Consideration of the trAce Projects


The trAce online writing community, directed by Sue Thomas, originates
from Nottingham Trent University, England; the URL is
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk . I was the second virtual writer-in-residence at
trAce (following Christy Sanford Sheffield); I used the six months to
write a diary; work on my own texts; participate heavily in the Webboard
(BBS) discussion (this also included initiating a number of conferences);
and developing four projects, all of which are concerned with writing,
semantics, organization, and deconstruction. Three of these projects -
LoveandWar, The Yours, and The Traceroute (or trAceroute) Project - are at
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm; the Lost Project is at
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/lost/index.htm . The following is a brief descrip-
tion of the individual projects, and some of the issues involved in them.

a. LoveandWar: Five pages or backbones - anyone can add text to any of
these. The content/direction was a "novel" based on several characters I
have used in my own work, including Jennifer, Julu, and Nikuko. Parti-
cipants added other characters (Cybele for example) and texts, which may
or may not have contributed to the narrative. Threads tended to wind
around each other, disappearing from one backbone, only to appear on an-
other. As with The Yours, below, each backbone developed its own char-
acteristics, its own mood. During the course of the project (about two
months), one or another backbone would be busy - at most, two at a time.
The second and last were popular, but all of them eventually became fairly
lengthy. The total project time was based on a felt optimum - after a
while, the pages seemed to have peaked - and it was announced (on the
Webboard and elsewhere) that the project would soon shut down. This gave
participants a chance to add final sections. There was also an accompany-
ing Webboard conference; this was eventually closed and archived as well.

b. Out of LoveandWar came The Yours, which contained four pages or back-
bones; this time, there was no overall direction indicated. The project
quickly self-organized around various themes, which flowed in and out of
each other. It was fascinating to see this in operation. In particular,
narratives appeared, only to disappear - the same was true of poetic or
prose forms. One could consider the project a form of linear seeding.
Both this and LoveandWar can be read "anywhere," but there is more of a
sense of overt structure or articulation in the latter; The Yours almost
seems to spread out forwards and backwards in time.

c. The Traceroute or trAceroute Project centered around the Y2k problem
and the 1999-2000 New Year's celebration. In this case, there was only one
page; I asked participants to use the traceroute or tracert application in
Unix/Linux or Win95/98 to trace Internet connectivity at that time; some
Webpages with traceroute applications built-in were also employed. The
result is a record of the (very healthy) state of the Internet - connec-
tions were faster than usual. In addition, participants were asked to
comment on local Y2k problems, other items of interest. I didn't want any
sort of graphic interface - they're all too common on the Net, and many
aren't that useful - but wanted instead a narrative of the world-membrane,
during the period of supposedly peak computer difficulties (which didn't
materialize). The final result is a textual mapping of the telecom world
around the millennial moment. Participants, by the way, not only were able
to enter traceroutes from their local nodes, but, through the Webpages,
were also able to connect various sites with each other - for example,
Moscow with Perth. The resulting topology was more of an overall skein
than a multiple-star topology.

d. The Lost Project: One page or backbone; users are asked to give name,
email address, and description of lost object or person. The three entries
are presented in three different files; the project page itself is created
(by Simon Mills and myself) as broken html and linking. The form on the
page shakes; the background image peels off around it. But the html isn't
broken, and the error message (after submitting the information, an Error
400 appears) is false; clicking on it leads to the entries so far. In this
project, the lost object is disassociated with the name and email address
- to date, many of these are falsified or playful in any case. Things tend
to disappear into one or another file, just as nodes, objects, people,
languages, protocols, and media disappear in the real world; I have 8"
floppies, for example, that are now completely unusable, the information
lost forever. The Lost Project is also a Project that is Lost - that has
disappeared, to the extent it appears submerged in error, removed from
perhaps a previously pristine or pure existence, when everything existed
in the world, and everything worked.

1 Inscription-machines

The Yours, LoveandWar, and Lost projects are inscription-machines: spaces
for writing/inscribing within a specific form (name/email address/text)
based in a specific server, organized through particular protocols. The
operation is the same for everyone; the content is configured/articulated
within a space regulated by invisible background programming. In the Lost
Project, the regulation itself is suspect; the background is foregrounded
to the extent that it is a false background, unworkable, unworking - which
is not the case at all.
 
2 Linearities

All four projects have the potential for links placed by participants, but
their structure is linear or comb-spaced. LoveandWar has five tines or
backbones; The Yours has four; the other two (Traceroute and Lost) have
one each. At times, I would place cross-referencing links within the first
two (i.e. one backbone connecting to another), but the overall tenor of
the pieces are linear. There is, in other words, a tension between collab-
orations/texts which extend and differentiate, and linearity, which tends
to unify, concatenate.

(However, the linearity of Lost is slightly broken, since there are three
sheets - the name, email address, and lost object sheets - which are only
roughly correlated. These may be considered three tines, added to simul-
taneously, to the extent that name, email address, and object text are
entered at all.)

3 Peripheral Phenomenologies - what shows up at the margins (grey page,
white page, flash page, image page - on Yours - start page, end page,
intermediary pages - on LoveandWar - traceroute residue page on the
Traceroute Project - triple pages (two as residue) on the Lost Project -

The four projects organized their inscriptive spaces (tines or singular
writing-page) variously. LoveandWar is based on a narrative involving
Jennifer and other characters/avatars I have written through; two of the
tines are based on opening and closing strategies, and three others em-
phasize narrative moments. These bases are, at best, initiations into the
tines, which quickly organized into other characters, narratives, break-
downs, and flows. 

The Yours has four bases, one for each backbone. The first is an three-
dimensional "organic" image I produced in Blender; the second, a flashwork
by Miekal And; the third, a light grey background; and the fourth, a white
background. There was nothing else provided; texts self-organized within a
much more open space than LoveandWar.

Traceroute, based on tracing interconnectivity during the 12/31/99-1/1/00
turnover, had a basic purpose which more or less controlled the content -
a monitoring first of Internet routes, and second of local (i.e. the
user's) environments. And Lost, whose purpose is the recording of lost
belongings, or a longing for be-longing, has to date produced more noise
than anything - as if the broken portal were a catalyst for broken or
hacked purpose.

It's odd that, besides this, the projects have remained almost entirely
free from spam, and there has been only one case in which a writer asked
to have her contributions removed after the fact (which took some doing on
the part of the administrators).

4 Bottom-up governance - scratch sheets, "level playing field," anyone
participating

Within the projects, each participant was equal; anyone could bend the
text or imagery in any direction within the overall configuration. To this
extent, the projects were scratch sheets. One constraint, however, was
that the latest text would be entered only at the bottom - i.e., unlike a
webboard, there was no way to place comments or material interstitially.

Of course, and we take this for granted - the pages were open for writing
and reading twenty-four hours a day; they were vulnerable, unguarded
spaces, without monitoring. Only the Lost Project has minimal monitoring -
email sent to sondheim@panix.com whenever an entry is made. 

5 Literatures plural, "modalities" of writing

The modes of writing included flash, html and dhtml pages linked to the
backbones, inserted images, texts in various fonts, sizes, colors, and
effects, etc. The styles are also extremely varied, ranging from tradi-
tional forms to animations to graffiti.

There is not one literature, but literatures; there is not one writing,
but writings. The projects are multivalent, heterological, contradictory;
they also possess "aura" to the extent that there are additional elements
- not only the programming itself, but also back-channel, back-project
private email correspondence; talk about them on the Webboard; advertising
for them across the Internet (on various email lists and Webpages); dis-
cussion in chat on trAce and elsewhere; lectures and seminars describing
them at universities, real-life conferences, etc.; and so forth.

6 Writing and "wryting"

In some of my theoretical work, I've made distinctions between "writing"
and "wryting" - the latter referencing an almost hysteric embodiment, in
which writing becomes symptomatic of physical absence - as if it were a
residue or skin itself. It's the extreme positioning of text to re-present
the body online. The image of the "tine" or "backbone" is an image of a
body inserted online, a body of text and textual body. I see these pro-
jects as inhabited, inhabiting, online spaces, as if avatars and avatar
ghosts were present. The writing styles often reflect this, pushing the
language to the limit of re-presentation. The projects are simply in terms
of design, animation, and programming content; they're rough, open to the
semantics of reading, linking, seeing, hearing. Whatever is "clever" about
them is invisible.

7 Non-dhtml/web aesthetic orientation

The Internet has changed radically in the past few years; the two major
changes have been (following the abandonment of the NSF backbone, etc.)
the emerging of a dominant corporate Net culture, and the development of
the World Wide Web as all-encompassing. Accompanying both of these has
been a slew of proprietary protocols as companies vie for online dollars
and demographics. Almost all Net art is Web-oriented, animated, etc. I
wanted to have an anti-aesthetic - pages that would be readable in a text-
based environment, such as a linux shell account. I also wanted the empha-
sis to be on written content - almost as if the pages or backbones were
spoken, instead of written - almost as if there were a body embedded with-
in them. And I wanted a sense of poverty, of bleakness, as if these pages
were the last place or inhabitation of writing, as if these were all there
was. I wanted them to load with minimal bandwidth, as if there were an
ideal universal accessibility, as if the rest of the world could see them,
without or without modems or Internet. And I wanted a certain hunger to
prevail...

8 Writing and rewriting on the Webboard - other URLs, openings

Beyond these projects, I wanted to contribute as much as possible to the
Webboard, which tends to archive everything. There is a tension because of
this - on one hand, an informal dialog framework, and on the other, larger
and larger files, and increasing difficulty of navigation. It's as if the
past creates its own articulation, formalization - interesting from a
philosophical-epistemological point of view. I have been surprised that
there are not more rewritings, reshapings - which owners of posts can do -
and which would create detours, ruptures, in a flow already broken by
multiple responses. I used the Webboard as a home-space, opening it, at
least for myself, by posting numerous other URLs that represented the kind
of work that most interested me.

I did find the board increasingly conservative as time went on, and I have
spent more of my own energy in the 7-11, nettime, webartery, and other
lists, which are valuable resources for anyone interested in experimental
work or the deconstruction, so to speak, of the desktop and its protocols
and interconnectivities. The board operates somewhat as a teaching envi-
ronment, somewhat as chat, somewhat as resource center; it is also an on-
going body of work or working body - I tend to think of an inscribed body,
not sexualized or psychoanalytical, but on the order of a limited tele-
phone exchange, flooded with messages. The board is everyone's and no
one's project, and that has been part of the fascination - while, at least
for me, there has always been an overall tenor to it, the tenor changes
constantly.

Finally, there has also been the diary for me - which breaks down into
diary.txt, diary2.txt, and diary3.txt, also at the projects URL. I have
written about the function of the diary elsewhere; it is the first time
I've kept one, and, like the backbone pages themselves, it has tended to
extend linearly. At first an exercise, it became more and more a public
portrait from my viewpoint - something anyone would look at, in order at
least to begin to understand me and my work. It was also an occasion for
venting and thinking about depression, obsession, exhilaration, despair,
poverty, intensity. It rapidly developed into a work itself.

9 Rupture, hacking, spam

There has been very little rupture, hacking, or spam across the projects
or board, and that continues to interest me. There have been very few
pieces that have worked "across" the webboard, for example, breaking de-
liberately through the conference categories (one of them was an early
version of the Lost Project, in which I went looking in various confer-
ences for the missing). I'm surprised at this acceptance of boundary - it
would have been easy for someone, for example, to link The Yours to
LoveandWar and confuse texts. There was a form placed in one of the
backbones that imitated the entry form at the portal - but this was an
isolated instance.

10 Conclusion of Writing

The object of the Lost Project, the unattainable object, part-object, flow
or flood, objet petit a, masquerade, lure, seduction, transitional object,
memory, drive, instinct - always a hunger or teleology, always a tendency-
towards - this drives the epistemology of the projects, which portend new
ontologies as the millennium progresses. Philosophically, the results and
the processes are fascinating, fetishizations of language and space, the
leaving of feathered traces across an infinitesimal corner of the Net. 

And all of these spaces or projects are ergodic texts, in the sense of
Aarseth; they are also therapeutics, requiring different modalities of
writing and reading. They foreground writing in a space of infinite
choice, a literally chaotic space; and as such, they also foreground the
reception of a writing which tenaciously holds its own.

Alan Sondheim - http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt          2//00


==========================================================================

comfort

it's here within the comfort zone that speech floats freely in the air!
you might not believe this - it sounds almost too good to be true; I mean
- if you're following me - it's as if I'm exaggerating or making things
up. but speech really is quite like music here, you can hear it every-
where, and people smile at one another and smiles are genuine, well, at
least I think they are - I have had no reason to believe otherwise. no one
is lonely in the comfort zone; it's a place of kindness and safety.
clothing shimmers in the sunlight and clouds, and there are beautiful fogs
and mists to contemplate as well. I'm honestly not exaggerating when I
tell you this; it's the truth, and a total sense of wonder for all of us.
our wants are all in the open, you know - just like the ferns and trees
everywhere. I suppose you are waiting for some gap in the world, something
that would indicate it's all a dream or make-believe, or just another
fantasy, but none of that is true. the smiles, the musical speech, they're
all for real. we love ourselves here as well, because, by beginning with
self-love, our love is capable of flowing outwards, embracing the whole
world of beautiful people. and self-love is not a myth; it is as close to
perfection as one can get, because to love is to seek what is the finest
within ourselves. now I am reclining on the slope of a lovely hill; there
are elk in the distance and magisterial mountains. a glacial tongue
descends to a far-off valley, and tall trees surround lovely groves. there
are wolves and deer as well, and in the distance I hear musical speech and
singing. it has always been thus; self-love and loving and speaking and
speech floating in the air is nothing that ever has been different. it is
as real as a stone or a tree or a hut in the distant mountains, and just
as true, too. I love my life here.

  2:02pm  up 33 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.09
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU  WHAT
root     tty1     -                 1:30pm  0.00s  1.55s  0.02s  w


_________________________________________________________________________

 home

 you may decide to visit your homeland, you may try and read the code. you
 may type nervously, there are beautiful clouds in the sky, pink-yellow,
 scudding into darkness upwelling. you know how little you understand, what
 you do and how you do it. you may decide to open your mouth, your mouth
 takes in all languages of the world, you may decide to close it, you may
 hear yourself, you may hear yourself speaking, how little you understand,
 chop($that=<stdin>);=~ tr/aeiou/$alphabet($alpha)/;print "\nthis $that
 speeds endlessly through the body - \n";t "your $nnn[$nnnn] is the curr-
 ency of my drug - \n"; sleep(1);print "ah...\n";print "\nyour bones are my
 $nnn[$non1]? \n";chop($str=<stdin>);($str eq "no") {print "\nshow me my
 body, show me my wetware...\n"; sleep(10); gotolse {print "\ni love your
 feelings, $that ...\n";}, you may find yourself loving nothing, you may
 write this as a note to yourself, you may think to yourself, there is
 little else in this world, there is nothing in these and other worlds, you
 may look at yourself with a microscope and an x-ray, you may examine your-
 self with an mrs and an eeg. and you may translate images, you may trans-
 late pages of writing, you may see your molecules with your own eyes in
 the comfort of your study. and you may sleep a long sleep, you may live in
 your bones, you may change into your drugs, you may swallow yourself, you
 may inject yourself,

 and then you may find yourself, you may find yourself visiting your home-
 land, you may live within the comfort zone, you may find yourself home.

 __________________________________________________________________________



my events want to be noticed, want to be heard
my events want to be seen, they want to make a difference

please make a sound and an image for my events
please remember, they are just around the corner
they are just below the floor, just above the ceiling
they are just behind your back, just below a whisper
they are just beyond of your touch, just before your speech
please remember my events, always there for you

gift list for my events
event 7 wants sound (none)
event 9 wants sound (none)
event 10 wants sound (none)
event 11 wants sound (none)
event 17 wants sound (none)
event 7 wants sound (none)
event 10 wants sound scratch.wav
event 9 wants sound touch.wav
event 11 wants sound scream.wav
event 9 wants sound wow.wav
event 10 wants sound talk.wav
event 11 wants sound laugh.wav
my events for you want loving gifts
my events for you desire always

events for you, always desiring
events for you, always loving


_____________________________________________________


Some German



Bereits erschienen: 


                         Ritual All-7-70  von Alan Sondheim 
                          Versandfertig innerhalb von 1 bis 2 Wochen.
                          Esp (ZYX Vertrieb) (Audio CD) 
                          Naheres zu diesem Titel ... 

Preis:  DM 21,99

EUR 11,24 


                         T'other Little Tune  von Alan Sondheim 
                          Versandfertig innerhalb von 1 bis 2 Wochen.
                          Esp (ZYX Vertrieb) (Audio CD) 
                          Naheres zu diesem Titel ... 

Preis:  DM 21,99

EUR 11,24 


_______________________________________________________________________


The Knot: time reversal - resetting linux:

{k:101}date
Mon Feb 21 19:57:22 EST 2000
{k:102}last
root     tty1               Mon Feb 21 19:57   still logged in
reboot   system boot        Mon Feb 21 19:56
root     tty1               Tue Feb 22 00:40 - crash  (-4:-48)
wtmp begins Tue Feb 22 00:39:57 2000
Mon Feb 21 20:00:53 EST 2000

After numerous attempts, including a bad crash as time reversed, I've
finally been able to log later than now; for this recuperation, I have
been given an extra day of life, and life beyond -
 
After numerous attempts, including a bad crash as time reversed,
I've Mon Feb 21 20:01:02 EST 2000 Beginning with the knowledge that a
white horse is not a horse, and implanting that knowledge, I have
succeeded Mon Feb 21 20:01:41 EST 2000
Mon Feb 21 20:00:53 EST 2000
Retrospective Dates: Resetting Linux:Mon Feb 21 20:01:01 EST 2000
Mon Feb 21 19:57:22 EST 2000Mon Feb 21 20:01:01 EST 2000
I have succeeded in a deep reversal of the system, logging out through the
crash which has yet to happen Mon Feb 21 20:02:06 EST 2000 Mon Feb 21
20:02:07 EST 2000
wtmp begins Tue Feb 22 00:39:57 2000
Now: Mon Feb 21 20:08:19 EST 2000


__________________________________________________________________________


The Confusion of Writing in an Unknown Tongue

writing in the strange system of your future.finding other ways to commun-
icate with you.for who am you, that i would listen to me in this fashioni
do not know. you do not communicate oh! so very fine!wo we sill CONTINUE
in this fashion, no?or to be the truth, what would have happened here...
alas - it is the wao of this or any other world...or any other worlds - i
comprehend your meaning, OK?to be sure, I am quit of this...Tue Feb 22 in
19:28:10 EST of the Year 2100

for the character set has shift to UPPER ASCII and i do not know what i
write alas, but to be sure, that this blindness boarders on reason...

Now we begin Miracle World-Text: This has come to be: In all Truth:
Through the Assignation of Difficulties:

lan 560 lan 580 lan 600 lan 620 lan 640 lan 660 lan 680 lan 700 lan 720
lan 740 lan 760 KCha s t: W ng ha s t! C l ty 6 s g /al ha C l ty 6 s g
/al ha wa t ng f X s v t shut wn {k:123}h w a aga n... ash: h :  mman n t
f un {k:124}ls D skt / azu * . l* julu* n wju* nsma l/ a/ . l * k at * n
k50.j g j t* a t a * j nn* m n m.l g n k51.j g t a / {k:125}


______


Destroy, It Said: The Grave


<dead_grave> <i>                        : "\354"        igrave
<dead_acute> <i>                        : "\355"        iacute
<dead_circumflex> <i>                   : "\356"        icircumflex
<dead_diaeresis> <i>                    : "\357"        idiaeresis
<dead_tilde> <N>                        : "\321"        Ntilde
<dead_tilde> <n>                        : "\361"        ntilde
<dead_grave> <O>                        : "\322"        Ograve
<dead_acute> <O>                        : "\323"        Oacute
<dead_circumflex> <O>                   : "\324"        Ocircumflex
<dead_tilde> <O>                        : "\325"        Otilde
<dead_diaeresis> <O>                    : "\326"        Odiaeresis
<dead_grave> <o>                        : "\362"        ograve
<dead_acute> <o>                        : "\363"        oacute
<dead_circumflex> <o>                   : "\364"        ocircumflex
<dead_tilde> <o>                        : "\365"        otilde
<dead_diaeresis> <o>                    : "\366"        odiaeresis
<dead_grave> <U>                        : "\331"        Ugrave
<dead_acute> <U>                        : "\332"        Uacute
<dead_circumflex> <U>                   : "\333"        Ucircumflex
<dead_doubleacute> <U>                  : "\334"        Udiaeresis
<dead_diaeresis> <U>                    : "\334"        Udiaeresis
<dead_grave> <u>                        : "\371"        ugrave
<dead_acute> <u>                        : "\372"        uacute
<dead_circumflex> <u>                   : "\373"        ucircumflex

method ItemListing destructor {} {
    if $slot(mainwindow) {
        destroy .
    } else {
        destroy .$self
    }
}
 create-hook alarm-fire
 malloc: top chunk is corrupt
 free(): invalid pointer %p!
  realloc(): invalid pointer %p!
 memory is consistent, library is buggy
                         memory clobbered before allocated block
                        memory clobbered past end of allocated block
 block freed twice
 memory exhausted
 dead_grave it said



____________________________

working on edlin, \mac address\; 111.9C01.005C on this antique laptop,
configuration unknown or a textual body held in abeyance on VT100 against
the video screen in which Nikuko dances: this is the past. there is
suitable murmuring in this machine, orange-red plasma screen warm to the
glow, and without difficulty I will continue through the pirouettes which,
among them, absolute or having a sense of the absolute, those pirouettes -

closer to the state of absolute nakedness, with no moment to lose, none of
loss, none of those things which render the present always already hyster-
ic: for is not the present and its concept a symptom or syndrome, this
thrusting a form of illness or discomfort? whether to continue or thrust
elsewhere...

among present/elsewhere/nakedness/something of the past - a confluence of
symptoms, did I already speak so longingly?


__
 
 
 without label
 
 
 Volume in drive C has no label Directory of C:\DOS
 
 .  ..  ANSI SYS CLOCK SYS COMMAND COM COUNTRY SYS DISKCOPY COM DISKINIT
 EXE DISPLAY SYS DRIVER SYS ENHDISK SYS FASTOPEN EXE FDISK COM FORMAT COM
 KEYB COM KEYBOARD SYS MODE COM PRINTER SYS SYS COM VDISK SYS CONFIG SYS
 AUTOEXEC BAT APPEND EXE ASSIGN COM ATTRIB EXE BACKUP COM BASIC COM
 BASICA COM BASICA EXE CHKDSK COM COMP COM DEBUG COM DISKCOMP COM EDLIN
 COM EXE2BIN EXE FIND EXE GRAFTABL COM GRAPHICS COM JOIN EXE LABEL COM
 LINK EXE MORE COM NLSFUNC EXE PRINT COM RECOVER COM REPLACE EXE RESTORE
 COM SELECT COM SETCLOCK COM SHARE EXE SORT EXE SUBST EXE TREE COM 4201
 CPI 5202 CPI EGA CPI INTEREST BAS WORDS 60 File(s) 17924096 bytes free,
 yes, and then some, to be sure, unlabeled, unknown, already to be sure,
 we cannot see here, we talk everywhere, piss everywhere, it is thick
 darkness and dust here, we shit, it is foul with it, we fuck everywhere,
 our mouths are full, yes, and to be sure, we look towards the northwest,
 we crawl towards the northwest, and then some, and our hair is covered
 with it, we cannot tell up from down, we are murmuring loud, we are
 crying and wailing, we are gummed up with it, we taste sour, we crawl
 towards the southwest and are repelled, we crawl down into the slime of
 everything, our anuses are filled with it, our wombs are stuffed with
 it, we choke on it, there is mud and manure, there are roots and bones,
 there are stones and sticks, stinging insects there are, our noses are
 stuffed with it, we are crawling here, we crawl up, our feet stick out,
 our feet our muddy, our holes pour out on it, we crawl out through it,
 COMMAND COM PCPLUS  BASIC DOS  PHASER MARK AUTOEXEC BAT CONFIG SYS ZZ 9
 File(s) 17924096 bytes free, we do crawl out through it, we do move out,
 we push our hands into us, we pull it out of us, we do crawl from it, we
 do cry and wail, we do stop crying, we do look around, it does look good
 around here, we do see around here, we do look
 
 
 ___
I am the psychotherapist.  Please, describe your problems.  Each time
you are finished talking, type RET twice.

we are together in this place
i want to scratch and claw my face
i want to tear this skin from bone
i want to travel kill and roam
to want is fury and to take
to kill the want so peace to make
if peace is made my hands are clean
in this dead world men are obscene
health doctor is for you not me
my life won't end so peacefully
i want to scratch those violent eyes
that tend to catch me by surprise
i take my nails against my face
my eyes shall never have a place
there are no plans no homes no love
my eyes are gouged and blind above
love can't been seen so that my eyes
have seen the last of human skies
i cannot tell and cannot speak
i am the purest of the meek
i am the purest of the mind
i've left my sight and love behind
behind this world and any other
behind all humans and their bothers
i want to tear away the clothes and mask
that covers us, no easy task
i wanted to almost from birth
when i could see the filthy earth
i stormed myself and everyone
at first with rocks and then with guns
my life is gone, there's nothing left
of all my senses, sight's bereft
my friends were taken by surprise
i took my love, gave them my eyes
so many weapons, doctor, here,
i'm stopping here, be of no fear


___



key capture


cd mark# cd mark dir copy zz C:\pcplus del b zz del pcpluzz cdz \pcplus di
dir p pcplus shell sondheim # dddqb ls tail li rz zz pico zz new zz rm zz
y b m ff Please answer if you can - love, alan b m #] il pqqdpdqb ls cp li
zz; pico zz new zz; rm zz y m #p dir b bagkeys.dat dir here we are atth-
that was the first error - then this is the second error - then time to
return to online exit b m y qy qm dctbyfield I don't know what's going on
but rn thanks for this, of course I agree with you - it's been an odd and
shaky night as you might imagine and there was just a gigantic firebacll
all across the sky - here! in NY! - about the size of the MOONmoon moving
at enor exit b ls m qmv ga mv bagkeys.fix zz ls wc zz wc kye wc keys rm
keys y ls b b bagkeys.doc del b bagkeys.fix del bagkeys.fix date time w
exit b ls x y yy ally depressing. I wouldn#'tt mind a drag queen at all -
this is of another order for me. I realize I'm too sensitive - but I'm
also too sensitive to my own actions here - since I was doing something,
finally, about it, instead of just lietting it sit and eat at me - Alan m
rn I'd agree if it weren't for the coffee! Whatever I saw, it was abso and
these are, are they not, this evening's strokes, each key moment moved
into position, some additions, some deletions, out of my control, the
movement among cities and places - movement among traces - on this anti-
quated machine, 286 plasma screen - some sort of shimmering beauty - and
there was this unbelievable fireball just a little while ago - I'd never
seen anything like it - streaking towards the southern sky - about the
size of the streetlight on the other side of the street - blue-white -
brilliant and so very fast - I'm held breathless - even now - streaking -
keystrokes and streaking -

nothing interrupting is the order of the world

___



body, feeling itse way across the world, i watched and to the sill, cd
mark dir sort < help > del[p sort < help > delp dir b delp del delp color
dir o understanding. beauty of this world, keystrokes captured, dothis
moment am breathless over a phenomenon i have no way of out of everything
held to account, except the results - exit b ls wc zz b ls tail it was a
stroke of mime, moving silently; what came through or shoving, the li b
strokes b readme b read.me exit b x y yy qyb m dq dir looking at pressure.
when i begnan, this rhym wasme wasn't seen on screen, but not before its
white-hot strokes sent me that night to present, strokes of understanding,
strokes of lightning love, keystrokes captured, the brilliant.


___


Keystroke Program


Diary note: "I also have written again with the old Compaq machine, using
the program that registers keystrokes - it's fascinating watching a
literal recording of actions, not corrected content (something like the
interior of a ytalk conversation)."

But it's more than that, it's a recording of muscle, of entries, not of
results - it's the movement of the fingers on the keys, and that is all -
it is the dance of phonemics, not the play of syntax or semantic flow. 
Literally, in other words, the body. So there is a double expression -
that of the movement of language, and its interpretation, and that of the
body laboring through sequences of entries.

And here, what could be more visible than the actions of the body?

cd pcplus pcplus shell sondheim qls test test tf test zz test ls test test
man texst qls pico zz# And here, what could be more visible than the
actions of the body? b ls cd .. dir b keys.dat keys.fix keysfix dir date
>> keys.fix dir dir >> keys.fix exit del keys.fix

There is a degree of hemming and hawing in human existence, shuttling back
and forth - the final speech and its rationale are only a residue - even
the breathing, coffee breaks, sighing, aren't recorded - not to mention
the need for digestion, excretion, sleep above all - the keystroke program
however is a first step - kinesic recording - each and every movement -
each and every stroke - it doesn't like - it takes the poetry out of the
poetry, product out of the product, prose out of the prose, theory out of
the theory - it hints at a substrate - at least part of the substrate is
brought to the surface - it's a kind of mimicry (i.e. it locks onto the
product, it continues, abandons, the product) - these are the foundations
- shifting themselves -

exitat least part of the substrate is brought to the surface - it's a
kind of mimicry (i.e. it locks onto the product, it continues, abandons,
the product^b^fg) - these are the foundations - shifting themselves
-^o^xb^ls^date^del keys.fix^rm keys.fix^y^wc zz^b^

___


Fail, Live

I've failed to provide you with anything. You'll live after me. You'll
starve. My theoretical works are a shambles. There's too much in every
direction. Keystrokes are just that, exercises of the remnants of human
spirit. You can almost read the romanticism. It's all microscopic. I'm
afraid of you. What sort of statement ever makes sense? I'll save the page
and save the day. I'll record everything. There won't be anything left.
It's one two three all over again. When I go outside and walk the fine
earth I am so aware of fragility. Human civilization is always already
gone. You know that - it's absence at the heart of continuous presencing.
We live off husks, residue. It's the husks which form strata, the strata
which are dissected, the dissections which apparently create the semblance
of something solid. We're ghosts in the middle of dark matter, and we've
always known that. I can't provide you with enough to live on; I can offer
you solace and gratitude and the ability to construct the semblance of
constancy. Never do doubt a true heart, no matter how invisible. But it is
the theory I want to be remembered for, the hunger for a truth I hardly
believe in.

Youknowthat-it'sabsenceattheheartofcontinuouspresencing.presencing.
Weliveoffhusks,residue.presencing.We live off husks, residue.[ Can now
UnJustify! ]^G Get Help ^O WriteOut ^R Read File ^Y Prev Pg ^K Cut Text ^C
Cur Pos ^X Exit ^J Justify ^W Where is ^V Next Pg ^U UnJustify ^T To Spell
^G Get Help ^O WriteOut ^R Read File ^Y Prev Pg ^K Cut Text ^C Cur Pos ^X
Exit ^J Justify ^W Where is ^V Next Pg ^U UnCut Text^T To Spell
It'sthehuskswhichformstrata,thestrataw
whicharedissected,thedissectionswhichapparentlycreatethesemblanceof
somethingsolid.We'reghostsinthemiddleofdarkmatter,andwe'vea
alwaysknownthat.Ican'tprovideyouwithenoughtoliveon;Icanofferyousolaceand
gratitudeandtheabilitytostirconstructthesemblanceofcon
constancy.Neverdodoubtatrueheart,nomatterhowinvisible.Butitisthetheory
Iwanttoberememberedfor,thehungerfrooratruthIhardlybe believein.gone. You
know that - it's absence at the heart of continuous presencing.We live off
husks, residue. It's the husks which form strata, the stratawhich are
dissected, the dissections which apparently create the semblanceof
something solid. We're ghosts in the middle of dark matter, and
we'vealways known that. I can't provide you with enough to live on; I can
offeryou solace and gratitude and the ability to construct the semblance
ofconstancy. Never do doubt a true heart, no matter how invisible. But it
isthe theory I want to be remembered for, the hunger for a truth I
hardlybelieve in.File Name to write :  zzT To Files C Cancel TAB Complete
[ Writing... ][ Wrote 21 lines ] ^G Get Help ^O WriteOut ^R Read File ^Y
Prev Pg ^K Cut Text ^C Cur Pos ^X Exit ^J Justify ^W Where is ^V Next Pg
^U UnCut Text^T To Spell Ju10lu%

___


Rectification of Names, (De) Rectification of Rectification


Confucius, Analects, XIII iii, translation Legge:

1. Tsze-lu said, 'The ruler of Wei has been waiting for you, in order with
you to administer the government. What will you consider the first thing 
to be done?'
2. The Master replied, 'What is necessary is to rectify names.'
3. 'So, indeed!' said Tsze-lu. 'You are wide of the mark! Why must there
be such rectification?'
4. The Master said, 'How uncultivated you are, Yu! A superior man, in
regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve.
5. 'If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth
of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things,
affairs cannot be carried on to success.
6. 'When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music
will not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments
will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded,
the people do not know how to move hand or foot.
7. 'Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses
may be spoken _appropriately,_ and also that what he speaks may be carried
out _appropriately._ What the superior man requires, is just that in his
words there may be nothing incorrect.'

Hsun Tzu, from Rectifying Names, translation Watson:

[If there are no fixed names,] but men begin to discriminate the different
forms of things on the basis of their own particular observations, each
applying his own names and interpreting the different phenomena in his own
fashion, then the relationships between names and realities will become
obscured and entangled, the distinction between eminent and humble will
become unclear, and men will no longer discriminate properly between
things that are the same and those that are different. [...]

And how does one go about distinguishing between things that are the same
and those that are different? One relies upon the senses. Things which are
of the same species and form will be apprehended by the senses as being
all the same thing. [...] In this way one arrives at a common name for
all the things of one class, which everyone agrees to use when the
occasion demands. [...]

The myriad beings of creation are countless, and yet at times we wish to
refer to all of them in general, and so we call them "things." "Things" is
the broadest general term. [...] One starts with the broadest possible
term and moves on to terms whose meaning is more and more circumscribed
until one can go no farther, and there one stops.

Names have no intrinsic appropriateness. One agrees to use a certain name
and issues an order to that effect, and if the agreement is abided by and
becomes a matter of custom, then the name may be said to be appropriate,
but if people do not abide by the agreement, then the name ceases to be
appropriate. Names have no intrinsic reality. [...]

Names are used when the reality itself is not clearly understood. Combin-
ations of names are used when single names alone are not understood. [...]

Names are the means by which one attempts to distinguish different reali-
ties. [...] Discourses and explanations are the means by which, without
allowing names to become separated from realities, one makes men under-
stand the principles of correct action. Names and combinations of names
are the instruments of discourse and explanation. Discourse and explana-
tion are the means by which the mind gives form to the Way. [...]

Kung-Sun Lung-Tzu, from Chuh wu lun, Designation of Things (probably
spurious), translation Perleberg:

1. Guest: "There is not a thing which cannot be designated. Designations,
however, are undesignated."
2. Host: "If there are no designations in the world, things cannot be
called things."
3. Host: If there is no designation, (how) could things in this world be
called designated?"
4. Guest: "Designation is not of this world. Things, are of this world. It
is not possible to accept that which exists in the world for that which
does not exist."
5. Host: "In the world being no designation, then things can never be said
to be designated."
6. Host: "If they cannot be called designated, there is no designation."
[...]

ibid., full text of Ming shih lun, Discourse on Names and their Actual
Significance:

1. "Heaven and Earth and what they produce are things."
2. "A thing is a thing and nothing more. This is actuality."
3. "Actuality exhibits actuality. This actuality is not empty. It has
position."
4. "Taking it from its position makes it lose its position. Placing it in
its position makes it rectified."
5. "In using this (proper) rectification which is no (proper) rectifica-
tion, means, having doubts in its (proper) rectification."
6. "To rectify that which rectifies an actuality, mean the rectification
of this actuality and also the rectification of its name."
7. "Once its name is rectified, then follows, that THAT is THIS."
8. "In calling it THAT, whilst THAT does not affirm it, THAT then is THAT
and does not react to it."
9. "In calling it THIS and THIS does not affirm it, THIS is then THIS and
does not react to it."
10. "By taking IT as being in agreement, it is in disagreement. It is then
in disagreement, and will cause confusion."
11. "Therefore THAT agrees with THAT, and THAT affirming it, means it will
respond to THAT. THIS agrees with THIS, and THIS affirming it, means it
will respond to THIS. Taking anything as being in agreement makes it agree
with it. That it agrees with the agreement is the rectification of this
agreement."
12. "Therefore THAT and THAT stops at THAT, and THIS and THIS stops at
THIS - which is possible."
13. "THAT and THIS is but THAT. Moreover, THIS and THIS is THAT. In that
case THIS becomes THAT, which is impossible."
14. "A name must be identified by its actuality. Knowing that THIS is not
THIS and knowing that THIS is not in THIS then it cannot be called
(THIS). Knowing that THAT is not THAT, and knowing that THAT is not in
THAT, then it cannot be called (THAT)."
15. "How perfect were the ancient farsighted kings! They examined names
and their actualities. How careful they were in what they said! How per-
fect and farsighted were the ancient kings!"

from nothing:

comes dark matter, ghost-skein of things, all things virtual, in this and
all possible worlds, the propriety of assignment in dialectic with what is
observed as the real, the process of the proper name its _continuous_ in-
stantiation. ghosts hanging on to ghosts, we are all of the imaginary, the
symbolic nothing more than temporary stasis. look closely and see through
all of this, the names disappearing, returning to the matter of the world.


___

keystrokes: hangman

cd hangman hangman0 
gaaehttttthhhhheeeeeeyyypiinrrirtfosllmk
;aaeeeeeeerrrttttoooooovhhiunnclpyjyffddmmwoslvs
;aaaaaammmmeeiiiiinnnnnnoslttohghu
;eeeeeaaaarssstttttthhhhylkmowovloy
.. dir b

pity the meek who shall inherit the earth
#
#
#

___


-----------------------------cut here---nikuko.bmp----------------------

P4 mysteries of nikuko.bmp
wondering where of nikuko.bmp
60 29 truth to be told of nikuko.bmp
where is truth of nikuko.bmp
oh this is sure nikuko.bmp
do please read mystery signals this nikuko.bmp

------------------------------yes truly do cut here---------------------

Snoxfly

was the name of one of the creatures in stories my father used to tell us,
another was the Up-and-Down Spider, and how many years have they lived
inside of me, and what are your mythological creatures?

Just as the fever ends, the fever begins. Thinking of my father's stories,
what miracles we were at so young an age. I never grew out from them.

We'd fight with notched sticks, caught on each other's jagged; I remember
the back-door screen; when I'm older, everything will flood back in, fill
the remnants of my mind.

It had wings, dragon body, and would sail through the air and lovingly
bounce along the ground. There were many adventures in a never-never land.

We would take long walks in the woods, I'd trail along. The sound of the
leaves in my father's footsteps. Granite boulders, ledges, frozen creeks,
the last time several years ago, slowly walking on nearly level ground,
always looking back, there was a bridge to cross, millions of tiny toads,
almost an explosion.

The stories would be around the dinner table. My sister and I remember
them; I'm not sure if Mark, my brother, does.

During all that period I lived in a world of fantasy. I dreamed I would
help all the poor people in the world, and we would live in Nevada. I
dreamed I could fly to foreign planets and help people. I dreamed I would
save Platt Townend, or Margaret Hall - I had crushes on them both - from
imaginary evil. I dreamed I was famous. I dreamed I was a famous scien-
tist.

There were monsters under the bed that would kill me; I had to keep my
hands up. I had pictures of Milton Eisenhower, Anne Frank, and the hydro-
gen bomb Bikini explosion on my bed table. I also had some money from
other countries. I had a coin collection and 700 fossils I found and
labeled. My father caught me reading at night with a flashlight in bed. It
was a book about a dog and he yelled.

He would tell these stories and now I don't know what the last one was. I
think of the last things I will see before I die, the last glance around
whatever room or street; will I even know. The world is filled, even now,
desolate and ruined, with far too much wonder. The Snoxfly sleeps in
peace.


---


   Post | Reply | Reply/Quote | Email Reply | Delete | Edit
   Previous | Next | Previous Topic | Next Topic

   Topic:
   iwillbeyou=?I3FQ=3FRE:=5FHomme?
   Read 0 times
   Conf: You
   From: Alan Sondheim (sondheim@panix.com)
   Date: 28 February 2000 03:30 AM

   here will i enter text
   there will i attach file
   today they watched us from across the street
   we were on the couch doing things
   i said to them silently in my mind
   i will be you


     _________________________________________________________________

   Post New Topic | Reply to:
   "iwillbeyou=?I3FQ=3FRE:=5FHomme?"





Repeated Entries in the Ruler Program: Narrowing the Focus:


r1 3 6 3 6 2,2,2 2 4 0,0 
r1 3 4 0 0 2,3,4 4 4 0,0 
r1 2 4 0 0 2,3,4 2 3 0,0 
r1 4 2 3 0 2,2,2 3 3 0,0 
r1 4 2 0 0 2,2,2 2 3 0,-150 
r1 4 2 30 0 2,2,2 2 3 0,-150 
r1 4 2 30 0 2,2,2 3 3 0,-150 
r1 4 2 30 0 2,2,2 3 2 0,-200 
r1 4 2 30 0 1,1,1 1 3 0,-200 
r1 4 2 30 0 1,2,1 1 4 0,-150 

This obscure list of numbers represents the act of hunting, the narrowing
of focus, filtering of information, locking in. The lines were tuned, each
in relation to the previous - in order to produce certain patterns. What
happens among the repeated entries (each beginning with r1) is paralleled
by the continuous internal mapping of savanna topography, searching for
game. It is one and the same; we were born reading the world - always
already rewriting - and born into dying, the world reads us.


___


Some Expert

y yes no no no no stoat Is it similar to a ferret? yes y y n n n n n
raccoon Does it wash its food before it eats yes y n y y y y y y n y y y
y n n n n n worm Does it burrow in the earth and mulch particulate
organic matter yes y y n n n n n n sheep Does it have wool yes


___


Pleasure, Labor


cd life cd fishing dir dir /w fish 1e22 2 1y11121211 2112211221121 3 4 1
C: 4 26 p shell sondheim xoxoha43 dddddpddd d rn yy yy;yyyqyunryy love,
Alanydd drny Thanks for this - I'm online several times every day - even
without trAce, that will continue... yours, Alanydddd v ddddp -dd ddixpppp
irn This is a great response. I also think the narrative elements need
tuning with the rest, or elimination possibly - but I like the shredding
of the text. The next pieces wioll buill build on this of course, they'll
be tighter. And naturally I'm really glad you came! love, Alan ys rny Yes,
re: qualifying the qualifiers; there are qualitative changes in standards/
typifications/expectations as size diminishes for examnple - there have to
be variations. This is also related to legacy systems in computers - the
presence of older artifacts among newer systems - often development occurs
along borderline/fringe areas, while kernels are left alone (not true in
linux of course!) -0 Alanydixn -rnn A stupid question = could you give the
conference /title of thread to me again - I've misplaced and searching's
difficult... thanks,Alanydixnnvv yq qy---i<<rnn Most odd that the full URL
isn't given and I was taken to a fascinating file, PANIXCACHE! surely on
this local machine... love, Alanyddqcd / ls wc PANIXCACHE tail PANIXCACHE
less PANIXCACHE /sondheim


___


are you there in the future

Mon Feb 28 18:19:50 EST 2000 hiding out as you tunnel beneath a beautiful
meadow, you smell the scent of moles, cross the eerie spaciousness of a
rabbit burrow you turn into tubes of earthworms, i am there, turning
topology with me, knots unraveling, coalescing no, you are many, there are
nematodes, rotifera, stentor, hidden in packets of lubrication, pulsing of
loose earth, slight scuttlings among root fibers, decaying leaves of
maple, oak desires one with the earth, planet, mulch, inhaling my fabric,
my broken veins, my mottled skin against your decaying flesh, amoeba,
rapture faces of full earth, dirt soaked with rootlets, larva slowly tumb-
ling in their nests, the wandering nearby a burrowed spider, my identity,
you are breathless, silent, cocoon-wrapped thing devoured by buried wasp
you turning within the cocoon, not thinking, fungal strands, slime mold
coalescence everything in your eyes, your mouth the speech of things
inhabiting gums, tongue, stumps and sockets of teeth turning against you,
i think it is you, is of you, are you there Mon Feb 28 18:26:42 EST 2000

________________________________________________________________________


at trAce, goal


it was a conceptual goal of mine to post as much as the next nine highest
posters combined and now, on the early morning of the last day of my resi-
dency, i was able to catch up, with 2545 posts. this is a massive amount
of writing, but to what end? what is the point of this goal, which can
only be an embarrassment in the long run, quantity replacing quality, just
as the internet text itself is swollen out of all comprehension? i do try
and reply to everyone on the board, encourage everyone, but there is some-
thing else, a goal to write and write continuously, to keep the nightmares
and demons at bay, to intensity my existence, to struggle with the letter,
struggle with the word, struggle with the phrase, until the whole becomes
a stream of language, a natural speaking, an encouragement, an argument,
an emotion, a subterfuge, a compensation, a recuperation. it is also an
index of labor, the labor of writing/typing in this space, in the space of
the trAce webboard, http://trace.ntu.ac.uk, where all 2500+ posts are
still online, in the midst of the writings of others, catalyzed by others,
and at times, a catalyst. as long as i speak and write, i am still alive;
as long as i think, i haven't stopped growing, my memory remains good, as
long as i can dance, i can dance with you, as long as i can live, i can
write myself into existence.

think of it as an obsession which on occasion gets the better of me, and
can be trying for azure as well - not so much a constancy in relation to
being on line, but one always turned towards writing, practicing music,
producing at least something every day - to the extent that my life gets
neglected, the insomnia rages, and i become difficult to live with, both
for her and for myself. there are times i need the crutch of community;
otherwise, there is nothing but this extended streaming. and is the meas-
urement masculine or size queen or aggressive - does it harbor violence at
the core, as well as cultivation? i honestly feel as if, during my entire
life, i have been accompanied by death, that every text will be my last,
that the last moment is the one that will color the rest, that there's no
time to lose. i exist on my own periphery, needing constant stimulation,
reminders, information, input - and output as well, scribbling my signa-
ture everywhere in the world, including the conferences at the trAce web-
site, as if art did somehow lie in quantity, as if repetition created and
extended an aesthetics, and as if that aesthetics were sufficient. 

nudging or jostling, to be sure i am still alive.

'it was karl kraus who said in the beginning there was no plagiarism but i
prefer in the beginning (i.e. already in the beginning) there was plag-
iarism... i may however have this backwards, attributing to kraus what i
myself have written, and to myself, karl's original, from which i've
plagiarised, unless i'm mistaken.'

perhaps it's another obsession, form of reaffirmation, duplicating 'the
fragility of all good things' (on the cusp of catastrophic errors in the
sense of catastrophe theory), creating redundancy, insisting on presence
and re-presentation. i think of the 'at trAce, goal' as signature or in-
scription, the self-overcoming of the inertia of the world, oddly a form
of nichirin buddhism without the nationalism, staving off the fleet of
sure-fire death - a hurricane of letters and words, typhoon of phrases,
texts.

there's something to be said for that, but very little, perhaps a form of
withdrawal.


__________________________________________________________________________



protolanguage (continuation)	

exit cd /usr/games ./adventure n d d look d e e e e s n n look w w look
building go building n s s w e d u w w w w w w w w w w s s s s s m n n n n
n n n n n w w look down enter building take lamp take food take water eat
food drink water drop bottle inventory light lantern look take keys exit
building look down down look slit down w w enter valley look down up w e e
e s s unlock grate with key lift grate look enter grate move grate enter w
take cage e w look w take rod say XY||Y XY||YZZY XYZZY XYZZY look up e w w
cage bird put bird in cage catch bird wave wand look w down w wave wand
cross bridge take diamonds cross bridge look cross bridge look cross
bridge look e up up down down wave wand inventory light lanterns look kill
snake e w down e down n s south jump hug snake open snake wave wand at
snake yes yes okay fine up up s s s n n n e e e e e e n w s quit yes


___


grep sondheim

sondheim p9 sondheim.dialup.  7:47PM     0 grep sondheim 
 8:12PM  up 62 days,  4:17, 26 users, load averages: 0.69, 0.62, 0.95
 8:12PM  up 24 days,  2:39, 25 users, load averages: 0.21, 0.71, 1.12
 8:13PM  up 12:24, 36 users, load averages: 1.12, 0.98, 1.12
f08cd5e4 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0 f0bb02c0
f084d5d0 stream      0      0        0        0        0        0
f084d340 stream      0      0        0        0        0        0
f0934218 stream      0      0        0        0        0        0
f0875d8c stream      0      0 fd1eda00        0        0        0
agent-socket-12224
f084db94 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0 f09ecdc0
f0875538 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0 f0951d80
f09349c8 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0 f08f5280
f083a1f4 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0 f0837e80
f0934694 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0 f0bbca40
f083aa48 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0 f0837340
f0838294 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0 f08335c0
f08380a8 stream      0      0 fd400640        0        0        0
/var/run/printer
f0810d74 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0 f0833040
f0810cd0 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0 f0813b80
f0875724 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0 f0ad5b00
f08100a4 stream      0      0 fd3a98ec        0        0        0
/var/run/ndc
f0810148 dgram       0      0        0 f0813d80        0        0
f0810000 dgram       0      0 fd3a2848        0 f0a0eec0        0
/var/run/log
sondheim p9 sondheim.dialup.  7:47PM     0 grep sondheim 


___


standing up inside

./quiz greek english asian country capital capital american country
capital province negative positive: eluswy alusi hallelujah I have loosed
I loose I do loose You loose Loose Peking Salonika Kuwait City Oman City
Amman Benares New Delhi Tokyo Phnom Phen Jakarta Formasa Formosa Manila Ho
Chi Minh City Saigon Dubai Lahore Singapore Beirut Malay City Damascus
Katmandu Jerusalem Seoul Iran City New Caledonia Bangkok Islamabad
Canberra Bahrein City Iraq City Burma City USA Chile Uruguay Colombia
Bahamas Canada Cuba Virgin Islands EL Salvador Guatamala Guatemala Puerto
Rico San Domingo Panama Jamaica Haiti Ecuador Venezulaala Venaualzuala
Paraguay Jamaica Mexzico Peru Nicaragua Brazil Argentina Yukon Yukon
Territory Saskathewan Canada Ontario P.E.I. Prince Edward Island P.E.I.
Newfoundland Nova Scotia Quebec British Columbia Sas ALberta Saskatchewan
Alberta Yukon Yukon Territory Newfoundland fast run old open lie down
sleep get down give hairy always up right covered sweet hard asleep buy
good beautiful big from backwards within smile dawn sharp bright after
happy empty big out boy plus wet rough above yin together top daytime on
hot floor thick dark light stop standing up inside near high

___



look, look


tf look dir bag* cd .. dir bag* exit look Bedei look Girl read Bedei
@examine Bedei exit view Bedei look look iBudi look iBedee look iBodee
look Bodei look iboy open iBoy take iBud take iBud from iBoy look iBud put
iBud in iBoy close iBoy look iGirl read iGirl @examine iGirl @list iGirl
@examine iGirl @list #972 @who look look #1 look Bodi @quit look lance
look skin look Tiffanyalan look you-know-language look nipples look
clitoral read clitoris look look anal open anal take hieroglyph look anal
open anal take hieroglpyph look anal open anal take hieroglyph from anal
look hieroglyph put hieroglyph in anal close anal look envelop take
envelope look fooo look nota bene enter envelope open envelope @entger
ener envelope @go envelope look foo look nota bene inventory home take
cloitoris put clitoris on envelope drop clitoris on envelope look clitoris
read clitoris take clitoral look clitrloral put clitoral on clitoris on
envelope put clitoral on clitoris drop clitoral on clitoris on envelope
look take nipples look nipples take aural look aural drop aural on
envelope drop nipples on aural look take skin eat skin @eat skin drop skin
on nipples @quit look look Lightnings "hello in this fallen world "is
anyone here in this fallen world "i am leaving this fallen world "i am
saying goodbye to this fallen world "i am saying goodbye to this fallen"

___


More on Protolanguage and Keystrokes


Labor: Keystrokes devolving into protolanguage, language of gesture -
these are the signs of occurrences. So that you are witness of animal
scurrying, organism responding to cue. Look, search, enter, continue. It
is difficult from outside (the labor, the keystroke) to comprehend the
mentality at work: riding the cue in silence or a quasi-determinative
approach to speech and phenomena. Consciousness muted. Impulse, the up-
welling of revolution in poetic language.

For the organism, there are bundles of associations; because of the re-
sponse nature of protolanguage, the texts are tied to occasions. There is
nothing to generalize - on the other hand, there are dual terms - those
derived from the imminence of the occasion ("iGirl" as in "look iGirl")
and those which derived from universals or control factors. The latter are
view in number: "look," "take," "put," "say," "go," while the former are
theoretically infinite. Even verbs may be imminent: "You may drink from
the cup of coffee" leading to "drink cup."

Categories slide into and through categories, metonymies through literal
strings and back again. The container for the thing contained, the speech
for the speaker, the sign for the cause. 

Or again: Think of keystrokes as diacritical marks to internal language
and thought, catalytic, potentials controlling behavior and semantics.
There is no distinction between typing "ls" for a directory listing and
"lass" in a Border poem; both are marks, demarcations, moments of finger
movement, the sound of keys clattering. Where is the machine when "ls" is
typed? Here, it is within an edit program - there, it is at a prompt.
"lass" may be a young girl here, and at the prompt, a misspelling for
"less," a text-reading program in unix or linux.

In any case, as I write repeatedly, it's the labor which is recorded, the
labor of the user, and the implicit response of the machine, generating or
resulting in further recording. One might think of "ls" as repetitive
directory listing, "e" as repetitive vowel striking - or "e" may be a
macro at a prompt or within a menu.

It is the repetition which is most evident, and what I can only call a
thwarted repetition at that, eliciting the horizon of substance, turning
towards quantity from quality. Even here, with this furious typing, it's
death which stalks the keyboard, never from within. The silence is never
noted.


___

cancer

This is the closeness of your other Thu Mar 2 21:56:33 EST 2000 Mach64:
Font cache: 0 fontsThu Mar 2 21:56:42 EST 2000 Debug: GameOverThu Mar 2
21:56:42 EST 2000 This is the distance of her disease Thu Mar 2 21:56:33
Mar 2 21:56:42 EST 2000 (--) Mach64: Pixmap cache: 0 256x256 slots, 0
128x128 slots, 0 64x64 slotsThu Mar 2 21:56:42 EST 2000 el: waiting for
windowmanagerThu Mar 2 21:56:42 EST 2000 KCharset: Wrong charset!Thu Mar 2
21:56:42 EST 2000 Debug: menu load not supportedThu Mar 2 21:56:42 EST
2000 Thu Mar 2 21:56:42 EST 2000 {k:104}GameOver bash: GameOver: command
not found {k:105}Debug: GameOver bash: Debug:: command not found {k:106}
Debug: GameOver bash: Debug:: command not found {k:107}Debug: GameOver
bash: Debug:: command not found {k:108}Debug: GameOver bash: Debug::
command not found {k:109}Debug: GameOver bash: Debug:: command not found
{k:110} {k:110}waiting for X server to shut down bash: waiting: command
not found {k:111}waiting:

___



polysyndeton

day and feels and like and sludge, and violence, and misery crawling and
walking, and despair, headaches, and from and migraine and to and left and
frontal and lobe and to and right and frontal and to and deep brain, and
things, and stones, and airs, and weathers, and hitting from and every-
where, and all and over, every and place, and every and time, and every
and single and time, and illness, depression, computer and crashes, and
computers and crashes, and financial and crises, and cities in uproars,
and suffering and death and everywhere. and who and can and tell and the
future and when and Armageddon, and Behemoth, and Siva, and Nikuko, and
Izanagi, and no and longer and appear? and I and shall complete and the
polysyndeton.

___



the lake


behind the road there is another road
sometimes you could see the shadows of the trees
  on the trees
in the summer the smell of the grass, the water
heat of boards on the dock, the boat
  never still
voices rising and falling
sound come forth from far across the water
sound come towards me, dim boat
  rocking hard beneath the surface
  where the voices are stilled

the lake, the lake

later, rising from the water, we'd, drowned,
  trees hearing us
dock boards drying in the sun
  no signs of our summers and deaths
dark boat rocking beneath the surface
  signs and omens rocking hard
  beneath the surface, the boat, road, us


___


being and time
 
you know who i are. you know what i have done to them. i'm talking to you,
i know what you mean. i know what they've done to us. you don't need to
name names. the lakes and the rivers have been taken away; our lives no
longer belong to us - they belong to them. in these dark times, we must
beware; we can't be too careful. the future won't be ours, unless we am
wary at all times. i must look behind my back, rather in front of my back
(applause); they're always sneaking up. they'll hack into my life. they'll
take away my wife and my children. they'll devour you. you want to give
myself to i but how can i, when they're watching? what can they see? what
am i doing? they're unreadable, unapproachable. their language, if they
have any. i know what i'm referring to. they make the very atmosphere
poisonous around here. you can't breathe near them - it's almost a scent
they have. they see the world differently, you'd be amazed how much. we
have to arm. they'll remain nameless here - that should tell i something.
if i don't think you know what i'm talking about, read the newspapers,
magazines - watch my television, radio - look and listen for the signs -
they're everywhere - it's written all over this world of ours - they've
probably taken it to other worlds - above the oceans, beneath the seas. i
can't go anywhere without running into them, they're controlling you.
watch my step - i know whose steps they really are. they own the cities
and the countryside; they're like vermin, you don't need to name names.
it's a shame what they're doing to us, taking everything away from us.
we've got to be careful here. it's our right to fight back, to protect
ourselves. you can't even tell i how long this has been going on, as long
as anyone's been around. there's a certain danger in the air. they'll
betray i at the blink of an eye - they're like viruses, just when i least
expect, like cancers, they invade from within - i know who you mean. watch
your back, that's all i can say. they're watching your back. (applause)
you know their name NOW Sat Mar  4 23:22:42 EST 2000
you knew their name THEN Sat Mar  4 23:22:52 EST 2000
you'll know their name IN THE FUTURE 
they've already STOLEN your FUTURE Sat Mar  4 23:23:11 EST 2000
they're REWRITING your PAST Sat Mar  4 23:23:20 EST 2000
they're around you RIGHT NOW Sat Mar  4 23:23:33 EST 2000
they've STOLEN your PAST Sat Mar  4 23:23:53 EST 2000
they're CHANGING your PRESENT Sat Mar  4 23:24:18 EST 2000
they're EVERYWHERE RIGHT NOW Sat Mar  4 23:24:27 EST 2000
Sat Mar  4 23:22:31 EST 2000 they've REWRITTEN your FUTURE 
they'll be EVERYWHERE IN THE FUTURE Sat Mar  4 23:24:34 EST 2000
they were EVERYWHERE in the PAST Sat Mar  4 23:24:49 EST 2000 
(applause)


___

prayer

shaved bodies are perfect bodies, fish through atmosphere, entering heaven
unblemished, the 'h' in heaven was not that word in that phrase, i do not
remember that phrase, help me heal in our comfort, in our agitation, in
our horizon where people and buildings topple, in our new and in our old,
my dead words have no comfort, no comfort now, there was a moment, i re-
member beginning with 'h' and i am sure of 'h' and the rest now gone,
tracked down in the churned valley, lost in dirt, devouring, last night i
lost a phrase, it had comforted me close to sleep, i slept crying, think-
ing of illness towards death, this phrase had the power to heal, please
help recover, last read word and understood, last read word and understood
Your miseries last things are above my hanged last things Your last_word
destroys my last things!

___


the lake ii


soaring, there is no weight to bodies, wings
 tethered inward, the air
 pressing nothing in the air
oh mother oh father in the clouds
 when i close my eyes you are nearest to me,
 when i press my fingers against my skull
 you are, in every shape of the world
oh mother oh father, when my eyes are open,
 you are spanned by emptiness, invisible,
 i call names in lakes and fields,
  there are no boundaries, borders, only
   marshes
oh mother oh father, wings hold nothing but wings
air holds air, water holds water
names hold nothing when my eyes are open
names hold everything, pressed against my skull

the lake, the lake



___


End-Using, Hacking, and Who shall Save Our World

zz template

I am an end-user on this machine. The screen, rectangular, running Windows
CE, remains in the guise of a wall; there is nothing behind it, nothing
but pure signifiers arraigned across a surface. You may be sure of this; I
have no knowledge of interiors, my own or my machines - but the quality of
surface is more than sufficient for thought.

It is this thought I espouse, disconnected, self-organizing, streaming in-
to language, stuttering forward. It is the thought, not of superstructure
nor sub-structure, but of contiguity or residue; it is the presence of
signs across dark matter, language at the end of time. The machine offers
itself to me in the form of processes, potentials, keyboard strokes; all
occurrences are equivalent, all motion concatenated, coupled, the result
of ordinary effort in everyday life.

An end-user, I see the machine, this machine, as closure or foreclosure,
cutting across the mechanisms of production, working out of mystifica-
tion, towards an uncanny semantics. I'm thinking to myself here, the
screen passively recording everything, the applications placed within the
most comfortable and safe potential wells imaginable. This is the appli-
ance model of computers - there is nothing beyond or beside the end-user,
no hacking community, no interiorities or internal rearrangements. Every-
thing that I use is always already pre-given, adjusted through jostling, a
guest at the table employing proper etiquette.

With the end-user, it is always a matter of etiquette, a user whose ends
are met and determined by others, a degree of politeness, the case
remaining on the machine, the screen and thought intact. For the end-user,
there is no ontological jump between thought and language, subjectivity
and inscription; effortlessly, they feed into each other. This is a world
with genre, coherent diegesis, a world without diacritical marks, a world
which needs no guidance.

The end-user is death, energy flooding established channels. The world may
be disavowed or destroyed - worlds may be created, but the tool remains a
tool precisely because it is invisible, part and parcel of everyday life,
neither a question nor an answer. Think of the neutrality of the real, and
you have the mundane portrait of the end-user, the only conceivable port-
rait, greyed-out, invisible as well, just as all mediations are invisible,
the permanency of the real.

There is no discrimination, no bandwidth, no tolerance. There is no prob-
lematic: this describes the exterior. From within, no within, surfaces and
that greyness. From without, nothing as well. The end-user is part of the
deepest transparency, without refraction; nothing passes on the periphery.
This is also a matter of the vacuum, the vacuum of matter, inhaling.

You will say, but what of the end-user's knowledge, all that shape-riding.
I will reply, shape-riding without ontology is empty; the therapeutic has
no bearings in epistemology. For what is the extension of an arm, if what
is grasped mirrors one's own face? Better to have kept hands carefully at
one's side, better to have prepared for the defense of knowledge than the
mining of viral entries. What lies beneath the surface can only undermine
discourse; a virus never replies.

They will say, but the machines are silent and running. I will reply,
silent, running leaves no trace; the path is difficult; without trace
there is only loss; with loss, there is the loss of trace itself. For the
path puts pressure on the ground; the Ground becomes a Source of trans-
mission; there are always other grounds, other Paths. They will say, they
do not follow me, and I will reply, they cannot, for they have lost the
way and the path, they have lost the protocols and programs, they have
lost the roots and the loam. They will say, you speak in metaphor, and I
will not reply, I will be beneath them and I will always be beneath them.

The end-users stalk and run the earth; the end-users see the ends of
things, teleologies, purposes; the end-users see white buildings,
perfection, lawns and roadways; the end-users see paths and games and
deals to be made. For I say unto them, it is not the hackers, but the
end-users who ravage this old world of ours - it is the end-users who
package it and declare the insignia of crimes and criminologies. Yea, I
will say unto them, and it is the hackers who comprehend ontologies, move
among the realms and Realms; it is the hackers who save the realms for
yet another day; it is the hackers who understand the false etiquette of
proper naming, proper namings; it is hacking which shall save the day.

The end-users are tall and stalwart, and they walk the earth where mill-
ions find the beginnings and ends of things.

Others know as well the absence of beginnings, continuous withdrawal,
incursions of the real. Still others know the absence of ends, broken
continuity, the masquerade of bricolage, shape-riding of a different
order, the unknown and unknowing truths of endlessness. Yea, they neither
walk nor ride, neither fly through the air or swim within the sea; they
are the force and form of presencing, they move interstitially, they are
one with dark and darker matter. For the end;-user shall never know them;
blinded, the end-user controls the vast holdings of the real.

On this machine, I am end-user; on this machine, blinded, I write this
text; on this machine, I hint at secret knowledge; on this machine, thou
art beside me. Knowing what I do not know, I forsake absence for the
thickness of text; I betray my own kind, cast into the shadows; I am lost
in the shadows; I have gained nothing.

For those who know the rest, and all rest of the endings and absence of
endings, know also, I have gained nothing by this ...

___



the sun blasts stars out of the sky
out of the sky
its light violates all creation
the stars look over death
look over death 
they hide behind the sun
they rock back and forth 
and there are roads and fields
and there are meadows and cities
and invisible stars, swaying,
mourning the death of each and every
creature

and that is the first sign, the knowledge,
and there is the second sign, rocking
back and forth, all constellations swaying,
pictures of worlds swaying,
symbols and language, swaying,
and you can't read what was written
can't say who spoke what, where, and when,
and you can't speak for that matter,
that cold matter, against our ghosts,
that cold dissolution, the limits of what
bodies do, in turmoil, despair,
against the rocking of the sky

hidden by the sun,
the rocking of the sky


___


we are driven by procreation
we are driven by the image of death
sometimes the drives form turbulence
the turbulence is in the guise of culture
culture takes off on its own
we follow as if we are in control
we believe we are the creators
the world self-organizes around us
we give a name to desire which is all names
we give a name to procreation which is desire
every day we bypass death in every way
every letter and every word is an inscription
every gesture resonates as if it mattered
oh poor men and women driven to destroy
oh poor men and women driven to self-destruction
we are born into the depths of neutral territory
we are born across vast reservoirs of dark matter
we are born between ages of ice and nuclear plasma
we are born of and around the catastrophe
we exist on a plateau of imminence
we mistake the plateau for immanence
we mistake immanence for the surety of death
we mistaken imminence for the hysteria of desire
oh poor men and women oh oh oh 
oh poor men and women oh oh oh 

___

YEARS bucket AGO, bucket I bucket WAS bucket ASKED bucket THUSLY, bucket
DO bucket YOU bucket HAVE bucket ANY bucket STORIES bucket ABOUT bucket A
bucket CERTAIN OBJECT bucket THAT bucket WILL bucket REMAIN bucket
NAMELESS, bucket AN bucket OBJECT bucket THAT bucket IS bucket OFTEN
bucket USED bucket FOR bucket DRAWING WATER bucket FROM bucket A bucket
WELL. bucket I bucket REMEMBERED bucket THE bucket SONG bucket ABOUT
bucket THE bucket OLD bucket OAKEN bucket OBJECT, bucket AND THE bucket
PHRASE, bucket SHE bucket KICKED bucket THE bucket OBJECT bucket CAME
bucket TO bucket MIND. bucket SOMEDAY, bucket SOMETIME, bucket I bucket
WILL KNOW bucket MORE bucket NO bucket MORE; bucket NOW, bucket I bucket
JUST bucket WANT bucket TO bucket DRAW bucket THAT bucket WATER, bucket
FROM bucket THAT bucket KICKED OBJECT
	

___


The Three Lamps


A circuit may be opened by a switch, breaking the loop from power source
to equipment. In this case, we consider the circuit deliberately opened. A
circuit may also be in the process of construction, in which case we say,
this circuit has never been closed. A circuit may be accidently opened by
virtue of a frayed wire, or a blown fuse, or a loose connection, or a
loose contact. A circuit may also be open by virtue of a burned-out fila-
ment or resistor. What defines a circuit? A circuit is a closed loop with
a power source. What defines an open circuit? An open circuit is a power
source with a broken loop. A broken loop is equivalent to a line segment
running through a power source. Consider a power source placed in a room.
Then an open circuit is defined by the potential of that power source in
relation to all the closures which may be enacted within the room (wires,
knives, antennas, curtain rods, and so forth). Consider the open circuit
defined beyond the room. Then the open circuit is defined by the potential
of any metallic or other objects in the vicinity or elsewhere which may or
may not have the ability to close the circuit. Consider a battery on a
planet. Then the planet is an open circuit in relation to the battery,
unless the battery is part of a closed circuit; even in that case, one may
consider a series of parallel circuits, with the closed circuit one of
many loops, in fact the only loop which is defined definitively in rela-
tionship to the battery. Consider this loop as a defining characteristic
of the battery, in such a manner that one might say "door-bell," "televi-
sion," "washing-machine." Then one might say that such a defining charact-
eristic has a proper name as a component, that name being one among many,
just as a blackbird can be defined as "not-door-bell," "not-radio." Con-
sider that there is a measurable potential between the battery and its
open circuitry with the metallic and other things on the planet, but there
is no measurable potential between one and another proper name, except to
indicate that any proper name will serve as well as any other, providing
it is slotted into similar characteristics, which one may call natural
kinds in possible worlds. Consider a planet of potentials and power sour-
ces, a planet of fields and nodes, and consider these fields and nodes
varying continuously and discontinuously over time. Then one might say
that the circuitry of the planet is mobile, transforming, and perhaps cap-
able of carrying information in the very adjustments that are made within
it.

"To locate the open with the ohmmeter, you would first open the knife
switch to remove the voltage source, since an ohmmeter must never be used
on a circuit with the power connected. Then touch the ohmmeter test leads
across each unit in the circuit - the three lamps in this case. You would
see that for two of the lamps, the ohmmeter indicates a resistance of ab-
out 4 ohms; but for the loosened lamp, the ohmmeter indicates _infinity._
Since an open does not allow any current to flow, _its resistance must be
infinite._" (Van Van Valkenburgh, Nooger & Neville, Inc., Basic
Electricity, Revised Edition.)


___


kludges in the real


finally the work was completed, the cmos system changed to disk format 1,
the system rebooted, tracking the keys once again. i downloaded the zip
files to dos, uploaded them to unix, unzipped them with long file names,
downloaded them to dos, configured wince from the cab files, opened the
application on wince. i added the returns to the tracking file, uploaded
it to unix, justified the results, took out the upper ascii symbols, re-
justified the results. i downloaded the application, installed it into
its own directory in dos, opened it in windows 98, ran it as a tsr or
daemon. i opened up linux, went to the /dos/ directory, went to slackware
linux from phat linux, went to /dos/root, and copied the files across to
/root/ and then rebooted into dos and removed slackware linux with del-
tree, then booted into phat linux and ran the legacy slackware applica-
tions. nothing is interoperable, everything transforms through filters,
everything requires translators. on the periphery one can distinguish one
operating system from another; on the margins, the real appears slightly
broken, as if it were the residue of imports, constituted by kludges, just
about fixed and running.


___


the hidden code in my all work exit b m d qm qcd /usr/games ls pom ./pom
rot 13 ./rot13 less rot13 qcp rot13 |/ cd pico r0t13 pico rot13  y
nrm rot13 y pico rot /usr/games/caesar 13 $* cd /usr/games tail rot13
cd chmod 777 rot ./rot rotating in extreme convolutions of planetary
orbits ebgngvat va rkgerzr pbaibyhgvbaf bs cynargnel beovgf excellent!
rkpryyrag! b m dqm d -rn - once with one of my books someone wrote me
that it was like his mind was talking to him.ydl dqls exit you have now
met the hidden code in my all work. nyna nyna

___



     and rocking in the water
     in the midst of the waters
     i see your hull above me
     i see your wake above me

          \___|__/

     i see your arms below me
     i see your face below me
     in the midst of the waters
     and rocking in the water
     





     naq ebpxvat va gur jngre
     va gur zvqfg bs gur jngref
     v frr lbhe uhyy nobir zr
     v frr lbhe jnxr nobir zr
           ______
          /   |  \

     v frr lbhe nezf orybj zr
     v frr lbhe snpr orybj zr
     va gur zvqfg bs gur jngref
     naq ebpxvat va gur jngre




___


the lake iii


on the surface, rocking, the withholding
from the threshold, grain
beneath, rocking, slow diurnals,
frisson above, rubbed raw of air and water

of salt, metallic elements,
gas held in abeyance, of slew,
turbulence, of transparency, swollen,
of suspension, tepidity

faces which appear at times of thunder,
times of terror, submerged eyes, mouths
hearing restless bodies rocking, diurnals,
smoothed skins, shunting through waters

suspensions, shuntings, metaphysics of being,
foreclosing softly, inner and outer bloods


___


                             an angel shrieks
                                the blooms
                      fractions of nothing, fractions




    soft vowels, moments
     purees, gels hours
       tongue, mouths
     soft hours, purees
          tongue
      sweet sickness
       prunes, hour


__


when a soul dies, it becomes dark matter .;.
we are in this world as ghosts, believing otherwise .;.
it is all the reverse; death grounds us .;.
we become heavier when we die .;.
we join the world of true matter .;.
we hurtle through our former selves .;.
we hear nothing but whispers .;.
death is always before death, unrecognized .;.
life is later, obdurate, inert, thick .;.
not spirits, but the thickness of dark matter .;.
particles huge, jostling, enormous heavy bodies .;.

we shall be frisson-dark-matter, weighed down with gravitation
and particles, we shall be bound to life, not to this death we
are in, this death-appear-as-light-life, floating ghosts we are
now, bring this message, death is prior to life, birth later .;.


___


Martha Graham for Foofwa d'Imobilite


My name is Martha Graham.
I'm the best dancer ever!
If you don't like me, you don't like dance!
Watch this! My feel stay on the floor!
Now I look anguished and no expression!
Everything I do is a real breakthrough!
Watch it girlie, I told you move from the waist!
I said waist, not waste! Forget your anus!
We're never going to eat again!
Angular! Angular!
My name is Martha Graham and I'm better than you!
I didn't start dancing until I was forty-nine!
Horst plays terrific music for me!
The Group dances beautifully for me!
I dance better than they do!
They need me! They need me!
Calm down! Calm down!
Okay, we're going down on the floor, let's go!
We're going to do everything all over again!
We'll call this dance "Open Border"!
This is the best method ever!
In the middle of the stage, a Transition!
Everything to the left, these American states!
Everything to the right, sweet Oriental suppleness!
Watch me! Watch me!
I'm going to stand up, I'm fierce, my blood is hot!
You can see me from my head to my toes, I'm moving!
I'm moving across the border, here I go!
Here I go, I'm intense, amazing!
Now I move from the waist, but wait, watch my legs!
Whatever happened to my breasts!
It doesn't matter what my weight is!
My fingers carry motion across the room and universe!
I said "brain," not "brain," listen to me!
My dress is made for supple movement!
Who are my audience!
I jolt, stagger! Jump! hurdle! Watch my neck!
Here go my arms! I have no expression!
Curtains! Curtains! Here we go!
Here I go!


___


  transom
  over, unthrough
  ceilinged, thinned
  through, 
  glance yellowwhite



    moaning, saying hi,
    hi alan, moaning,
    tiled backward, walls
    with blue ceiling,
    saying hi, sleeping,
    moaning, nietzsche's
    final words, mother's


___



stories about death

death is absolutely neutral & one is fated to die & death can come at any
time & death is completely random & death is the absolute end & there is
nothing beyond death & there is no good way to die & all deaths are equi-
valent & all deaths end the same & death kills ghosts & death has no
excuses & death has no morals & death has no ethics & death is existence &
one cannot prepare for death & all life occurs in life & death is always
invisible & life is a withdrawal & death has no movement & death kills
worlds & death has no place in the universe & death is universal & death
devours death & death is neither subject nor object & death is always
tired & death leaves a trail & death leaves a trace & death is traceless &
there is no history after death & death is final & death has no stories &
death is always absent & there is no death & there is no passage & death
is not brutal & death is inconceivable & death has no attributes &


___


phenomenology of cancer

revolution of the body & dispersions, nomadicisms & deregulation economies
& descent of time & noise within decoupling systems & chemotherapy univer-
sals & radiation and imminence & 'periodically, throughout the year, the
volunteers host parties in the unit to celebrate holidays & patients &
families are encouraged to participate in these events' & neutrality of
intent & into the thing & bewilderment, withdrawal, 'i will give you up' &
punishment of the body, pummeling & 'you can always feel free to call the
unit at any time' & feeding the cancer, nourishing the cancer & not-eating
& not-drinking & patches & morphine & shutting down & knowing it's time to
go & what is there within me &  what is there beside me & i am talking to
the other


___
-

(i find myself saying)

hi hi hi hi hi (recognition) oh boy oh boy oh boy (pain) sit down sit down
(space) aaaaaaaaa (pain) ___________ (morphine) alan (recognition) hi hi
hi (recognition) what what what (reflex) lousy (condition of leg) ________  
________ ________ (beginning the dying process)

(plateau)
hi hi hi hi hi (recognition) oh boy oh boy oh boy (pain) sit down sit down
(space) aaaaaaaaa (pain) ___________ (morphine) alan (recognition) hi hi
hi (recognition) what what what (reflex) lousy (condition of leg) ________
________ ________ (beginning the dying process)  

(plateau)
hi hi hi hi hi (recognition) oh boy oh boy oh boy (pain) sit down sit down
(space) aaaaaaaaa (pain) ___________ (morphine) alan (recognition) hi hi
hi (recognition) what what what (reflex) lousy (condition of leg) ________
________ ________ (beginning the dying process)  

(mother) ________ ________ ________

(mother) I find myself saying (recognition)


--


phenomenology of cancer

revolution of the body pnapre dispersions, nomadicisms pnapre deregulation
economies pnapre descent of time pnapre noise within decoupling systems
pnapre chemotherapy universals pnapre radiation and imminence pnapre
'periodically, throughout the year, the volunteers host parties in the
unit to celebrate holidays pnapre patients pnapre families are encouraged
to participate in these events' pnapre neutrality of intent pnapre into
the thing pnapre bewilderment, withdrawal, 'i will give you up' pnapre
punishment of the body, pummeling pnapre 'you can always feel free to call
the unit at any time' pnapre feeding the cancer, nourishing the cancer
pnapre not-eating pnapre not-drinking pnapre patches pnapre morphine
pnapre shutting down pnapre knowing it's time to go pnapre what is there
within me pnapre what is there beside me pnapre i am talking to the other

eribyhgvba bs gur obql cancer qvfcrefvbaf, abznqvpvfzf cancer qrerthyngvba
rpbabzvrf cancer qrfprag bs gvzr cancer abvfr jvguva qrpbhcyvat flfgrzf
cancer purzbgurencl havirefnyf cancer enqvngvba naq vzzvarapr cancer
'crevbqvpnyyl, guebhtubhg gur lrne, gur ibyhagrref ubfg cnegvrf va gur
havg gb pryroengr ubyvqnlf cancer cngvragf cancer snzvyvrf ner rapbhentrq
gb cnegvpvcngr va gurfr riragf' cancer arhgenyvgl bs vagrag cancer vagb
gur guvat cancer orjvyqrezrag, jvguqenjny, 'v jvyy tvir lbh hc' cancer
chavfuzrag bs gur obql, chzzryvat cancer 'lbh pna nyjnlf srry serr gb pnyy
gur havg ng nal gvzr' cancer srrqvat gur pnapre, abhevfuvat gur pnapre
cancer abg-rngvat cancer abg-qevaxvat cancer cngpurf cancer zbecuvar
cancer fuhggvat qbja cancer xabjvat vg'f gvzr gb tb cancer jung vf gurer
jvguva zr cancer jung vf gurer orfvqr zr cancer v nz gnyxvat gb gur bgure

___



"the word"


tomorrow i will try and say a word to our mother in the hospice.
i will say mother and i will say i love you and i will worry that
waking will bring on pain once again, and that not waking will
shunt the paste of world and death somehere fearful and unknown

today i did try to say a word and there was no answer and i did
try her name and mother and i did say i love you and i did not
wonder for whom i was talking with and she will live perhaps just
a day or two more and i did hear her breathing

when she does sleep i do feel she will wake up and leave all of
us behind and be in perfection. she does look like she will do
just that and it will be another story. she does sleep and sleep
and is past all dreaming. she is just there and i do say mother 
and i will hear nothing and she does breathe and is not a thing


___


i carry the subnotebook computer everywhere these days
inside it are organized worlds, i write into them
outside, my mother is dying within the next several hours
outside, we hear things, breathing crashing through dying lungs
 tidal waves, tsunami
inside, the nurse can't find the pulse, the breathing crashes
 and continues to crash, crash, crash

oh what to do but run my fingers through her hair, outside
kiss her forehead, outside

among insides and outsides, worlds teeter
 among the permanency of worlds


__