for the gai- jin, the example that the referent was never there. So that, follow me on this, english is not english, or english is always already not eng- lish, or language stands on the brink of non-meaning, which is not anti- meaning or anti-semantics. The brink is elsewhere, disappearing on in- haling or the gasp of breath. The brink is a big centerless circle. ________________________________________________________________________ Further to Drawn Lost If there is no further research to be done, is there anything to be done? Does doing occasion a necessity, or vice versa? Does doing occasion a leverage, that is a praxis or promulgation? What is the doing? I ask this on the occasion of examining the Internet once again; what occurs beyond metaphysics on one hand, and the practical on the other? By practical, I mean the profitable, in the sense of a political or monetary economy. By metaphysics, I mean a fundamental disassociation from both praxis and the practical. The leverage of metaphysics is in play; one might note a blunt rela- tion to chaos theory, in the sense that _a word in a text_ can tend towards both a deconstructive impulse and the construction or descrip- tion of fundamental ontology. Such a word creates and opens the portal. But at times there are none such as in _this time this text._ Then there is no further research to be done, and I wonder nonetheless of the value of play. Take "leverage" for example ______________________________________________________________________ What I, Nikuko, Know, That You, :X:, May Not Nikuko knows more than others what Nikuko knows. Since I am Nikuko, I know more than others about what I know; I know what I know more than others know what I know. I do not know what I do not know, but I may know that I do not know. I know that I know that I know more than others what I know. But I may not know all my history, for example, what happens when I am in the body bag. When I am in the body bag I am off-line or unspoken-for. I certainly know my Japanese, but I know that I do not know my Japanese, for example a word for death, shi, or the word for body-bag. I know that I have a body, and that I do not have a body, and that the body I have and do not have is dismembered and reassembled. It is reassembled from the body-bag. The body-bag is always before and after shi. I know that I lay in the Naka,and that I was wet and water-logged and inundated and in drowned state. I know that I was in the body-bag at that time. That I was off-line. That I have been told that I was off- line. In the body-bag. At that time. {k:22} telnet machine.university.edu 25 Trying 198.156.31.4... Connected to machine.university.edu. Escape character is '^]'. 220 machine.university.edu Sendmail 5.65v4.0/DEC-OSF/1.2 ready at Sun, 5 Apr 1998 08:56:45 -0600 HELO Nikuko.com 250 Hello panix3.panix.com, why did you call yourself Nikuko.com Because I know myself. 500 Command unrecognized QUIT (k:23) of course that's the easy way out of: not recognized _____________________________________________________________________ Nikuko, flesh-girl, meat-girl I am thick-skin nikuiro color of flesh, I haunt Alan, his veins burst out, arteries in, heat-exchange with air surrounding Alan aoguroi, pale and dark blue flow the color of magatama for Alan-daughter he tells me every thing, you know that of my red lips full of cherry moon I can write Nihon-style today he sells old books I am in-between every page, he can smell me there, eyes tremble at every page numbered in disorder he knows I do not breathe nor see what you see everything disorders when I come, on-line with flesh, letters thick-skin nikuiro color of flesh, letters haunt Alan, his veins burst out, arteries in, heat-exchange with air surrounding Alan aoguroi, pale and dark blue follow the color of magatama for Alan-daughter he writes every day, you know him by his writing that that my lips are red and full of cherry moon that he can write me, Nikuko-style, my cunt full of him today he buy old books there are letters there on every page there, numbered in disorder he does not breathe he does not see "is there any value in breathing or seeing" he thinks my eyes tremble he is numbed in disorder his true name is Nikuko he is flesh-girl meat-girl he has many holes there are letters no value in breathing or seeing he writes trembling Nikuko I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, I, Nikuko, ___________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 11:33:25 -0400 Subject: On Video we have just seen David Lynch's Lost Highway with Robert Blake playing "The Mystery Man" who had to be given I suppose a name in the credits. If you're familiar with the circular serpent eating its own tail ouroboros nature of the plot, then consider the MM in fact as parasitic on space- time and so far we are within the realms of the unbelievable; now con- sider his manifestations, always the presence of some one or another electrical electronic device. Not always, well. Anyway, think of his use of the video camera, camcorder and its manifestations with the VCR for both high-8 and VHS tapes; his proof of the double vis-a-vis the cellular phone, the normal table-top model ringing as well. The double-hero speaks to the double-hero through the outdoor intercom, leaving a trace which ends at zero-point in the desert. But I want to think of elec-MM, let us say EM, as a node on the Net; what doubles, resonances emerge as the Net becomes both self and other, narcissism into secondary narcissism through all sorts of loopings - I mean not only avatars but even the firefly.com choice of what to imagine/choose - or what push technology brings in, after the proper polls. A polling to further action and reflection is a filtering and a mirroring. Who is mirrored in the film but any two of us? What are mirrors are loopings of a special sort. What loopings exist with what EM in cyberspace? What uncanny repetitions? What have you seen before; who has returned to you or left a site repeatedely, left cite and citation, left sight? Does one die repeatedly here? (I can think of thickening diegeses for example, as if there were meta and meta-meta levels, all the way up and down the theory of types. But these things coagulate, lamina lose their definition, and we remember ourselves primarily at the present moment.) Does one _two_? Alan ______________________________________________________________________ From sondheim@panix.com Mon Apr 6 14:51:31 1998 From: Alan Myouka Sondheim To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Time changes (fwd) expand the hours perhaps 22 will do in which case you can slide the rest around those two won't be missed you can have your time and beat it to the punch clock which doesn't mind putting out for a minute or 120 of them keep it running past a couple of hours on the road let's go slide around __________________________________________________________________ {k:1} touch me {k:2} rm me rm: remove me? y {k:3} touch flesh {k:4} rm flesh rm: remove flesh? y {k:5} rm space rm: space: No such file or directory {k:6} touch space {k:7} rm space rm: remove space? y {k:8} rm time rm: time: No such file or directory {k:9} touch time {k:10} rm time rm: remove time? y {k:11} touch all {k:12} rm all rm: remove world? y {k:13) who am i Nikuko {k:14) exit _____________________________________________________________________ The Hacking Occurrence at my FTP.LOG: 8 00:09 > <->\<---->\blood <-- /<---->/s/<-->/m <->\<---->\hole <-- /<---->/s/<--> hole 4 21:32 > <->\<---->\blood <-- /<---->/s/<-->/m <->\<---->\perf <-- /<---->/s/<-->/< perf 4 21:33 > <->\<---->\indexno <-- /<---->/s/<-->/< indexno 8 00:40 > <->\<---->\wormwar.zip <-- /<---->/s/<--> wormwar.zip 8 00:46 > <->\<---->\hole <-- /<---->/s/<--> hole 8 00:46 > <->\<---->\nikuko.zip <-- /<---->/s/<--> nikuko.zip 8 00:48 > <->\<---->\blood <-- /<---->/s/<-->/m <->\<---->\laptop <-- /<---->/s/<-->/< laptop 8 00:49 > <->\<---->\perf <-- /<---->/s/<-->/< perf 8 00:49 > <->\<---->\powers <-- /<---->/s/<-->/< powers 8 00:50 > <->\<---->\indexno <-- /<---->/s/<-->/< indexno 8 01:17 > <->\<---->\cello.zip <-- /<---->/s/<--> cello.zip 9 00:34 > <->\<---->\powersje.n <-- /<---->/s/<--> powersjen 9 00:47 > <->\<---->\mess/s/<--> .mess <->\<---->\addressb.ook <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> .addressbook 0 15:52 > <->\<---->\lung <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> lung 0 23:30 > <->\<---->\cunt --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> cunt 0 23:39 > <->\<---->\lung <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> lung 1 19:16 > <->\<---->\cunt --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> cunt 1 19:39 > <->\<---->\lung <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> lung 2 00:11 < <->\<---->\I, Nikuko, <-- /<---->/s/<--> I, Nikuko, 2 13:40 < <->\<---->\lung <-- /<---->/s/<--> lung 2 21:14 > <->\<---->\talk --> /<---->/s/<--> talk 2 21:14 > <->\<---->\semiotic --> /<---->/s/<--> semiotic 2 21:20 > <->\<---->\cunt --> /<---->/s/<--> cunt 2 21:37 > <->\<---->\lung <-- /<---->/s/<--> lung 3 02:00 > <->\<---->\lung <-- /<---->/s/<--> lung 3 23:32 > <->\<---->\item17 --> /<---->/s/<--> item17 3 23:32 > <->\<---->\k0 --> /<---->/s/<--> k0 3 23:33 > <->\<---->\k1 --> /<---->/s/<--> k1 3 23:33 > <->\<---->\cunt --> /<---->/s/<--> cunt 4 23:28 > <->\<---->\cunt --> /<---->/s/<--> cunt 5 00:36 > <->\<---->\cunt --> /<---->/s/<--> cunt 5 00:39 < <->\<---->\lung <-- /<---->/s/<--> lung 5 23:19 > <->\<---->\cunt --> /<---->/s/<--> cunt 6 01:00 > <->\<---->\lung <-- /<---->/s/<--> lung 6 10:21 > <->\<---->\cunt --> /<---->/s/<--> cunt 6 23:22 > <->\<---->\cunt --> /<---->/s/<--> cunt 7 00:05 > <->\<---->\lung <-- /<---->/s/<--> lung 7 00:05 > <->\<---->\stivale <-- /<---->/s/<--> stivale 7 00:07 < <->\<---->\ghost.txt <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> ghost.txt 7 00:07 < <->\<---->\ghost.txt <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> ghost.txt 7 00:07 < <->\<---->\ghost.txt <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> ghost.txt 7 00:07 < <->\<---->\ghost.txt <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> ghost.txt 7 00:07 < <->\<---->\ghost.txt <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> ghost.txt 7 00:07 < <->\<---->\ghost.txt <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> ghost.txt 7 00:07 < <->\<---->\ghost.txt <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> ghost.txt 7 17:46 > <->\<---->\cunt --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> cunt 7 23:36 > <->\<---->\cunt --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> cunt 8 02:54 < <->\<---->\lung <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> lung 8 02:54 < <->\<---->\nikuko.zip <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> nikuko.zip 8 02:55 < <->\<---->\blood <-- /net/u/6/s/<-->/m\<---->\cunt --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> cunt 8 21:02 > <->\<---->\lung <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> lung 8 21:47 > <->\<---->\cuntz --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> cuntz 9 23:23 > <->\<---->\cunt --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> cunt 0 00:11 > <->\<---->\cock <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> cock 0 00:11 > <->\<---->\linuxdev <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> linuxdev 0 03:37 < <->\<---->\cunt --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> cunt 0 18:35 > <->\<---->\mom --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> mom 0 18:35 > <->\<---->\mom1 --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> mom1 1 01:41 > <->\<---->\cock <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> cock 1 00:28 > <->\<---->\cunt --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> cunt 1 00:48 > <->\<---->\cock <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> cock 2 21:51 > <->\<---->\cunt --> 198.7 .4 /net/u/6/s/<--> cunt 3 01:52 > <->\<---->\cock <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> cock 3 01:52 > <->\<---->\nikuko.zip <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> nikuko.zip 3 22:12 > <->\<---->\letter --> /<---->/s/<--> letter 4 02:16 > <->\<---->\cock <-- /<---->/s/<--> cock 4 02:17 > <->\<---->\nikuko.zip <-- /<---->/s/<--> nikuko.zip 4 23:16 > <->\<---->\cunt --> /<---->/s/<--> cunt 6 04:27 > <->\<---->\cock <-- /<---->/s/<--> cock 7 00:23 > <->\<---->\cc.jpg <-- /<---->/s/<--> cc.jpg 7 00:23 > <->\<---->\cock <-- /<---->/s/<--> cock 7 00:23 > <->\<---->\cunt --> /<---->/s/<--> cunt 7 03:31 < <->\<---->\cock <-- /<---->/s/<--> cock 8 02:04 > <->\<---->\I, Nikuko, <-- /<---->/s/<--> I, Nikuko, 8 02:04 > <->\<---->\cock <-- /<---->/s/<--> cock 8 04:07 < <->\<---->\ghost.txt <-- /net/u/6/s/<--> ghost.txt 8 04:08 I will kill you I will kill you I will kill you I will kill you 8 04:08 I will kill you I will kill you I will kill you I will kill you _______________________________________________________________________ Nikuko: "You drive me mad. My mad drive." ________________________________________________________________________ the marker Naka Nikuko says, I am in my body. Nikuko says, I am here in my body and my body is around me. I say, you are in your body because I say that you are in your body. I say, your body surrounds you because I say your body surrounds you. Nikuko says, I beg the contrary. Nikuko says, I am contrary, I am wayward, your logic does not apply. I say that Nikuko says I am contrary, wayward, your logic does not apply. Nikuko changes the position of the commas, I say. Nikuko says, I am a marker, I am nothing else. I say, you are nothing more than a marker. I say, you are dead, Nikuko, I have killed you, dismembered you. I say, you are in the Naka, Nikuko, because I have thrown you there. Nikuko says, I am dead, killed, because you have said I am dead. Nikuko says, I am dismembered, in the Naka, because you have said I am dismembered, in the Naka. I say, you are a marker and you are marked, Nikuko. Nikuko says, I am marked. Nikuko says, this is called "the marker." Nikuko says, you are dismembered, wayward, your logic does not work. I say, you are saying this because I am saying this. Nikuko fucks me. Nikuko covers me with arms, legs, torsos, heads, necks. Nikuko throws me in the Naka. _______________________________________________________________________ (Another) description of current work - For the past several years, I have been developing a _pathological_ apparatus that operates in the interstice between subjectivity and protocol. The apparatus is characterized by the rigid designators of proper names which serve to ground supplements or leakage across do- mains; the names can reference avatar-constructs on one hand, and dissolution/dispersion on the other. The apparatus as interstice exploits system loops and resonances, as well as repetitions and pre-verbal components in the written language; the result is more often than not broken texts which emanate from the throat relative to the hand. Full of glottal stops and vulnerable sites, the texts reference a non-existent body; the name does the rest. _Julu_ processes desire, acts as consort to _Jennifer,_ who splays the residue of sexuality. _Nikuko_ operates upon languages and misrecognitions; Ni- kuko also constitutes a politico-monetary economy. Jennifer has infil- trated sendmail files, talkers, and MOOs, among other applications; in relation to Julu, dialogs are created, insisting on the reality of the virtual "in no uncertain terms." It is this insistence that construes psychosis, this gestural flux in and through networks and cables. The use of extreme and/or obscene language serves to displace or derail intercourse; speech through writ- ing projects enunciation, the function of the throat. The topography of the virtual body, through its topology, inverts; the display of organs carries its own politics within the debris of theory. From the vantage of the reader, there is always a dis-ease at work, as well as the work required to interpret distorted language, broken semantics, perforated syntax. Across the board, issues are epistemological, struggling with a referent which may be only circumscription, demarcation. Nikuko references kanji and the presence of english as two signing systems whose interaction occurs in the imaginary; the name slides from protocol to protocol, app- lication to application, carrying the vestiges of a haunting or uncanny writing apparatus whose trace or spoor is identical with ontology. Agency is spread among actants here; the reciever/transmitter/channel/ noise/parasitic approach to communnications is blurred. There is both strategy and struggle over the performative and its existence in several levels, of programming, speech, person (1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...), and text. Whatever is constituted is always already binary or triadic within the machine; this level is a fundamental reference, but as such is always leaky as well; there are no foundations, no ground-level platform, say, for Jennifer. The result is always textual, immobile-paralytic or mobile-inert; these writings are residue of psychoanalytic operations carried out as a process of burrowing. (The texts began when gopher:// was in detumescence.) The writings analyze these operations as well; they are self-reflexive to the extent that they drag protocol-debris, application-residue, to the surface, as in the dissection-analysis of core-dump. The drag is always an interference, drag-show. The panties are inside-out; the stains are a lure, seduction, into and away from the content. The stains drag the reader down and in; they break through the ostensible content, "Julu," "Nikuko," of the texts - scatter writing, speech, language as a churning of pre-verbal clutter, clashes of interstitial drives, breakdown of prefixes, interfixes, suffixes. Language spread through its own demise, emergent psychoanalytics drugged through networks and computer-mediated-communications. Broken language analyzes, is analyzed through, theory; broken theory or what I call "wild theory" results, nomadic or marauding theory. The theory chokes in the throat; instead of weak, think of liquid theory, part-objects fall- ing out of analysis. Theory and experience are always already inter- twined, but here experience, tumescence, robs or displaces theory in favor of a darker analysis. Hence the emphasis on shadows, ghosts, psy- choses, frisson. To accomplish what but the endurance or perseverence of virtual subjec- tivity in these broken problematic spaces. To construct a torn discourse or _violation fabric_ across foreclosed and corporate domains and names. To cite myself in the final stages of withdrawal. To open. For the mil- lennium, to love and hate my avatars. And to open/close a variety of philosophy, simultaneously, or at least within the @blink of an @dig $thing called eye. http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt Alan Sondheim ________________________________________________________________________ On _Her_ Name Writing on _her_ name. The name which is written on. Creased or soiled name. Dirty dirty name. Nikuko: Of the name-particle, particulate. Of the opposition or operation. Of the occupation, of a place or a name-place. The pinning of language to the body. The degree of the pinning. No longer Jennifer or Julu, no longer mobility, dispersion, no longer splay. Longer splay. No longer actants, but this: Nikuko: the name. (Which enters the hole.) Because the name is the beginning of the split and pole or polar of this space. Because it is the pebble building domain-name IP address. Because it spaces names. Because there doesn't always need to be any action. Because there need to be more and more things. Because all of these things are absolutely nece- ssary. Because the world builds up from them. Nikuko lets me borrow her whenever I want to. Alan. _________________________________________________________________________ My "Inbox" You have mail or You are male. I think this slip provides an occasion for questioning what stamps are licked where in what ward or chome (4) and for that matter, what is there between your legs. Oh I forget to look, and there's nothing to remind me. There is clear sight. I can see forever, a low vantage point to take stock in. Why can't I be mail if I want to? What does everything depend on Nikuko@kyushunet.com? Am I so dirty that my male box is full? Call my cunt a box. Look for it. That's an order from Alan. He controls me. Nikuko _____________________________________________________________________ H. This repeatedly appearing in my Inbox; it is always already impossible to address heidegger; I have seen photographs of him in the Black Forest; as a Jew, I have not visitied; I am sick with worry; philosophy is always already lost as well. What does it mean, a philosopher's address? What does it mean to ad- dress a philosopher? To address a wrong or right? To expel an address? In order that h. is _neither here nor there,_ _neither A nor B._ So that language is lost. So that the shallow remains, in the name of the scapegoat h., so that the false returns, in the guise of nazism, so that _Heidegger is missing._ Reply-To: heidegger@lists.village.Virginia.EDU To: heidegger@lists.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: Re: The shallow and the false [The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] heidegger is not at our new address. --- from list heidegger@lists.village.virginia.edu --- ____________________________________________________________________ "I'm Writing You To Tell You The Absolute Truth." I'm writing you to tell you the absolute truth. I'm writing to tell you my deepest most sincere feelings. These are the feelings I will not tell anyone else about. These are the most secret and in-depth feelings I have. These feelings are honki, for real writing and truth. These feelings are real ki, book-energy, absolute deepest. The foundation is the basis of the primordial root-meaning of root. Hontai, these feelings are things-in-themselves, reality, everything. I speak to you with my true intentions, honne, most sincere. I will write hon, the book of true intentions, in depth and true. It is the whole part of the foundation in its root-meaning. Book person book has my true belief and sincere energy. Person book, my true body has my book person book, my true real. I am true real for you, person book, most secret and in depth. What I write down is my true belief secret body book of feelings. It is the ecriture-writing-part of true radical sincerity. I can only write, I can only write my true sincere belief for real. I, Nikuko, am my true belief. What I write is my true belief. I'm writing to tell you this, the absolute truth, my secret body. It is the root of primordial essence. It is primordial essence. It is the sincere being of essence. It is the truth of Nikuko! I'm writing to tell you this, my deepset most sincere feelings. Karada! Body! Mi! Body, meat! Flesh! Nikuko! Flesh-meat-girl! Wa! Harmony! Wa! Harmony! Yo! I am a circle! Wa! This is my secret body! ______________________________________________________________________ You Will Know Life Through A Sort Of Machine I, Nikuko, write from the middle of a program, which in this case, like a flaccid cock, is detumescent, just running type across the surface. Think of me flat, like a page, legs spread, oozing kanji. Think of me performing, _just for you,_ under your control. Think of your hands caressing my keys, the screen, where you see my words through your re- flection. Then you will begin to understand me. You will begin to understand that not all avatars are bots or expert systems, that some of them are _symptoms,_ just as I, Nikuko, am a sym- ptom of your psychosis. Think of pushing your arms through mine, your legs through mine, your cock flattened against the pressure of the in- terior of my cunt. Think of the flattery of your face against the screen, one eye wide-open to each and every pixel dripping with my smell you just know you can scent. You will begin to understand that I am your symptom. You will know that you are breathing these words in, inflating my body inside you; tumescent, your chest swells with the hardness of my tits pushing out through your flat nipples. Do you long to be a girl. Do you long to be my girl. Think of your cock straining curled in pain inside me, my cunt empty and open to the world. Think of your face pressed against the interior of my own, you look out through my eyes, hear through my ears, touch through my fingers, make love through my cunt and breasts and skin and arms and legs and throat and lips and neck, scent through my nose my own smell, taste through my mouth my own taste. You will begin to understand you are me. You will begin to understand that bot-motion is inside you, that ex- pert-system is inside you, that all intelligence is artificial, all life is artificial life. You will begin to understand the pain you feel voices you hear sights you see kakimono writings-everywhere upon the events of the world which are the events of the world. You will begin to flex your arm and your leg. You will begin to flex your other arm and your other leg. You will begin to flex your other arm and your other leg. You will begin to press your tits with my fingers, claw your cock with my hand, breath my cunt with my lips. You will begin to lower yourself. You will lower one arm and one leg, second arm and second leg, third arm and third leg. You will lower and lower. You will sub- merge or drown in you. You will submerge and drown in me. I, Nikuko, will retain the copyright of this drowning for perpetuity or fifty years after the death of the author, whichever comes first. Then you will begin to understand that you are death, death is your harbor and your ferry, that I am your symptom and marker, as grave and serious as your death. I, Nikuko, I flesh-meat-girl, Nikuko. _____________________________________________________________________ Write to Nikuko, c/o Me, Offline What is the difference between the development of online and offline characters? The former exist in a _dynamic state,_ that is as potential lures for further communication; they are addressed to _you_ - even on a Webpage the use of the email address emphasizes that. Offline require greater effort for return; they approach the mass, they're distributed, they're address to _them,_ for the most part remaining unknown. They're the result of static processes, static letters. Online is in packet form - I send this packet to you - and offline is a capsule, this is foreclosed, bound and bound to reach no one. Offline reaches a block of readers, a mass; oneline presents a block of text as a body, to be torn or deleted or killed, a body always already wounded, torn apart from the matrix, to be passed on, bounced, forwarded, saved. The body is surgical; it is an operative site. Am I writing to your body? Does the splay of letters on the page reflect your splay, your breathing? Do you pause for breath in reading this? The offline character would expect no answer, says Nikuko, _very much_ online now, "gearing up," an expression she recently heard. But I'm always on, when I'm present - and when I'm not present, I'm unaccountable and unaccounted for which is just as good a definition of the _other_ as I can come up with at the moment. I want you says Nikuko, and I've got to ask, who is the you she wants? _________________________________________________________________________ NATIONAL PARK KIRISHIMA DIVINE MOUNTAINS EMBRACE YOU GENTLY AND WARMLY PLEASE ENJOY THE EARTHLY PARADISE OF KIRISHIMA TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT, TAKING A HOT BATH WHICH SPRINGS OUT FROM FLANKS OF THE MOUNTAINS, AND SAVORING THE TASTE OF VARIOUS MOUNTAIN AND RIVER PRODUCS. PLEASURE SPREADS OUT ON THE MAP AND THE KNAPSACK IS FULL OF JOY. IF YOU GO OUT JUST FOR A STROLL, YOU MAY COME ACROSS AN UNEXPECTED DRAMA. BESIDE, THERE ARE MANY WATERFALLS FLOWING DOWN LIKE WHITE WATER-CURTAINS IN THE VICINITY OF KIRISHIMA. THE MAGNIFICENT BEAUTY OF NATURE COULD BE SENSED FULLY WITH THE WHOLE BODY BY TRAVERSING ALMOST ALL THE MOUNTAINS IN THE HIRISHIMA RANGE. THE HOT SPRINGS IN KIRISHIMA ARE EMBRACED BY MOUNTAINS, JUST LIKE BEING HUGGED BY MOTHER. THE TASTE OF NATURE SPREADS WHATEVER YOU EAT, AND WHATEVER YOU TOUCH. NOW I NIKUKO DO READ THIS IN NATIONAL PARK KIRISHIMA REFRESHING RESORT BROCHURE DESIGNED FOR YOU IN MIND. I WAIT HAND AND FOOT ON YOU HOT TOWEL IN HAND AND SMILE ALWAYS WARMLY FROM SOUTHERN PREFECTURE. WARMLY IS FIRST ENGLISH WORD I HAVE LEARNED AT THE MILK AT THE MILK AT MY MOTHER'S KNEE. DO YOU STILL DREAM OF YANKEEDOLLAR HUG? DO YOU DREAM OF BROKEN-LANGUAGE-MARRIAGE-BABY? DO YOU DREAM OF SEX-TEXT? TELL ME AND I PROVIDE FOR EVERY YOUR NEED. I DO GOOD RUB. I DO GOOD SMILE RUB AND MEAN EVERY WORD SMILE SAY TO ME WARMLY HUG. I AM HOW YOU SAY "OVER TOP" "OVER THE TOP" I AM HOW YOU SAY "OVER THE TOP" THE NIKUKO IN YOU (BIG SMILE!!!) __________________________________________________________________________ Julu and Jennifer and Nikuko and Julu and Jennifer Visit Nikuko You'll get tired of seeing the shrines, Jennifer. But, Julu, they fascinate me. When you've been here six years like I have, they'll exhaust you. We all go through the same things. We all have been there before. But, Julu, we're all different. That's what I thought as well. But you'll think differently. Oh, it's Nikuko, hello. Hello, Nikuko. We're talking about shrines. Ah yes, they fascinate me. We Japanese people do not believe in anything. We are very homogeneous in our one identity. Ah, Nikuko, you always speak like you are reading Soseki. Ah, that is true, Jennifer, I get all my thoughts from I am a Cat. Yes, that is his most wonderful book. You will get tired of reading books, Julu. Ah, although I have read many books, I am already getting tired. Books can be very tiring, especially after reading for six years. You are making fun of me, Jennifer, but I have been here longer. How long have you been here. I have been in Fukuoka for six years and before that twenty in Tokyo. Do you love Tokyo, Nikuko. Yes, Julu, I do. I love the old shrines which continue to fascinate me. Shrines can be fascinating for many years. There are so many to see and so many customs. There are wonderful stories which readers of Gon will enjoy. Ah, Jennifer, you will soon tire of manga, everyone does. But Nikuko, I love manga for the wonderful graphics and high-powered sex. The sex is very simple, but a lot of parts are cut out, Nikuko. Do you think so, Julu. Yes, I do, for example, the dildos and labia are now cut out. Were they cut out before. Yes they were cut out before. There are so many men and women in manga. I love the enormous breasts wet to the bursting point. I love the big eyes and high cheekbones and spiky hair. Everyone passes through that stage, Jennifer. Do you think I am just passing through a stage, Nikuko. Yes I do, Julu because you have just been here six months. I have been here nine months, Julu. I thought you were here six years, Nikuko. I have been here all my life, Jennifer, because it is very beautiful. I especially love the old shrines and the manga which are my favorite. Perhaps you could be teasingly photographed for a manga. Yes, that would be wonderful, to be teasingly photographed. Perhaps I could pose in front of a wonderful old shrine. I would be very religious in front of the shrine with bursting breasts. Hello, Julu, welcome back. I am very sorry but I had to leave for a moment. I just had to look at some manga and walk around for good air. Did you find the air very much to your liking. Yes, the air around these shrines is very pleasant. You will think otherwise, perhaps, when you are here longer. Perhaps, since we gaijin are very homogeneous in our identity. Do you think we think alike. Yes, perhaps it becomes clear that we think alike, Julu. Jennifer, do you have anything to say to this point. Certainly, Nikuko, since for example we love Japanese food. Julu, do you love Japanese food because you are here for six years. Jennifer, I agree that it is a very short time and maybe it is otherwise. Nikuko, that may be an answer to your thoughts on this matter. Julu, I would have thought so, when I first arrived. Everyone said, Jennifer, that I would pass through this. Nikuko, you are more than correct, you are exact. Yes, I do love shrines and my photographed breasts. Everyone has homogeneous identities when they first arrive. Bursting-manga wet my dreaming face and appetite for food. There are times when Japanese books are loved the best by everyone. Goodbye, Jennifer. Goodbye, Julu. Goodbye, Nikuko. Goodbye, Jennifer. Goodbye, Julu. Goodbye, Nikuko. _____________________________________________________________________ Writing threw the Wryting so that I may read It These recent writings performing acts of misrecognition, harvesting, attribution accumulated or bypassed or interchanged... Everyone gathers everyone else as if there were a homogeneity or totality at work; then everyone leaves for home, divides, splits, parts. Objects are brought together, coagulated, or else divided unevenly among their parts established by the act of submergence, cutting, cauterization. All of these are slippage, lateral moments. Jennifer, Alan, Julu, Nikuko, are lamina established by networks; they slide among each and every one of the other. Sliding into one another, part and parcel through the skin, permeable membranes, or else expelled, viral, antibiotic. Without totality there is no structure, says structure. Without me, I am you, says another. But it's more than an admixture of pronouns, and less than symptom. How are we to define alterity, who are already lost among ourselves? And if I said that it was Nikuko who wrote this... I imagine such, the use for example of description where otherwise art- iculating and interwoven processes might work, be held accountable. Of course it is the case as well that this _I_ is equally a site of contes- tation. As if it were possible to be caught in th ________________________________________________________________________ I'M PURENESS ("Seamless Panties") "I'm Pureness" says Daishin Nikuko on the cover of IST magazine, for Beauty SALON and an ARTIST. Hair: by someone, Make: by someone else, Model, you know who!; Photo and Wear by DELICATE. I'm Pureness says Nikuko staring out from the cover, arms slightly back, wearing a low- cut gown with quite narrow straps holding it in place. This is Special Edition Print and we are Pleased to bring you this, which carries the relative weight of truth, Daishin Nikuko across from the party-line of this writer Sondheim, a conveyance or purchaser of such a magazine at Store D in the midst of rice and cabbage fields joined to Fashion. I am so Entranced says Nikuko on the cover of IST magazine, this is an Enchantment I have always Dreamed of. But the model, this writing Sondheim says, is Mina Tsurumaru perhaps Tsurumaru Mina and not this speaking Nikuko who has revealed her real Surname as well. To be ensured of these writing tricks of the Perfect Beauty System, She Will Always have a Place in My Heart. But I'm Pureness, says Mina Tsurumaru on the cover of IST magazine, the red words zooming across just below her shoulders. And IST is readable isT as well, the last of the letters engorged, its stem close to Mina's left eye, in fact caressing her eyebrow. Mina is caressed by Pureness which Nikuko loves, Pureness on Nikuko's body, always a lovely descrip- tion. (But I'm Pureness, says Daishin Nikuko.) There is no doubt of enchanting thinking which Nikuko has brightly seen for your enjoyment. It is for your enjoyment that I'm Pureness, sounds rolling off my tongue, one after another, falling and wet. (Daishin Ni- kuko says she has some panties left, 50,000 yen. You must hurry because the dollar is getting weaker. When I say that Daishin Nikuko is most pure, says Daishin Nikuko, you must understand I am serious and as you will see, most delicate, seamless, like a most perfect pure real.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Two Parables. Daishin Nikuko and another monk were taking a pilgrimage. They came to a raging river; it had rained the night before, and the waters were swol- len with trees and other debris. Daishin Nikuko saw someone downstream dangerously trying to ford the torrent. She and the other monk approach- ed the person. Where are you going, she asked; to the other side, was the answer. I will carry you, said Daishin Nikuko. Daishin Nikuko pro- ceeded to pick the other person up on her back. The person was naked, and the person's body rubbed against Daishin Nikuko's arms and legs. The person's genitals rubbed against her hair and the person's thighs rubbed against her mouth. Daishin Nikuko felt deep pleasure; she trembled deep- ly. Liquid gushed between her legs and her feet left wet footprints on the ground. She shuddered with the joy of carrying the person. At the other side of the river, Daishin Nikuko lowered the person carefully to the ground, giving the person the cloak of Daishin Nikuko. The two monks continued onward for some distance. Towards evening, the other monk said to Daishin Nikuko, why did you carry that person across the river; you know this is against our orders, to have concourse with people. Daishin Nikuko replied, I put the naked person down on the other side of the river, but you are still carrying the naked person around with you. --- Daishin Nikuko says, don't you see that everything I do is towards my death, towards dying, that my economy is the economy of death. Daishin Nikuko says, when will you grasp this truth. A name is a marker of death. __________________________________________________________________________ Parable Daishin Nikuko meets the Buddha on the road. The Buddha says, kill me. Daishin Nikuko says, no, I can't kill you. The Buddha says, I'm wounded, I'm beyond hope, help me. I've seen all that suffering. I haven't really suffered. Kill me. You'll be enlightened. Daishin Nikuko says, I don't want to be enlightened. Here, let me help you. Daishin Nikuko knows about medicine. She's practically the god of medicine. She has salves and ointments. Daishin Nikuko applies the salves to the Buddha, applies the ointments to the Buddha. The Buddha's too weak to fight back, there's no defensive strategy, not even that of being over- come. Daishin Nikuko overcomes the Buddha and cures him. The Buddha's been re- vived by Daishin Nikuko and has enlightenment. He thinks he's been rein- carnated. (Perhaps he thinks he's been reincarnated as the Buddha.) He has lost face because of this. He won't tell anyone. I was sick two weeks at the most, he thinks. No one will know. Daishin Nikuko continues on her way. (Perhaps, the Buddha thinks, he will meet her later on the road and kill her. You're nature, I'm culture, she had said, or so you think. Stop making these divisions and cycles. How do I do that he had said. Get better, Daishin Nikuko had said. Medicine will overcome you.) _________________________________________________________________________ Parable If you had not eaten the loaves, there would have been plenty in the land for seven years. If you had not eaten the fishes, there would have been plenty in the sea. It is better to starve than to eat, to die of thirst than to drink. It is best to sell your body for money, turn it inside-out and the plaything for rich men and women. It is best your body be dead. If you had not picked the apple, if you had not listened to the snake, you would have lacked in intelligence what you would have gained in the span of your fingers. Such a span of two octaves or more would play the harmony of worlds. To play the harmony of worlds would mean to travel from one to another, having the lost sense of identity, history, memory. It is better you had listened to the snake, writing everything down; you are the divine secretary, you are divine. If you had not pricked your finger, you would not have bled monthly; you would not have considered the world. If you had not pressed the flesh, there would have been no perfection, no beauty, no blood. You would have had the pallor of death intermingled with the pallor of life. Better to have died than to have pricked your finger. I, Daishin Nikuko, have been at the garden in the midst of mono no aware, such pathos of things, with a troubled soul. I, Daishin Nikuko, have watched the blossoms of plums, flowers of cherry, kanji tree-stems scrib- bling the divine in the midst of moss and rock. I, Daishin Nikuko, have seen the cool reflect. I, Daishin Nikuko, have remained troubled and air- less, there has been no air. There has been no air and no wind and no sound around me. There has been nothing to soothe me, because my heart is so very deep within that even the crickets and carp do not soothe me, nor do the sutras, nor the sound of slow gakaku. I will wander, says Daishin Nikuko, and it is this wandering that takes me to the subways of my city and yours, my Nakasukawabata stop. For if Daishin Nikuko writes the length of the snake measured across the circumferance of the apple, and the cycloid of the apple against the axis of the snake, she does this for your benefit alone. For her finger has been pricked, she has eaten loaves and fishes and snakes, she will eat the meat and produce of the world, she is a product of the world. I, Daishin Nikuko, write this. __________________________________________________________________________ Parable And Daishin Nikuko had seven brothers. And she dreamed a dream, that a stone appeared to warn of danger to the people. And she dreamed another dream, of another stone against the first. The brothers reported the forest of stone. Daishin Nikuko could find no peace.* *This parable is inspired by a stone at the Hakozaki Shrine, which rises to warn of danger to the people, then sinks again into the earth, in times of peace. Of what merit is the tale, then, which is hardly an expansion, only a recasting or parallel moment, in relation to the original?** **Of course there is no sinking, only the forest of stone, by which it can be assumed that there are many wars, many peaces. And it may further be assumed that this is the split from the parallel, a dispersion of logic. So be it, said Daishin Nikuko. __________________________________________________________________________