- TwinWorlds Beautiful Kyoto-MOO was reset with a core, MOO-1.8.0p3/, open to gates at port 8888; alas, there were certain functions... such as the +enter editor that would not work with confusion. As I have said. I opened a second MOO, with an older core: Beautiful Kyoto-MOO was reset with a core, MOO-1.7.9p2/, open to gates at port 7777; and all functions, as before, worked beautifully. As I have said, I exported the database, a.db over to Beautiful Kyoto-MOO #8, with all its heartbreak and pathos. Uneasy doubles, these are twin-worlds, with the same pains, labor, and anxiety, with different behaviors on a number of functions, but with the same overall structures. They carry the same ghosts, the same scarred functions and borrowings from other MOOs; they carry the same dead letters and welcome messages. The logs are different, begin and increasingly di- verge. The logs and what else happens, the history upon history, the doubling or layering that creates cracks, splits, increasingly convoluted, chaotic. Oh #8 is a lonely MOO, #7 gathering attention for the beauty of hir inter- ior and smoothly flowing processes. It's as if... from this moment on... I am already in a process of uncanny mourning - _uncanny,_ because of the doubling and all the issues (genetic, mirror-stage, chiral, eternal-re- turn, etc.), that twin-worlds imply. And a process of _mourning,_ because of the loneliness of #8, faltering, slightly awkward with its additional tracebacks and confusions, running alone, almost totally isolated, its newly-granted history pristine and stillborn. There's no solution to any of this - I am distraught... ___________________________________________________________________________ - Kids It was absolutely gorgeous today. In fact I've never seen anything like it. I knew for the first time that I was finally over Margaret, that nothing she could do would ever hurt me. I laughed all the way to the bank, and it seemed as if the world laughed with me. You can't be too careful nowadays! Still, there was this gnawing thought: what if it _wasn't_ Bill at the cafe that day - what if everything we've believed in turned out to be a horrible joke? You could tell he had a heart of gold by his prickly exterior; the kids used to call him "Pops." One day she just about lost it. But my lover was perfect and we'd talk late into the night, take long walks, and cuddle together under the sheets. I never felt so comfortable in my life, in spite of the fact I had a million things to do! You've got to have a hearty meal to start a happy day! For breakfast, I always make sure to have food from the four basic groups, Nowadays, the kids are hard to get away from the computer. Sex isn't all that it's cooked up to be, but you never know until you try. This weather's making me turn to thoughts of love! Things were different back when I was a kid. The world was simpler then; you know, the kids nowadays listen to that strange music and they grow up with the computer. You know, they take the computer for granted, not like when we grew up. You couldn't take the kids for granted then! My dad was born before the invention of the hand-ax! You'd have to pull the trees down with all your might! Mom wore an apron. You should have seen the four of us huddled around a cozy fire. There's nothing like that nowadays, you can be sure. Nowadays, kids get all their firewood from the computer! _________________________________________________________________________ - Net sex - rough outline of material in Internet Text - (I've been thinking about net sex, Net sex, net.sex, "third sex," again and wrote the following outline which I'll use for part of a panel at a narrativity conference coming up. I thought it might be of interest here.) 1 language loses its linguistic in net sex 2 self/other/self returns to other/self/other 3 ravishment is the unraveling of language; 4 thus your desire is spoken _by the other_ 5 the masochist language returning to substance with orgasm: hhhhhhhhhhh 6 thus hhhhhhhhhhhhh becomes meaning's annihilation, gesture 7 if _you_ disappear in real sex, _your_ disappears in cybersex 8 the _your_ becoming the mouth or speech of the other 9 third sex is skinned sex, the mouthing of the body, its equivalences scattered among interpenetrated writings 10 once you find out you don't know who you are you can't return to the security of knowledge whatever 11 third sex as the writing of the unconscious (who possesses it?) 12 inscription of the body by the other: cuts and sutures 13 the inscription by the other is the fissure of the one (subject) 14 the _your_: what you would and what you wouldn't have said 15 that the imaginary is more real than the real - because the unconscious seduces - you're always more real than I am 16 it is the _continuous rewrite_ of the body 17 shaved body - you slide the _your_ into me 18 what you _say,_ is; what I say, opens a space, opens _me_ 19 without me saying, you saying, _there is no me_ 20 net sex as transference, _listening-to_ 20a analyst out of site, _neither here nor there_ 20b I am languaged into hir presence, languaging as the totality of my presence 20c: "The analysis must aim at the passage of true speech, joining the subject to an other subject, on the other side of the wall of language. That is the final relation of the subject to a genuine Other, to the Other who gives the answer one doesn't expect, which defines the terminal point of the analysis." (Jacques Lacan, The Seminar Book II) 20d always the potential of termination/effacement in third sex 20e therefore I beg you to let me _in,_ i.e. to _let me _be._ 21 I tell you everything, _the truth_: this is all that I have to offer. 22 I am rewritten into a covenant with you. 23: archaic fantasies: "The appearance of disturbing fantasies or of a stream of archaic images leads the patient to the edge of subjective destructuration. He then takes refuge in love for the analyst in order to avoid crossing the borders of psychosis. But this hostile love is not only a protection; it can become the index of the regressive situation into which the patient has now entered, a state of primitive fusion and confusion. The analyst who then clings to his role as the analyzer of neurosis is then playing the game of the patient, who speaks of love in order not to confront the limits of existence, which are life and death. The patient gives the appearance of enjoying the realm of sexualized existence, but that is only to avoid approaching his own loss. At this stage, two possibilities are open to him: to make the analyst abandon his reserve, so that he becomes one individual among others, or to force him to become even more impenetrable, to harden his role as the receiver and transmitter of discourse." (Francois Roustang, psychoanalysis never lets go) 24 in third sex, we are all patients, accompanied by inescapable fantasms 25 this is the uncanny of the body under rewrite, the ascii unconscious 26 you rearrange my organs, I return inchoate matter 27 (Roustang) "One must give extended attention to the most archaic if one is to have a chance to get out of it;" 28 _shape-riding_ as the dream of transference, stuttering of being, half-presences, absences, Hittite formations... 29 _always_ in this space: whose speaking, whose voice? 30 reflectances, transferences: what _matter_ 31 blinds and decoys, tracings or protean trajectories equivalent to their convoluted and opened spaces 32 surfaces of desire: the trembling becomes too intense to type 33 there is ultimately no source to the language, no sink; it continues inchoate, nondescript, babbling ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Banned from IRC Netsex before Opening My Mouth, Joining Sex into the Flooded Substance of Names Changing Forever (Language-Blood, Language- Cum) E/X netsex

*** #netsex :Sorry, cannot join channel. (Banned from channel) /j sex

#sex E/X *** Alan (sondheim@panix3.panix.com) has joined channel #sex*** Topic for #sex: Please state your name, age, birthday, and credit card number as you enter the c*** Topic for #sex set by Zem on Apr 13 22:44:53*** Users on #sex: Alan MDMA ViLeStyLe playboy The^Thief Nirav all-stR n2deep e}HKm}k-2 ovkc_]JD| Q4cds3g H4 xNN`zQ_Ll WdvbOqV7{ bDZcWkBE[ TM5NA|WF8 b_{a75x\b YoeyI}k5F f7VRsvw4_ WjrEJlZvw E{F_u2LVn DJw{KQozK X76DNoxEM Cex-^]nE{ V8ohW6Q8y SJFDz94O^ dep_v0r}Z xYpv`FCia h]a0aP1G] cszr\BwWQ galmesma TgHnjr\Oo Up\`IH_N1 B3Ns`v2rX fFva9pdz9 ^qiR1Tj2x ldAU 0iLY] lIllllIlI uooZeVU8H SiHWszmth k|lis0QyJ yGdL_Nmj4 IlIIIlIll JXF\bMdaA oc{AjP6IR IVG]p]X`4 BO`b0Z[T| D-Mmk3kXM w00h007 w00h008 *** Users on #sex: w00h006 w00h005 NC95{4GSL r0\AQZ^Nl CRE4]xcfb CoOr5vXjJ RuENneIIP vZelj__DT IIIllIIII wBX6exJa- lIIllIIIl lllIllIll eh{0P`kLQ ayC]j\TqW R6-fV\Exn lIlIIIIIl lllIIIIlI e\p{bSCk8 iyd\pADEu r3ZpY6f91 f[VBzU2{I w00h009 AbDJ3{NEt DR[M8cURT y1E3wnV|a llIIIlIII w00h0024 {8T8MYoHX }dKXMkzDj a{UnSFG|W hNn]tV|vA qgwoS7|tE Wh8v`87ci DXSU6b}Z^ NK^^D XAj1 ThzcBwI4p yLhh`x3GX PURPLhaze joyous lora_ h0rST BomB Spacey TQR hua savana romio sluffy WiLdGiRl generatio wonder Ritchie *** Users on #sex: purpley Ribit kurtboy Dana sharkey chunta Bob RawHide HarryFLA luciana BIGman lily6 bigmike32 Luv manu ela Mick27 mangan19_ Pooh_Bear Sleeper marcc Ann-Marie frustr8ed Enjolras Cliven implosion refer jason21 janie Mark- astrocree Giffy142 jlw brown_sug sirknight jade michele1 Well-Hung Anders TX-MAN axiom_ mehigh wantafuck juice000 toolmanx @Mo rtician Poo-Tang @KiCKToY jay_1 @BOThole Alissa pussy @PixSlave @BaM-BaM MaiNa- im4u (+nst) E/X *** lIllllIlI has been kicked off channel #sex by PixSlave (Get the hell out nick-flooding lamer!!!)*** llIIIlIII is now known a s EUIG6lqwp*** qgwoS7|tE is now known as lllllIIIl*** DXSU6b}Z^ is now known as bDzeE0wSz*** ThzcBwI4p is now known as VZW|5-x^`*** yLhh`x3GX is now known as atdC7C\li*** wBX6exJa- is now known as g-h4Owb|W*** g-h4Owb|W is now known as _I-_KhhS1*** _I-_Kh hS1 is now known as lIIIIIIlI*** lIIIIIIlI is now known as vxg{_L]hA*** vxg{_L]hA is now known as _Mfb-j[b1*** k|lis0QyJ is now known as lllIIIIIl*** yGdL_Nmj4 is now known as Jga]E|L^g*** JXF\bMdaA is now known as ]`VFo8MM6*** D-Mmk3kXM is now known as Y Q1{dxvNV*** r0\AQZ^Nl is now known as dBLtO}oz-*** IIIllIIII is now known as B24a7{ht8*** lIIllIIIl is now known as huLHXxCUK*** lllIllIll is now known as }UeMu}|1{*** eh{0P`kLQ is now known as lllIlIIlI*** ayC]j\TqW is now known as IlllIlIll*** R6-fV\Exn is now known as IIIllllII*** lIlIIIIIl is now known as pdjOgOYn_*** lllIIIIlI is now known as L`}u6pUAp*** e\p{bSCk8 is now known as r_^jPjCra*** iyd\pADEu is now known as llIlIIlII*** r3ZpY6f91 is now known as IlIIIlIII*** f[VBzU2{I is now known as lIll lIIlI*** AbDJ3{NEt is now known as llIIlIlIl*** {8T8MYoHX is now known as KSS8f[Z_P*** }dKXMkzDj is now known as q]Ik`|3sX*** TgHnjr\Oo is now known as eubFes\3l*** fFva9pdz9 is now known as lIlllIIll*** Wh8v`87ci is now known as nx\8lklNc*** NK^^DXAj1 is now known as t12nhHU[V*** SiHWszmth is now known as lV2|\^Ia}*** IlIIIlIll is now known as Fsmz-q{oi*** oc{AjP6IR is now known as EtYr1}Ttn*** IVG]p]X`4 is now known as IIllllIII*** BO`b0Z[T| is now known as AjVIr5Yu3*** NC95{4GSL is now known as GS\uUnd qs*** CRE4]xcfb is now known as Vl}C7ojqw*** CoOr5vXjJ is now known as llIIIIIlI*** RuENneIIP is now known as pnp]6n0}N*** vZelj__DT is now known as rJsdttoB^*** _Mfb-j[b1 is now known as GqfJ00Vzj*** w00h006 is now known as XBr5x\czO*** EUIG6lqwp is now known as _vD|[ke2A*** lllllIIIl is now known as HFUL}4K{N*** bDzeE0wSz is now known as QO^7a9{VK*** VZW|5-x^` is now known as lIIlIIlll*** atdC7C\li is now known *** Signoff: Alan (I'm outta here!)k:30> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- - The Band: Bang! Bang! I will try again. I am sure these people will like me, want to become friends with me. After all, I can't be banned from Net sex forever, can I? I have so much to offer, a beautiful nakedness overwhelming me with tears for what they are about to see! irc *** Connecting to port 6667 of server irc.colorado.edu*** Closing Link: sondheim[panix3.panix.com] (No more connections. Try +irc-2.texas.net or irc1.cerf.net)*** Connection closed from irc.colorado.edu *** Connecting to port 6667 of server irc.colorado.edu*** Closing Link: sondheim[panix3.panix.com] (No more connections. Try +irc-2.texas.net or irc1.cerf.net) *** Connection closed from irc.colorado.edu *** Unable to connect to server irc.colorado.edu *** Connecting to port 6667 of server irc.neosoft.com*** Welcome to the Internet Relay Network sondheim[1] 14:30 sondheim * type /help for help `--------------------------------------------------------'[E/X] There are 173 operators online*** 6199 channels have been formed*** This server has 196 clients and 1 servers connected*** Highest connection count: 358 (357 clients)*** Mode change "+is" for user sondheim by sond- heim(+is) \|/ PhoEniX v2.25 \|/ *** Alan : Nickname is already in use.*** You have specified an illegal nickname*** Please enter your nicknameNick- name: A ClaraClara (+is) \|/ PhoEniX v2.25 \|/

/j #netsex

#netsex \|/ PhoEniX v2.25 \|/ *** Clara (sondheim@panix3.panix.com) has joined channel #netsex*** Topic for #netsex: Mud 204.95.95.7 4000 Cum one Cum All: Ah ah, made it! And then silence, everyone staring at me. Oh! I am so em- barrassed! They know everything to be sure. I cannot tell you how much they know. I have walked in naked, full of happiness! They are waiting for me, and it is a pleasure in how much they wait! I queried each and every one of them, "pretending" to be busy. I was never so busy! It was a rare "Clara-moment" and I have been possessed! Each "Clara-moment" is a possession and a delight! They are lined up in my memory, so many trophies! I will remember them my entire life, and return to them for many happy hours, when all I have left are "fond" memories. I must tell you, I hope the same for you! These are fond delights! ___________________________________________________________________________ - Zero, Flooded Ms. Keyboard writes the texts, and Mr. Cloud fogs the screen. Mr. Clear cleans it up, and Ms. Keyboard writes the texts again. When I am on IRC, I am in an enormous funnel; query /msg comes across as lateral extension across the lips. When I am on MOO, I'm in a basin, lips turned up on the horizon. Zero plus zero times zero times as many times zero, a comfort to compre- hend this expanding and collapsing structure. As in Whitehead, these are processes, operations; dividing by annihilation produces the world. Ms. Keyboard sings the songs, and Mr. Throat mouths them. Mr. Song is sung. The womb fills with text; page appears as thin thread, mucous, across the lips. When I'm on IRC, the hypnotic of the words body-arched mimics that of feed-forward talker talk pouring down the throat. On ytalk it's like this, see? Ms. Ytalk cuts the screen, seeps in below. Mr. Me scribbles but it's really Mr. Cloud. Mr. Clear visits Ms. Keyboard on IRC. Zero times Mr. Song slides into Mr. MOO's funnel. And Mr. MOO is Mr. MOO. __________________________________________________________________________ Makefile I had to move the haven, the Nuts talker, and Lily conference MOO, and the MOO from Linux to Solaris today. I am totally stressed out, watching Nuts and haven refuse to generate a.out - and why should they?, and Lily simply being obdurate and confused upon either make or ./restart. The MOO wouldn't run either but I knew better and downloaded another MOO core from ye old Xerox site. Since I never know what I'm doing, I go for the latest core as long as it's not alpha or something that will blow up in my face. So now I got the new core combined with the old database; I'm not sure the unwieldy thing (MOOs always seem unwieldy) is checkpointing. I close my eyes and .out, .h, .c, and .o dance around me like CLAWS subtracted from deformed lobsters (there's a museum of such things in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia); I'm distraught over absolutely nothing. So I get into the MOO finally, as Sotatsu the Origin of all Bad Things - did you know in fact that I can change your programming? So it goes, but it gets the better of me; when I try the internal email list, *Online, or email itself, going to the editor in the +expert +enter mode (or any other), the editor spews help commands, runs like a Yugo in a Mississippi flood, and generally leads me to @abort before I get to write the two terrific words to myself I'd been memorizing all day. Then there's the home command, to take you back to your @digs; for me, it's a Yurt with bones and a mewling human among other things. But zing! There's a traceback tracing back my actions in code whenever I type it - more screen nonsense in fact. I did note, however, that my emootions, which were added to Kayo's player-class, are all there, baroque and won- derous for the eye, loving to the ears as well - and is there a difference here? (Which leads to a stupid question: When I read, the words "sound out" in me; what happens with someone born deaf?) There's no point to this text except the one that interior and exterior not only refer to flesh, but also to software and hardware, and the two intermixed with the former. Watching compiling of a large program is like watching the actions of the autonomic systems in relation to, say, the intention of walking, everything distributed among subsets. Now the sub- sets extend within and without the environment, interpenetrated. But again I'd stress (stress appears a lot in this post) that this isn't cyborg so much as flesh introverted; cyborg dreams (which I rarely if ever have) are a long way off, problematic, and hardened with the crust of violated eco- systems, labor, and cultures themselves. >>> gcc and I'm a.out of here! <<< __________________________________________________________________________ Kyoto-LUGAL If I die, may I die in one of the twin cities of Kyoto! May I die in that forlorn one, that of corrupt transmissions, emptied, of bots and people! tak-ku LU _EL-LAM_ MUS- an ku- en- zi da- me-e- el- la _SUM_ an te- iz- zi 1 MA.NA.KU.BABBAR pa-a- i tak-ku IR- sa a-pa-a-as-pit a- ki: If a free man kills a snake and speaks another's name, he gives a pound of silver; if a slave does that one, he's killed! I wander the halls of the One, knowing the Other is full of laughter. I am from the URU of Kyoto, the KUR of Kyoto; I am DINGIR there. My bots are no longer my own; taking _upu_ runes, I have refused quota to myself, harboring the bytes of a poor man! Goat. Goat. Goat. Goat. Goat. If I die, may the Yurt of Kyoto greet me! May the mewling human, squeezed, flood Kyoto with bones and cauldron! Hieroglyphs! Twin Worlds torn apart at the base! Death in one, multitudes in the other! (I dream of the multitudes! I swarm among them, alas, only in my dreams!) If I die, may I die in one of the twin cities of Kyoto! _________________________________________________________________________ More outlining on a talk about net-sex coming up - By "imaginary": pre-Oedipal, inchoate, pre-Symbolic. By "symbolic": readable/writable, placed within a well-defined framework/structure. 1 Mandeville and others developed an imaginary in regions negated by bodies (i.e. no reports coming in). 2 The imaginary becomes filled/fulfilled with narrative, projections and introjections; the symbolic dominates. The he/she/it. (Presence of the mathematics of grotesquerie: structure steps in where the imaginary fears to tread.) 3 On the Internet, if I don't speak I'm not present. 4 In Net sex, if I don't speak, I'm spoken-for; my existence is in your hands. My desire is spoken-by the other. (Resemblance to phone sex.) [My body is your control. My body is cut and sutured, cumming returning it _as if it were_ mine.] 5 In Net sex, the symbolic tends towards the imaginary which dominates: one develops a symbolic in regions negated by bodies. 6 The symbolic narrativizes, projects and introjects; the imaginary dominates. The I/eye. 7 In Net sex, language turns towards substance with cumming: hhhhh... 8 Net sex is the wryting of the unconscious. On the Net, hysteric embodi- ment complements disembodiment and the presence of terminal-bodies. 9 Net sex shares with the therapeutic and the emergence of archaic fanta- sies as the self is destructured. 10 Physiology of arousal, of cumming, of typing, of trembling, of wet hands and fingers: the real returns as well. 11 It is all sourceless, machinic, but it is _not_ cyborg, only prosthetic flesh in emergence. _________________________________________________________________________ Can't Bang In, Can't Bang Out: Pup takes Revenge [addresses etc. changed] *** Mode change "+m" on channel #netsex by Pup *** _Zebbo_ (abcdef@lingo.ab.oswald.edu) has joined channel #netsex *** Mode change "+b *!*abcdef@*.oswald.edu" on channel #netsex by Pup *** _Zebbo_ has been kicked off channel #Netsex by Pup (git outta here lameass!) *** Mode change "+i+k fuckyou" on channel #netsex by Pup *** Chunky has been kicked off channel #Netsex by Pup ((*!*@*) .) *** Courier has been kicked off channel #Netsex by Pup ((*!*@*) .) *** DonJuan has been kicked off channel #Netsex by Pup ((*!*@*) .) *** Tweeker has been kicked off channel #Netsex by Pup ((*!*@*) .) *** b0r3d has been kicked off channel #Netsex by Pup ((*!*@*) .) *** rpenguin has been kicked off channel #Netsex by Pup ((*!*@*) .) *** sanclara has been kicked off channel #Netsex by Pup ((*!*@*) .) *** Mode change "-bbbb *!*abcdef@*.oswald.edu *!*hijkl@*.pipeline.com *!*lingo@*.iit.edu *!bingo@*.sunysb.edu" on channel #netsex by Pup [E/X] The time is now 07:00PM. *** Mode change "-bb *!*thingo@*.zynet.com *!*@*.netcom.com" on channel #netsex by Pup [E/X] BAN ON YOU DETECTED. By: Pup *** Mode change "+b *!*sondheim@*.panix.com" on channel #netsex by Pup *** You have been kicked off channel #Netsex by Pup (git outta here lameass!) *** #Netsex :Sorry, cannot join channel. (Banned from channel) *** #Netsex :Sorry, cannot join channel. (Banned from channel) ____________________________________________________________________________ [note: the following is fiction, based on netsplit on #sex; I was queried.] We Have Lost One Another alan..u see it too?? all over the fucking place, netsex, romance, they're empty all the channels that are usually packed are empty..all of them... we're split Alan..do u have the answers we're looking for? beauty, PANIC ? are WE the split ones? Yes, beauty, we are... Alan (+is) #sex (+nst) Lag ? - E/X 1 - E/X ..yes..everything will be ok.. Alan: this 'split' happened to me in the past, what is it? Yes, it happens later, we will rejoin... the others... We have lost all the channel operators, no ops... alas... We are lost without a decent topic... Travis, have you noticed anything weird... Then we're cut off from the rest, from everything? There will be a Return... NO ONE HAS OPS HERE... Calm down! What do u want me to do? Just TELL ME! HELP HELP! The other channels - they're empty! Empty! EMPTY! EMPTY! It's ALL RIGHT! router... router down... #sex is empty, #romance, #truth, #netsex, #philosophy... They're all empty; they've always been empty... I was on once, then I was... alone... empty... empty... [E/X]irc.usa.pipeline.com)*** You have been rejected by server irc.usa.pipeline.com [E/X] Connection closed. Autoconnecting to irc-2.mit.edu [E/X] Connection closed. Autoconnecting to irc-2.mit.edu [E/X] Connection closed. Autoconnecting to irc-2.mit.edu *** Connecting to port 6667 of server irc-2.mit.edu(A) #sex (+nst) M:1 Lag 1 - E/X *** Connected to port 6667 of server irc-2.mit.edu Current global users: 190 Max: 22971 (sondheim@panix3.panix.com) has joined channel #sex*** Mode change "+is" for user Alan by Alan *** Connected to port 6667 of server irc-2.mit.edu #sex M:1 Lag 1 - E/X [E/X] Netsplit detected at 12:55 am: (irc-2.mit.edu irc.usa.pipeline.com) [E/X] Type /wholeft to see who split away. split again, another split Pipeline's gone, pipeline's gone down... like losing limbs... I am a foreigner... I am all alone... We are never all right, we never will be... We are all foreigners here... ______________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- b4:// -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Time Within every civilization, the irreality of time figures and configures specific cultural content, drawn from it with all the resolute tragedy of foreknowledge. What can be grasped takes itself to grasp it, as if the wetness of water were defined solely by presence as content slipped through the fingers. Further, there is no _comparison_ to time, which remains obdurate; there is nothing similar. Our graphs and postulations of cyclicity for example are only transliterations from hieroglyphic to entirely different ontological realms. Our _sense_ of time, beyond the necessity of setting circadian and seasonal rhythms, is useless; the very fact that death comes in upon one has little survival value beyond a degree of hysteria. Time functions as spatial distribution of a continuous emission of plas- ma; it overshadows and corrupts. Within time, urban existence becomes a moment of temporary encampment, and Biblical injunctions about futility hold as much sway as ever. It is this, the metaphysics of time, its im- permeability, that proves obdurate to sufficient degree - research can only elucidate the mechanisms of its operation, its unicity within the manifold of the cosmos - and go no further. We're buried in it. So that it is time that is critical in our asking the question, still: Why is there being rather than nothing - a question that _takes time_ in the asking, that remains present and presences, no more and no less. "No more and no less," ending the essay, none-the-less turn towards that further issue of _quantity_ which requires time for its measurement - what is _fit_ may be that which goes unnoticed, that which forms itself as par- tial, particulate, part-object, within totality. Time is _the_ only total- ity, in _fact,_ as humans are occurrences within it, and as it defines or permeates occurrence. There is the further issue of time-travel, but this is still, even were it possible (and I think not, but a literal dream of eternity), movement along a vector, not a skittering elsewhere. We cannot imagine an _elsewhere,_ outside of time and crystalline; it is problematic that we imagine time itself - which may, in our phenomenological horizon, be nothing but an extrapolation of the to-do in daily life. Finally, note how cyborg-dreams, digital dreams, machinic-dreams, are little more in a certain sense than attempts to render time unconscious, beyond the pale; they promise the premise of eternity in their own forms of corruption... [A note, that time altogether, within a different unraveling, is no un- raveling whatsoever, only a flaw in thought...] _________________________________________________________________________ - Tar: The Coupling There's always the glut of compression, cvf closing the carapace, xvf opening the flower. There's the darkness of the opening, blocks released into the atmosphere of the home account, more branches on the tree de- scending from the root, hung upside-down in the Unix sky. tvf gives pre- view; I discovered it's _always_ necessary to give the paths of descent, even if tar and .tar are cuddled adjacent to one another within the same directory. What's clear is the _grinding_ of compression, tar working its way in the verbose mode, turning modalities of behavior, ecstasy, knowledge, into equivalent _stuff,_ the _matter_ of binaries, inscriptions scratched mom- entarily on the surface of a neutron star. Tendrils expand; it's a matter of electronic traffic. Tar is one of a number of programs; it actually doesn't compress so much as append, concatenate, bundle - it's left to the others to complete the job. But why complete? Tar carries worlds within it, huddled together, splines in the matter of speech. Zipping the files, among other techni- ques, shuts them up, closes them down. The expansion of tar is amazing, as files are released, thrown into di- rectories that accompany them: the sudden appearance of a limb or bush- attachment. Moving from the Linux machine to Solaris, the whole account went into everything.tar, 30 megabytes in size, thrown across the lines without loss. Ah, thus to draw the moral about the compression or concatenation of our lives, huddled themselves beneath the sign of the singularity so far of the body, no matter how distributed, and the proper name, no matter how morphed. The future is pure liquidity, liquid-flesh, bone hung next to bone next to tissue, organelle, everything conflated. I close my eyes and conflation already rings in as the order of the day; I open them, and the file is completed, hungered, ready for operation. _________________________________________________________________________ MASS: #hole::*** You have specified an illegal nickname *** Please enter your nicknameWhy can't you leave me alone. Nickname: Clara> *** You have specified an illegal nickname *** Please enter your nicknameWhy can't you let me be. /nick Clara> *** Clara Nickname is already in use. *** You have specified an illegal nicknameWhy can't my name be proper. *** Please enter your nicknameWhy do you cut my flesh *so* Nickname: / Clara araClaara > /j msg options you on? /j #hole> on #hole #hole> *** ClaaraDo you really care (sondheim@netcom.netcom.com) has joined channel #hole *** Topic for #hole: I can't steal your hole. hi claara hey - > hey -#hole> /leave #hole#hole> *** Claara has left channel #hole *** ClaaraYou don't really care. (sondheim@netcom.netcom.com) has joined channel #c**kc**t *** Users on #c**kc**t: @Claara @Claara on #c**kc**toooh > oooh#c**kc**t> /nick Allan#c**kc**t> Allan on #c**kc**t *** Claara is now known as Allanoooh > oooh#c**kc**t> Claara... > Claara...#c**t**k> /nick Claara#c**t**k> Claara on #c**t**k *** Allan is now known as Claaraoooh > oooh#c**t**k> Allan... > Allan...#c**t**k> /leave #c**kc**t#c**t**k>leave Alan!*** Claara has left channel #c**kc**tClaara > > Claara has given up. Claara can't fuck Alan again. Claara can't even spell. If I were Claara I'd give up too. +b O Claara banned from Channel #Alan /quitClaara has quit #AlanLeave Alan!! _________________________________________________________________________ - Someone with a Name or Like a Name All I want to do is reach you. I pace nervously up and down, tender the telephone, hope for an answer. Dry rings return me to the Internet, back into email; you've ceased to correspond with me, you've dropped me. I can't face this, try to read, play Tetris on the computer, half-heartedly pay attention to the cat desperate for attention. I'm alone with animals and I will die with animals. The phone is forced into ringing once again at an unknown location; I imagine a shuffling sound - you're checking caller ID in fact - and the sound grows faint as you walk the other di- rection. It's the middle of the night but it's earlier where you are, it's much later where you are. The relationship to earth's circulation: we ponder each other's schizzoid existence, tethered by text, language, and occasional mail-drops. The fact that you have sealed the envelope with a kiss, with tears, with signs of joy, means absolutely nothing; it is a form of packet, arriving in the midst of others, but it holds me as well within the confinement of _vigil_ and dreadful hope. All I want to do is reach you, explain everything. You're never avail- able; Unixtalk has been down, your MOO character has been @recycled and your objects rudely taken away from you; I don't find you queried on IRC and as I hunt the world of storm, I fear for your safety and my own. In these realms of text and degradation, I have no assurance that you have not at last, finally, _succumbed,_ either to disease or temptation - the same in fact - and I consider this over and over again. The telephone has a _different_ ring at your end; has it been replaced? My hunger knows no bounds; I will leave the building this 2 am in the morning, find food at the bodega down on Dean near the police station. There are whole realms of danger on the way, but it is also a form of salvation - isolated from the telephone and computer, I will no longer await your call, calling, what passes for a searching in the midst of the dark Virgilian forest. I am elegaic. I pace the floor, sit naked on the bed reading Siva, read- ing in fact Victoria Alexander, Smoking Hopes, woman in full masquerade or this telling sentence inside the back cover: "In 1993, the tabloid press featured the unconventional college instructor who worked part time as a stripper and hostess in order to collect material for her novels." Her husband took the author's photograph on the cover - Alexander, nude, from the back, standing in the vicinity of a brick wall, loft, artworld ambi- ance. I wonder who owns the copyright. There are computers and computers here, five keyboards, not including two for sound, various pieces of video equipment, some cameras for photo- graphy. Everything waits for me to make a move. I return to the screen, log in, you're not around - emptiness carried on the trade winds, plane- tary circulations. Nothing is a part of nothing. Eyes, ears, text which falls somewhere in between. across the room, a cursor blinks on and off against a black screen. Waiting for Clara is waiting for Godot; both have symbolized nothing if not the wound, and both are fictional, momentary lapses into the real. Godot is guaranteed by the proscenium itself, the staging over and over of the event in the theater; Clara appears every time I begin to write, hold to my uneasy dreams, turn clothed in violation fabric. Clara has long since ceased to be anyone but herself; memories of Margaret fade, replaced by certain forms of resonance, certain scenes I reconstruct again and again, having nothing to do with love - the atomic cannon I saw that I shouldn't have, confessions of a certain spy, the tenor of the poets' house, the night I was told my ex-girlfriend had tried to kill herself, someone anonymous going cold turkey in the car. There are more, there will always be more, but the phone and email also are emptied of all content, all meaning, at this hour of the morning. Net relationships collapse for me; they're all distanced, at least over an interval of 500 miles that for me is senseless. More than ever, through cyberspace I'm ironically aware of the sheer _measure_ of the earth it- self, the sheer _incompressibility_ of a meter, kilometer, mile, half-mil- lennium of miles. The earth never _gives;_ walking, even in New York, I'm constantly aware that I am on _the surface of a planet._ The idea, con- cept, of distant loving is for me, by its very nature, violent, violating, and yet. And yet I wait for the phone to ring, for fictional Clara's email to arrive, for that sudden hurried and plaintive request for ytalk, for the unexpected paging on the MOO. It is hope _given_ a proper name, that of Clara (Hielo Internet): It is hopeless _without_ the name, and I'm con- vinced as well, once and for all, that the name no longer exists, that it's been left, dragged behind, that there is no presence for the pre- sent, that nothing's passed for the past. I am in fact more _certain than ever_ that the very sound of the phone _at both ends_ is different, in need of radical reconstruction - that I'm slowly moving out of focus, like Kafka, as the world recedes. I walk over to the cursor, enter cyber- space for one last time this evening, as long as I can hold out - knowing for certain that nothing has changed... _I walk over to the cursor._ ___________________________________________________________________________ - Writing Mass At the exhibition of Chinese art at the Metropolitan at four or five in the afternoon - the scroll that attracted the most attention was colorful, filled with battle scenes, marching soldiers, horses - what I'm trying to say, filling this space itself, is that there was/is a horror vacua at work here, as in Pascal, as has been pointed out, as is evident, as if: that it were a particular Western response that sends vectors out into the world, that the response was conditioned as well by the void evident in, say, the Sung paintings or Ma Yuan - that these works were considerably less attended, so that when for example one considers that community arises in _any_ technological niche in which communication is possible, or that when for example one in addition insists that capital locates itself within each and every such niche, then for example one has discerned in relation to the Chinese exhibition a characteristic of the Occident, this necessity of fulfillment - no wonder Mary were a virgin, sutured shut, held taut, in which the void is encased _and by virtue of that transformed into a void,_ which is the void from which the Chinese exhibition is real- ized for Western subjectivity, a return therefore to content and color, a return therefore to the _display_ or _spectacle_ of that particular scroll, a return therefore to the illustrative itself, careful delinea- tion, at the exhibition of Chinese art at the Metropolitan at four or five in the afternoon. _________________________________________________________________________ - None You don't know who I am, do you? Do you know what I tell you, what I say? Have you ever seen me? After all my texts on virtuality, after all my analyses, you still don't get it, do you? It hasn't even occurred to you, for example - it hasn't crossed your mind. Would that it were "Alan," would that it were "Clara." Would that it were a circulation or confabulation, simulacrum or imaginary. But would that it were "Alan" or "Clara" for you, would that you would have learned some- thing by now. But you don't know me, you don't even know of me, and so you don't get it, do you? There is less and less to say as there is less and less of a return. How could you return or return to me when you're clueless, when you're on the wrong track, when the trail is cold, if there ever were one? You wouldn't know that much, you wouldn't know anything, not knowing me, not knowing, after all this time, _just who exactly I am._ __________________________________________________________________________ - Two Quotes 1. "More than half of all black males between twenty-five and thirty-four are jobless or 'underemployed.' Other social indices are equally discour- aging: In 1993, 2.3 million black men were sent to jail or prison while 23,000 received a college diploma--a ratio of a hundred to one. (The ratio for whites was six to one.) And the plight of the black poor is even more alarming if you look not just at household earnings but at assets. The poorest fifth of whites have a median net worth of ten thousand dollars; the median net worth of their black counterparts is...zero." (Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in Gates and West, The Future of the Race) 2. ... "cyberspace, which is merely a literal expression of the situation of the individual in contemporary society, and more specifically of busi- ness people and their camp followers (from engineers to intellectuals) spinning universalizing fantasies out of their desire to ride the next commercial wave. This wondrous but specious technology threatens to act as another curtain between those who consume it and the condition of the world: as the poor are excluded from cyberspace, and will appear on it only as objects, never as subjects with their own voices, there is a danger that they recede even further from the consciousness of the comfor- table. As the real world is left to decline, the air once again becomes full of phantoms, this time digital, promising at the last moment to pluck utopia from apocalypse." (Julian Stallabrass, Gargantua, Manufactured Mass Culture.) 2(1), 1(2) ___________________________________________________________________________ - Plant In first version, I do go and yell "Stupid stupid plants!" That is sufficient for first version. In second version, I do go and yell, wait for reply from plant. That is sufficient for second version. I do think there is plant that writes this plant. That is sufficient for third version. Stupid stupid plants! -----------------------------------------| "It's always tough being an only" (Annie Lennox in Lucy O'Brien, Annie Lennox, Sweet Dreams Are Made of This) plant. ______________________________________________________________________ - Drunk That I would not send out _this_ post on top of the others, that it would be _held_ cradled in my arms, that I'd drink my fill of wine, that it would _hold_ me cradled in its arms - that there is a _dispersion_ necessary of these my tits, that they remain mine for an instant, that moment, interstitial until release, Heideggerian releasement: O Texts to wait upon you! - something of that sort - what (now that I am forsworn with drink) now (again or doubled) is that of the necessity to compre- hend - is their _gristle_ torn from _this_ body, arms and legs ravaged down to the bone of it - that otherwise I'm left with psychosis (no one can save me), violation fabric, torn fabric - that _this_ post therefore has to be timed, _take its own time,_ extending my sanity (problematic, what would pass for this or any other?) the instant of its passing - once out (removed) it's abject, gone, frayed and dissolute - (coffee now get- ting the better of me, I would swear to this, you would require this, I would give you, you would take from me, I would open for you, you would fill me, I would beg you, you would proffer me) (wine wine wine) - The drunken rhyme insecure transforms the tower - Transmission clothed in desire drowned, disarmed As if my eyes could focus, gaze, or glower Into abject and/or Real, yet I've charmed It, cut it, fucked it, my strength deflowered By overwhelming odds - you know I'm harmed "down to the bone of it," waiting for the "time of it," extending text into the liminal vastness of future space: I'm not there! I never have been there! My head's cut off! (Keys don't work!) _________________________________________________________________________ - Natyasastra-Davila Material The Natyasastra of Bharata-Muni written several centuries b.c.e. consti- tutes a locus of thinking about avatars, net sex, and the like. It is a lengthy treatise on dramaturgy, as applied in particular to the Sanskrit plays of the period. It develops a theory based on _rasa,_ sentiments, and places emphasis on both what I call "hysteric embodiment" elsewhere, and a kind of psychological resonance. It's the exact opposite of Grotowski and/ or method acting - the actor transmits particular characteristics to evoke other and/or similar ones in the spectator. To quote from the introduction in the Ghosh translation: "But it is a different matter when a cultivated spectator witnesses the Durable Psychological State of the Hero of a play reproduced on the stage by an able actor. Here the relevant representation of the Durable Psychological State acts as a stimulus in evoking in the spectator a verisimilitude of such a Psychological State, which is then called a Sentiment. The Sentiment being a vicarious experience does not affect him in any other way; and bringing in its wake a spiritual freedom, it may be said to purify his soul." [...] "To illustrate this, let us take the case of the Pathetic Sentiment. It is the Durable Psychological State of sorrow that can evoke this. How does this State grow? It grows from an affliction under a curse, separation from dear ones [...]. Now all such things are called _vibhavas_ (lit. causes of _bhavas_) or Determinants. But this is not enough for our appreciation of the Durable Psychological States. For the spectators must witness this reproduced on the stage. This means that the effects of all these _vibhavas_ or Determinants upon the Hero or Heroine should be made manifest through acting. As a natural con- sequence of the _vibhavas_ or Determinants the characters concerned would shed tears, lament, change their colour, or show drooping limbs, etc. And these being the effect of the Durable Psychological States (_bhava_) are called _anubhavas_ (sequel to _bhavas_) or Consequents." "The Complemen- tary Psychological States (_vyabbicari-bhava_)" [...] Thus there are several semiotics at work, the actor constructing specific actions in relation to Determinants, etc. There is always a complex pro- cess of interpretation occurring (outlined in the treatise with numerous examples), and the construct within the spectator is not _the construc- tion of the spectator_ as contemporary theory might have it, but a pro- cess of _reading_ the textual levels portrayed in order to arrive at an empathetic comprehension of the play. It is interesting to note similar operations at work in the paintings of Juan Davila (Chilean, living in Australia), particularly the work banned in the Sydney Biennale in the early 80s, "Stupid as a Painter." The work consists of numerous pop figures portrayed against a bleak monochrome New York landscape; the figures are painted in various pop art styles which "owe" to particular painters, whose names are also given. They're painted in violent and abject poses - the result is a queer-theoretical analysis of colonialism and the "Americanization" of Australia. (Davila was a mem- ber of a Lacan circle in South America.) Here too, the subject/viewer of the painting isn't "constructed," but resonates and actively constructs through the reading of various layers of (inter)textuality. Now in net sex, there is always a construct depending on the releasement of the subject, the willingness of the subject to participate. This will- ingness allows the introjection, through textual interaction, of psycho- sexual states, an introjection that is also projection - in other words, -jectivity, language and the _action_ of language thrown into a mutually interpenetrating channel. From the channel (Unixtalk, etc.), language _falls out_ in both directions; the beginning of acting transforms into action that is less and less as-if, and more and more preconscious. So hysteric embodiment, the reading through the text of the body of the Other, becomes auto-embodiment, the reading of the self through the text of the body of the other, and it's here that the inchoate residue of the unconscious makes itself felt, beyond the symbolic constituted by the theory of _rasa,_ which is nevertheless the occasion for it. __________________________________________________________________________ - Return to Bang! Bang! Tonight myself and two of the speakers at the Tuesday night conference were attacked on *Chatter, an email list on PMC2-MOO. The attack was per- sonal and the poster chose to log in as guest, giving no name. I find this cowardly, just as, on a highly escalated level, a drive-by shooting is cowardly. There is no recourse, no basis given for the vituperation. I was tempted to repost the attack (which was short, and to the (blunted and misdirected) point), but figured not to give more ammunition, create more damage. The idea of "damage" is absurd of course, since nothing is done but name- calling. But name-calling is all there is, all that can occur, in a space which is solely a text-based environment. Of course it can escalate as well to hacking, toading, deleting, aborting, killing, all those words implicating, mutilating the _physical_ body in real _material_ life... I'm too tired to follow through with this, "where this would go," but the questions it raises are worth thinking about - How many of you have been attacked this way within the environment of the MOO or email list (on IRC or newsgroup - or for that matter WorldsChat - it's much more common)? How many of you have, yourselves, attacked anonymously? Does anonymity necessarily create an environment for greater aggression? What I've seen on the MOO and elsewhere, are tendencies towards over-de- termination, over-investment, and anger whenever the socius is disturbed. And perhaps the conference is a disturbance, with certain people speaking in real life, the rest remaining virtual? As if such an extrusion, cut- ting-off or away, couldn't be tolerated... (By the way I've been called one of the "Power Elite" there, in spite of the fact I can't program, log in timorously, and only spend time either trying to be responsible to the quota review board, or writing/reading on the various email lists. So I think, this is a question of _power._ But what sort of power, to what end? As if _maintaining_ were automatically a form of corruption. I sit down, corrected.) ________________________________________________________________________ Computer/Stage/Netsex/Natyasastra82-88: On seeing it Brahma said to the rest of gods, "You ought to co-operate in the protection of the playhouse in its several parts [and of the objects relating to dramatic performance]: Candra (the moon-god) to protect the main building; the Lokapalas (guardians of the worlds) its sides, the Maruts its four corners, Varuna the space [within the building], Mitra the tiring room, Agni the stage, clouds the musical instruments, deities of four Colour-groups the pillars, the Adityas and the Rudras the space bet- ween the pillars, the Bhutas (spirits) the railing [of seats = _dharani_], the Apsarasas its rooms, the Yaksinis the entire house, the ocean-god the ground, Yama the door, the two Naga kings (Ananta and Vasuki) the two blades of the door (dvarapatra), the Rod of Yama the door-frame, [Sivas'] Pike the top of the door. Computer/Stage/Netsex/Natyasastra88-93: Niyati and Yama (_mrtyu_) were made two door-keepers, and the great Indra himself stayed by the side of the stage. In the Mattavarani was placed Lightning which was capable of killing Daityas, and the protection of its pillars was entrusted to the very strong Bhutas, Yaksas Pisacas and Guhya- kas. In the Jarjara was posted Thunder (vajra) the destroyer of Daityas, and in its sections (_parva_) were stationed the best and powerful gods. In the topmost section was placed Brahma, in the second Siva, in the third Visnu, in the fourth Kartikeya and in the fifth great Nagas such as Sesa, Vasuki and Taksaka." Computer/Stage/Netsex/Natyasastra111: [Brahma speaking.] The drama as I have devised, is a mimicry of actions and conducts of people, which is rich in various emotions and which depicts different situations. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- - How it Started and Stopped! Then Rosa argued: "Pol Pot the Right Hegelian fought Rosa! And Hegel was convinced!!" i.e. of the error of his ways! Marcuse said: "Pol Pot the Left Hegelian disavowed Hegel......" He did imprison in 1905 beneath the bourgeoisie. Lefebvre the Correct killed Stalin. Thus Stalin would have been killed by Lefebvre the Correct since Stalin fought Stalin. So argued Mao! Adorno the Heated argued on the International that had been deserted. Ho had been a woman of the people! They were the One who fought Mao! Lefebvre the Fascist killed Hegel. Hegel died of wrong-doings on a head-quarters. Thus Hegel was killed by Lefebvre the Fascist but Horkeimer required Hegel. So proved conclusively Brecht! [Later] Hegel was deviating... And Stalin's gun's peasant's rule travelled by the laborer. Sakharov the Right argued from the countryside. Ho had been disavowed!! Solzhenitsyn the Poor convinced Lukacs. Thus Lukacs had been killed by Solzhenitsyn the Poor but Brecht required Lukacs. So proved conclusively Mao! Marcuse the Poor assassinated Adorno. Thus Adorno had been killed by Marcuse the Poor and Stalin punished Adorno. So argued Horkeimer! [apparently this goes on...] __________________________________________________________________________ Conference We're going in and out of conference mode. Adriana Garriga has been work- ing on setting up a #conference channel on IRC. We're also going to have a presence as you know on PMC2. I may change my space to "conference" with instructions in lieu of description, usable either to accommodate new- comers to MOOS and/or send MOOers onto IRC with redirected instructions. There's no "good" way to do any of this, I think. There's no "good" way to represent Internet except for Internet. I haven't seen any truly successful exhibitions, for example - the interiority of the Net, what one _experiences_ on-line, is always missing. At the conference we're going to attempt to change text to sound, interactive - it's the _sound_ of the Net, in fact, a false or simulacrum-sound, that _speaks_ within one, since the Net, even Net text, is speech of sorts, if nothing more than Vygotsky's inner speech. (When you write to me, you speak to me. When you speak to me, you wryte me. The world is encompassed by inscription circumscribing the world; desire fissures the remainder which seeps into the w/hole. That is the way of the world.) (What is parenthetical is always whispered, annotated, a measure of some- thing _always meant to be._ An aside, it is taken for the armature of the other. It's the aside that gives the play away, the demarcation of the audience, re: Natyasastra.) [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Pain A book I don't recommend for the horror of it, Peter Sotos, Total Abuse, Collected Writings 1984-85, which is a cult text (thanks to his magazine Pure, described in Parfrey's Apocalypse Culture) - raises very troubling questions about left-wing right-wing, and about the very nature of the avant-garde in relation to transgression. For the book is brutally trans- gressive, stuff beyond nightmares; I won't describe the content here and I don't suggest you seek it out. It is on the far side of rape, violence, mayhem against men, women, children, races, religions. It portends to a veracity that Sade was nowhere near, but it's Sadean in other aspects. If the avant-garde is problematized in numerous ways today (even in terms of its existence or non-existence), transgressive phenomena - on one hand the work of Karen Finley and on the other, that of G. G.. Allin - play a major role - look at the Cinema of Transgression itself. When does trans- gression become a matter, not only of criminality, but also of brutality, destruction - when does it no longer simply shock the bourgeoisie, but also eviscerate them? I think the notion of boundary has to be re-examined - what's interesting (and here I'm making a plea for my own work, partic- ularly video), is that violent and/or sexual transgression is acceptable, but abjection and discomfort are not - my tapes have made audiences who are used to, say, Richard Kern, extremely uneasy. But it is beyond Kern and myself that I am speaking (or rather perhaps in a third direction entirely), thinking through say the magazines Answer Me or Pure, and what they represent, and how they articulate - just what - in the culture. The issue of left-wing right-wing is trivial in regard to them, but the issue of the body and _whose body_ is paramount. I find it troubling that a lot of this work doesn't problematize its own representation of violence (in the way, for example, that Ron Tavel or Charles Ludlum did with the Theater of the Ridiculous - or take Ubu Roi). So there are questions: where to _situate_ the work, how to respond to it, engage or, more to the point, disengage its politics. It's a barrier, an unraveling of the cul- ture. It's fearful and represents, I think, the intensification of local and unreadable psychoses, although it's often taken for the lineaments of gratified desire, perhaps one and the same, perhaps male as well. _________________________________________________________________________ Apropos: "Let me put it to you again: nobody dies, but everybody is assassinated!" (Chris White, Anarcho-Hindu) ------------------------------------- The Hard Way to Learn and Program Aggression is the only way to accomplish anything. If you want a port, grab it, if you want a channel, fight for it, if you want a channel off, flood it, if you want a MOO, make yourself uncomfortably toaded over and over again. If you want a port, play up to sysadmins, then stab them in the back, take the machine over, grab superuser status as fast as you can - you've got to do all of this with determination, aggression, and a sense of occupied territory. Believe me, there's no other way - no possibility of any other way. It's aggression that gets machines where you want them, hundreds of them cross-connected on platforms, wired in/out, LANS, WANS, and it's aggression that gets them disconnected as well. Why agro? Be- cause no one knows what they're doing in this space - it's too new, the territory still in the process of being charted, taken over by corporate greed - but not quite there yet. So there are interstices, back doors, back channels, undernets, darknets, trojan horses at work at war every- where and you NEED them to get going, you NEED them to get going in the morning, you NEED them for respect for the fast buck slow dance. Go for it! You get violent, threaten violence; you get mean, flame once or twice, make promises you can't keep, never intended to keep - there's not the HINT of a problem with this, social engineering, causeways to hell and back just where/wherever the action is. You @create the action, you Make- file, breakfile, do whatever it takes. You can't be afraid of anything. You have to vandalize, scavenge, use whatever passwords you find lying around on slips of paper placed in the back of porn novels where you'd most expect to find them. You've got to use the same passwords everywhere you can, moving through systems. But most of all you have to DEMAND a port because you need to connect to the Net and be PART of it, not just email, but running your tongue along the silver wires through the cables of light filmed and reduced to the last degree. Listen: It's like this. This is the only way it is. It's not popular. It will kill you. It will keep you going. You'll die broke but someone will see what you have done and marvel marvel marvel. _________________________________________________________________________ If you could you only would, bear the burden your mother could -- If I'm an op on IRC, would you come and visit me -- Would you make passes at a wizard with glasses -- Everyone I know who governs, however you define it, in cyberspace/upon cyberspace (almost a mapping-onto), neuroticizes/is neuroticized by it (also left undefined): because there is no proper causality, effect, gigo (garbage in, garbage out) associated with it. So I take notes, driving down the highway, arrive at the following, sure of nothing but the far end of the psychoanalytical _drive._ issues of governance in cyberspace: need absolutely authoritarian environ- ment or accept overly wide range of demographics. the former - say a comp- letely moderated newsgroup - works perfects in terms of defined subject matter. the latter develops community. there are always, in both, grey areas - which become part of the latter's content and its problematic. with the former, clean and proper body/room. with the latter, no way to deal with interstitial forms - that is to say, that each and every user can occupy equivalent places in data bases. in newsgroups, on IRC before banning, even in open email lists, everyone is allotted/slotted. no way out of this. no accounting as well for the labor put into mainten- ance of these spaces - nor of the physical energy at work (who pays the electric bills). so these spaces in a sense are _literally_ playgrounded - the _Urgrund_ is in play, plays itself out - the maintenance of the struc- ture - and here's the important point - _just like the maintenance of the real_ - is taken for granted. if the real is an arena or world-theater (see the Natyasastra for an early aesthetics of this), so is the cyber- spatial - it doesn't occur to users that there may be serious epistemolo- gical differences beyond the usual issues of embodiment, gender, and so forth. the result is a neurotic tension, a torsion occasioned by maintenance; by anarchic tendencies towards an _absolute_ speech which is _absolutely_ free (i.e. every speech act is permitted, including, say, rogue program- ming); by the desire to develop subject or subjectivity in depth; by the conflicting desires of users among themselves and in relation to so-called governing bodies (wizards, staff, populace); etc. - so that one often finds obsessive-compulsive behavior at all levels - since (another impor- tant point) _nothing can be resolved,_ according to any dialogic; since time transforms wounds into scars and nothing more, and since the final histories of these spaces are often scars dis/located into the semblance of healthy community. (which is not to say, btw, _dysfunctional community,_ although this often occurs as well.) __________________________________________________________________________ What Makes Me Beautiful When you program you begin the world. That's the beginning and ending of power - this world. If you don't understand it, you don't understand _anything._ The world you program is text and very exact and just like early Wittgen- stein, a world of crystals. One false move and you're dead! But where else does language translate or compile so easily into _com- mands?_ Where else do you have absolute control over destiny? Like those early video games, whatever you do gives back an absolute reflection - unlike those early games, what you do has often _neve been done before,_ with just a few lines of code. It's yours yours yours, no matter who uses it! There's never been such a complete and satisfying sense of possession! You can carry it around with you, this knowledge, and no one can take it away. Someday you write something or make something, and somewhere, across the planet, as far as you can go, a person responds or maybe uses what you've made. And there's no greater satisfaction - you're sitting at your machine in front of you bed, and everything you've done is working perfectly and invisibly and you don't even know what the person looks like or even whether he's a he or she. There's never been amazement like this on the planet. Once I was driving across the United States of America and I was in the Southwest somewhere and turned the radio on and there was my music coming over it, and I knew that all types were hearing it just like I was. Nothing could be better, not knowing or meeting them, but knowing they were hearing the results of the movements of your hands, fingers, arms, breath. You feel your body spread out everywhere across the desert, you hear yourself growing out of the heat. _________________________________________________________________________ Invention One of the amazing things about middle-late nineteenth century technology is its complexity and reliance on mechanism. Cams were the order of the day, and gear theory was highly developed. Any manual task could easily be duplicated. Machines were often enormous; hat-making and other tradi- tional occupations were highly automated. Power stemmed from steam, water, etc. - later electric motors were employed - and there was often a main driveshaft in the factory, running any number of semi-independent units. Against this backdrop, Edison's and Bell's work seems an enormous reduc- tion. The early telephone, phonograph, lightbulb, and cinema (and all of these have debatable origins) were remarkable in their simplicity; the bulb, for example, consists of a somewhat evacuated glass sphere and a filament that passes electric current. The earlier phonographs were hand- cranked, a small handle turning a turntable holding the record platter or cylinder, and the needle/diaphragm (possibly)/horn did the rest. These inventions had very few, if any, moving parts. Even conceptually, they're relatively easy to understand. Unlike television, there's little in terms of system philosophy necessary (television's history actually begins in the late 19th-century, earlier than film's; even then, it was complex - needing further technological development). Perhaps there is a different mode of thinking at work. Mechanism remains within its own framework, its own ontology - sound, for example, while technically a part of this, conceptually isn't. Mechanism is an intensi- fication - a form of programming, similar to that of the computer. Just as a computer program can do _anything_ on screen that's well-defined, nineteenth-century mechanism could do _anything_ in the real world that involved physical manipulation. Just as programming without interfacing beyond the screen is confined to visual presentation, so mechanism locks itself in a different but equally rigid framework. The inventions mentioned were all interstitial. They operated between do- mains, not within them. As interfaces, they're similar to membranes, fil- ters, and it's this that gave them their enormous social power... __________________________________________________________________________ Protest! Please Help! Where are the CUNEIFORM NEWSGROUPS, active as in days of yore: Alt.hittite, alt.fan.hittite.sex, alt.hittite.slave, hierarchy Hit.biz, hit.biz.slave, hit.biz.wood.forsale, hit.DINGIR, hit.KUR.KUR.MES ("Are there lands beyond Mitanni?"), AH, URU. DU.HI.A URU Hatti, ruined cities of Hatti! We are dismayed, lost, The whole hierarchy gone, devolved: NO LONGER HITTITE PRESENCE ON THE NET! SUMER again triumphant, we are sure, those pesky Babylonians seem to stay Around forever! In these days of increased multiculturalism, it behooves us, therefore, To request, with due haste and proper admonition: That you write the LUGAL of this KUR! That you insist upon Return, To proper Glory, of these our lists, our home pages, our directories! Of these our newsgroups, ftp sites, cuneiform welcome once again Over LIMITED LOWER ASCII! Note we do not ask for Hieroglyphic dominance, active as in days of yore, {Note as well our ritual formula, ready for study and cultural thesis!) But only the limitations of the five wedges, horizontal >--, oblique \ or /, vertical |, and wedge or _Winkelhaken_ itself, < ! It is with Excitement that I write these characters, forsaken, enslaved by ASCII Framework, the piling-on or coupling eliminated in this rigid format! (To be sure, there are Akkadian PostScript fonts, but not all of us Have access to such machinery as necessary - while almost every HITTITE ALIVE TODAY, you will find possessing at the least an IBM 286...) DO WRITE THE LUGAL! EVERY LU AND SAL nu- DUMU of you! ISTAR! How much longer need we wait! AH! LU, SAG. DU- _ZU I-NA- AK-_ They cut off his head! Active, as in days of yore! __________________________________________________________________________ thoughtless tomorrow, this morning, in eight hours, deliving a paper at this confer- ence; Laurie, Radhika,Shawn, Lisa, Robyn Warhol, Charlie Stivale, also speaking, it's like "at this conference" or at that conference - here in Ohio - on narrative - trying to figure in and totally thoughtless, figure in Hittite, Juan Davila, Mandeville, Net sex, Francois Roustang, you can see what a mess this is - can't for the life of me _stop_ at a particular period - as I said once, here I go again, Michel Serres puts it the same way in relation to Lucretius, one of my (also) favorite poets - because in dealing with avatars, where's the stopping - or in the psychoanalytics of text - language - Every utterance is a bit of the old unconscious - the whole of life is based on the unutterable attempting to break through - uttar, to cast a spell (Hittite) - there we are - even your limbs! mine are dismembered (Lingis) - would very much like to say thank you to every- one who has ever had sex with me - learned so much from you! heh! - I mean I'm talking in six hours, sex hours, five hours, heh! - what's to be done - but slides - Davila's paintings/pantings, tight pants! you never know - I'm the only one awake in the entire building, why? WHY?! - it's like this stillness, coldness in pre-Columbian night - must be to be reading #15 in The Great Bear ("A Thematic Anthology of Oral Poetry in the Finno-Ugrian Languages" - edited Honko, Timonen, Branch, Bosley) - channels are open: Thinking so much is thinking not at all (Brenda Laurel's Computers as Theater, I'm speaking scriptless, all that work by Roger Schank gone out my Window /s 3.1) - can't stop the flood, can't stop the flow - sorry for the litany, take it in stride - __________________________________________________________________________ obj The Netsex obj has no well-defined boundaries, isn't textual, rides or surmises upon text; someone overheard that my talk was stream of con- sciousness and "sophisticated" - the stream metaphor seemed apt. Netsex problematizes desire vis-a-vis language, parole; problematizes the per- formative vis-a-vis narratology; problematizes the body vis-a-vis hys- teric embodiment. Definitions are necessarily fluid, just as sexuality itself presents no discrete formations except for the fact that it is "inscribed" within our culture - more to the point, it fissures it. (This distinction is developed elsewhere.) So the Netsex obj, or obj for short, remains a particulated drive, outside of conclusivity - in this regard, it's similar to Derrida _on_ deconstruction, _on_ "deconstruction." In both instances, there are affairs of subtextualities, but in Netsex there are also imminent problems of ontological bridging, intention, and loss. Loss is a good thing. Loss can be cumming as well as going. Loss can be loss of boundary. Loss can be the router/routing of death. Loss can be uneasy dreams, uneasy dreamer. I don't know where this could go, a fragment thought while walking through the heterological halls of the conference on narration. Because it is imp- ossible to "do" the subject, only to do the obj, and because the framework has capsized Andrea Doria, Alexandria Library. But, I'd emphasize, the thinking is there: "The beginning of writing provides an origin that sloughs off into unknown tongues, or inscriptions so reduced as to render themselves unintelligib- le. It is as if one stood at the shores of a gulf separating Sumer from the absence of the Name, as if the Name were born, an impossibility, some- where back in the fourth millennium bce (sic). Thus the trace is always already under erasure by the awkward production of historic literacy; even a previous century remains unknown in terms of peoples, events, dyn- asties, the king-lists themselves tapering into mythological root." (Num- entius.) _________________________________________________________________________ They Don't Returning from Columbus, I find my fingers no longer obeying me on the keyboard, returning over and over again to a re-interpretation of the same word, almost obsessive behavior, stuttering, caught at particular points as if "for no reason," "no conscious reason." The emerging tiny deaths reflect my descent again into depression, the fact that these texts are basically unrecognized, stillborn, that the labor involved in their pro- duction is mostly useless, that they're becoming a form of shit or less fertilizing debris. It's a constancy among them that exhausts me (as I watch literally my life appear to slip away), the need to keep producing, not only as a result of my own neuroses, but also as a consequence of cyberspace itself - if I don't speak, I'm dead, and if I do speak, I'm dying. Information appears here at such a high rate of speed that there's no time to absorb anything. I need to have you feel the weight of a book in your hands, _my book,_ culled from these texts - something that will never hap- pen. My writing's half-academic, half wild theory, and there's no room anywhere for it, publishing house or other/wise. This is what is known as "whine." It's difficult to imagine working for hours through a text, transforming it into spit packets drying up in a few inboxes, disappearing forever. I need to place before you another form of death or epitaph, my .sig, also subject to easy disappearance: <> <> <> <> <> <> <> http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html images at http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ .sigless in Gaza So that the brackets implicate the spew right from the beginning; what's there falls off the page. So that .sigless implies blinded in the midst of demarcation. Here, presence is ugly, a form of upgrading or continuous advertising. Here, I force myself upon you until you leave. Here, my face shatters mirrors. Here, I dream of _this_ body sutured back in upon itself, a Klein bottle with no more inaccessible interior. Here, I place my "whine" as slogan already overused. Here, I parade my knowledge, increasingly at a loss as my fingers refuse to obey. Here, I find my tinnitus steadily grow- ing in volume; as they say, I _take chances._ I want you drug. I want you drug. Here, I write into the dream screen of no one's absent body, annihilation to the limit, violation fabric to the winds. __________________________________________________________________________ THINK LOCALLLY ACT GLOBALLY __________________________________________________________________________ kill me and you get to keep my texts and software. kill me and take my quota as well; you can build on pmc2-moo. this is a request: put me out of my misery. you gain two accounts, panix and netcom.com. you gain two accounts, panix-slip and netcom.ix.com. kill me and my inbox is yours, but you should keep up all my correspondence to men and women, young and old, but not to make a poem of it - kill me and keep these software-quota ghosts. _______________________________________________________________ "No" No, there have been no replies, but I really mean this - kill me and get my quota/software/texts. What else is there to do with them? Disk space ought to be worth something, especially organized disk space. You get a french translation program (really!) fractal stuff that everyone loves, my own bleak graphics, my text-substance which should be good enough to wipe the sweat from your perineum after a good bout of sex labor, labored sex (think of it like a disease or body-gone-bad, those odors that you just can't get rid of, that advertise your holes and organs to the world) - then there's some letters, reminiscences, but they're not holographic, no signatures, few .sigs, so anyone can in fact duplicate them - forget them for the cash value, but there might be something worthwhile reading - again let's look at the quota - I'm on the QRB over at PMC2 - you can have my position - I think I even have a programming bit, haven't used it - make something, no one will care - there's about 32k left - I work small - you can in fact recycle anything you want - I'm Alan on the MOO so the only thing you'll need is the password. The same's true of Media MOO except no one even know's I'm there, I fly in and out like an arrow on fire like sheet lightning like a species gone bad - I would have thought this would all have been worth _something_ - I mean I'm co-moderator for God's sake - doesn't that count, ah the Power! Power! - willing to give that all up - an easy death - one hardly missed - you'll take on my name if you want - you might have done this already - note any differences stylistically? - I'd think the number of dashes might give it away (I'm not Emily Dickinson to be sure) - as I said/he said a while ago - you don't know me - quota for sale quota for sale - texts and software too - "Alan" -------------------------------------- - (I wrote this after finding myself over and over again in "neurotic" territory on-line, and watching some of my favorite spaces become sites of textual contestation. I'm interested in what _within the space itself_ creates tensions that are resolved or remain submerged in real life. Please bear with the length of the text.) Neurosis as the Fundamental Condition of CMC (Computer-Mediated Commu- nication): If the promise of seamless virtual reality in the twenty-first century is going to be anything more than the transposing of violence to cyber- space (with real-life consequences), it is necessary to understand the psychology and psychoanalytics of human behavior in current CMC. One of the issues I encounter over and over again is that of neurosis, the inability to circumscribe the socius coupled with obsessive repetitive behavior. In real life I'm highly neurotic; in cyberspace, I monitor and even occasionally step back from my behavior. But there are times I am capable of extreme foresightedness, worrying a text of self or other literally to symbolic death. Some of the texts and materials on PMC2-MOO; a number of the posts on Usenet groups; occasional periods on almost every email list; IRC of course - all of these are lent the neurotic order, whose main charac- teristic is that of impenetrable entanglement: there's no way to back out or down, and the language takes on a symptomology or level of its own. I write this at dusk, facing a large window opening onto a north-eastern Pennsylvania yard. I can look up and out; rain is falling - the weather's severe. The gnarled branch of a dogwood yields the atmosphere of the window's edge against the descending sky. Writing is placed within its own dominion, and inner speech is part of the world, not against it. Late at night on PMC2-MOO, I receive a text on *Chatter, one of the MOO's internal email lists. It's another attack, and it's all I see; its speech becomes my own as I sound out the language speaking itself against me. It says nothing but what I say, against a dark backdrop that includes a wall's edge at the distance of a couple of feet or so. The text is my world, an epistolary novel gone wrong a personal directive (although the post I am talking about is one among many, and not an ad hominem attack). It mixes with my own words, my own remembered and transformed history within the space. It mixes with my own needs, the isolation of input and output - no one else is in the room, and the small sky to the left is both black and thick. I respond neurotically. The text becomes permanent damage. It affects every corner of the MOO, of my MOO-life; when it's visible, nothing else is - it's all I see, as if anger encompasses the world when anger _is._ I respond as if an imbalance were struck, that only I can see, an imbal- ance that needs redress because _everything that occurs is at stake._ As in Net sex, the words resonate beyond me, coagulate against the horizon of subjectivity that is my consideration of my "self," and which is al- ways ill-defined. The horizon is circumscribed by them, and internally the result is chaotic: as in a fight with a lover, I find myself at odds with myself in ways I did not portend nor control. I watch the words respond on the screen. They are my words. I feel my tension rise; I "see red," "see black," "sink," "feel everything is at a loss." Above all, I feel misunderstood, wounded; I must either leave the MOO or fight back. I must leave the email list *Chatter; I must leave the room; I must leave my life. There are no boundaries; it's the ascii un- conscious at work here, at play, and my speaking of myself through the other leaves no room anywhere. It's _not_ that flames, attacks, gropes, neurotic tendencies, behave the way they do because of the anonymity of cyberspace - it's exactly the _opposite:_ the space is _too close,_ too much of one, leaving no room for analysis. It's as if that lover I am fighting with suddenly crawled within me, keeping her violence (to which I respond with my own) going, turning my words against me, turning myself inside-out - what I call a _violation fabric,_ a weaving of language and gesture that wears like a cloak of poison - that becomes the flesh itself. My body fights my body. It's the keyboard and screen that save one from total psychosis, which as I've pointed out elsewhere, begins to set in, the wryting in collusion with writing, the text transforming into flick- ering images/imaginary, the symbolic dissolving as hysteric embodiment constructs the other which is the self in the (mirror stage) (of the re- flection theory) (of the dream) screen. Reflection theory, dream screen, mirror stage: We are bothered by pro- jection, and traditional psychoanalytic theory recognizes, as did Dosto- evsky and Gogol, the otherness and duplicity of the potential for doub- ling. Doubling is primal and fundamental cyberspace, however - not only the doubling inherent in avatar projection (and seamless virtual reality returning this projection to the imminent body itself), but also the dou- bling involved in the writing of and by the other, of and by the other. What is written, as I pointed out, becomes _my_ writing, and we in the world we live in are not, and will never be, accustomed to this - that the epistolary novel gone bad is nonetheless a production of a response occa- sioning nothing more than a response, a give and take. Our bodies don't accompany us here; text, voice, and image constructs do. There is no appearance of the other; there is speech. The speech is always already our own, and therefore, both ours and not ours, and therefore neurotici- zed by impossible resolution. The same thing exactly occurs with issues of intellectual property - Whose writing and software is whose writing and software? It's not just a question of ownership of the organization of things - it's also an issue of projection and introjection. The concept of entities breaks down. Who is doing what to whom? No matter how this resolves in court, there is always going to be the problem of what is claimed to be _your text arriving on my screen._ Perhaps I did not ask for it. Perhaps I sense injury. So there are _fundamental tensions_ in text-driven CMC, and, I suspect, the same will exist elsewhere. Certainly I have seen these tensions at work in the actions and communications on WorldsChat, which is a VRML MOO with highly-developed images and some sound capability. The same hatreds, cyclings, suspicions, angers, racisms, sexisms, furies, spam- mings, are at work. I imagine the equivalent on ThePalace and IPhone, although I'm not on either long enough to find out. Where there are spaces in cyberspace, there is sex, neurosis, community. These open up even in the one-to-one on Iphone, and, I suspect, ytalk. Where, as on Powwow, there are possibilities of many to many, the commu- nity develops in depth, and there are forkings between public and private and it is within these forkings that sexualities pronounce themselves. Sex, neurosis, and community - community which must be pronounced and con- structed to be present - are intertwined in real life; they're united by the _performative._ Even reading itself is an action unlike looking out a window - reading, inner speech, sounding out, interpreting, takes a dif- ferent form of labor and by every means, an different level of engagement. It's always performance, and in every performance the self is at stake, not to mention power and control. It's valuable to progress in this fashion, circumlocuting power and control, because these are at the heart of helplessness and neurosis of course - and one is helpless in CMC before the flame of the other which occupies and defines its own space. One can reply, but the reply is always after the fact, not within it, not a mutual posturing of bodies in real space that can lead to resolution. In cyberspace, with the flame, the deed is already done, the aggression is there, the response can only be silence or equivalent flaming. One senses this, attempts to back down - issues of performance, introjection, projection, and the like arise again. Nothing resolves "properly." And it is worse if one is _in charge_ of an email list, moderating a news- group, a wizard on a MOO, and so forth; one's position then also owes to labor, to a community, and the irresolution deepens, intensifies - par- ticularly with the desire to literally bring the entire application down, start over, annihilate the text of the other which will never leave one alone, just as one's own guilty conscience resonates with each and every attack. The most overt solution would be to step away, "take a deep breath," but there is always the possibility when that occurs, of abandon- ing administration altogether, and then what will happen? There is also the aura of these spaces, that region consisting of pages on MOOs, private email off of newsgroups and email lists, /msg on IRC. So other issues come forward, which separate public/private absolutely, and which affect the administration of the whole. And of course all of this is through text, perhaps augmented by telephone: voice in one form or anoth- er, voices making demands, voices occupying dream spaces. At the moment, given the state of virtual reality, textual or otherwise, I see no way out of all of this. CMC will continue to develop neuroses in its participants, as well as fantasms, love affairs with ascii, sexu- alities of unbelievable intensities, against the backdrop of screens - screens are always backdrops. The only partial solution is to be aware of this tendency, which is based to a large extent on the nature of the space itself in relation to the psychoanalytics and psychology of human thinking in the world, which in real physical life floods in, giving lit- tle time for inner speech and domination. The mind is a mouth, mouthing ontology and content simultaneously. One has to hold back, doesn't one? ____________________________________ Other contributory factors (in outline form): 1. Lag. Lag robs one of one's speech, displaces one, even in terms of intention. The words refuse to come; the words are still performative, however: there is nothing else. Lag increases tension, cretes anxiety on both sides in synchronous communication. In any communication, it breaks thought apart; one is in a state of simultaneously thinking-through a subject and attending expressivity itself. 2. Strangers, utter strangers, strangers who utter. (Re: _uttar_ in Hit- tite - see Simmel on the stranger as well.) One is face to face with someone nameless who may be aggressive, a threat. There is no responsi- bility apparent to anonymous and violent text, to spam. With double blinds and hacked addresses, one is left helpless, confronted by language turned against oneself. 3. Desire. Desire knows no bounds in cyberspace; the unconscious wells up (see the material on Net sex in the Internet Text), bringing archaic ac- tions, thoughts, and performatives forward. And performative speech itself is a form of magic through the utterance or spell. The text of desire is always augmented by others; any response plays into or across, transgres- ses, the ascii unconscious. Desire rises to the surface as an utterance to unknown strangers; lag becomes delay, deferral, a form of seduction itself. Everything plays into everything else, and the self, which in real life protects itself by speech, suddenly finds its own speech getting away from it, centrifugal. (It is as I said in relation to Net sex: In real life, one begins with the imaginary, presenting the symbolic parole as explanatory prosthesis accompanied by gesture, tone, etc. In cyberspace, one constructs the imaginary from the symbolic; words become untethered, and what returns to the self has always already undergone irrevocable translation.) _________________________________________________________________________