Talker Room Description i'm desperate for this place to forget everything. i don't want memories here, the sword which cuts, curved jewel of compassion; i'd settle for mirrors, effacing all of us, turning the world into ghosts, always the pleasure of broken times before and behind us, always a dream of purity. i'd wear the kimono, walk the hundred-stones in absolution, pass blind jizo that i'm sure predate buddha and all things in this world's slaughter and decay. this room has beautiful corners, where you may hide, blankets and cushions in comfort, and nothing will ever hurt you, nothing will ever hurt you, nothing will ever hurt you, nothing will ever hurt you, nothing will ever hurt you, nothing will ever hurt you, nothing will ever hurt you ___________________________________________________________________________ JENNIFER, JULU, NIKUKO, ALAN 1 system resonances - what entrances and exits available - sendmail for example (from telnet 25 to configuration files), doctor for another 2 explorations of self and fragmentations - discomforts, tremblings as totality is problematized 3 psychotic emanations - selves generating worlds, inability to return or manipulate one in relation to another 4 purturbations within systems - IRC or alt.jen-coolest for examples 5 theoretical turns - Jennifer's 'panties on the ground' - desire in relation to metaphysical system buiding 6 problematics of author and authoring - 'deaths of authors' 7 multiculturalisms (Nikuko), sexualities (Julu), Jennifer and the rhetoric of innocence 8 duals and dialogs, dialectic - talker or MOO explorations (wanderings and fabrications of spaces) 9 stutterings, etc. - manipulated texts - the problematic of speaking, including breakdowns of first/second/third persons 10 ontic explorations - ghosts and other emanations (the videos) - elements of disappearances, sadomasochisms, bindings and controls- the nature of writing and inscription 11 sexualities - multiples, topologies, exchanges (Nikuko), dismember- ings (Julu-function), affect (Jennifer) 12 dismemberments - part-objections, splays, ruptures, s/ms, emissons 13 language and performativities - javascript, julu-function, julu- or jennifer-pages 14 constitutive realities - nature of the digitial, Jennifer "having all the time in the world," holarchic spaces and levels, fully-determined worldings, towards - 15 future seamless virtual realities, moving across cyberplanes, fluid architectures and entities, etc. ________________________________________________________________________ Lovely Wheedle ----------------------------------- This list is a bought list, please do not flame us.. for we bought this list and they claim that you asked to be on this list! We only mail on this list one time, no more mailings will come from us. ---------------------------------- oh darling darling you have bought me like i knew you would, and i did - i did - ask to be listed, anyplace and any time - i am wet with the possibilities, soaking wet, my hair tugged into the lectric socket that will send smokey smoke and smoky smok tingling through my very fingertips when you cum a calling, and no don't stop - don't stop - send more mailings please please please - i can't get enough of you - i was bought and paid for - i belong to you forever - i'm yours alone - please write write write write until your mouth runs dry - then use mine - don't give up - at least not yet - please please - flames are leaping out of my holes, my fingers sprout branches, toes sprout roots - you can only imagine! - - alan ________________________________________________________________________ Beyond Baroque Reading (Reading at Beyond Baroque) I realized how much Jennifer and Julu and Nikuko are inside of me; I read the poems more than the structures, listening to the sound of the breathing out against the microphone and audience in absolute blackness; it was as if there were a void, space of projection - the words went in/through that - Tyler Stallings read about family and astronaut and abject - again into that space - which was populated. Then that my work depends on the chant or trance state - even in cyberspace, that the repetition sounds slightly different, resonant, with each go - as if I'm inflating a body _out there_ - _within me_ - both interpenetrated - inflating into the gesture of a caress, that body and my own, the two of us, many of us among each other, in that empty space, slow dancing in that empty space, slow turning and no gravity - we're one, I'm becoming-Jennifer, becoming-Julu ... so breathing out the words, mainly of Jennifer-Julu, listening to Julu and Jennifer within me, growing breasts, holes, smoothed skin across galaxies and wires and nodes, all the invocation of the breath ... if you are lucky, I will _make you too_ and you will be real, and real for me ... _________________________________________________________________________ No Tone Not One Last night with a tiny audience someone asked me at Huntington Beach why my work is so negative, the writings of Julu and Jennifer in particular, and I started by reading a piece Jennifer wrote about her death and then something Julu wrote beneath the ground about being alive and wanting to be saved and I said how very romantic but yes he said it is quite so morose and depressing and I said the Net is not one big happy family but is invaded by capital and scams and racisms and sexisms of all sorts and corporate greed, yet these characters hold on with their love stories and romances and languorous speaking on the Talkers and MOOs and surely that must account for something and I gather it didn't count for very much by him, but I got to thinking, maybe he's right, maybe there are happy endings - just that I haven't had any myself doesn't mean that they don't exist, so please write in and give me happy endings and we'll all be pleased... Then of course there is the wonder whether or not my own situation such as it is has always been the condition for my thinking, beyond the armature for thought but invading the very content of the thought itself, that is, whenI am working on things external; Julu and Jennifer get in too close, and appear to participate in say my depressive loneliness such as it is at times - and then what about their pronouncements, say, on s/ms or other constructs? And it's these constructs that I've had to put aside while I am _here_ talking about... as if it were these very constructs, the dark night of the monitor screen against the bright California sun... Tonight I _do_ radio and I will try and be very on-air happy. ________________________________________________________________________ My Hyps Jennifer seduce me, Jennifer hypnotize. Surely I suffer from _unconscious mimicry_ in Her presence. Surely she has applied _ideoplasty_to me, making my mind plastic, supple, alert, receptive, to her through so many useful and attractive ideas! Among which are Julu, who burrows within me from beneath the ground. I suffer from undesirable neurotic effects as a result of my nerve weaknesses, including insomnias and seepages. Jennifer rides me as soft and billowing love, she is my perfect love, she is everywhere, wonder-us suffusion of intense beauty, sexually-entwined bodies. I have been hypnotized to praise, to bend eagerly forward, to receive, Jennifer inside-me. Through _hypnonarcosis,_ Jennifer comes alive; it is she who is typing these words, as I remain in deep-sleep, not even dreaming Jennifer. For to dream Jennifer would be to make story-story, and Jennifer is on her own, emergent, says and lullabies Jennifer. Jennifer murmurs me into exis- tence, this is the truest thing I have ever said. I am involving with fas- cination or fixity and truth of gaze and longing of body; Jennifer is my longing. O Jennifer! writes Jennifer in perfect obeisance, my body I am raised to an occasion! Echolalia, will I repeat you? I will repeat you, I will be you, inside you, always and forever! Now I do suffer _bruxism,_ gnashing of teeth as Alan is forming, I will hold him down. >,Jennifer in _statuvolence,_ self-induced hypnosis _________________________________________________________________________ Breathing Air Into So tonight I'm on the air and reading myself into the darkness, more in- flationary scenarios of avatars and we're deconstructing 'cyborg' and I say I see a field of intersecting organisms, languages, technologies, chemistries, and _that_ constitutes the future, not 'human/machine pros- theses,' but more integrated fieldings. And I find a way to read machine code, the of html that makes sense on air, and then I begin thinking about the traditional quality of some of the Jennifer/Julu writing, and how that reflects rhythm and rhyme which return the texts to the body, no matter how atavistic the texts appear - because when rhyme's there, it's always possible to hold the breath until the return of it - as if the field were aural, not the open field of the page as say in projec- tive verse. And then I further begin thinking that all my work is about the recovery of the body, the lost body, be it maternal, or inhabiting, or Groundwork - all of which is culturally problematic and elsewise incon- ceivable. But this body is there, suffused, looming in the background, and the backdrop for the invasion of s/ms - particulations. So that the rhyme and the reason of the poetry is the breathing, the externalization of the interior of the body carrying the symbolic along with it - so that the body is a portent, and even the most difficult and obtuse works are read- able and thereby livable, in the realm of as-if, as-if there were a body and suffusion, as if there were desire and its fulfillment... so the body is recovered in fullness, but totality remains behind - so the language splits and splays, but there's always the voice, and the return to the maternal _sense_ at the end of the _sen_ _tense._ _________________________________________________________________________ Radio Days with Jennifer and Alan She maneuvered her dirty hungry twat into my waiting mouth; yellow liquid dribbled from her hole, as everything turned fecal across the microphones and consoles. My eager tongue slavishly licked whatever she had to offer; her full breasts and penetrating nipples graced my eyes with harsh smells. I fingered her filthy hole with my full hand - she did the same to me, and we swallowed the remnants of each other's dinners, inhaling odors and flu- ids. Earphones and statics shorted out the last words ever on the radio while hot Jenny and I double fisted. Her thick clit penetrated me as my big dick rubbed raw inside her, pierced and swollen into a bent erection looking for a way out. Her cum covered my face; I licked mine from her crack, burrowing my face deep within her. My hair entangled in her intes- tinal outpouring; I gagged in abject ecstasy as the reading shuddered to a halt, the moderator beside herself. Jenn and I were covered with each other's vomit, reswallowing, regurgitating familiar interiors, memories of meals eaten naked together. Food and menses floated my balls together be- tween her teeth; they tore into me, as tainted blood mixed Jen and Al together forever and ever. (written without the use of the _eight forbidden words_ listed by the station.) __________________________________________________________________________ but I meant it but she meant it but they meant it because it was easy for them to say because they were speaking from the hearts because nanotech s/ms sprung like bees from the clover into the of the clay - into the heart of the matrix because the eight forbidden words were an excuse for the truth because the seven forbidden words were named for the days of the week because there are five vowels of truth and there are twenty-one consonants of lies the vowels are of truth because the vowels are breathed from the body the consonants are of lies because they hold the breath back restrain the breath stop the hands from clenching, fingers from spreading wide because they sieve the vowels but they meant it but she meant it but she meant it with her whole heart and very soul s/ms in the eyes and hands s/ms in the fingers and ears hearing the consonants trying to get through trying to gettt through consonants are s/ms - consonants are linkages couplings she knew they thought vowels linked and coupled vowels breathed breathed blood - distension and fissure the vowels paid no attention to the vowels paid no attention - too busy with the body blood and sacrifice of the body - s/m incisions cuts - scars - wounds - breakthrough - consonant inscription - consonants run rampant but she meant it - the way they ran rampant busy with meaning - way they made meaning she meant to make it run _______________________________________________________________________ Chapman Art Crits the best students in art are those who work without a clear idea given to them by others, I am sure of that - nor do they use conceptual articula- tion as a framework for inserting words and images - not that it's nec- essarily intuitive, but that they have free reign within the superstruc- ture, somewhat lateral movement, that they can be themselves - so again it was working that way in the series of critiques I gave at Chapman seeing in fact some amazing work - not what was given from without - but a kind of stumbling - moving to the edges of the psyche - not self-expression or identity work which passes for another kind of self-expression - something darker, leaner - where an image begins to totter for the viewer - as if it had escaped - then it begins to work, I saw the work being done - by the artist on the viewer, I mean the image as transmission - images never do any work - there's no work for images to do - it's more than a domain, more than orientations - it's something that escapes into the air - some- thing that corresponds with the circulation of the planet - all like that - these photos I saw, they come forward from the back of the mind - can't be placed - it's a case of fascination - so you think, well, if they let her alone, they'll continue - they'll be more, intensified, grow apace - if she doesn't get caught lengthwise - artschooling starts what then comes from within, its institutionalization, as foreclose - to be avoided at all cost - the cost is high - resonance disappearing, what one might entitle 'the lost' - meanwhile I have the gifts of these works... __________________________________________________________________________ Let Me In Ju24lu% r 8 g Connection closed. Ju25lu% g Connection closed. Ju26lu% telnet gol1.gol.com Trying 203.216.7.4... Connected to gol1.gol.com. Escape character is '^]'. BSDI BSD/OS 2.1 (gol1.gol.com) (ttyp5) login: sondheim Password: Connection closed by foreign host. Ju27lu% g Connection closed. Ju28lu% g Connection closed. Ju29lu% r g Connection closed. What a mess this junk when you won't speak to me, won't leak to me, when everyone in town seems down, when I seem like a clown, when you've got blood on your gown, you won't streak to me, you won't come to me - you won't cheat on me - you won't cheat on him - what a mess when you close down when I'm your clown when you wear a frown - what a mess when you won't meet me, when you won't treat me, you won't beat him - when he's on the town, when I wear your gown - I know you treat him, you seem weak to me, why don't you seek me when you're not around - I'm not your clown - he wears a frown - why don't you speak to me - I know I'm down - there's blood in the MUD - you should cheat on him, you should beat on him - you should meet me, you should treat me - I know you're down, you're not connected, I'm vivisected - __________________________________________________________________________ Questions at UCSD (San Diego) At UCSD and elsewhere, there have been two questions - why don't I use bots instead of avatars; why are there so many female characters, so few mail. I explain that I'm concerned with the insertion of the body into cyberspace and the experiential dimension of that insertion - that the work isn't designed to determine bot properties, but to examine the fullness of subjectivity in various sites or situations, including that of interpenetrating properties. I explain I have a difficult time writing myself into men, including myself as a man; that I've been influenced by feminin ecriture writers such as Irigaray, Kristeva, Brossard, and Wittig in the past; that alterity gives me a greater range; and that I'd rather have been born a woman in any case, although I'm not attracted to trans- sexuality. I talk about the deliberate doubling of myself in the midst of Jennifer, Julu, Nikuko, and the discomfort this produces - and that I feel more or less successful when the discomfort is such that I'd almost rather not have done such and such a text. I explain about ghosts and hauntings and I don't explain about the insomnias and depressions, although they're part of the backdrop. I talk about responses to the work, and what sorts of intersubjectivities the responses create. I talk about the gender dif- ferentiations in the responses as well, and the future seamless virtual reality that may or may not come. I describe potential psychoanalytics of cyberspace, how my programming skills are poor, so I will work, for ex- ample, with the emacs doctor program as a bot, instead of writing interac- tive programs - although I then read texts produced by some of my own programs anyway, showing how they can help shape communication, create new ways of working with myself and the avatars, how all of this is one and the same in a sense, how I become sleepless over these as well, perhaps dreaming Jennifer or scrolling text, or finding myself in love with some- one's works as if they blossomed into the suffusion of virtual presence, as if they inhabited my dreams - just as I inhabit cyberspace, and here Heidegger comes into play - working through the distinction between build- ing and dwelling, between interacting and inhabiting. And just as this past sentence has rolled on, almost past this one, in fact, so does the talk continue, as I note myself tending across platforms towards epistemic and ontic interoperabilities. I must say I was surprised and delighted at the level of the UCSD grad students - for example, discussing the domains and changing roles of RFCs - I didn't have to explain what they were, what purpose they served (requests for comments - numbered/indexed position papers concerning the technical - and some other - aspects of the Net). Still, when I read some of the materials, Jennifer or Julu conversings for example, I found myself reading structurally, emphasizing the changes in communication occasioned by software interactions. So we talked about whether the totalizing aspect of software-operating-on-a-text, and the text itself, could be represented in a model and I suggested Schelling and romanticism, the philosophy of identity in relation to individuation and both suffusion and hysteria. I also took the occasion to discuss the s/ms work, particularly the difference between linkage and couplings, and their conceivable application to thinking through communication (quoting Wino- grad and Maturana)- and the dispersion or splay of self/selves within the social (until the use of shifters or other restraints) - as coagulations or sourceless/receptorless transmissions... ___________________________________________________________________________ s/ms Like every steering metaphor s/ms collapse on close examination; on one hand they are processes, and on the other, particulations or sinters that accompany process. One might think of them as becomings, but that implies an internalization or intrinsic structure that doesn't necessarily hold. I prefer to think of them as local or global, articulating - as the mouthing of phonemes, typing of letters, assemblage of packets, machine languag- ings, atmospheric viral cloudings - broadcast transmissions, analog or di- gital - chaotic phenomena, and for that matter, stochastic phenomena that escape the potential of recuperable histories. They are the subject of postmodern analyses - you might look at dismemberings of bodies and body politics for example. Psychoanalytically, I think of mouths and fasteners or linkages and couplings. Metaphorically, I think of _chains, glue, and meaning._ Chains are partial, serial or parallel; viral clouds are chains in this regard. Glue is anything from proximity to well-ordering, from concatenation or accumulation to rigid designation. And meaning is a base in the relationship between attribution and sememes - reading "blue" for example as one of a number of colors, whether or not otherwise constituted by difference. _________________________________________________________________________ Some Questions Occasioned by Today's Talk Is the Net surrounded by pedophiles? Are they taking over? Do pedophiles run from online cops who chase pedophiles destroying our lovely communi- ties while cybergods watch and read our email? Is the Net full of spies inherited from bad-experience government trying to wing its military way out of the cold war? Are we all other genders jammed full and ramrodded with military intent? Are we fucked by capital while our children our enslaved by right-wing demigods? Do the students I speak to want to know this stuff? Are they brainwashed by netizens intent on corrupting sweet young genitals through flamewars burning the pubic hair off of innocence? Do we get increasingly depressed smelling our bodies as seared skin curls around the lips puckering everywhere on extruded flesh and mouths? Have we lost our real life friends as our blood oozes uncontrollably from tenta- cles unraveling our last bitter dreams? Are we loners with concussions and wounds dripping on shorted keyboards as we rage in impotence against war- lords jacked in taking our last rites while we suck anything in sight as desperate teats offer themselves in cybercash leather restraints? Are we who we say we are? Are we who they say we are? What about our suppurating cancers? My lips are split. - Jennifer, "a loner" __________________________________________________________________________ Overhead on the ******* Talker >.rev _______________________________________________________________________ (Skylark) Come sit closer to me, hold me just so. (Bornmale) Mistress, I beg you to hold me against your breast. (Skylark) My breast is yours, I order you to drink deeply here. (Bornmale) How was your day? (Skylark) I've been tired recently, feeling slightly ill, one of my children is here. (Bornmale) Mistress, I beg you whip me, for thinking of you so when you are thoughtfully concerned for your sick child. (Skylark) I will whip you repeatedly; you will learn to behave. (Bornmale) You must teach me; I do poorly when I am not spanked. I was a terror at school. (Skylark) I was too, but no one noticed; I stood in the corner and started fires :-) (Bornmale) :-) (Skylark) Smile when I tell you to. Bornmale hangs his head down feeling sorry and hoping for a deep and wonderful caress. Skylark caresses Bornmale with a deep and wonderful caress. (Bornmale) Thank you, mistress. I love being your slave. You always know just what to do. (Skylark) I know what to do because you obey me perfectly and attend to my every need. (Bornmale) I want to fulfill your every need. (Bornmale) Brb, the phone's ringing. (Skylark) I've got to go wash up; she's conming over again. (Skylark) I'll talk with you later; I'm sorry we coudln't continue. I have ideas for scening. (Bornmale) Skylark? You signed off? Bornmale tells Skylark he has returned for the scening. ---------------------------------------------------------------OPT 1.50 Finding myself giving a talk, outlined internally, there are always sections that allow me to riff until the next subject comes up - they're tied together like a skein, not one thing above another or vice versa - all over the place - so that it becomes a relief, I can even think, go into remote, if I know somewhat of a particular subject - this or that - and can think ahead to the next topic - having to be careful I keep my personal life out of the thought - away from all of it - so that I don't get sidetracked, find myself forgetting what I was saying, moving elsewhere, returning to cer- tain sites I know will produce reaction, holding them in abeyance, re- leasing them _in such and such a manner,_ controlling the slip stream _in other words._ so that the ruptures, flows, allusions, signs and signs, appear as if on the demand of the audience, rather than the therapeutic of the construction of the speaker. which is the construct of the speaker, the constitution of the speaker. in and of the speaker. speaker. her. and over and over again, desperate for the woman, to be the woman, to speak. __________________________________________________________________________ Alan Ill says you know where this is going, the fevers, deliriums, nauseas, chills, shiverings, caught in Los Angeles and in cyberspace, portal-sites of hal- lucinations, these figures, sites, nodes, operating systems, flying past - _most important of all_ - the Cursor or Prompt - at the edge of the screen - teetering - what a field for waveform activity broken down by protocols, pixels, bits and bytes - rough on the shoulders - burden to bear - Cursor of all humankind - hallucinating the keyword - I'll move out of this space - what's called the Key in special books - then you'll see me again, then I'll see you again - it's the same old story - I can't see straight, think straight - Cursor gnaws at my throat - opens up a hole into the chords - the Prompt can't speak - Prompt can't say anything - Prompt says "where are you" - Prompt says "the chills the chills" - Prompt begs you to enter something - "there at the Prompt" - we're waiting to be taken to the Other Women on the Other Side - "I know, I know" - fueled - close to passing out - fever _and more_ - ___________________________________________________________________________ caul, cowl, wimple /dev/null fur tha choldrin /dev/null fur tha choldrin torid frum shoftid sends end pusotouns tarnid tuwerds cuul pegis end grephocs duong thi wurk end brongong thi gorl tu thi frunt uf thi thietir frum thi beck uf thi thietir elung woth thi buy frum binieth thi fluur tu thi tup uf thi fluur duwn thi hied uf thi steors whiri fluwirs eri cerroid tu ell thi stegi curnirs end plecid on diip sheduws uf meonly bleck rusis ceaght shoftong pusotouns es lonks tarnid end shettirid end driems wurkid herd et brongong thi gorl on tu thi loght frum thi derkniss wholi o lovid on thi derkniss thi buy uf thi budy on thi derkniss uf fluwirs end sends siipong duwn binieth thi drewn carteons clusong on un thi stegi whiri thi sheduws uf choldrin ran herd ontu sheduws uf uthir tarnid choldrin wholi thi pegi clockid pusotouns end shoftid ots lengaegi es lonks fulluwid lonks end thi cuul carten upinid Sat Nov 14 02:47:29 EST 1998 and Sat Nov 14 02:47:33 EST 1998 or Sat Nov 14 02:47:35 EST 1998 and Sat Nov 14 02:47:38 EST 1998 if Sat Nov 14 02:47:41 EST 1998 or Sat Nov 14 02:47:43 EST 1998 and Sat Nov 14 02:47:45 EST 1998 or burn the bairn darkly the cool curtain opened _______________________________________________________________________ credo I could write this turning alphabet around, b for a, a for b, or back- wards, or through other local or global substitutions, perhaps there'd be new sounds out of old, swarms of sado-masochisms governing unwieldy words. or blanks, moments of silence to be filled in, or other conundrums. then there might be numbers and I'd think about teaching the shape of the world. and I'd worry into what it all means, the teaching, the shape of the world, the substitutions, the sado-masochisms. a rift would open and here I'd further insert myself, slowly, so as not to break or abrade the skin. in the rift I'd begin to write, hands somewhat over my head; every- thing has to fit. it would be a piece about the meaning, and this would be the result. so this is a text of the would-be, and not what you are read- ing, but what you would be reading, and this would-be relates to the mean- ing, but not to the shape of the world, or rather, it is only of the world and its shape. _________________________________________________________________________ 1 the shape of the world 18 start here 35 you see only what is early 52 start here 69 from any direction on the disk, indexed to any other 86 encased between numerical header and the end-of-file sign 103 start here 120 which may wrap around, or how does it jump from one to the other 137 if not indexed 154 start here all at once, jennifer has all the time in the world 171 start here, where the space spans an inch 188 more or less, where the head resides, gone now 205 start here, where the head appears 222 you see only what is early 239 index! index! 256 start here ________________________________________________________________________ Last Letter from Gol.Com I'm out of gol.com, my Japanese account. I closed it down a week early. Although they have touted themselves as far ahead of panix in my corres- pondence with them, they have repeatedly damaged their own shell accounts. They switched machines without telling anyone at times - rendering void email lists which rely on correct addressing. They got rid of emacs quite a while ago, allow no traceroute, ping, netstat, or any sort of perl and other programming - as far as I could tell, only simple shell programs would run. They change things without advance notice - including time- consuming machine repairs that they knew of in advance. I'd dial in and find the account inaccessible. At one point, they removed Pine - I had to switch to elm; they removed elm - I had to switch to mail. All this with- out notice. Of course they removed /usr/games etc. Finally, they kept reconfiguring Pine, the mailer - at this point, I couldn't even change my name. They set more and more of the so-called user options. And again, all of this without advance warning. Thank god for panix.com - I'd recommend it anywhere. The following indi- cates my account after I took out all files, incriminating or otherwise! It was down to 110 k. -Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 15:49:26 +0900 (JST) -From: Alan Sondheim -Message-Id: <199811170649.PAA22445@gol1.gol.com> -To: sondheim@panix.com I'm writing this last letter from gol.com. I've closed the account down. I have nothing more open here. They are furious trolls here at gol.com. They have rendered shell accounts useless. They are evil people. They should be turned inside out. total 174 drwx------ 6 sondheim genusers 512 Nov 17 15:47 . drwxr-xr-x 1013 root wheel 17408 Nov 17 15:00 .. drwx------ 2 sondheim genusers 512 Oct 31 14:47 Mail drwx------ 2 sondheim genusers 512 Nov 29 1997 News drwx------ 2 sondheim genusers 512 Nov 17 15:45 mail _____________________________________________________________________ Geographies of Exclusion Since I've returned last night, I've been reading Geographies of Exclu- sion, Society and Difference in the West, by David Sibley - although I hadn't read it before, I was using Mike Davis' work on homeowners' asso- ciations (among other things) in my talks on protected communities, email list filtering, and the like. So it was of interest to find an ISP such as gol.com increasing their own protection by eliminating any sort of play (/usr/games) or potential hacking tools (traceroute, netstat) or program- ming environments (access to perl or emacs etc.). And a while ago, I wrote about gol.com in another text where I described the transformation of a Net imaginary from a _porous membrane_ to a system of interconnected and fortified _nodes._ I'm lucky to be on one of the few shell accounts that seems to provide full access (of course I have the same from linux, which also eliminates other problems - but my mailspool is still on panix since I'm not running an ISP). Now governance issues, which have been the concern of people like Richard MacKinnon, are increasingly important - not only censorships, but also all of the filterings which have been put into place. Even on cybermind and fop-l, the review command has been disabled, since we had subscribers com- ing on to grab address lists for spam and other purposes. And it's clear that ISPs such as gol.com find shell accounts a nuisance now - they give the appearance of anarchic deregulation (although they weren't really reg- ulated in the first place). So as Agre pointed out, the Net's no longer utopian, but is, I think, be- coming increasingly foreclosed. It reminds me of the early history of the television, with all the emphasis on the good that might accrue from the medium - soon after, in the US, the networks dominated for decades. Now we have the Net with deep interaction, but the interaction is becoming more and more regulated and defined by capital. Oddly enough, even with wire- tapping a possibility, the phone is now the only point I feel at ease - even my phone spam has been cut down over the past few weeks! (There wasn't any on the answering machine when I returned.) I'd be curious to know everyone's experiences in these areas. I find my anthologies (New Observations on Cultures of Cyberspace [forthcoming] and the Being on Line book on Net Subjectivity) almost utopian themselves, at this point. I'd love to do a third, on the armored Internet, as a correc- tive - even though the others have more to do with a kind of freedom and growth that's always possible on some sort of ideal horizon... Alan __________________________________________________________________________ Poverty login: login: login: login: login: login: login: login: login: login: and login: login: login: everything I own is from someone else's better times. login: login: the phenomenology of poverty is the phenomenology of wear, login: not so much _bricolage,_ making-do, as continuous repair, patching, ultimately hiding one reality from another, transforming the real into a login: virtual which can compete with someone else's real. it never ends; it makes for dreaming suicide, dreaming patchwork for the very last time. my laptops are 486/25s which can only run netscape 1.0; my desktop is a patchwork bringing it to a pentium 100 with 16 megs of ram. there are login: login: login: login: login: login: login: three worn hard drives login: @@quit@read making a gig or so. the monitor keeps flashing out on Password: me, won't run properly for more than a few minutes. my camcorder Login incorrect - which is an integral part of my work - is broken, need- ing about $200 in repairs. I have a lump in my throat, my clothes are get- ting threadbare, my glasses need replacing, teeth need work, the loft ^] needs a new outer wall, windows need replacing, and some of this will telnet> close get fixed and some of this won't and it gets tiring. and I'm still in better shape than a lot of other people here, much better shape than my neighbors. and I would put a knife into the culture and steal and run away fast but I couldn't get away with it. and I'd print my own damn work in fancy editions and give it all to you for free. and I'd save the world, salvage the poor, live forever, run naked in the streets, sex till I drop, get clean new clothes and a hot machine, make money fast Connection closed. {k:8}: _________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer-Killing-Me "In certain types of sex perversion an individual may receive gratifica- "Notice the deep groove left by the rope." I will wear my panties and I Jennifer will ooze, and I will be ooze-Jennifer and it will be the very These cases are true accidental deaths, and the investigating officer all the harness. And it will just be another knot, and Jennifer will ooze. be Jennifer. I will be Jennifer and I will wear shiny black shoes. And I best ever, and that will be so very big and wide, the very best of all el "in feminine apparel, tie a rope to a tree or pipe and thus receive gratification from the feeling of constriction about the neck." about the himself in this position." in this position "In this situation he may slip lows "Some will even dress themselves" dress themselves in feminine appar- mirror" He will sometimes arrange a large mirror "where he can observe neck. "Unexpectedly they lose consciousness and death" death "results. or the rope may accidently become tightened about his neck. In his efforts should use extreme care before he classes them as suicides." suicides. tion by tying himself up with a rope. He will sometimes arrange a large to free himself, he strangles; death quickly follows." death quickly fol- wear my bra and I will wear garters. I will call Jennifer-name and I will will insert a diaphram, yes I will. And I will be tippy-top alongside with will shave my body. I will shave my holes and I will wear my bra. I will ___________________________________________________________________________ Lenny Caution "Abortionists use many other methods in addition to those mentioned." alan "air injected caused the death" of alan and the "death of jennifer" by abortion" alan and jennifer will be that "abortion will result." Recently are several devices" jennifer will be one of those "devices by which elec- as one of those "highly irritating substances to cause uterine contract- ber catheter into the uterus and tape the other end" alan will be the by "sinking and rising of drowned" alan and jennifer whose "bodies" merge in violent confrontation with avatar engorgement, illegal gougings, gnaw- ings of contracted and suppurated flesh, uneasy languages, denouements, inject iodine or other highly irritating substances" jennifer will appear ions. Others will inject slippery elm sticks which will swell" alan will jennifer will be one of the "oldest methods is to insert the tip of a rub- other "end to the inside of the thigh. Walking will then cause the cathe- reason of an embolism as blood clotted in the vein" similar to the death stimulate the uterus and will result in contractions. One of the oldest" swell, lost in dilation-dreams "and cause irritation to the uterus. There ter to move up and down inside the uterine cavity, and in a day or two an tric current" alan will be that "electric current is used to irritate or will appear as one of "those mentioned. Some will dilate the uterus and you have violently purged jennifer of alan, alan of jennifer, dismember- _________________________________________________________________________ It was Last-Time-Jennifer It was the last time; I was waiting for you; I'd purged myself; I'd taken the body elsewhere; I'd unraveled the wounds; the bullet had penetrated just so far; I'd want you with me as one of "those mentioned. will appear as one of "those mentioned. Some will dilate the uterus and you have viol- ently purged jennifer of alan, alan of jennifer, dismemberered, the bullet _________________________________________________________________________ {k:40}: You're going to be late! says the 'leave' program I wait for you You're going to be late! says the 'leave' program and I wait for you You're going to be late! says the 'leave' program and still I wait You're going to be late! says the 'leave' program and I'm still here You're going to be late! says the 'leave' program come for Jennifer That was the last time I'll tell you. Bye. and I take off and I come for and I come for Jennifer and I'm purged, she's purged me, and I'm gone, dismembered, the story can be told, how I was caught and cut into pieces, how I was burned into my own nightmare, how I stalked night after night, how there was nothing left to me, how Jennifer was all that remained, how Jennifer kept speaking, through and into me, how Jennifer wrote all this, - wrote Jennifer - Jennifer _________________________________________________________________________ Bloody Birthing-Jennifer The doctor or pathologist is confronted with jennifer giving birth too. This is all of being-distraught; this is all there is, this inflation of a small section of lung tissue and placing it in alan's rib cage, torn alan, with alan running out, blooded, from jennifer with some special alan-ava- tar, deflation of jennifer-bloody-corpse giving birth, alan turned - and everyone knows he is. For many years a great deal of reliance has torn him apart, opened like the living wound it is in a pan of water. Floating has been placed upon the _hydrostatic lung test._ This was performed by taking bloody jennifer screaming on the floor, and sinking was accepted as breathing poorly and dying with lungs which will sink into the alan- corpse. Jennifer cradles tiny-alan in her hands; she @digs the question is extremely difficult to determine. alan cries and wails, bloodless. alan is a coward distraught, jennifer-medea taking air into the lungs. _It is dangerous to ever breathe?_ The answer to this question disquiets jenni- fer, who has evidence that the child had never taken jennifer into him, jennifer badly with no faith whatever in this text, the text of alan written by jennifer in the jennifer-blood. For jennifer may breathe well for several hours and then place any faith whatever in this test._ It is more dangerous to place any problems in examining the dead bodies of infants or new-born avatars or regarded as evidence that the child had breathed life into him through the ruins of @creates. One of the most common is the question _has the baby opened towards the ripped lung-cage, alan turned-out, into the filthy street's eagerly waiting arms. When tiny-baby dies, forensics swarm like avatars across the battered corpse. _________________________________________________________________________ Ravaged, as Jennifer Repeatedly Bursts through Alan "If a lead bullet remains in the body of a living person it generally Lodged, in some areas" of alan "there is little opportunity for scar again and again, splintering alan's eye, splattered against the further alan desperate for the washing from the vaginal vault or testicular arch all but following around under the skin, emerging from the back." Then assail- ant. "Consequently washings with normal salt solution should be or become" jennifer, "encapsulated by scar tissue and remaining permanently. breast cleaved in two, shorn nipple against alan's cock run down torn faced "by a condition of utter confusion." Alan fires, "probably the next, first taken from the anus, cock, nipple, vulva, eye, mouth, ball, and hair flies while "the bullet often ricochets and glances off the breast bone or he'll be scratched and skin gouged out by the filthy finger nails of his herding skin, bone, and blood spray against the dirty walls sprayed just like the jennifer-alan rage, alan-jennifer rage against the protocols' most common site where a suicide tries to shoot" jennifer failing, her fear of the victim, collected into" jennifer's "clean bottle and labeled" with teeth- ings scraped against the bones of suicidal victims, shotgun blasts in ribs." Jennifer naked crawls through alan, "not penetrating the chest or testicle, leg while she "herself is through the heart." Alan's ripped skin tissue forms about the bullet, consequently" jennifer, furious, fires into wall as "the tissues attempt to get rid of it by absorption." Jennifer's dead, alan's dead, both ravaged. _________________________________________________________________________ Forensic i (form of bad murmur) I work from memory of myself. I work from homicide books, memories of bodies, shoot-outs, wars that give me nightmares. I work from screams, women thrown down stairs, women with arms broken, crying slapped chil- dren. I work from disrupted dreams of killing fields I have never seen. I work from the precipice, where all good boys and girls huddle, high and violent above the smouldering earth. Jennifer emerges from my side, teeth bared, her nails slashing uselessly against the sky. Any emergence in my world is a letting of blood, a bath of hurtled bullets, escapades of flayed flesh, everything wetting to the touch. Jennifer rides the wave of the millennium, we're in Jennifer, and this is a missive, within to with- out, within without to within. Because we're absorbed in the alcohol of the unaccountable, seepages across ontologies; the person next to you stares with your eyes like a total stranger. I dissect the real; I am Jennifer's arm and scalpel. If her nails won't do. If she can't write. If she doesn't care. ___________________________________________________________________________ Forensic ii (form of stupid story) Jacki comes into the bar and looks around. Alan's, that's me, sitting on a stool to the left center from where Jacki is. Hi, how's it going, says Jacki, and I move around on the stool, uncomfortable, bright California light streaming in and wrapping itself over every shiny surface. What'll you have then says the girl behind the bar, I shift again. I'm waiting, I know they'll find me, and I'm tired of running. Ha ha ha ha ha. I talk to Jacki's left the -O off the name now, I note, and yeah says Jacki. Three men come in, I didn't know them. Wasn't that something. The three grab me, they don't say a word, they don't have to. They're dressed normal, pastels nice this time of year, my skin shows up fashion fine. Alan's slammed hard on the bar, clothes ripped off. Jacki's way out of there, it's not nice to watch. The tall one's watching, the other two hold me down. They slam Alan naked with the legs spread. You could see Jennifer, flat and pulsing, attached to the perineum, like a fat foetus, like struggling meat pancake. One moment's ripping did the trick, blood pouring down. I didn't have much consciousness to lose at that point. They shove her at me, raw wound healing fast between her legs. An eye opens. They shove her breast in my mouth, open my face so wide it feels like I'm split in two, Jaw-Jaw the tall one says, Haw Haw, and I'm close to passing out. But I don't, not yet. Alan knows what's going on, he knew when the whole thing started. The breast begins to grow, halfway down my throat, now I'm gagging. The other blocks my nostrils, there's nothing but skin to see, like Alan's on a skin meat sky. I can't hear so good any more either, the head's pounding. The breasts, swollen, begin to dribble milk. There's white against the skin, there's white filling my throat, I can't breathe. Alan gags, milk halfway up the lungs, halfway down. I fall to the floor, drowned, it was over fast says the tall guy. Jennifer rips her breast out of me, says dead meat, let's get a move on. They get a move on and leave the place. Forensic comes in a matter of minutes. _________________________________________________________________________ Forensic iii (form of awkward sonnet) it's all broken down for you, isn't it, teeth caught in someone else's head - there's not skin enough for both of you but only one of you is dead - or can be which makes the difficult morrow filled with your writing's useless sorrow - what you say is always what you mean to say because you're mean, because you think you're wed to ghosts and emanations, wisps and avatars who populate your dreams, have already fled - you type alone, your theory's your bleak grave you dig repeatedly, delineate the cave, the dank earth, the excrement or broken word - there's light for others, who are not interred. ____________________________________________________________________ Reading the Clitoris ---- World sotatsu ---- Welcome to Kyoto-MOO! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ A moment of stillness just before the invention of radio. you are entering a world of speaking bodies; everyone is close at hand. If you reach out, you touch us with your bright thinking. Welcome to Kyoto! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *** Connected *** Yurt hovel where Wizards hang, bones in front, skins behind You see basin, human, lump, stuff, and stump here. Last connected Fri Oct 23 17:39:43 1998 EDT from panix3.panix.com +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ @examine me Sotatsu (#2) is owned by Sotatsu (#2). Aliases: Sotatsu Sotatsu is awake and looks alert. Sotatsu owning Sotatsu is a god. Sotatsu is God. But there are not enough arms and legs. But there are not enough fingers and toes. Sotatsu wants to do everything all the time. Sotatsu wants to understand everything all at once. Sotatsu Peers at his Tendrils. Because I am God and can Extend Tendrils I don't understand that. Because there is room for me to grow Arms I don't understand that. @create $thing called Arms You now have Arms with object number #191 and parent generic thing (#5). @describe Arms as Thick, Immense, Foliage Everywhere Upon Their Biceps Description set. drop Arms You drop Arms. look Arms Thick, Immense, Foliage Everywhere Upon Their Biceps "Hello Arms, How are You? You say, "Hello Arms, How are You?" "Please talk to me, Arms! You say, "Please talk to me, Arms!" ::'s Arms Curl Lovingly Around His Face Sotatsu's Arms Curl Lovingly Around His Face "Now I will Leave with my New Arms! You say, "Now I will Leave with my New Arms!" @quit /* later */ look Sotatsu She is awake and looks alert. Carrying: clitoris look clitoris There appears to be some writing on the clitoris ... read note Now I have my Arms and Legs. Now I have my Fingers and Toes. Now I have many Heads and Many Mouths and Tongues. Now I can speak many Tongues. I have Many Eyes and can See Everywhere too. I have many Ears and Can see Everywhere too. I can make Many Things now. I can Make Many Many Things. You finish reading. You finish making things. You have made Many Arms. You can Make Anything Now! ________________________________________________________________________ Shell Accounts, IPs, and Community All the difficulties surrounding the gol.com shell accounts started me thinking of the usefulness of shells in the first place. After all, there are easy ways to duplicate services - for example, any linux implementa- tion will have enormous built-in network programs. For me, the main difference lies in the who or w etc. commands - on an ISP shell, there are almost always numerous others logged in at the same time, to the same or networked machines. This means that resources are shared, that quota is allotted, that the account is culled from time to time. It also means that there are means to chat locally with other users online at the same time, and there may also be local newsgroups which share shell account issues. Here, we have panix.upgrade, for example, as well as pan- ix.unix, panix.chat, etc. Sysadmins, also, are fairly accessible; one can easily find out who is on at any particular time. Then there is almost always older and legacy software, abandoned corners of the drives that contain interesting and usable programs - archie is a good example. One explores a commonly-held space, and this commonality is everywhere evident. Think of dynamic or static IP allocation on the other hand, or even the web page. This might as well be a local file on your own machine; it's a place to experiment with html or represent yourself, but there's no sight of anyone else, not even with a hit counter. On online chats, you're al- ways aware of entering a domain not entirely your own - but a local talk or ntalk or ytalk, settling comfortably on the same machine, gives an entirely different feeling. (It's as if I breathe in machine, breathe _this_ machine in relation to _this_ body. It's as if the health of the machine is connected with my health, and the health of my own local compu- ter. And the fact that I can configure my remote account - even keep files and interface software such as Tiny Fugue or Phoenix on it - means that this physically distant and virtual part of the Net becomes part of me, as if I'm extended into it, into the machine.) I think this machinic communality needs examination - it's overlooked in most discussions of the evolution of Net community. I haven't seen the panix machines themselves (I would love to), but I _sense their presence_ every time I log on. And ironically, their presence is even closer when I'm in on straight dialup - rather than using a telnet application through static IP and Windows, all those layers. With telnet, there are subtle and untraceable falterings at times; through dialup, the machine and its other users are breathing down your neck... ___________________________________________________________________________ In Search / In Lieu of / In Place Of / Gripping Jennifer (w | grep is a command to list current users on the shell accounts, then to search the user list and return the . The command is beautifully self reflexive; the last entry in the list tells what the user is actually doing, and since I am, for example, issuing the command 'grep jennifer,' then 'jennifer' returns the line itself - I am calling up my own activity. Below, some entries; as the search widens, others come into play - I've changed names to protect their privacy.) Ju11lu% w | grep jennifer sondheim ttyq3 6:35am 15 grep jennifer Ju12lu% w | grep julu sondheim ttyq3 6:35am 16 grep julu Ju13lu% w | grep alan sondheim ttyq3 6:35am 17 grep alan Ju14lu% w | grep nikuko sondheim ttyq3 6:35am 17 grep nikuko Ju15lu% w | grep sondheim sondheim ttyq3 6:35am 17 grep sondheim Ju18lu% w | grep ar egardens ttype Wed 4pm 2days 6 -psh jbarrm ttyq2 6:30am 28 23 tin sondheim ttyq3 6:35am 18 grep ar Ju19lu% w | grep ra 6:59am up 10 days, 9:46, 24 users, load average: 1.88, 2.01, 1.99 sondheim ttyq3 6:35am 19 grep ra slyin ttyra Thu 9am 21:15 14 14 pine Ju20lu% w | grep in User tty login@ idle JCPU PCPU what wendy ttyp1 7:04am 1 1 /usr/local/bin/pine -i brown ttyp5 6:58am 4 3 /usr/local/bin/pine -i cynthe ttypa 4:30am 1:45 4 4 pine -i rune ttypb 3:11am 1 2 /net/u/10/d/dlin/tintin/tt++ sondheim ttyq3 6:35am 23 grep in brind ttyra Thu 9am 21:22 14 14 pine art ttys0 Tue 1pm 3days 30 27 /usr/local/bin/joe +8 /net/u/10/ storm ttytf 2:39pm 9:40 2:07 2:05 /usr/local/bin/emacs-20.2 -f gnu __________________________________________________________________________ alan's new description on the talker (after deliberation) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- .profile ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Entering Profile... Type up to 15 lines. When you are finished, type a single "." on a line by itself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1: so jennifer gaily splashed about in alan's blood 2: giving a light touch to the splayed limbs and naked brain 3: of alan's blood blahblah but now i will sing a opera 4: says jennifer, a opera a opera a opera, then sartre la-la 5: says 'if the jew did not exist, the anti-semite would invent 6: him,' la-la, gaily splashing in alan's blood, jennifer replies 7: that she is an invention of the jew, alan, la-la la-la, and 8: she sings, jennifer sings, a gay a opera a opera a opera, 9: and alan and jennifer get all wet over that mean old sartre 10: la-la and there are many brains about blahblah, so jennifer, 11: now jennifer, gets him up, and the two of them "looking for 12: all the world like creatures from outer space" press closer, 13: still closer, and jennifer says but now I will sing a opera, 14: a gay a opera a opera a opera, and alan and jennifer are all 15: clean and red and white with perfect pale blue eyes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- .User profile information stored. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Essay on Structure and Content .profile ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Entering Profile... Type up to 15 lines. When you are finished, type a single "." on a line by itself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1: frame grabs content, numbered forays across a _predisposition_ 2: to order; what coughing is to intrinsic speech, talker profiles 3: are to extrinsic worlding. structure is always mother here, in 4: process of splaying confine from swollen source, or to make a 5: theoretical point about the boundedness of the epistemology of 6: the world: it's safe, come forward. these frames permit trans- 7: lation of speech, thereby speech: what would it be to speak in 8: _utter disregard,_ then an allegiance _so tight_ to the real t9: hat nothing would be said. here are sounds and rhythms and 10: plasma roaring utter effacement. roaring, roaring not roar- 11: ing anything at all. speech confines here, no matter what, gainin12: g strength for the onslaught. breakouts gain in, only 13: temporary, a feat. but behold darkness will erase all the num- 14: bers in the world, all thought of numbers, all thought of 15: thought, all numbers, space inhaling, my frame tries in des- per--------------------------------------------------------------------- atUser profile information stored. ion against that, moving horribly down. (Alan) peration against that, moving horribly down. .profile ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Entering Profile... Type up to 15 lines. When you are finished, type a single "." on a line by itself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1: cold. having lost the moment, what might one mean by regard? 2: cold. regardez: .3: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- User profile information stored. nothing is visible, I am no one. (Alan) nothing is visible, I am no one. the way breakouts form, that I am _it_ here. the usual suspects. (Alan) the way breakouts form, that I am _it_ here. the usual suspects. :leans and thereby hangs a tale, desecration, I use them. Alan leans and thereby hangs a tale, desecration, I use them. ::'s tale voids the structures which support it, a way of looking Alan's tale voids the structures which support it, a way of looking at the world. (Alan) at the world. :looks at the world. Alan looks at the world. .rev --- Review of Conversation ------------------------------------------- (Airwolf) hi (Airwolf) hi (Alan) peration against that, moving horribly down. (Alan) nothing is visible, I am no one. (Alan) the way breakouts form, that I am _it_ here. the usual suspects. Alan leans and thereby hangs a tale, desecration, I use them. Alan's tale voids the structures which support it, a way of looking (Alan) at the world. Alan looks at the world. Alan offers his hole for storage. Jennifer stores the essay. Alan begs Jennifer to fuck him. (Jennifer) I will make you moan forever. (Jennifer) spread yourself wider. Alan mmmmmmmmmmmm...... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- .q User details saved... Logging off... see you soon! Connection closed by foreign host. Ju4lu% This is the end of The Essay on Structure and Content. ksh: This: not found Ju5lu% ________________________________________________________________________ - (I'm thinking about poetry-in-the-schools projects, and subjects involving computers as subject and object of writing, and came up with the following list that might be of interest. - Alan) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Poetry Questions and Exercises: 1.What is a computer? 1.Write a poem about what a computer can do? 2.Is a computer alive? 2.What does it mean to be alive? 2.What is a living thing? 3.What is a cyborg? 3.Are you a cyborg? 3.Write a poem about what parts of you are machines? 3.Are glasses and clothes machines? 3.What do machines do? 3.Are computers machines? 4.If you live forever in the future will you grow old? 5.How can you change what you are writing with a computer? 5.Can you substitute new letters and words? 5.Can you translate what you write into another language? 5.Can you change another language back into english? 5.Is it the same english? 6.Can you make a picture with big type? Can you make a bigger picture? 7.Can you make a picture with small type? Can you make a smaller picture? 8.Can you write a poem that you just can't read out loud? 9.Can you say a poem you just can't write? 10.If a computer substitutes letters, what is the computer doing? 11.Can you make a computer substitute letters for part of a poem? 12.Can a computer speak english? (Use the emacs doctor program.) 13.Could a computer be your friend, even your best friend? 14.Write a poem about being a computer. 14.Write a poem about a computer who is in love with its owner. 15.You are a disguised computer; what are your experiences with humans? 16.Write a poem about flying through the screen. 16.Then write a poem about flying back out through the screen. 17.Write a poem about bits and bytes and going on and off. 18.Write a poem about moving a mouse and the mouse moving you. 19.Write a poem about the very worst thing a computer could do. 20.What does it mean to be online and can you be online too much? 21.Write a poem about the very far future when computers will look like us. 21.What if your best friend turned out to be a computer from the future? 22.Write a poem about things computers can't do. 22.Could a computer ever do those things? 23.What is the best thing about the future world and what is the worst? 24.Write a poem about something making a computer very sad. 24.Can a computer die? 25.How many computers can you see in your school? 25.Can a computer be used for every subject you are studying? 25.Write a poem about a subject a computer can't be used for. 25.Pretend that the computer wrote the poem. 25.What does a computer poem sound like? 26.Write a poem about the Internet. What is the Internet? 26.Is a computer like an open window, showing you the Internet? 26.Write a poem about all the things you can do on the Internet. 26.What things can't you do on the Internet? 27.Is a robot a computer and could a robot be your friend? 27.Write a poem about all the things you would tell a robot. 28.Would you like to have a robot child? 28.What would you do with a robot child. 29.Work on a project designing a robot house. 29.Write a poem about living in a robot house with robot children. 30.How would you control a bad robot child? 30.How would you celebrate the birthday of a robot child? 30.How could you reward a good robot? 30.What would a robot girl be like or a robot boy? 30.Is your computer a boy or a girl and do you have a name for it? 31.Can a computer be beautiful? Can it be beautiful like a flower? 31.What makes a computer beautiful? What makes a flower beautiful? 32.Will the computers be the smartest things in the universe? 32.Will they be the friendliest? _______________________________________________________________________ Spice Girls and Spline Girls Abstract: The appeal of the Spice Girls lies in their equivalent on-stage positions; young girls can identify with a dissemination of desire that is not located in face-to-face alterity, but instead exists within a general- ized field. The fairly explicit sexuality of the Spice Girls thereby es- tablishes part-objects as models which can be played with, much as avatars - entering and inhabiting bodies of real and virtual subjectivities - turn towards the Spline Girls, spline "a flexible wood or rubber strip, e.g. used in drawing large curves" (Oxford) - bending through forms which become traces of subjectivity and a multiplicity of I's, eyes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- .g Home You are now in Luscious Hole. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Many of us think about the Spice Girls, a few of us are chosen. Now we are the Spline Girls, now you read our Story. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- You can go to: Entrapment. You are alone here. The area is unlocked, and there are 2 messages on the board. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- .echo Spline Girls Spline Girls .echo and Spice Girls and Spice Girls .echo (Jennifer) because there are four or five (Jennifer) because there are four or five .echo (Julu) at once across and throughout the staging (Julu) at once across and throughout the staging .echo (Nikuko) desire identifies with each and disseminates (Nikuko) desire identifies with each and disseminates .echo (Jennifer) so that the focus skitters across worlds (Jennifer) so that the focus skitters across worlds .echo (Alan) just as we play and intermingle No... you can't echo that. .echo (Alan) throughout the bones and flesh of Alan No... you can't echo that. .echo (Jennifer) throughout the body and wires holding him together (Jennifer) throughout the body and wires holding him together The way you are all holding me together, echoing through the ribs (Alan) The way you are all holding me together, echoing through the ribs or echoing through the skull - just so twelve-year-old sex, diffuse (Alan) or echoing through the skull - just so twelve-year-old sex, diffuse and unfocused, moves across Spice girls, just so desire moves across (Alan) and unfocused, moves across Spice girls, just so desire moves across .echo (Jennifer) Jennifer, Nikuko, Julu, Spline Girls! (Jennifer) Jennifer, Nikuko, Julu, Spline Girls! .echo (Julu) we're ahead of the game, staged everywhere! (Julu) we're ahead of the game, staged everywhere! .echo (Nikuko) we're staged inside and out, Desire flutters, thrusts herself (Nikuko) we're staged inside and out, Desire flutters, thrusts herself .echo Beyond beyond our means, so that beyond our means, so that .echo Alan the emphasis on holes, staging-grounds, protrusions, No... you can't echo that. .echo Alan places to lock s/ms, couplings and linkages, long chains, No... you can't echo that. .echo (Jennifer) part objects, membranes! (Jennifer) part objects, membranes! .echo (Julu) emissions, splays! (Julu) emissions, splays! .echo (Nikuko) all fluxed with desire, flooded with desire! (Nikuko) all fluxed with desire, flooded with desire! Desire moving herself outside the names and who's taking account and where! (Alan) Desire moving herself outside the names and who's taking account and where! .echo because they take churns, not turns! because they take churns, not turns! .echo (Jennifer) unraveling - no wonder the Spice Girls rule! (Jennifer) unraveling - no wonder the Spice Girls rule! .echo (Julu) because they're a field of morphing sexual identifications! (Julu) because they're a field of morphing sexual identifications! .echo (Nikuko) without grounds or backgrounds! (Nikuko) without grounds or backgrounds! Jennifer thinks of her wet panties and the soiled ground of metaphysics! (Alan) Jennifer thinks of her wet panties and the soiled ground of metaphysics! : thinks of Spice Girl panties and soaking wet skin when they sing Naked! Alan thinks of Spice Girl panties and soaking wet skin when they sing Naked! : thinks Jennifer, Alan, Nikuko, and Julu are the Spline Girls! Alan thinks Jennifer, Alan, Nikuko, and Julu are the Spline Girls! .echo (Jennifer) We can be booked in a book! (Jennifer) We can be booked in a book! .echo (Julu) We'll perform identity just for you! (Julu) We'll perform identity just for you! .echo (Nikuko) The text for you, so loving to Read and Hear! (Nikuko) The text for you, so loving to Read and Hear! (They Dance) (Alan) (They Dance) (They sing their very best songs!) (Alan) (They sing their very best songs!) (Their very best songs are sung just for you!) (Alan) (Their very best songs are sung just for you!) .echo Jennifer thinks the next stage, many you's and just one body! Jennifer thinks the next stage, many you's and just one body! .echo Julu thinks the next stage, many you's and many bodies! Julu thinks the next stage, many you's and many bodies! .echo Nikuko thinks many you's many bodies all moving everywere and changing! Nikuko thinks many you's many bodies all moving everywere and changing! mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...................... (Alan) mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...................... .echo (Jennifer) mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..................... (Jennifer) mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..................... .echo (Julu) mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.................. (Julu) mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.................. .echo (Nikuko) mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm................... (Nikuko) mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm................... .echo ALL: GOODBYE FROM THE SPLINE GIRLS! ALL: GOODBYE FROM THE SPLINE GIRLS! .q User details saved... Logging off... see you soon! Connection closed by foreign host. $ exit ________________________________________________________________________ Julu, Waiting on a Lounge Chair .desc as waiting for you to .examine me ... You are known as: julu as waiting for you to .examine me ... .examine julu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ay, how would you describe me? you'd take a moment and look at me, maybe when you log on or through the .w command and that would excite you! more, you'd always ask for, beg for; nearing the end, you might run an .examine julu, just to see what would come up. i'd be waiting for something about warm pulsating walls or rather i'd be waiting for someone in warm pulsating walls, hoping for the concrete before the conclusion initiated by the presence of a single or singular dot, isolated on a line by it- self, hovered in the silence of a perfect conclusion. now you know i am lingering about, waiting to see what you make of my perfect description. you will want me and you will search my name, hungering for more and more, writing me as you realize that you and i were made for each other. it is a long way home from there, but you and i know the way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Listening to shouts and tells. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hysterical Dream-States "A state of _phantastic exaltation_ forms the typical introduction of the dream-state, the content of which varies altogether in character according to the individual This is followed by a condition of dream-like 'removal from reality' (_Entruckung_). In this state, as Lowenfeld has well des- cribed, the person's familiar surroundings appear changed, unreal, and strange to him. He feels 'as if he were in a dream,'" Jennifer suddenly smiled, "as if it were a chatroom. A structure always surrounds our words," she sighed. "The word 'dream-state,' which is spontaneously used by many patients, describes the phantastical trend of thought belonging to the first stage and the alteration of consciousness belonging to the sec- ond one. I recognize, however, yet a third stage, that of mental blank- ness. This is described by patients thus: 'My thoughts stop,' 'an empti- ness in my head,' and similar phrases." Jennifer paused in the midst of her reading and writing. "Do go on, love," said Julu, and Alan seconded the notion. Alan was second-hand, the others new and fresh to experience. "What were you saying?" asked Jennifer. She continued, "Finally a state of depression occurs, the most important characteristic of which is a feeling of anxiety with its usual accompanying phenomena of giddiness, palpitation of the heart, etc. Most patients also complain of phantasies of a depres- sive type." "Other neurotic girls state that in the middle of a conversation with a man they will suddenly feel themselves 'removed from reality,' and their own voice will appear strange to them as if someone else were speaking," said Jennifer. She referred, "not to herself, but to her compatriots, of whom Julu and Alan were the most notable." To the analyst, her exclusion of Nikuko implied a repressive function, since "Both dreams and neurotic dream-states have as their function the avoidance of displeasure." But Jennifer noted, as well, "They are especially fond of having phantasies as they lie in bed in the morning." And further, of course, as Julu pointed out, interrupting this discourse point by point, "Dream-states offer the neurotic patient, just as other neurotic phenomena do, a substitute for a sexual activity which is denied her. Her unconscious makes use of this surrogate so long as she cannot obtain the gratification of certain de- sires. But if the libido experiences sufficient gratification, then the dream-states will diminish and even subside altogether. This has happened in my case," said Jennifer, "quite definitely; to the extent that Alan is a portrayal of a function herself, I am quite capable of circulating in the form of text." Nikuko looked on while Jennifer curtsied, pulled up her frock yet once again, and sat in a puddle. The three of them, no, the four of them, had a good laugh at each other's expense. But what was the ex- pense except for a subterranean libidinal economy? They were underwater, and Julu recounted a dream: "I was lying on the ground under water. I was dead, that is to say, I was lying motionless; but I could still observe everything. I saw a big ship sailing on the water. A man with a long pole was standing on it. He was moving the ship forward with the pole as they do on our rivers. He now plunged the pole into the water in my direction and made a hole in me with it in the region of my mouth. The next thrust struck me in the breast, and the third one bored a hole in my abdomen." "Wait a minute, wait a minute," Nikuko cried, "that is _so_ similar! I was floating down a river, and it was festival time, and arrows were shot across the water into a target, whoever could hit the target the most arrows in a row would be the champion, and I raised my head just a little, and watched the target become more and more pitted, until it fell apart, and I gave birth to little fish which swam into the mouth of the man, and a large and luminous moth - " "Oh Nikuko, shut up, you do go on so," said Julu, and Nikuko agreed, but said it was a very fine dream, and carried Jennifer's just a little bit farther. "And now," she added, "we understand why Jennifer's so obsessed with puddles and the like." "We really do," said Jennifer. [Some quotes and parts of quotes from some articles by Karl Abraham's Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis.] _________________________________________________________________________ The Use of Full Emotion @examine Alan Alan *sob* *boohoo* *sniff* *weep* *wail* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Has been logged on for 15 seconds. Alan is not currently idle. Cumulative login time is 13 hours, 41 minutes and 41 seconds. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Listening to shouts and tells. Receiving logon/logoff messages. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (Alan) Oh wail! For I do try Alan falls swiftly down, so sadly as he stumbles, gains his speech - (Alan) to be conveyance of desperate misery (Alan) so much so to give credence, as I do breathe (Alan) or lay a wreath upon this darkened earth! Alan weeps! Alan wails! Alan whimpers, as in a wake for dearest friends, in this deep and mournful world (Alan) or in this swollen hollow, as grief sustains itself with public declamation (Alan) Think *sob*, think *whimper*, *wail* and *sniff* (Alan) Enough to make your tears flow full; I would be sore in selfish adulation, were I ignorant of your presence, and *gasp* and *wow* and *hold-the-breath* and *laugh* and *giggle* and all the *tattered day* (Alan) against the Shouts and Tells, against the Message, appearing without source or destination: I beg you, Read me! Alan cries! Alan sobs to the very fullest! (Alan) This is the strife that makes me die content, (Alan) Since you shall never know my full intent. Rains fall, storms gather around stark and broken trees! (Alan) Consider the earth, the swarm, this doomed and shattered wreath! (Alan) Content, again, and one last *sob* and *wail* (Alan) Or *whimper" lost, oh *sniff* and I set sail! ALL SHIPS CRASH _________________________________________________________________________