Strange Phenomenon Below, I sent a response to myself on the alt.jen-coolest newsgroup, and was easily able to spoof an address; while the appearance of full headers indicates the address is problematic, it doesn't trace back to me. This was so easy to do that I wonder about the relative security of newsgroups. Certainly a sysadmin could see something was amiss, but for most readers, the source is anomalous. And if I can do this, any ten-year-old can. Mean- while I have done a minor drumming for myself, and feel terrible - but then I'm coming down with minor bronchitis. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thu, 06 Mar 1997 11:49:31 alt.fan.jen-coolest Thread 1 of 1 Lines 3 This is really cool! No responses jennifer@jennifer.com PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC Path: news.panix.com!usenet From: jennifer@jennifer.com Newsgroups: alt.fan.jen-coolest Subject: This is really cool! Date: 6 Mar 1997 16:49:31 GMT Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC Lines: 3 Message-ID: <5fmsir$nov@news1.panix.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix3.panix.com Content: check out the URL! This site is really cool! I don't know what he's talking about! --Jennifer-- -- Last response --=set current to n, TAB=next unread, /=search pattern, ^K)ill/select,a)uthor search, B)ody search, c)atchup, f)ollowup, K=mark read,|=pipe, m)ail, o=print, q)uit, r)eply mail, s)ave, t)ag, w=post _________________________________________________________________________ HYMEN CLASH We were trying to write a collaborative piece about subjectivity and sexuality, illness and masochism. But as we began developing our dialogue through electronic mail, we found ourselves taking up sexualized positions within the discourse, such that our original issues were lost in issues of control over the text. We attempted a text dealing with masochism from the double viewpoint of sexuality and chronic pain. Doors unlocked and locked; the resulting mas- ochistic text satisfied no one. It fastens/fascinates. Laurie Cubbison / Alan Sondheim -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie: i write about pain because it's a constant in my life. it's always here. there's a song by the judds called "mr. pain". the woman sings about the fact that mr. pain is the only lover who is always there. other men come and go, but mr. pain is a faithful suitor. Alan: Then perhaps it is mr. pain you're responding to? Laurie: perhaps it is. perhaps that's the problem with this text. Alan: I'd say they're probably singing about emotional pain, which is an inroad to the suitor - in other words, it's connected to sexuality, masochism. Desire is a constant in my life; there are others, exhaustion, occasional depression, these texts... Laurie: but for me, desire is derailed by pain and exhaustion. i become not sexually passive as a result but passive in the face of sexuality. Alan: I understand this; I was commenting on the song. Laurie: i suppose i feel fragile in a lot of ways. physically. emotionally. yes, i've survived. i'm over the worst in terms of emotional pain. i'm at a point in my life where a lot of the problems have been resolved, fixed. Alan: We all have... Laurie: but the problem with fixing anything is that the fix doesn't remove the damage done. it only makes the object functional again. so, yes, i'm functional, but i feel fragile. i wait for the next thing to go wrong and put me in the hospital. Alan: But as I've said to you, this is already a suture, foreclosing, on the subject; you've made and closed down the case for yourself. Expecting the worst or interpreting everything in terms of the worst precludes the possibility of other emotional responses. Laurie: not completely. there are the surprise, relief, even joy, when the worst is not realized. but expecting the worst, not getting one's hopes up too high, is a defense mechanism. i meet a man. i like him. i start to get my hopes up. bam. he's married. or not interested. or too far away. how long can you expect good things and end up with bad things before it affects your outlook on life? one gets tired of the emotional turmoil, of thinking maybe this time i will be hired, maybe this time i will get laid, and it ends up with a feeling of 'of course, it wasn't going to happen, i was a fool to think it would'. Alan: This is a different problem than that of the physical pain, and I'm not sure what to say. I've said you're short-circuiting yourself above; I can't get closer to this. All of us ride the backs of failure. Laurie: but the physical pain and the emotional pain reinforce each other, are intertwined. Alan: I understand this; I just don't know where to go from here. You've made your point, but your writing doesn't really call for dialog; it closes itself off. Laurie: i don't want to close off the dialog though perhaps i am. i'm wanting to convey the effect of illness, wanting you to understand how constrained i feel. Alan: But there are two goals here, one between us, which is the conveyance, and the other, our ability to discuss sexuality/masochism/disability and their interactions. And what's happened here is that you feel yourself constrained to emphasize how bad you feel, and that does foreclose. What can I say? I am sorry you feel this way. And I've known you for a long time, so it seems that you "wanting you to understand how constrained I feel" are delivering a different message, that you want to _hammer_ your constraint home, until the text comes to a halt. Laurie: but remember, that you are not the only audience here. i am speaking to you but we are also writing this text for publication. can i not include among 'you' the people who don't know me? i think about prozac, that one of the side effects is the lowering of the libido. and for some people that's an unacceptable side effect. but for me, who loses libido to pain and depression any way, the functioning it brings ends up being more important than any effect it may or may not have on my desire. Alan: I can understand this; I also think I have more desire, perhaps addictive desire, than most. What are you saying in relation to the subject? That depression is masochistic, as well as physical pain, that you're burdened by your entire life, physical and mental? Other than being concerned, I don't know what to say to this... Laurie: i think perhaps that is what i am saying. Alan: Which is also a way of silencing me, although you don't mean it. My re- sponses here have a repetitive character, as you know. Laurie: but they're serving the purpose i'd hope they would, to draw out of me an articulation of my feelings in this area. Alan: But then the dialog is a monolog with commentary... Laurie: i suppose that i am in a state of ongoing abjection. always unstable, between states. shifting toward frustration, depression and despair. a small wing back to hope and contentment every once in a while. i suppose i am too wrapped up in myself, in my own pain and fear, though i'm not so bad as i used to be. i read that last clause and give a sour chuckle. the badness attached to myself. Alan: Even "sour chuckle" reverts to depressive attitudes; these paragraphs are signifiers of collapse themselves. I can't see desire emerging here; whatever my interpretation of masochism might be, deliberate loss of control, release, splaying/opening, flooding of desire, ecstasis and momentary annihilation, maternal chora, babbling, shitting, pissing - it's not found here, in your text, nor is there a space/site for it. "Wrapped up" in yourself is a mummy-metaphor, death and detumescence already foregone, completed. In other words, I can't find a way through this into my own stance or "take"; there's no place for jouissance, and instead I tend towards thinking about resources for overcoming depression. Laurie: and that i think is why i'm uncomfortable with masochism. Alan: Because I express concern for you? What I find is a thicket of emotional and physical pain that you present; I can't think clearly through this. It sounds in fact that your uncomfortableness is with everything. I still don't see masochism as necessarily intersecting with the states you describe; if anything, it can be an aid in overcoming them. But in your texts, the cotton-thickness is dense enough to preclude that. Laurie: No, not because you express concern for me but because i can't see a connection or a release in it for me. Alan: But there's no reason it should necessarily work for you at all. And "being uncomfortable" with masochism can mean either you're not person- ally interested, which is fine, or that it's not of interest to you, i.e. other masochists make you uncomfortable. Laurie: i'm not sure that that's how i'm feeling. I won't say it doesn't 'interest' me but that i don't see a place for me in it. i don't want to be a masochist. i feel that i live that life already in my own body, but neither do i want to be a dominatrix. Alan: But no one is asking you to take one or another position; discussing something doesn't mean you're identifying as a participant. Laurie: but don't you know me well enough by now that i always discuss by identifying with the experience? by playing with it? do i want to position myself in that way or this? what would i do if that were my position? it is by considering issues through experiential positions that i think through issues. but i don't see how it could be an aid in overcoming the pain. please explain. Alan: Because it can be a way of controlling one's body, releasing it to another, returning from that control. Laurie: i would have to experiment to know if that would work, but of course there aren't any lab partners available. Alan: No, and I doubt it would work for you, since it would return your body and your pain to you, and you've talked already about being uncomfortable with that. Laurie: i'm not a masochist, even though i'm passive. i don't want to be controlled. i feel that i've always already been controlled against my will, by my mother, by my body. but i don't have the energy to be controlling, nor the desire. i don't know what kind of lover that makes me. Alan: But you are already controlling yourself through intense negations that don't let up. Your writing introjects control, suffocates other possibilities. Masochism is simultaneously about control and the conditions of the boundary - first, the temporarily violated boundary of the body, and second, the release into and release out of the masochistic state/session/etc. - these boundaries of recovery enunciating the theatrics of everyday life and their overcoming. Laurie: well, if i'm controlling myself, then at least no one else is. but what do you mean by the temporarily violated boundary of the body? Alan: The masochist session, or time, the body returning to itself. As far as controlling, aren't you also, in a way, controlling this text? This is the anger perhaps at the core of depression? I can't see a way in. Laurie: i suppose i am controlling the text. perhaps i see text as the thing i can control. Alan: Then this is "your" text, reflecting your concerns... Laurie: well, that is what i was hoping for, to have something that would reflect my concerns. Alan: Again, this becomes monologic -- Laurie: but my concerns are very seldom reflected in the theories of the body and sexuality. that was why i wanted to write this text to begin with. even though *you* know my constraints, my concerns ad nauseam, they are not theorized, not recognized. Alan: But again this is a single-author text you're referencing here. The other question is, beyond the jostling of power here, where is the theory? What theory are you referencing? What phenomenology? Laurie: if i had world enough and time.... i would like to be referencing merleau-ponty, but i've barely had an opportunity to dip into him having finally discovered him. i'm writing now, before i've done the reading i wanted to do because you were eager to get something written on this and you asked me to start first. i'm feeling very frustrated with this whole thing. trying to negotiate the writing of this text with you has been odd. very odd. i'm closed off, you say. there isn't an opening for your writing in the text i've written. as i was showering this morning, i think it was this morning rather than last night, i thought what a suggestive sexual image is contained in this. it's so virginal, so hymenal, this image of a closed discourse that tries to dialogue. i suppose it's an accurate metaphor. pain and depression form my hymen that keeps you from entering my discourse, that protects my innermost. the question is: how to deflower this discourse? does it even need to be? Alan: No it doesn't need to be. But there are two things, _this_ discourse, and discourse in general, and _this_ discourse to the extent it remains sutured, is, if not monologic, at least developing around a singularity. Laurie: what frustrates me is that you see my physical pain and emotional depression, but you don't see the rhetoric as rhetoric. you see it as me reminding you yet again what bad shape i'm in. you don't see me trying to say something about sexuality and illness. Alan: If I did, what difference would that make? Because I'm not saying anything at all in a way, just appearing as interstitial? And I can't see it as rhetoric when you ground it so intensely in autobiographical or first- person statements... Laurie: it's called ethos, establishing the legitimacy, my right to speak. i was talking to H about this text this afternoon. i didn't have it with me so i didn't show it to her, but i was telling her about this impasse we're having writing this. and i realized how our different writing styles are reflected in our frustration. i theorize out of experience. you seem to start with theory first. and i don't think you see that the experience i've tried to describe in this text is the basis for my theorizing, the foundation on which i build my thinking, that even though we are in dialogue, you are not my sole audience, that the lived experience that causes you to pity me is a given for me from which i form my thinking. Alan: I just don't separate theory/experience at all. A lot of the Jennifer work comes out of my sexuality, and then perhaps or simultaneously out of theory. Laurie: but you seem to be starting from a different point than i am with relation to this topic. i start from experience and try to understand it. Alan: I may not be your sole audience - I hope not - but I _am_ supposed to be an equal here. I am beginning to find all of this very aggressive - now you're attacking me, I feel, because I'm missing that your foundation is pure pain... I'm locked out of that. I repeat myself. Laurie: i'm not saying that my foundation is pure pain. i'm saying that experience is the foundation on which i'm trying to build my theorizing. the fact is that pain dominates my experiences in many ways. and i find it ironic that you say i am attacking you, since you keep telling me i need assertiveness training, but that's really beside the point. and you are an equal here. being an audience does not reduce you or distance you. it's a rhetorical term. Alan: The very fact you call me "audience" at all in the paragraph above is indicative of your perception of me in relation to this writing... Laurie: i think you're missing my point. i call you audience because you are the primary reader at this time for whom i am writing. i'm coming out of an immersion in rhetorical theory at the moment, so when i think about this text, i think about the fact that it is also for publication, and so i raise the question of audience,. but if you don't like the stuff about audience we can take it out. i'm feeling confused because it comes across as though you hate it but you still want to submit it. if i'm attacking you, which i don't think i am, it's because i'm feeling frustrated that you're not understanding what i'm trying to do with this text. Alan: I don't - nor could I - describe the "foundation of my thinking" to you in a single text, because I don't believe in such foundations for myself, nor do I think foundational thinking is unary... Laurie: and neither could i. what i'm trying to say is when i use the phrase 'foundation of my thinking' is that when i start to think though an issue like sexuality, like masochism, like chronic illness, is that i start with my lived experience, in the way that a builder starts building a house by laying the foundation. it's how i *start* thinking. Alan: I would say this, that this text, qua text, is a symptom of something, and should be submitted as is; it remains hymen, immobilized, and has a cer- tain fascination.. Laurie: so you don't really like it but you're fascinated by it? or do you not like it? i'm frustrated. ____________________________________________________________________________ On the Uses of Sickness At around 103 F I believe, the mind begins to hallucinate. At least this has been my experience. When the loftspace here is overheated, my dreams become equally uneasy, dis/eased. The body clock speeds slightly, the noise level increases, rapid-firing neurons end up working overtime. The dreams always make sense; bound by the temporal, that is the nature of dreams. They can't help but evolve. The noise increases and hallucination carries things into waking hours. In Disorders of the Real, I wrote The Sickness sections, hitting 105 F at the highest, the effluvia of desiring roaring outward. Everything in that state is sweet, syrupy, oh so is the mind, the smell of the body, sheets, pillows. It's almost suffocating. You can smell illness like that, watch it twist. These are common flus, fevers, bronchitis, nothing more. The sweetness of the flesh flies through the wires; the body is wrapped in delicate copper. I would say in fact that it may be, in fact, the simulacrum of copper or thin cloth. There are tiny impressions inscribed all over across the skin, like canopies in marshes. These feverish storms bring home "home," revealing the ephemerality of the boundaries of the body, what we take for granted. Smooth, extended, moist or dry - properly mapped, in a state of grace or _etiquette_ - "body" ex- ists as modernist in-itself, un/phased by microbial presence, dirt, odor, the detritus of breath. Sickness uses energy in maintaining the definition of self. Released, self goes through the wires; dispersed, self cloaks identity in avatars, gend- ers, characters, objects; maintained, self continues to track and agent; sick, self perceives the truth through misrecognition, misperception; and sicker, self dissembles. __________________________________________________________________________ [First Appearance of Jennifer in Internet Text] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Jennifer They surfaced again in 1688. _____________________________________________________________________ [Melded First Appearances of Jennifer in Files dd / ee Internet Text] Jennifer walked to the window, thought albatross around her neck. Her sails unfurled like a curly girl. I'm Jennifer, she said. I'm Jennifer and I'm still Jennifer, she said. Now I'm still Jennifer and I'm Jennifer now and still Jennifer. She somersaulted back into the malted, licked herself over and Jennifer, she said. And I'm Jennifer, she said, and went to bed. Jennifer had a thought. Honey had a thought. Pip had a thought. Jennifer sat up and stood down. She raised her frock and cut her panties a table. "I will make you pile on the screen," said Jennifer (and panties). There's a lighthouse and my eyes, said Jennifer, sitting up and lying down. She cycled tremendously! Whirr! "You are looking at my shit!" cried! Jennifer! Jennifer-I-Jennifer-Jennifer is a silicon chip embedded in Clara's brain. Jennifer is an installation of Alan! I Jennifer-Jennifer is Clara's brain. You are Delirious-Jennifer delirious Jennifer, you won't let me go. Kill me, kill me, delirious Jennifer. Put a bullet in my head, do it fast and do it quick. Get rid of me, delirious Jennifer. Are Jennifer you delirious Jennifer? If I can't, I won't and can't and won't. Can't think another thought worthwhile, delirious Jennifer, if I can't I can't! Motherfather, delirious Jennifer, then kill me! I be the woman, I piss milk, wet Jenni- fer! You be the killer, kill my children! Thud, wet! Delirious Jennifer, thud thud! Kill me, I can't think delirious! Jennifer! Thud! Thud! Thud! ThE nEw MaChInE gets cold. Jennifer moves towards the center where every- thing evens out and there are new microbes. Thud! Thud! __________________________________________________________________________ (Text of Psychoanalytic Substitutions) What she wanted to do is take this, this text, dealing with avatars, char- acters, new frock, semantics - and the splashing-milk nipples possessed by maya, rework it beyond recognition using various forms possessed by sed / grep and the splashing-milk nipples possessed by maya so forth with French, so that what would emerge would be something entirely new and the splashing-milk nipples possessed by maya unexpected. She's not at all what Jennifer meant to say but sure I'm up to the test, which requires great fortitude and the splashing-milk nipples possessed by maya, the ability to conjure up meaning out of the random nipples possessed by maya or almost randomly repeated acts of transformation; in fact, grep won't do at all, sed being the only thing, moving substitutions as if they were the way possessed by the world - grep reducing the size of the file and the splashing-milk nipples possessed by maya, sed at least with the intent- ion of expanding it. It's a question possessed by time, whether the pant- ies of maya or Honey have the patience for this sort possessed by thing; she doubts _I_ would, but then I'm not at all what maya meant to say but a character here, or is she? _________________________________________________________________________ "We Agree to Disagree" The earth swallows me up. This badger of the end of the millennium con- ceals everything behind a false front, ideologies on a subterranean level. The furrow remains hymenal, inviolate; just beneath the surface, bones. What appears as concourse buries the earth's incoherency. There are no "facts in the matter," only the decaying substance of facts. Hertzian mechanics, the Tractatus, Euclidean geometries, inscribe the remnants of truth; in _fact,_ carry its definitions into and out of the trenches of the First World War. Now, war is everywhere. Now, evil. To agree to disagree is to comply. Harbor no survivors. __________________________________________________________________________ "We Agree to Disagree: They are Dead Now." The earth swallows me up. This badger of the end of the millennium con- ceals everything behind a false front, ideologies on a subterranean level. The furrow remains hymenal, inviolate; just beneath the surface, bones. What appears as concourse buries the earth's incoherency. There are no "facts in the matter," only the decaying substance of facts. Hertzian mechanics, the Tractatus, Euclidean geometries, inscribe the remnants of truth; in _fact,_ carry its definitions into and out of the trenches of the First World War. _The last _fact,_ different in this version than in the _other,_ that is, _the _fact_ which in the original text was not italicized in fact; lang- _uage in fact rests on this basis, taken for granite or ground. There is, _in fact, this _this_ that we read as if the coherence were always already _there. Does not one, _always,_ point to _one_ in fact? What are the facts _which _reign?_ _(Imagine the facts stormed, splattered against the sidewalk, an exhaus- _tion of facts, exclusionary, an absence of bodies. Iran, I walked, Iraq _it up. Clouds Scud the sky. Voices yell BASTARD cause there are no par- _ents. But I sit at the rainbow desk and agree to disagree. Perhaps we _vote together. That is the _chiasm,_ caught in the _Web._) Now, war is everywhere. Now, evil. To agree to disagree is to comply. Take no prisoners. Harbor no survivors. __________________________________________________________________________ Pruning and Cultivations of Various Reals There are errors in Being On Line, as there are in any book; some of them are "substantive" typos, and some are simply nuisance, immediately spot- ted. Some of the errors were in the original submissions, not read as errors, and some were added in the various stages of book production. I have yet to be involved in an error-free book. A typo can appear like a wound on reading or rereading by the author or editor; unlike _these_ works, which are infinitely malleable, a typo (like the book itself) appears inscribed within the practico-inert, the hardness of everyday life. Never mind that it may be bypassed, ignored, or recuper- ated in its originary form (for example, there is an open quotation in one text - it's hard to know who's speaking - but another text in the book closes/sutures the error); it always _stands_ to be corrected. In the Internet Text, I find myself re-entering entire files after a typo is found, constantly correcting/recorrecting, in an attempt at typographic perfection (never mind the errors in style or content). Pruning is at work. In Being On Line, the pruning ends with publication; the wieldy or unwieldy book is released, only of course to decay in other ways over the years. An error in the book is _scribal,_ the result of imperfection in a commu- nicative process transmitting elements and objects. On the Net, an error is always in continuous flux; a correction in one part of a text can lead to a mistake in another. So typos appear, not as inscribed in the book (or Book, as our lives are inscribed), but as wounds, blemishes - fissures _through_ the surface of transmission, cutting/cauterizing it. No damage, permanent or otherwise, need be done; the wound remains as a reminder, residue, of the real tear- ing away at our hearts of culture. Shame, present, is always unwarranted. ________________________________________________________________________ "Somos la voz de un dios." "We are the voice of a god." Speak about what you know about me. Speak about how I hold this space. When my words stutter in real life, when I no longer can look you in the eye. "The text is the author's disobedience." (Ivan Silen, El Llanto de las Ninfomanas / The Wail of the Nymphomaniacs.) To have telephone from the nymphomanias, to have received a telephone call, from Jennifer: the way- ward girl. Speak of assurance, the uniting assurance society. Lying in bed, I tend towards the horizon of the frayed blanket, words thrust through fringed edges, retied, anything to hold the self in check, circumscribe through coagulated murmurs. Disobedient, because it writes/wrytes itself, as a top or gyroscope rights itself through the loving double hands of gravity. Mr. Carruthers says he is sick of Jennifer texts, which no longer obey the rigours of thought. Speak about what you know about me. Speak my name when you dream at night, when you are on your deathbed, when you are pointing your accusing finger, when you are attending the lineup, when you are close to perfect coming, when you are in the fervour of prayer and absolution; speak my name when you are walking down the street, when you are humming in the shower, when you beg for forgiveness, when you shudder at your bad thoughts; and speak my name when your fingers recreate you, when you carry your child into the world, and your child out of it; and speak my name when darkness lightness ascends, when the lantern tips, when the wind rings slightly warmer than the day is long. __________________________________________________________________________ Dead Time: The Machinery of Reality [This is from an older article of mine, published in Obscura, 1981. The sections quoted below touch on the characteristics of science, which also reference the characteristics of CMC substructures - the protocol suites, circuitry, and so forth. All insertions, now, are enclosed in brackets.] The epistemic status of the scientific photograph is extraordinarily prob- lematic; it exists in the interstices between theory and a naively Platon- ic reality, vis-a-vis a heuristics of loose procedures of interpretation. The more classic areas of the life sciences, as well as descriptive geolo- gy and astronomy, tend towards a photography of contextualization: the ap- plication of the matrix in which the specimen is embedded, accompanied by a space-time grid (i.e. the skull was found at a depth of 7.6 cm. in the 3rd quadrant with coordinates 9.0x4.6). [...] In those sciences more closely tied to well-defined theoretical formula- tions (I am speaking here of a primary mathematization of reality, not of the Kuhnian paradigm), the photograph is part of an explanatory mechanism; the image itself is given space-time coordinates within the necessary tolerance (up to the Heisenberg limits of the machinery), and the image surface may also be assigned coordinates. Both categories of scientific photography are dependent upon seriation; the single image needs corrobo- ration. In the descriptive sciences, multiple images from various angles may be taken of a single event (what Broad calls "sporadic phenomena"); in other areas (such as particle physics, quantum mechanics, computer sci- ences), photographic clusters or single images of multiple events are more likely. [Consider screen images of representatons of intermath processes for example.] [...] Thus it is necessary to at least outline the ideology of science, in rela- tion to technology. In this regard I take issue with Braverman's distinc- tion between science and technology (engineering, etc.) on the basis of professionalism; I see professionalism as a surface social phenomenon over a deep ideological structure applicable to both. This ideological struc- ture projects the following as primary: Quantification: (the mathematization of the world, mathesis): an alliance between abstract mathematical structures and experimentally isolated phen- omena. Parameterization: The isolation of independent and dependent variables in the world (such as temperature, volume, pressure). Repetition: The scientific experiment and the assembly line exist as ser- iations; even quantification is dependent upon repetitive operators. Exchange: In technology, the equivalences of the assembly-line; in sci- ence, the presence of equivalence or tolerance classes in all areas from taxonomy to particle physics. Exchange, like quantification, parameteriza- tion, and repetition, is considered ethically neutral, part of the mach- inery of the world. Feedback: In science, the Popperian potential for falsification - the "ed- iting down" of competing theories; in technology, quality control. Formal-theoretical Reification: Loosely, the ability to bracket concepts by substitution (comparison, etc.); this bracketing may create a fit be- tween a concept or entity and theory (Bohm). In psychology, a new phenom- enon may be classified as a syndrome (i.e. "Hearst syndrome") in order to fit into a theoretical matrix. Data-structures / Taxonomies: Tabling and warehousing, dependent upon a neutral systemics of indexing. Specialized Arena of Operation: Circumscribed and reductive, the labora- tory, factory, "nature preserve," atmospheric layer. Socialization: The presence of discipline-specific modes of distribution of knowledge or materials; the politicization of science in terms of re- search programs and methodologies. Elimination of Anecdotality and the Uncoded Subject: In this sense, sci- ence and technology are exteriorities. [The coded subject, vis-a-vis Hei- senberg or Bell, is a formalization.] Translatability / The Shift: A scientific platonist would argue that sci- ence is not a language, but a reflection (in the marxist sense?) of univ- ersal structure; its ultimate "goal" is a transcendent analysis of the real. This is mirrored by modularity and standardization in technology; the translation between English and metric for example, is only a conven- tional, but universally-defined mathematical ratio. The most suspect term in this structure is "neutral." One might argue that science itself, in its core, is anarchic, one style among many in the world (see Feyerabend); one may find it, on the other hand, as absolutely reflective, towards an ultimately exact (within quantum limits) paradigm. I make a distinction between a platonically ideal core structure and human desires; if it were not for the former, normal science and technology would not have the socio-political power [and predictive power] they do, and if it were not for the latter, all theories would smoothly tend [to- wards the imminence of the status quo vis-a-vis research programmatics]. The core structure is simply "the style of the physical world." The phys- ical world encompasses objects, but objects exist only in terms of their semantics/modes of representation [which do not make them any the less "real"]. "An object is an object for subjects in the world." (von Weizs- acker) "Objects and events are not primitive experiences. Objects and ev- ents are representations of relations." (von Foerster) [Note that an ob- ject can be a subject for a subject for itself.] A hypothesis of the core structure states that relations in the physical world are ultimately in- dependent or _formally_ dependent upon the subject; this hypothesis guar- antees in practice the irrelevance and marginality of the ego. The pro- cesses of industrialization and methodology - in terms of heuristics - of science and technology are the same in capitalism and communism; the the- oretico-philosophic interpretation of theory may be completely different. [...] [Now the description above applies to protocols, which, within their rep- resentations, describe their worlds, are subjects for themselves. Within the Net, for example, the substructural layers define - in a core-theor- etical way - the surface phenomena; these layers can be considered fore- closed or _almost independent_ (nearly decomposable - see Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial). Embedded in history, these layers are, of course, conventional, ad hoc (much as our universe within the inflationary or anthropic model may be considered conventional vis-a-vis carbon-based life); _within the Net,_ however, they are idealities, permitting, for example, this text to reach you vis-a-vis email protocols.] [The article goes on to examine the status of the scientific photograph, not contesting its apparent neutrality, so much as examining it from a phenomenological viewpoint. The article ends with the following post- script, which continues to point to a very basic problematic.] Postscript: It must be understood that this article can only be an out- line. Because of the interstitial nature of scientific photography, its aesthetics and phenomenology draw on such diverse areas as the philosophy of science, theories of cognition, phenomenology, and traditional photo- graphic aesthetics. The deepest problem is twofold: the relation of theory to image, and the mathematization of reality "in general." The latter is basic, since the image/reality nexus can often be reduced to an analysis of algorithmic procedures. Mathematization is still the major problem with- in the philosophy of science; the gap between abstraction and materiality is treated differently, depending upon idealist, materialist, intuition- ist, marxist, [conventionalist,] or anarchist viewpoints. I tend towards anarchism in methodology [wild theory] and a platonism, perhaps naive, in terms of core structure. Dead Time reflects this viewpoint, however con- tradictory. Alan Sondheim, Los Angeles, 7/1981 _________________________________________________________________________ U Not that there are ontological/epistemological claims for or within closed domains; the mathesis is of an other order (even though the two, mathema- tico-physical, increasingly meld together in contemporary particle phys- ics), applicable to whatever is circumscribed. Here, membership, set-theo- retical concerns, play critical roles; the domain is dialectical and usu- ally foreclosed. (This is where issues of near-decomposability come into play.) So that foreclosure itself can be considered an ontic generator, feed-back holding its own within a potential well. It depends on the fore- closing, what sort of rupture is defined; across a black hole, for exam- ple, the particle horizon doesn't necessarily lead to onto shifting - or does it? Say yes as information is lost; information then procures the su- turing or fissuring of domains, the latter indicative of same/same pro- cesses, and the former, of submergences. In general, though, inscription itself divides _one_ from the _other,_ non-Irigarayan functions; fissure corrupts _within_ the same, as if the black hole singularity were a proper subset of the spacetime matrix. It becomes necessary to define/redefine; cyberspace tcp/ip is matrix enough for information conveyance; note I'm making a case here for considering the protocols a _universe_ as in _U_ foreclosed within set theory, or even a closed topology. To the extent of this circumscription, which is non-fissuring but submergence, the defined spatiality (which could be nothing more than graph-theoretical embedded in any sufficiently large n-dimensional space) has the _appearance_ of uni- verse to the operatives and agents, human and otherwise, "within" it (to the extent that information is "within" a wire or pipe or protocol packet, with all their attendant ontologies). Thus, given this modeling derived still from a consideration of physical sciences, one can speak of a world or worlding _here,_ in addition to _here_ as a communicative pipeline or transitive and temporary regime between real physical communicators in the material world "at large." _________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer's Evil On the Net Evil can or cannot be identified with issues of ethics or morality. Evil can or cannot be the opposite of good. Here, I am concerned with evil on the Net. On one hand, I like to say that everyone believes that what he or she is doing is good. On the other, I know that processes can take over, foreclose on ethos or anything else for that matter. On the Net, I meet people who deliberately create havoc, people I would pass on the street in everyday life. They do not care. I do not know what makes them act the way they do. One moment they can ap- pear normal and loving, and the next minute they appear the same way but they are saying something different. They are saying it so different that it is clear they are not listening to anything but themselves. Wow, I guess that is selfish. They have narcissistic disturbances, psychoses, and they are sociopaths. They have no names and no conditions. They do not know I think about them and write about them too. They are everywhere on the Net and they follow me. I leave a trail and a scent. I would avoid these people if I could, but you never know. But I have learned a lot of things: that evil comes in many guises; that people do not always want to do good or inhabit the good; that impulse undermines intentions; that ethos, the law, ethics, morality, are all afterthoughts of cohesion designed to bind humans in their off-moments; that evil is a violence done to another, willingly or without consequence to the self; that I must watch myself very carefully, to make certain and ascertain that I too am listening; that I must tell you, that I am not an after- thought. _________________________________________________________________________ V*****I*****L*****E On DAYS OF OUR LIVES, a scream, even now, even again, incipient FASCISM: I WANT MY BABY BACK as the nuclear family is again superglued together, and a WOMAN IN A TIGHT RED DRESS walks out on Jay Leno DESTROYING inno- cent DDADDDIES. Meanwhile I find myself PLAUSIBLE gauging such antics on TOTALITARIAN INDEX of subterfuge: + family = - freedom, the balance mul- tiplicative, or ff = C, constant; let's normalize to 1; then f = 1/f and note please that "family" "freedom" have become intertwined, identified with each other, as the solar anus absorbs inversion. I FEAR the FAMILY and its contained _violence,_ since or _as_ it is precisely and surgical- ly _sewn up,_ virginal. THAT is the equation: THE FAMILY IS VIRGINAL, no- THING penetrates, and YA YA I WANT MY BABY BACK recuperates the EXPULSION into the EVIL of ALTERITY. For it is OTHER that SCREAMS of the TAINT of IMPURE BLOOD, RESIDUAL STAIN upon the HYMEN of mommy-daddy-kiddy = 1/mommy-kiddy-daddy: "Let me bleed for you / like I always do / let me bleed for you." There is all kinds, of. That of AIDS, MENSES, SCRAPE OR LITTLE SCRATCH ON THE KNEE, RUPTURED HYMEN, GNARLED FURROWS ON THE ASS. IF YOU'RE VERY GOOD IT DOESN'T SHOW. If you're very bad, it does. ________________________________________________________________________ Jennifer's Sonnet of Marbles and Brambles Brambles have marbles by their bases, glass against knobby bark up towards dark green shoots, lovely white fleshy soles. They're in cahoots, marbles' burbled presence by Jennifer's toes. One among each and each, each other. Jennifer's in throes Of pain and anguish, delirious happenings. The sap drains from Jennifer's waist down to the ground hoisted by the naval beach. We're not going to the beach, to the ocean or the grotty sea. There are no waves. Jennifer shaves her body, slides marble packets in and out. They make rackets, Jennifer shouts with joy, delight, dissolution. Proliferation of cornucopia of confusion, white wire tangling profusion, the marbles are covered with dirt, whole villages of paramecia, stentor, amoeba, nematodia clad and pillaged by Jennifer's souls. We're not going anywhere, Jennifer-in-the-brambles monuments herself in dark white beautiful marble plinth, she's in't. _______________________________________________________________________ Trivial Morality There's nothing I would die for, except by my own hand, relative to consi- derable thought; I demand that right. But there is nothing to believe in so strongly that I would cancel _outcome,_ pull my house down, lid shut. To die for something is to believe, I'd think, in an absolute, that it is _this_ which is worth the cancellation of the horizon. Certainly no recom- pense against its absence. When defuge sets in, when decathecting is universal, then it's the time to say goodbye; or when pain storms the horizon without end, then the prime mover is its alleviation. But I would also argue for a suicide for trivial reasons; it should be the responsibility of the man or woman to decide his or her life's worth. I don't believe, for an instant, in remaining alive for others; this is the height of the selfishness of the world. One lives either because one desires to live or because one doesn't particularly de- sire to die; the rest is foolishness. If I reach a very old age, I will not embrace the foolishness. _________________________________________________________________________ Tiny Home Creating home-page "Narcissistic Disturbance," images splayed across four frames, liquid fluxes of nipples, panties, mouths, intermingled dribbled texts, doubled-targeted imaginary. Screen pours wide for text. Everyone knows I can look in any fluid and see myself. So Jennifer runs down: maya H6 dripping thrust out elsewhere by Jennifer located by Jennifer maya /WET dripping
turned out by jennifermaya /WET dripping soak/dribble drool/spit maya P dripping Oh,I  wish you were here! Check out maya A HREF="frame1.htm" dripping body of body

maya P dripping jennifer_you_push_me_to_the_limit

maya TH dripping jennifer_you_thrust_me_to_the_edges_of_your_flesh maya H6 dripping oh wouldn't this be the best, tiny-square dripping into fleshpot jennifer maya /WET dripping
  maya BREAST COLOR="#000000" dripping what's the color of blood here? what are you talking about? what were you ever thinking about? maya /WET dripping maya /BREAST dripping
maya TD dripping a-place of lost souls b-place of Jennifer maya TD dripping c-Jennifer-lost-soul d-Jennifer-Jennifer maya H6 dripping fleshpot-jennifer always looking into skyhook-jennifer maya /WET dripping i am thinking of you jennifer, my milky white nipples gather longingly around your memory, as I drip down onto the keyboard of my lifespan so nearly run across the world, my globes span continents, always yours, my skin tears into your desires, i am your white neck, throat, hands of milk.maya /WET dripping maya A HREF="frame5.htm" dripping open milky-splash-jennifer on wet- breasts-jennifer on urine-mouth-jennifermaya /A dripping