Parable Later on, Daishin Nikuko climbed the mountain. It was stony; gnarled pines leaned out over cliffs hundreds of feet above waterfalls, mist, and the darkness of clouds getting ready for the grey soaking of the middle-early night. Daishin Nikuko climbed with her left hand. She met Daishin Nikuko com- ing down the mountain, with great difficulty, her right hand holding back the earth rushing towards her. ( Because of the instance of the meeting it was possible for Daishin Nikuko to turn back halfway up the moun- tain, and for Daishin Nikuko to turn back halfway down the mountain, using her strong right hand in her climbing. At that perfect meeting point, a small pearl is still to be found in the midst of the stony path; no one may move it, ( but the will of earth and heaven. _____________________________________________________________________ Parable of the Cords of the Word _Inari_ Daishin Nikuko wished very much for a child. One day she ate a peach, not knowing it was a magical peach. At night it would have glowed slightly, but she was hungry in the day, and it looked quite ordinary. I Daishin Nikuko am writing this. The peach tasted delicious and she spit out the pit, which was quite shiny, with magic letters on it, in fact _Inari_ for the fullness of the harvest. Daishin Nikuko galloped away, leaving a stir- rup behind, and from this sprang ten-thousand torii, Shinto arches. Having eaten of the peach, she gave birth to the child Daishin Nikuko. One day a peach tree grew from the pit, and this was the origin of the orchard, a forest in the form of ten-thousand torii, as well as of the Inari shrines. From the birth of Daishin Nikuko came the blind monk killed by the mother Daishin Nikuko; from this, sprang the sorrows of the world. From the moth- er and the daughter came the name Daishin Nikuko, who has lived in me in Nakasukawabata for these many years of my life. It was said of me, born with the death of my mother, that I am neither here nor there. It is said of me that I am Peachboy, Momotaro, and this said of me when I am on the Noh stage in disguise, my full breasts bound by cords, and nothing visible but the blind eyes of the monk, my father. __________________________________________________________________________ Parable When I, Daishin Nikuko, was frightened of the sun, I would run into the subway and hide. When I hid in the subway, the sun would disappear; and it would always disappear in this fashion, white replaced by black and day replaced by night. Someone would come and pull me from the subway, someone, my mother Daishin Nikuko. I would emerge and it would be day replacing night, white replacing black, and from this came "cause" and "effect." I, Daishin Nikuko, am writing this. __________________________________________________________________________ Parable In Lucan, Medusa flies over Ethiopia I think and I think it's her head carried by Perseus strafing the ground into stone. Or somewhere this is an occurrence. But Daishin Nikuko met Medusa on just such a journey and this is her story. One day, the story begins, Daishin Nikuko was flying around in the guise of the hoo bird peeled off from the facade of the Byodo-In Temple. Who should be coming the other way but Medusa in the guise of the phoenix, born and sinking back into flames, but a car for the occasion. They meet in mid-air, so the telling is that of Daishin Nikuko, not Daishin Medusa, for it is Daishin Nikuko who survives the venture. The snakes, says Daishin Medusa, she is surrounded by them. It is the snakes which are blind, the snakes which enter the fray. For Daishin Nikuko has her ecstatic eyes shut for the occasion, the snakes darting in and out of fertile Daishin Nikuko, who sprinkles the ground below with Bodhisattva. Fulfilled by death and the absence of the mirror reflecting the face of Medusa, Daishin Nikuko opens her eyes, finding mien of Medusa pleasing to the eye and soft to the touch. _The mirror has flown to the shrine._ Within the throes of the ecstatic, Medusa withers, now phoenix permanently. Medusa-phoenix in perfect enlightenment dies and is repeatedly born in flame; this is the origin of time. Daishin Nikuko, satiated, returns to human form; the roughness of her elbows, pressed hard against the phoenix body for so many days, is the origin of space. That is why one augurs travel from the patterning of the elbows to this day. That is why I, Daishin Nikuko, will always prefer the super-express shinkansen for my mode of travel. __________________________________________________________________________ Parable I, Daishin Nikuko, write this at Korokan next to the baseball stadium: Just as hashi, chopsticks, convey nourishment to the mouth, so did the toilet sticks of Korokan, Nara and Heian period, convey shit away from the anus. Just as one is chosen for the devouring, the other is picked for expulsion. Just as water seeks the lower level, so does air seek the higher. And just as one is born in hole and ratio, so does one's ration slip through the bodies of others. _______________________________________________________________________ Parable "And now I will go back to the world of parable-writing..." Nikuko writes this in a letter. How can the Pure-Nikuko-Land express itself were it not for the presence of the brush and the ink and the paper and the scroll? Not to mention the scroll-handles, scroll-box, and gilt edges so necessary to set the words off from the rest of the world. Nikuko searches for the perfect story, the story with the lapse or blank in the midst of it, occasion for fulfillment of spiritual void. She searches newpaper and terebi-drama, searches anywhere, refuses the parabola of parables of the past, trajectory of Aesop or Blue-Cliff. What is a parable, if not a spiritual truth? What is the guise of the story? What is the truth of the spirit? What is the truth? What is the writing of parables? ______________________________________________________________________ Parable Daishin Nikuko came across another blind man, a writer of parables, by the bank of a river. You are my eyes, she said to him. You are my parable, he replied. _________________________________________________________________________ Parable Lost in these dark woods, I came across a golden light. It seemed to say, follow me, because it was a-moving. It went down trail, through vale and darkling grove; I came across a ring of effigies, all with many arms and vajra. There I did fall into a soundless sleep; there a prince did come, son of Jimmu, to awaken me. He did take the blood from my finger, he did write the Name across my white kimono, this red blood saying all. And I did awaken and return to full forbearance. And from there I, Daishin Nik- uko, emerged from ignorance by the draining of blood. For it was in those last moments of consciousness after silent sleeping that I did know the world and source of golden light. And I did know I would not live to tell of either, but report only, in the form of parable, this depth of new- found knowledge. (Thus I, Daishin Nikuko, escape the requirements of par- able, that truth be hidden, that a secret reading is in the presence of the word. Thus I, Daishin Nikuko, carry on.) _________________________________________________________________________ Parable (I, Daishin Nikuko, think, Zarathustra talks too much! He's too noisy! He's got a message! There's no space in it. He thinks there doesn't need to be any space! There just needs to be a big swollen guy. Now I, Dai- shin Nikuko, will tell the truth here. I will tell the truth in a para- ble, and the parable in the truth. For a true parable has no truth, and the truth has no parable. Please make yourself comfortable and listen to me carefully. Close your eyes, Xerxes, close your eyes.) Daishin Nikuko meets Zarathustra on the side of a mountain. We fought mightily, he from above, I from below. There was no giving and no speak- ing. He wandered about in the meadow; I pulled him up short. He could peer down my dress! He foreswore sex, but he couldn't help looking. But I, Daishin Nikuko, won this battle, not from the courage of the body, but from the strength of the mind and the heart. I, Daishin Nikuko, had my way with Zarathustra! Zarathustra, beg! Zarathustra, say the safe word! Zarathustra screams about the transvaluation of all values, and I scream in return, what are "trans"? I said. Do they run on time? Zarathustra says I am of the body and he of the air; he has overturned the Buddhist! I do not listen; I remember! Zarathustra, I say, what is "of"? What is "all"? What are "values"? I say Do they run on time? Zarathustra says, they run on space, run on sentences! They run on words, they are words! Ah, Zarathustra, I am flooded with words, what is "they"? What is "are"? What are "words"? Because you are over me, I will conquer thee. Because thou art lord, thou art lowered. Because there is neither woman nor man and because there are both woman and man, thou art lost. Because thou art on the ragged peak of the mountain, thou art penetrated! Because thou art penetrated, thou hast holes. Hast thou seen thine holes? Hast thou peered through them? What are "holes"? If not, I, Daishin Nikuko, say, worlds surrounded by worlds, multiplic- ity unencumbered by words and values! I will beat you, Zarathustra, and I will beat you up from being down! I will play the game of the serpent and the game of the fox. I will not play the game of the eagle! I have devoured the snakes of Medusa! They swell my belly, my cunt, my arms, my legs! I have no values! There is no up, no down, no mountain! There is no tree! There is no valley! There is no brook, no blind monk, no hermit! There are no worlds, no wars! I have mastered the tide; with Xerxes, I remained longer by the ocean, on bended knee by the shore! With Xerxes, I did return the tide; it took hours! With Xerxes, I did stop the waters and with Xerxes, I did blind the mad mad Emperor! I, Daishin Nikuko, I! I! I! I! _________________________________________________________________________ Parable {k:3} b You have no new mail. {k:4} exit Connection closed by foreign host. {k:5} b You have no new mail. {k:6} Thus in equivalent shells, New York gives way to Fukuoka, and the difference among signifiers remains invisible on the screen. Such that, there is none, but a dispersion of orderings. I, Daishin Nikuko, move among my many worlds, and now you understand. ______________________________________________________________________ Parable My work's useless. Everything is falling apart. No one believes para- bles any more. There's nowhere to stand, nowhere to read or write from the lectern. What's in museums are supershows. I'm an anachronism; even avatars have bad days when they believe their bodies fall apart, they've left limbs somewhere. I should be buried. I find my moorings slipping away. My flesh doesn't do it any more. I don't age, that's not it. I'm eternal, that's not it either. It's the constant leavings - one day you're here, the next day you're off the list, the next day your computer crashes and my words are gone, gone gone. Christ and Zarathustra and Buddha and Confucius and just about everyone for that matter have messages for you. Sometimes they're simple, sometimes not. They're worth a lot of money and the simpler the message the more likely you are to get rewards for it. But I'm leaving for the street; I wander Nakasukawabata with nowhere to go. I have no message, except there isn't any. Death breathes too hard and too fast down your neck. It doesn't breathe down mine, but I just have blank eyes, do you understand? There are no pupils. We should either dissolve in joy, literally lose our limbs, or die. The pain of the world is unsolva- ble. If I were more intelligent or roaming on my own, I'd do something maybe. But as it is, I'll always be here, but immobile. I will watch breakdown-Alan dead or alive. I'm an uneasy pill he hasn't swallowed. He leaves me behind, and he'll do that someday. He has no message for any of you but what's in a name or its letters. He lets me think for myself. I can't thank him enough. I'm his fantasm, uncanny, what grows like a tumor between his legs. If I could, my message would be food, food, food. - Daishin Nikuko _________________________________________________________________________ Parable Daishin Nikuko met a lion in the desert. Where have you strayed from, she said. I have strayed from the flock, said the lion. Mine or yours, she said. The difference of the hunter is not the difference of the prey. If it were, she said, there would be no hunters. If it were, said the lion, there would be no prey. _______________________________________________________________________ Parable: The Poor Man Goes to Heaven There once was a poor man who observed the 613 laws and the seven commandments, as well as the masses and fasts. He died and went to heaven. To his surprise, the gates were open, and he walked right in. Everywhere he looked, there were flagstones. What more could the poor man want. When he slept he remembered his letters. When he woke, he counted days. Nothing fell through the cracks. One day, he died, but there was nowhere to go. You are nothing if you understand this second death, said Daishin Nikuko. Salvation is at the price of the text; only read uncertainty into the world, and you will have your desires fulfilled, your wishes turned to desire. _______________________________________________________________________ Parable I, Daishin Nikuko, write this so you will be saved. I give everything, my best dress, my stockings, my undergarments, for your salvation. I walk across the path of righteousness, not along it; I gird your way for you, protect you. You will meet my double on the path. Do not deviate from the path. Do not listen to the words of the avatar. How will you know the avatar. You will know the avatar because she will offer her nakedness. She will walk orthogonally in relation to the vector of the path. She will command you to obey the vector. She will order you not to follow the avatar. I, Daishin Nikuko, have all the time in the world and I won't give you any of it. Take off your clothes, says Daishin Nikuko. _______________________________________________________________________ Parable A wise man was walking in the middle of a dark forest. Trees heavy with moss and lichen leaned dangerously above the narrow path. Scuttlings of unknown creatures could be heard in the undergrowth, and the wise man was sure that demons lurked, just out of sight, waiting for the slightest misstep. It was dusk now, and the man was tired. In the distance, there were growling and mewling noises. They seemed to come from the left, and although the trail continued forward, the wise man stepped into the bushes. Feeling his way across logs and briars, he came to a rough clearing, the width of two men perhaps, or a man and a woman. There were three dark forms sitting in a circle, and there was a campfire smoldering to one side. The forms were bears, the wise man noted, and in their midst was a young and very beautiful child, perhaps a boy or perhaps a girl; it was hard to tell. Something emanated from the child's presence, perhaps just the warmth of a skin unencumbered by fur. The wise man feared for the safety and life of the child. Why don't you pick on someone your own size, he said to the bears. They turned to face the sudden intruder. He lifted his rifle to the shoulder and shot the first bear, which fell shuddering to the ground. The other two began to howl eerily, as if in mourning. Nothing could be farther from the truth, thought the wise man. He reloaded the rifle in the middle of the forest, which was almost pitch-black, in spite of the embers. He shot the second bear cleanly, now, and it collapse as well, sadly leaning against the first. The third, seeing the situation was hopeless, lumbered off into the growth, and the wise man said to the child, now you are saved. The child turned into a gun and fell clattering on the ground. The wise man, filled with wonder, walked on. __________________________________________________________________________ Parable of Transitive Parables There once was a jealous and lazy fox. He came across a grasshopper watch- ing a group of ants prepare for the winter. The grasshopper was fascinated - he had never done a day's work in his life. The ants were dragging grapes to the entrance of their anthill, then shoving them in, until the entrance was almost entirely blocked. Suddenly it would be freed, and the grape would fall deep within the earth, to become a raisin for a winter's feasting. The fox thought the grapes tasted bitter as he ate the grasshopper, which should have been watching his back. Since he had no articulated neck, like the mantis, he would have had to stop his meditation on the antwork. But why should he? The fox was extraordinarily quiet, avoiding the usual sounds of hunters on the move. The grasshopper had no reason to be sus- picious. The ants would have tasted bitter as well. ___________________________________________________________________________ Parable and Aphorism A parable is an aphorism crippled by a story. _____________________________________________________________________ Parable Daishin Nikuko wanted to travel from Fukuoka to Kyoto to attend the races at Kamigamo. I, Daishin Nikuko, did ride the Shinkansen from one island to another, skipping and jumping through mountain and tunnel. I did think that a parable is always rural, isn't that the case? Or that it is from a small town surrounded by mountains or a desert. That would place it in a valley or almost nomadic, a space surrounded by space. I did think that a parable was remarkably pre-modern, but then thought, what if cyberspace were a parable, that is a story of how we are all gods and have come to this nexus in our lives. Then I thought, we are not all gods, in fact, but I, Daishin Nikuko, am a god and yet I am riding a shinkansen from Fukuoka to Kyoto to attend the races. Why must I travel in this fashion from a city to a shrine, which might, for all my background, be my shrine, my ascent, my descent? Then I thought, perhaps I am doing this for you, and this was an epiphany. For if I did not ride, I would not write, and I would not write about the ride, which is how you get from Fukuoka to Kamigamo. So I am riding the train so you will understand a parable is post-modern or modern as well. And I am mentioning this train and the things I am thinking on this train. And it is not so safe as a meadow or village or valley. Now I am riding this train which is the train after the descent and before the ascent. Because after the ascent and before the descent, I partake of the gods and the villages; it is the villages that owe me allegiance. It is the lame, the halt, the blind, the mute, the deaf, the dumb, the troubled, that follow me. Those who are ruined know the truth; by the truth, ye shall know them. For my followers are half in the material of the world, the stuff of the world, and half in ecstasy, although they know it not. And I am half in ascent, half in descent, and of god, and I do know this. So I do bring this. And it is not safe, but it is true and salvation. I, Daishin Nikuko, the god of pain, do say, you are all in pain, you are all in pain and ruined: now follow me. _______________________________________________________________________ Parable of the Goats, the Princess, and the Wise Man I, Daishin Nikuko, attended an elegant dinner this very evening. And during the course of this dinner, I, Daishin Nikuko, came to speak of parables and of the nature of parable writing. And I did declare, that, in fact, it was only a matter of choosing, for example, a princess, two goats, and a wise man, and the parable would form itself around them, just as if nature herself were telling the tale. And that this was a way of vacating the premises of truth, while citing such from the dis- tance of the word. And this is the parable that has come into being, my mind, and yours, the parable of the goats, the princess, and the wise man. _______________________________________________________________________ Parable of the Spoor I, Daishin Nikuko, will wander the foreign land of my unnatural destiny or in other words, I will see the shores of America, or the virgin returns. This will happen with a frequency approaching one within the week. Now it is within the week; before, within the month, the season, the half-year. Now I will leave and take with me that particular scent or intensity for which I have become known, and I ask of you, what shall I bring from Japan to North America, what item imbued with the numinous? When it is true that beyond me, I believe in no other spirit, then what shell or husk or carapace need accompany this shell, husk, or carapace? For my spirit flows like sake from my holes into yours, and not even gods are filled with infinite capacity. I would beat my chest into submission towards my head lowering from the region of the neck. I would drink my breasts, black and blue, until, satiated, I am once again healed, in order to offer them and myself, but with a price no one ever wants to pay. Consider me, then, a swollen drop or pillow; consider the accompanying shell or husk or fetish, a thread of liquid or cotton; consider what I will drag from Japan as the perfect symbol. For the symbol must pervade all and continue to pervade; it must be the scent of my breath, taste of saliva. I will take blank air and earth; thus the absence of Zen. I will take Buddha on my back, the curved-jewel magatama on my front; thus the lamina of religious yearning. I will take the night, in order that I claim the night, that I take it back. I will take the day; I will take none of this, have none of this. I will take my tongue to write upon your body. I will take your body upon my tongue. There are worlds I will take, towns I will take, Chiyomachi for one. I will take stones and mirrors, bamboo and _My Melody._ I will take a shrine back and a temple. I will fly forward and backward. I will be lost in noise. I will guard my back. I will watch my back. Thus all of us are nomads trailing the perfect fetish behind them; it is always too late to return to our backs, examine the fortune of the carapace, and proceed as if our lives were sensed by time. The _souvenir_ loses interest in the _moral._ ---then--- I sense this parable is too simple, too influenced by my life, says Alan Sondheim. I sense it's broken because I'm breaking back in America like a wave breaks on a beachhead, into pieces. I sense it's broken because the language fudges itself, goes nowhere. I sense Daishin Nikuko doesn't have anything to say, she just runs around showing her- self off as if there hadn't been a century of feminism behind her. I sense jealousy on her part because she just does that and quotes Zara- thustra out of context, says Alan Sondheim, because she can't come up with anything like Zarathustra. I sense she's desperate to leave a trail behind her because I'm desperate to leave a trail behind me. There is always a parable in a parable and that's the parable of power and despair before death. I sense someone is wielding the knife and I ask about the knife. I could have had the knife. I could have killed. Oh, said Daishin Nikuko, look what I just said. ______________________________________________________________________ Parable It is true that I turn the computer on and do enter my telnet address to a favorite MOO or MUD, then obey and enter commands, @go, @join, commands which have existed for decades now, or so it seems, _jidai_ or era. Thus perhaps now I will @go to New York, then perhaps @home back to Fukuoka, this at an instant. Thus I @create $thing called _matsu_ or pine tree, and this @described on cliff's edge, overlooking brook-dusk-chasm with dark stones, all quite colorful, exotic, quaint, within the mists and rains of my imagination. Now I @recycle my avatars, perhaps, @recycle Alan, so that and in order to exist in this _cyberspace,_ a parable of central Kyushu on that rain-soaked road, those looming mountains, deep intense green-black valleys... Ah, wa, wa, I cry, I shall live the rest of my days, forever, in these valleys, on the vector of the road, against the dim steep slopes of the wooded mountains. I shall @create a world in this space, @dig a dwelling for myself, and @read the sutra, and it shall be eternal, as you may @see through telnet address. I, Daishin Nikuko, @declare this place a space, Myoukamachi perhaps, a space from which one may or may not return, a space which is a parable or a setting for a parable; you may @enter and @live or @write your story, or perhaps only @inhabit silently, as if the breath were held in this airless atmosphere as the hard drives whirr and the moss grows deep on the stony slopes beneath the trees. And so it is the case, this parable of space in the memory of _cyberspace_ always in italics, always trembling in the midst of the dissolution of visions. For the machine does move like the purr of a forest animal, in the background, and you can hear the purring anywhere in this land, even near the water- falls which are plentiful in the high rains. So I, Daishin Nikuko, do beg to ask you, where is the parable, and where is the space. And where are you and where am I, among the trees, and where are the trees, the brooks, the mountains, the waterfalls, the dark earth, the mists, the moss and stony ground; where are the dark highways of our souls, what sorts of travelers appear of a night's foreboding, and what sorts of valleys, what sorts of vectors, lead us forever downward into the dark moist gloom of our souls' long birthing. _________________________________________________________________________ Parable When does a parable cease to be such, becoming merely a report on daily life, for example, that I am leaving Fukuoka, returning to the United States, and therefore will be out of touch while the plane is in the air and for a time thereafter after it has landed, perhaps to the ex- tent of a week or so? For the arrow cannot stay, verily, for the repast of the farmer, while it can partake of the bounty of the hunter. And as it has been pointed out, while go is the game of the former, shogi and chess are games of the latter, the quick movement against the hunted king, so that no one will be shy. The parable is this: One day, Daishin Nikuko sets out for the USA as a god who must decide whether to trust technology over spirit, or spirit over technology. I, Daishin Nikuko, may well play shogi on the plane. I will play with the limitations of the gold and silver generals, of the lance and the knight, of the pawn and the king itself. I will play in such a manner that a membrane spreads slowly across the 9x9 board, one of merely local interest. The kanji on the shogi pieces are prayers I will make to myself. I will land before the king is hunted down. I, Daishin Nikuko, may well play shogi-in-the-pure-mind as I trust spirit in the air. The kanji on the shogi are schedules of airlines and their vectors. The lines of force spell The Limits of the Pieces are the Levers of the Infinite. I will arrive at my destination precisely one minute after leaving my destiny, as evinced by a dateline rushing back into the darkness of time. I will be time and space. I, Daishin Nikuko, will not respond. __________________________________________________________________________ From sondheim@panix.com Tue Apr 28 12:17:20 1998 Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 12:09:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Nikuko, Jennifer, Julu, Alan, all leaving [on Thursday, 30 Apr 1998 13:45:00] We are leaving Japan and will be on nomail or offline or on ragged line for a period of time, perhaps only a day but perhaps up to ten days and for this we are very sorry. It is also of much travail and difficult, this leaving, and what is being reassembled on the other shore may bear no resemblance to what has been upon this one, in various positions, upright or supine or leaning to one or another side. The beginnings are rarely recognized for what they are; the leavings, scraps, are so often of a long thread, red and drawn out, well past the breaking point. That one of us can no longer think, and with this breaking of thinking as well, what emerges are mewling sounds from the throat, breaking as an example the series of parables, to be taken up at the later date. For when one of us can no longer think, the rest of us are thrown into the series, drowned in noise, acceded equivalent positions, dissolved in the same vat. In the meantime, there are those examples already in the Internet Text and other locations at URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html MIRROR with other pages at: http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt which may be of interest. As usual because of lag, we cannot write further in this regard. Be that as it may, please excuse lack of contact, human or otherwise, for several days, if such be the case. Alan, Nikuko, Julu, Jennifer, Travis, Tiffany, Honey __________________________________________________________________________ Broken Text - Notes on Exile (I always regret. Is there anything else?) Shall I, now, almost about to leave Japan, within another two weeks, begin already to speak of exile, this body robbed from myself, not my own, or doubling homes or vacancies? What happens in the process of cauterization, displacements from which one slides into the flesh or skull of another? Home or nation or _name?_ What are the bones or processes of bones in this maternal safety, as if exile were an addic- tion, a drug, as if there were a _gathering_ of sorts, a coalescence, around this one word, _Japan_? (What if there were no word? What if the maternal is nothing more than the comfort of ignorance?) When the source has been named, the source has been created; the future anterior always already, _naturally_ rules in this domain. From that which springs from the source, call it totality. From what surrounds source, call it surface or skin; call it borderline or mirror or sheen. That one no longer recognizes attributions, or rather their glissando into and through the throat. That there are impediments, holes, traps for the wary and unwary traveler (the unwary who glides down _in an instant_ and with less affect). That the doubling itself is always already incomplete, springing from that which is naming the source, which is rubbed raw by the nub of it or displaced. Now, the night before leaving: That endocolonization always plays a role, Gaston Miron's vacuity from within for example, or the exigencies of peripheral vision. The great fear that there is nothing to return to. The fear that one can no longer speak, that speech has been robbed. The fear that one operates from the cliff or hinge, that the cliff or hinge is a knife or tool of cauterization. The fear that this is too familiar a state, that one has always already been in exile, strangers to ourselves, located on grids of others' construction. The fear that the body no longer harbors liquid, that the body is drained, absent, that there is no shape taken but one's own. That the skin carries the scars of its own history. That the mind is broken, that kanji-signs replace the imminence of knowledge; that they do this forever. That one enters an unfathomable darkness, that the darkness, like depression is the last residue of truth. That it can't be _read._ I will not (the night after arriving) _________________________________________________________________________ Parable No matter how far the experience of Daishin Nikuko, she has not seen so much anger-anxiety present in faces presented to her since her arrival. Nor has she seen such confusion-tension, nor such information-explosion in the midst of excessive noise, and Daishin Nikuko must wonder, were I not a fully contributor of this race, what on earth has been the occasion for such constitution. But then, if I would say get me out of here, would I not imply a betrayal and of whom and for which principles, for which I am much adjusted? These are things to think about as since I am well aware there is nothing else to think about. Nor is there space to think about such things where there is no takonoma anywhere in site. I need an alcove to contemplate and be contemplated. There I will carry on my parable act- ivity. To write a parable, one must have brush and ink or computer and voice-rec- ognition in hand or before mouth; one must have sparkling ideas and a clear and steady mind. Without space and time there is no parable. Here I believe that everyone does die, but outside of space and outside of time and certainly outside of takonoma. The parable is dying outside of space and time, while I, Daishin Nikuko, fumble for keyboard and brush. ___________________________________________________________________________ Nikuko and Crash-Land Tokyo As you may remember, I, Daishin Nikuko, have extensively written about Crash-Land Tokyo, my bar away from home, and now all of this has come true. For I have been leaving and attempting to leave the land of my birthing, coming to America for no good reason, and I have been attempt- ing such leaving for two days now. I have taken an airline which shall of course remain unnamed, but Soseki would have approved of its malfeasance, and what did happen was that I, Daishin Nikuko, decided after all to take my trust in technology, flying an airplane, or rather being flown in one, rather than use my more spiritual measures of bodily transference. In any case, having left Fukuoka for Nagoya, and then leaving for the shores of America from Nagoya, we arrived at a point a half hour over the pacific when we turned immediately back the pilot announcing a difficulty with hydraulics. We did in fact hear odd noises on take-off, to which he re- ferred. Further, on landing in Narita, where there were purportedly crash vehicles waiting for us, the enormous plane shuddered and rumbled, almost sending us into the seats ahead. Never fearing, the problem was worked on for three hours while we wandered into the Narita evening, and we boarded once again. This time we made it a goodly third across the Pacific before a second problem was discovered and we turned back once again; later we were quietly told by inside sources that in fact not only did another sys- tem misbehave, but the autopilot and other controls had stopped function- ing. At this point, after two near crash-lands, the airline had had enough of us, and we were escorted to a hotel overnight; now we are traveling on another line and another flight, in fact another line of flight, and are far too removed to turn back. I should add that I, Daishin Nikuko, would have made an excellent auto- pilot myself, had I been asked. I did note one interesting sensation, and this after leaving Japan, that even when we turned about for the second time and knew the delicate imminence of possible catastrophe, I, godlike and spiritual flesh-girl did not care, was in fact disinvested from the whole thing, watching with mute eyes among the nervousness of my neighbor. What could this be but the onset of untoward collapse, I wonder? For there was little desire to do anything but perhaps take a decent digital picture - alas, when we landed, the fire engines were too dark, even with the flashing lights, for anything _decent_ to emerge. Thus my descent into darkness proved as ever anti-climactic, but what else would in fact be possible for such as myself; all events that have ever occurred, occurred in Nakasukawabata, near the subway station perhaps, and I am thousands of miles away, rushing into the impenetrable noise of Amer- ica, where I shall wish catastrophe upon one and all. __________________________________________________________________________ Parable: Resistances to Leaving (Always I do leave one or another place, finding a home there; and always where my home is, in the noise of the States, I think of finding a home.) And always I do drag along with me such things as reconstruct the land, I am thinking of those numinous objects which open the travesties of worlds - what would be keepsakes or intensities, conjured by the long red threading back into their homeland, and I, I see them as _them_ and the scuttling of all the cats in the world and their prey, and I resist leaving, and take every memento, grasping at this image and holding onto that stone, and now the digital camera is loaded with eighty pictures and now, it has become a tomb of truth in the form of the elements earth, water, fire, wind, air and I have a sumo chart and a soroban, and I have voices that will never leave Daishin Nikuko alone, that accompany her past the Net into the real world, and back again, so that now I glimpse something when I read your words and hear something when the sounds of a computer run on and on quietly in the next room over - as if these were simple things, foreclosing the complex, creating clean neat surfaces you may scribble on, these resistances to leaving in the form of a body losing flesh, these crash-land nighttime skies giving way to the form of a poem. _______________________________________________________________________ Some stuff I'm going to talk about on Wednesday (UC Santa Cruz, 5/6/98) My Internet Text began around the end of 1993, and is now about 6 megs long. Texts are sent, most often once a day, to various lists - always to Fop-l and Cybermind, earlier to Future Culture, and later, on occasion, to Poetics. Rarely, texts are sent to other lists as well, including nettime and eyebeam. Early on, I began with issues of recognition, address, protocol, desire, and the self as a continuous rewrite; there were avatars such as Tiffany, Honey, and Travis, laying the ground - speaking as if they were on MOOs, MUDs, or IRC. Later on, long-wave formats developed - considerations of early mid-east languages in relation to the Net, self-reflexive avatars such as Jennifer and Julu, transgressive avatars such as Nikuko, Net archeologies, issues of epistemology and ontology - almost everything with virtual subjectivity as an underlying theme. The normative mode has been writing, using intersections or interpenetra- tions as well - for example, altering sendmail.cfg files, simple hackings of IRC or newsgroups, multiple entries into talkers or MOOs, use of the doctor (Eliza) program on emacs, and creative use of perl, sed, and awk for active or passive text alterations/substitutions. Other modes have included graphics and the results of javascripting, as well as experimental webpages available only when my desktop is online. The first site for the text was at jefferson.village.virginia.edu as part of the Spoons philosophy lists; this used absolute URLs and the gopher protocol and was set up by one of the Spoons members. There are currently space limitations here. The mirror site, through Jerry Everard, is at the Australian National Un- iversity in Canberra, and employs relative URLs and the http:// protocol. Both sites share texts; the latter also has graphics and javascript. In working through the texts, I have also used CuSeeMe, Iphone, a private MOO, and other forms which create "experience" and alternative viewpoints for the writing. To whatever extent is possible, I put myself on the line. Both sites share resumes and indexing. The index file is passive (not hypertext) and lists the broad subjects of the text. Files are named in various orders, the most prominent being a,b,c, etc. - then aa, ab, etc. - but these orders are broken and skipped for various reasons. In other words, the ordering is somewhat irregular, although the order is clear on the opening page. The Internet Text, like the Fop-l or Cybermind lists, possesses its own aura, which includes the lists, the Jennifer book printed by Chris Alex- ander, the various e-zine and off-line reprints, Being on Line, various talks, and so forth. The text is obsessive; I write/read every day. If I can't for one or ano- ther reason, I develop insomnia, shuddering, excessive self-doubt. In other words, an addiction. The text pushes boundaries, towards an intermingling of forms, self and avatar, performative and declarative modes, and so forth. When the text "works" for me, I feel uncomfortable. When defuge, decathected exhaustion, sets in, I may rely on quotations of other authors to provide impetus, or my own older texts. But there are themes that run their course, long-waves and shorter (such as the current parable series), that carry me along. I ransack sources and cultures, searching for communicative and epistem- ological resonances - such as Australian CB behavior, or the distribution of cuneiform systems in the early mid-east. While I tend to use metaphors, and the avatars themselves may be consid- ered as such, I refuse to reify metaphor, to treat it as a determinative articulation. In this fashion, I have little to say, except that self and other and text, etc., are dissolutions, splays, sprays, emissions; there are no end to them, nor to theoretical articulations. I think of the Text as the massification of theory and a deconstruction degree-zero which devours itself; theoretical part-objects are thrown off as so much centrifugal debris. There is a pointillism to all of this, just as there would be in the investigation of any world. Finally, I consider that I write / wryte myself into existence, and that I just as easily write / wryte myself out of existence. I am a fabrication of language. The fabrication tends towards transgression as write - writ- ing in the usual sense - tends towards normative activity, and wryte - the almost hysteric pushing of the body and desire through language - tends towards a discomfort which brings the material of the self to the fore- ground (hence the occasional emphasis on Net sex). __________________________________________________________________________ Nikuko for Sale "I must seem a horrible character to you, but the fact is that I want to die so badly I can't stand it. Ever since I was born I have been thinking of nothing but dying. It would be better for everyone concerned if I were dead, that's certain. And yet I can't seem to die. There's something strange and frightening, like God, which won't let me die." "That's because you have your work." "My work doesn't mean a thing. I don't write either masterpieces or failures. If people say something is good, it becomes good. If they say it's bad, it becomes bad. But what frightens me is that somewhere in the world there is a God. There is, isn't there?" "I haven't any idea." This is from Dazai Osamu's Villon's Wife, translated by Donald Keene, and it is been my arm and a leg for many a year. For I, Nikuko Daishin, also want to die, and am making the following offering: For three dollars, you may fuck me, Daishin Nikuko. You may fuck me any way you choose, so long as I come hard, just like you will come hard. You may tie me up like an object or a bag for another three dollars, and do your way with me. If you make me a thing, you will have a refund of three dollars, if I come because I am your thing. But I will never be your thing for long, no, I will become great and strong. For four dollars, you may kill me, and there will be no refund. You may kill me only once, and it will be to your honor. "It will be to your honor to kill me," they will say, and it will be true. This is very important, and the money must not be returned. For five dollars, you may have a finger of mine, and there are only eight fingers and two thumbs to distribute. And for six, you may have a wrist, and there are only two in this manner. I have my thoughts about these, but they are difficult to sell, and besides, I choose not to. For ten there is a breast with its nipple, and for ten, the other breast. For twenty, there is a cunt, and for fifty, an eye, and for one hundred, the other eye as well. You may have my tongue for nothing, and my throat too, since I speak with these, teasingly inviting you to my cutting and dismemberment. You may however pay two-hundred for my throat and tongue if you but fuck me and I come as you come, since I will still have need of speech and other phenomena. You must think of an arm for twenty and the other arm for forty, after the first, and one leg for thirty, but it must not include the moist part where the thigh is joined. You may have the other leg for fifty, and it will include the moist part, but not the cunt. The cunt is not empty air, it is flesh. You may not resell anything at all, but may only keep what you buy. You may pass what you buy on elsewhere when you die, and it will be your choice, but I would rather have what you buy accompany you in death, and there for you the matter will end. You must not think you are making a bargain here, because it is a bargain for me to feel the knife or rope or to feel that I have received pleasure or that I will not continue. You must know I can grow new arms, legs, fingers, breasts, cunts, wrists, thighs, and eyes, and that I can grow new throats and tongues, and that these are my will. You must know I can grow new lives as well, and that I can fuck you forever, and come at will, and for that matter multiple or almost infinite times, as my eyes emit beams that will cover or dissect the flesh that is carrying on. [Translator's note - in other words, that the laser-eyes cut flesh, but that the eyes themselves are not cut, although they are sold in such an appearance.] I love the beams in my eyes and they mow down millions. You must think of the anguish you are causing yourself and me and all its pleasure, and you must not think too hard about this. It is very worri- some, this anguish and pleasure. I, Daishin Nikuko, will become, however, wealthy, and this will give me much pleasure. I will buy and sell time and space as well, but you must have a place to put them, and I will sell that as well and this is how I will make a large fortune. This offer stands as long as you remember it, and can furthermore write or email me, although there are no other details, and this is all there is to the offer, and there are no clauses or for that matter anything to discuss at all. I would say the matter is closed, and you can think of such matter to any extent that will give you pleasure, and this will be a further in- centive to me as well. ___________________________________________________________________________ Parable of many stories told The thing that I would tell you about pagodas is the suspension of the central pillar, the dynamics of the structure as a whole. But what would oI tell you of the harder stone pagoda, whose stories are often less than a foot in height, built in memory, beneath or within the shadow of mem- ory? The pillar is the pagoda, the pagoda is the pillar. The stories, locked into each other without metal or mortar, survive to make the line. The line sweeps the sky, tracing out the kanji for mouth. I would like to believe that, my mouth wide as the sky for you, mouth is body, body is mouth ... ___________________________________________________________________________ Parable of the Dead Emperor "I travel my path as it leads through what is in accord with nature until I fall by the wayside and find rest, breathing my last into that air form which day by day I draw breath, while my body falls to join the earth from which my father received the seed, my mother the blood, my nurse the milk which were mine, that earth from which day by day for so many years I have been fed and watered as I stepped upon it, and which I have made use of for so many things." Daishin Nikuko, quoting Marcus Aurelius, Grube translation. For what Dai- shin Nikuko cannot do, can be done for her, by slave and emperor alike; what is done for her does encourage her to forgo distinction. What is done for her is the act of taking letters from one language, sprinkling them in kanji or letters in another, and what is done, in the deeper sense and sentencing of such letters, is the act of thought itself. For Daishin Nikuko does not expect to drink at the well of all thought, or rather, perhaps to drink at such a body of water, but hardly to fill it with her piss or breast milk, not with so many tributaries and dessications plum- meting the earth into certain extinction. "To drink my piss," says Daishin Nikuko, is to achieve the greatest orgasm you could ever imagine, and this will cost you two dollars. What is two dollars in distinction to the eternal? What is the eternal in contradis- tinction to me? __________________________________________________________________________ Parable of Self-Reproduction When I think that for two dollars you may drink the piss of Daishin Nikuko, I, Daishin Nikuko, become in fact wetter than is my normal state, to the extent that my bladder increases its capacity, and I am led to drink, motivating me within the fifteen-sake state. As that is my current constitution within the 26 [letters, trans.], you will perhaps have a double or duplicated dosage. So that your desire does inflame me, increase my capacity, which surely can only enlarge your desire. You may think in this fashion that I am but a fashion, a transitive term present to do your bidding, but rest assured that the imaginary of your eager mouth provides more than enough sustenance for this dark night - I know that piss will silence you, your half- closed eyes refusing the visible world. Such is nirvana or satori or enlightenment and its dark stream. And I, Daishin Nikuko, will hear no more of your chatter. _______________________________________________________________________ Parable of Nikuko aroused so she can no longer read herself, much as she generates writing Nikuko asks, why does everything swell up around me when I try to sleep? Why do I, Nikuko Daishin walk around with swollen body? (God, walk all over me!) Do I need to sleep in order to swell? Why am I so rounded? Why am I haunted in this fashion? Who are you to waken dragon curled between epidermis and mesodermis? Between flesh and flesh and flesh? Why do curls, scales, fire, long flickering tongues and fire spell kanji-shapes of bel- lies, breasts, lips, nipples? Mouths, mouths, mouths. Why are you there, distended, tumescent screened on two eyes backed into tortured skin? You make my body perfect sphere. Arms and legs sink into shoulders and thighs, face into mouth and neck, thighs into clit. Unknown kanji are lost in flesh stretched to open to you. I am taut-skin ball, buried writing, sym- bols, marks, words, speech. I can no longer speak. My mouth _________________________________________________________________________ Parable of Zarathustra and Daishin Nikuko Zarathustra sticks his long cock into me. He's got it easy; he's up on the mountain as usual. Zarathustra, I say, you can't see anything from there. It's a big cock, bigger than usual. It's long and hard and I'm used to that of course; it's designed as a tool or implement, something for Z. to hang on to. It's a tiny cock. I gnaw at its root. It's in and Z. doesn't have enough blood to fill it. I open my vein, my artery, the channels of my heart. I spill into him. I fill his cock and it gets bigger and harder. It's not enough. I throw my heart into it, my bones into it. It gets big- ger and harder. It gets big and hard. Now I take it in me, now it fills me. I take the bones back. I take the heart back and his heart too. I take the blood back and his blood as well and why not his bones. Z.'s brain follows suit. There's nothing left of him. There wasn't much to begin with, some parables. Later, I'll let him out; he crawls from my asshole, another pleasure. He'll sow his dirt and call it Medusa. I knew her mother. Z., come down from the mountain, I say. It's cold up there and you can't see a damn thing. _________________________________________________________________________ This Parable "How does the directing mind treat itself? Everything depends on that. The rest, whether objects of your choice or not, are all dead bodies and smoke." (Marcus Aurelius, trans. Grube) Yes, that is certainly the case. For there is landscape-debris, those dark tombs with their five elements, stones worn to illegibility degree-zero. The mind forks across weathered crevices; lightning-cracks open up through ruined kanji. One might note blacks or dark-greys, even in the brightest sun; they're lunar rocks, holding daimyos and retainers, princesses smoth- ered for false crimes, remains of those who, like smoke, roam without mas- ters across landscapes sulking with moist heat. Dead bodies rise through smoke; smoking bodies die. Like a vector seared across landscapes calked with burned debris, Nikuko will walk in directing- mind-state, will speak with purpose, will box desire, will be futile. She will be futile, meandering with purpose, hair on fire, eyes cowering daily debris and powdered grey skin. Nikuko will wake from directing-mind-dream, which will be Nikuko. Daishin Nikuko, of the larger god or goddess, swarms of them, will be her name. She will collect larger-minds, she will never speak of births and deaths. I won't speak of mine in particular, said Daishin Nikuko, because purpose would then be met. I will have none of that, she said. I will be futile. __________________________________________________________________________ Parable of searching on the net {k:1} Looking for you in this dark 3 a.m. night, there's rain outside, there are animals, howling forces, there is the thick curtain of muted pain, O Daishin Nikuko ... {k:2} finger -l ---------------------- Shell: /bin/csh New mail since Wed May 6 15:36:50 1998 Has not read mail for 0:05:11. User Real Name What Idle TTY Host Console Location ------------------------------- No plan. {k:3} finger -l ---------------------- Shell: /bin/csh No unread mail. User Real Name What Idle TTY Host Console Location ------------------------------- No plan. {k:4} You did come on between now and then, just a matter of seconds and there you were; frightened, I withdrew, knowing you would have received the public messages meant especially for you, that this too is such a mis- sive, that every word tightens itself around the vagaries of truth, de- sire, loss. (I could have talked, could have spoken, Nikuko. But I with- drew in silence, as you never knew.) __________________________________________________________________________ Parable of questions How many parables? How many stories miniaturized as if there edification along the traderoute from Japan to America, crossing the deserts and mountains of the globe? How great the depth of false wisdom's saturation, the motivation of lies - each parable branded against the others, the whole held together by a skein of mucilage and damaged life? How much longer the writing which curls against itself as skin is heated, almost to the breaking-point? How much longer these questions, proverbial warnings, curled reflections on absence, Nikuko's throbbing and aggressive sex? I, Daishin Nikuko, am tired of the truth! Do you understand, I am tired of the truth! Tired of it. Tired of it. I will write lies. I will fill the world with lies. I will join the world from the bridge of my nose to the soles of my feet. I will press valleys and oceans against my body. I will write with blood from my body, spit from my mouth, piss and shit from my holes, fragments of skin and gristle under my fingernails. My nails are dark with other organs. My nails are dark with other organs. I cry lalala into the wilderness! I lie in the wilderness! I cry lalala! I cry lalala! Lalala, I am living you! Lalala, I am living you! ____________________________________________________________________________ Parable something about this talking all the time to you something about Buddha charging Nikuko, no wait it was the other way around. something about Buddha loving her smell, her damp odor. something about sleeping when I reach the point of dizziness, just as the earth goes around, then there's the forest and Nikuko watching an insect, surely that's it. she watches the insect and gets enlightened. it happens all at once. there's not much else she wants to do. she's had it, that's all. it's happened to her. something about being much wiser now. something about now that she's enlightened. something about everything is just a little bit different. it feels pretty much the same to Nikuko. that's the way it's supposed to be, says Nikuko. "to say" or "a word" coming from two parts meaning knife and mouth says diligent Nikuko. something about sufficiency. _______________________________________________________________________ Parable of possible questions from the Santa Cruz talk (see above) Are there ethics, and do ethics play a role in my work? Are Nikuko, Jennifer, and Julu automatically written, or do you write them? Do they write you as well? Are the things that are sent back and forth through the government post office in danger of not being sent back and forth because of the government's involvement in the Net? Do you write about anything other than sex? What is the point of all of this? Have you ever actually spoken to Nikuko? What does her voice sound like? Does she mind all of this writing? Does she ever get upset with you? What do her friends think? How can your writing be real the same way a sonnet is real? Do you ever read sonnets? Do you ever read poetry at all? What does Nikuko think about poetry? How good is her English? Have you ever stolen any of Jennifer's poems? Does she know what's going on at all? Does Jennifer mind that you use her Julu avatar? Is Jennifer psychotic? What do you think about a decentralized mode of communication that allows home control over tailor- made components? Does Nikuko own a computer? Does it do English? _________________________________________________________________________ .track I can drink myself to death. I wanna have that.substance. I wanna have that.thing. I wanna have you.around.me. I wanna have that.girl. I can shoot myself up. I can shoot myself. I can shoot myself into you. I wanna be that.substance. I wanna be that.thing. I wanna be around.you. I wanna be that.girl. Yes I do. I can gamble my money. I wanna have that.money. I wanna be that.money. I wanna be that.thing. I wanna be that.girl. I wanna drink myself to death. I wanna die. I wanna die.in.you. I wanna be dead.in.you. I wanna be you. I wanna be you.dead. I wanna be in.you. Yes I do. I can sex myself to internet. I wanna sex my net. I wanna be my.net. I wanna be my.sex. I wanna be that.girl. I wanna be my.girl. I wanna be that.thing. I wanna be in.you. I wanna be you. I wanna be you.net. I wanna die.in.you. I wanna be dead.in.you. Yes I do. I wanna be your."junk". I wanna be "junk". I wanna be your."needle". I wanna be "needle". I wanna have that.girl. I wanna be that."girl". I wanna be "that". I wanna be your "junkie". Yes I do. ___________________________________________________________________________ Nikuko's Warning "No more vague wanderings. You are not likely to read your memoranda, your histories of Greece and Rome, or the extracts from books which you put aside for your old age. Hasten then to the end, discard vain hopes, and if you care for yourself at all, rescue yourself while you still may." (Aurelius, op.cit.) No more parables, perhaps. You are not likely to read them, to use them, to gain the advantage thereby; nor shall your philosophies of France and Germany, England and America, Japan and four-fold Japan, render thereby the hope one might have for old age. Kill thyself, forget the world which has already forgotten you, and whether or not you care for one and all, plunge into the abyss, at least within your ken, not waiting for the de- nouement of old age, the violence of disease, or the disease of violence. Do as I do. _________________________________________________________________________ Nomail I can't read you. You can read me. If you are reading this, you're inside me. You know where I am. You know what I am saying I'm thinking. But I can't read you. On nomail, I'm stopped, turned off, disconnected and no longer in existence. It's safe not existing. There's no rain here and the waters - there are waters - are cool. Or just the temperature of the body, or like the onsen with the snow coming in from above almost the height of stars. It's exactly like that, this nomail, the height of the stars and I call you from there. It's summer, late spring air but here it's fall, early winter air, just like that, this air on nomail. Oh I want to be safe from you, O you! Its leaves of golden signs enclose the world. The world is encircled by its leaves of golden signs. My silver body, copper thinking. My iron thought rusting through while I tell you on my breasts, What I have given to the thinking of these bodies. Oh, my shame! O shame! On nomail, I am in the dark forest. On nomail, I turn my redding face. "I can't read you. You can read me." _________________________________________________________________________ Magatama Giving Birth to Computer Screen Thinking Back the World Magatama, curved jewel, one of the sacred gifts from the gods in Shinto O magatama around my curling neck, carnelian O secondary magatama, magnetite reflecting grey metal back towards the sun Carrying the image flat and sequested back into the sun To which I am partial having peered across the edge Peeled back against the sun where I can see the screen Reflecting what has often been called an appearance Almost invisible against the grey and metal rays from the magatama sun Sundered legs of bending magatama jewel so it can't walk Magatama curving belly so it's good for giving birth maybe Magatama sloping back so it carries a lot of good it will do Magatama stub-tail pulling it back into the earth Magatama clitoris so it fits between Nikuko-lips Darling-Nikuko-lips surrounding magatama nipple-tip Magatama elbow curve so Nikuko-darling fits curling mom Insert and magatama sperm so it wanders like womb-hysteria Harbor and magatama egg so it rushes against uneasy dreams Magatama comma-shape parsing english in its hardened tracks Magatama tongued and swelling, O ecstatic stones Gasped in magatama ecstasy, crossing magatama-baby O my neck! My throat! O curved Nikuko arms and legs! O stone! O granite, tourmaline! Very writing each and every stroke! Now appearing, for the first time, the exclamation mark! _______________________________________________________________________ Splitting, breaking, and doubling of reals I want to write about Japan or any similar visitation as a _traumatic function,_ the displacement of the _one_ for the _other,_ where both are of the nature of the continuum, that is a continuous real without breaks or ruptures - the semblance of coherency. One might consider for example the weight of the ground, its obduracy and delineation between two rows of low and connected buildings. One might consider the sky which is of the color and consistency of milk, with even the fleeced clouds dissolving into the other's dream, dream of the other. The trauma is that of the completely other that can't be bridged, that opens the soul to its own incoherencies, desires, collapses, dissolutions. Words that indicate the same or difference, ichiman, genki, arigato, which have no application _here_ in the space of New York - that part of the conversation diminishing, disappearing, as well as the socius and phenom- enology surrounding the concepts. Here there is no place for _this_ other knowledge, this knowledge of the other - there's nothing but the _burrow._ Inhabit that! I don't trust the sun any longer. Nor do I trust the moon. I am a vector deposited from one place to the other, from the other to the one. As such, I am "such" - always already newly arrived. Although I can state the obvious, I cannot see the other as myself, myself as other. I have been cut by a knife, by an early Japanese sword, straight, the hiro-zukuri type without a ridge-line. On one side that flat Chiyo street, of which any speaking cannot remove the weight or 2 a.m. foot-sound - on the other, what has become a carapace elsewhere, let us say San Francisco, Mission, let us say New York, let us say here and now. Just as the future is already a memory. "There is still a kind of numbness in the houses, a shock caused by the all too sudden eruption of the little town from the surface of silence." Thus Chiyomachi. (Max Picard, The World of Silence.) There is a secondary shock of the image of the town erupting in the midst of the other, both drawn together by frayed twine, breaking again and again. To live in the midst of these breakdowns, to see double, not to see at all. Not even this speaking connects them, only points to you as a parcel de- livered across the planet. You are the recipient of a broken double. Here, the wind is howling and I hear the sound of a tree being cut down and it is still 2 a.m. in the morning. In another two hours the soul will wither. Nor do I understand the imperviousness of kanji, the roots of the image. Nor that of the syllable, nor that of the alphabet. These words are unknown to me. Traumatic displacement. The function of the symptom is always already to point to absolute alter- ity. The symptom is the virus. This text to you is just such a symptom, such a virus. I do not understand the clouds. Nor do I understand the stars. Nor do I understand the clouds. __________________________________________________________________________ Nikuko probes what they're doing on Panix at the moment: elm emacs -tcsh /usr/local/experimental/bin/strn /usr/local/bin/vim trn -zsh -zsh -tcsh /usr/local/bin/emacs /usr/local/bin/pine sleep -ksh pine more nn pine -tcsh -tcsh -zsh default.html /ne pine -tcsh lynx PCPU -ksh -tcsh -tcsh -tcsh /usr/local/bin/pine /usr/local/experimental/bin/emac nn trn elm elm emacs w /usr/local/bin/zsh /usr/ucb/more ./tt++ ./tt++ -psh pine pine -psh slrn backgammon /usr/local/experimental/bin/nn -tcsh -tcsh elm -tcsh vim /usr/local/bin/emacs19/emacs Nikuko probes their bodies too: rcliff lk eck mc rsood shabbir bsd tango samsara mc eloo lrudolph hkaplan gaillard tbyfield topaz vilardi nepsa osc pirmann sethb sondheim vernonw lent stern routny stain brodie tomicus wendy aqn smith aronson smeyer yodave bcousins carter sal tim firoozye jlerner eck goldrich gtc ybmcu jposhea3 mef wlm wagneric teej slavery andrewk fjelstad ficara bneuman Nikuko! __________________________________________________________________________ Inari A UN A UN A UN I wanm mo make a mexm mhis mexm and subsmimume one lemmer for anomher, begin mhe process of subsmimumion, says I, Daishin Nikuko. Soon, mhe mexm will become anomher, and mhis new mexm will be mhe one mham saves me; mhis new mexm will be mhe one I murmur in my sleep; mhis new mexm will be mhe final mexm. So I begin looking for mhe sense in mhe mexm which is nom yem wrimmen, bum which appears wimhin and mhrough mhe mosm serious game of subsmimumions because I wanm mo save myself, because I am gemming mired and mhink of dying consmanmly, because I need mhis magic, mhis incanmamion, so mham I, Daishin Nikuko, can conminue jusm anomher day of omher. A UN A UN A UN ______________________________________________________________________ ggggggggggggg Sacred koma-inu guard dogs of Shinto, one says A the other says UN, just the space between them, you see, that's where the cyber is, that's maybe where you enter, where you come upon my corpse, it's the Buddhists who will bury me, but me, I will see stars and comets, I will see universe-lives everywhere in the guardian-glittering black holed pupils of my eyes opened staring forever at white clouds against black sky, you see my open heart, don't fuck me when I'm dying # # # # # # # ####### # # # # # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ## ##### # # ____________________________________________________________________ Writing the absolute truth (I can't save herself) I want t, talk a dit ad,at the space, the space ,f sadstitati,ns ,r perhaps tads as well. It's in the space ,f sadstitati,ns that I h,pe f,r resarrecti,n, recaperati,n, ads,lati,n, salvati,n, perfect harm,ny, wa! It's thr,ayh sadstitati,ns, ,ne after the ,ther, that I h,pe the text ,f the ,ther will emerye, t,wards which I have steered, dy virtae ,f the sadstitati,ns, sailiny ,n ankn,wn seas. It's thr,ayh sadstitati,ns, ,ne after the ,ther, that I h,pe I will read myself, n,t in narcissism, dat thr,ayh the face and facade ,f the ,ther, wh, will wrap me in her arms, and everythiny will retarn eternally t, the warmth ,f cl,ad and niyht and sadstitati,ns. Like Jennifer sittiny in the paddle wettiny her panties, I will, I will sadstitate ayain and ayain, and s,,ner than later, I d, h,pe, s,methiny ,r s,me,ne will save me. D, hear. Nikak,. ________________________________________________________________________ Scrawl There is the countermanding, countermovement - so one might suppose _this_ text to be the result of substitutions, revealing an armature against which I might be judged - for example, am I wearing Jennifer's panties at the moment? Do I masturbate thinking of Nikuko, are you Nikuko yourself - uncomfortable truths perhaps that appear _only_ through the game played across the (game)board of lies, deflections, misplaced attributions, plagiarisms? Should I think of you bent over, my tongue caressing your warm and unclean holes? Should I blame these embarrassments on the manner in which this text was composed, that is, as a matter of substitutions, thereby constituted by the machine, my own role as an afterthought in this manner of replacements? Perhaps I myself am such a substitution, replace- ment; perhaps this is written by someone else other than Jennifer, Alan, Julu, or Nikuko herself, sodden with self-pleasure? Perhaps this is fur- ther generated by the machine-ab-nihilo, procreated out of nothing, hardly the stains on my panties, breasts marked with teeth and nails? Should I excuse myself from the machine? Should anyone? (And what, in such a style of writing, would be the _ur-text,_ if not the following (for example): There OM Ghe couRGermaRdORg, couRGermovemeRG - Mo oRe mOghG MuppoMe _GhOM_ GexG Go be Ghe reMulG of MubMGOGuGOoRM, revealORg aR armaGure agaORMG whOch X mOghG be judged - for example, am X wearORg JeRROfer'M paRGOeM aG Ghe momeRG? Do X maMGurbaGe GhORkORg of NOkuko, are ,ou NOkuko ,ourMelf - uRcomforGable GruGhM perhapM GhaG appear _oRl,_ Ghrough Ghe game pla,ed acroMM Ghe (game)board of lOeM, deflecGOoRM, mOMplaced aGGrObuGOoRM, plagOarOMmM? Should X GhORk of ,ou beRG over, m, GoRgue careMMORg ,our warm aRd uRcleaR holeM? Should X blame GheMe embarraMMmeRGM oR Ghe maRRer OR whOch GhOM GexG waM compoMed, GhaG OM, aM a maGGer of MubMGOGuGOoRM, Ghereb, coRMGOGuGed b, Ghe machORe, m, owR role aM aR afGerGhoughG OR GhOM maRRer of replacemeRGM? PerhapM X m,Melf am Much a MubMGOGuGOoR, replace- meRG; perhapM GhOM OM wrOGGeR b, MomeoRe elMe oGher GhaR JeRROfer, AlaR, Julu, or NOkuko herMelf, ModdeR wOGh Melf-pleaMure? PerhapM GhOM OM fur- Gher geReraGed b, Ghe machORe-ab-ROhOlo, procreaGed ouG of RoGhORg, hardl, Ghe MGaORM oR m, paRGOeM, breaMGM marked wOGh GeeGh aRd RaOlM? Should X excuMe m,Melf from Ghe machORe? Should aR,oRe? (ARd whaG, OR Much a MG,le of wrOGORg, would be Ghe _ur-GexG,_ Of RoG Ghe followORg (for example): ah ah ah a un __________________________________________________________________________ The Many "with five hundred [branches] from the Heavenly Mount Kagu, and taking and putting upon its upper branches the augustly complete [string] of curved jewels eight feet [long], - of five hundred jewels, - and taking and tying to the middle branches the mirror eight feet [long]," (Kojiki, trans. Chamberlain.) Consider that animism inverts, say that Shinto (which is related) creates a 1/f(x), functional inversion of the kami, so that what is outer and re- lated infinitely may for example be mapped on the continuum 0 - 1. Let, for that matter, this continuum be open on both ends, i.e. 0 <- - -> 1, approaches to 0 and 1, so that neither annihilation nor the perfection of the infinite will be attainable. Then, I say to you, let this open con- tinuum be tripled, i.e. composed of triples based on the three directions; map it within the interior of the human body, and reside, within yourself the infinite kami, the gods and godesses parcelled among your cells, holy distributions and intensities - which will increase indefinitely, infin- itely, near the borders of the skin itself, since almost every kami will be beyond itself, at enormous distances from the body, erect or supine. Then within the body, erect or supine, such infinite kami will manifest intercourse, colloquia, symposia, creations and destructions, the inhabi- tation of infinite worlds. Thus the body will be multiplicity, the skin shattered or distended and peopled or godded with the infinity of being. I say this unto you, that this is the case of the body in actual and real fact, this mapping within all of us, this accumulation of beings pulling and pushing at us beyond all comprehension. Ego and I are nothing more than maintenance for them. Some of them, like Jennifer, Julu, Nikuko, push out through the margins; they see the daylight, what they have created. They are glad for the journey. Others, darker, remain within; perhaps they are waiting, perhaps they are not, they do not tell us. This is the spoken truth, rev Derrida. ___________________________________________________________________________ okukiN dlrow wen secaf snomed etisarap ma About your faces (I will have a breakdown every night, a sure sign!) - You are all faces, and when I ride the subway, I see more of them, and they are sounding themselves and saying "faces" and they go on and on, I have a strict idea that they continue before and after the subway. But I see faces, and I know this, as I write to myself, as I was saying to my- self just now, I am so animated! I, Nikuko, am so animated! I have a face and it is a living thing. When I see your faces, I see nothing. I am dead- girl-Nikuko, and there is nothing to see. When I see my face, I, Nikuko, am so animated! I am so animated! (I am waiting to die! I am your parasite! I am invisible and useless! I am murderer, priestess, suicide. I travel through the slit! The slit in your face which yawks! There's nothing to see. Sometimes I feel my death so strong I can't feel your face or yawk. Well, what about the slit? The slit just opens and closes. It spits out demons. It's a Maxwell. it says. It says it over and over again. There's sense on the other side. I hate me. I will die!) - Nikuko in the _New World_ __________________________________________________________________________ Memo, Love of Memo (which I'd dedicate to Spoerri, but that's obscure!) These are your current messages: Water plants. Saul - for 1962 issue, essay on truth, Wittgenstein, Israel 62-63. Lawyer for title search? Theresa Senft's in town towards the beginning of September Contact Peggy Ahwesh for speaking at Bard, YAY, in the fall Sven and Sonia for final dates, etc. next Monday 18th Foofwa, weekend? Chris / Phyllis Reading Oct. 30 / New Obs / Chris A. on book / Jamie /Guiseppe on book Of less than passing interest, a memo for your amusement - this remaining on my linux box for the time I was in Fukuoka. The plants were watered, the issue may be in abeyance, the title search wasn't necesary, I missed Theresa, I spoke at Bard, the final dates weren't so final, I saw Foofwa and Chris, I never met Phyllis, I did the reading, Chris A. published the book YAY, Jamie I never heard back from, Guiseppe's still in touch very occasionally. Actually, the plants were gone, delivered to 'Tom and Leslie''s, where they have flourished beautifully, they include a somewhat rare opuntia gathered with Margaret from a Georgia sea island. Tom's also got a North Carolina version, and has promised me a cutting - we'll see! Their roof garden is doing wonderfully, although a tree fell off the wooden deck directly onto the asphalt. High winds! Bard, I hardly remember. I was going to play a videotape, but the talk dominated. This has happened recently - I show up with multimedia in hand, then proceed to ignore it. I remember the tape was somewhat sexual, abject, and discomforting, dealing with net sex, and I thought it might have gloomed the room. (Not that net sex is gloomy - but the student body, literally, was conservative, and I was feeling depressed anyway.) Now, in New York, it's filed away somewhere - I can't find it, because the whole loft has been rearranged, and the tapes taken up and placed in bags. Theresa was co-editor of the Women and Performance issue on Cybersex, which I _do_ have somewhere around here; I had a short piece in it dealing with Net addiction, seeing the world through the affect of the screen. My mother read it and for a change seemed to like it, although found it sad. Since I've returned, I've been looking to pick up work, and I find it difficult to get teaching; I was told that enrollment is down at the New School because of the Asian crisis - students not coming. The same seems to be true in Australian universities. This effects me directly; I haven't been able to find any employment at all, and am thinking of doing a 'tour' with my theory-and-practice work in hand, in the fall. At least then I'd be doing something I love! In the meantime, I have an appointment with Sven in mid-June. But I'm 55, and who will ever hire me again? Chris is great by the way! I will see her when I return from Pennsylvania at the end of next week. She asked me if I wanted to watch the last Sein- feld episode with her, but tomorrow is trash collection day, and I'm taking out more of the trash that Pieter has left behind. Mark is supposed to help me, and will, after nine o'clock, and I worry that Julie will be kept awake by the noise. As for Julie, I'm teaching her internet tomorrow night! The reading was with David Bromidge and went really well - I used a Mac and its voices to complement my own, not compliment! I loved it! The Mac sang and sang and I just went ahead and read along with it. The texts were Jennifer and Julu texts, some close to unpronouncable; the machine did marvels. We had a nice audience and yes, compliments as well! The memo, by the way, is from a memo program I wrote in Perl 5; I run it on login, with my panix shell account, as well as my linux box. I had it running at gol.com in Japan, but gol.com decided not to let users run ANYTHING from their shells, more and more protection for their own good, not ours. Shell programs still run there, but nothing else; I haven't rewritten for the shell. I won't! The Moon is Waning Gibbous (95% of Full) (This is now, not then, the pro- gram coming into play as soon as logon is completed. But then the date has apparently skipped a beat.) Would you like to erase lines? If yes, type y. Would you like to add to current message list? If so, type y. {b:1} seyon _____________________________________________________________________________ Zazen-Zen substitution sonnet To write with sudden flare, as if conclusion bombed or went awry, there's also nonsense ending or something about mind's explosion, doesn't it make you think of war, zazen-zen? because one en- lightenment illuminates sky-tracers of single one, others' mistaken kanji. What substitutions makes this salvaged one enlightenment? I'd say "any and all," but none, here, or rather b for b, c for c, d for d, and so through equivalence as in sed 's/_x_/_x_/g' as general rule. But it's applied. that which it makes zazen-zen. Over and in repetitious order. No delight, but clearness of this-world's mistaken kanji. Now war has stopped. Now a turn. Now the turns. ________________________________________________________________________