On Mysticism in Max Nordau's Degeneration "We have already learnt to see in mysticism a principal characteristic of degeneration. It follows so generally in the train of the latter, that there is scarcely a case of degeneration in which it does not ap- pear. To cite authorities for this is about as unnecessary as to ad- duce proof for the fact that in typhus a rise in the temperature of the body is invariably observed. I will therefore only repeat one remark of Legrain's: 'Mystical thoughts are to be laid to the account of the insanity of the degenerate. There are two states in which they are observed - in epilepsy and in hysterical delirium.' When Federoff, who makes mention of religious delirium and ecstasy as among the ac- companying features of an attack of hysteria, puts them down as a pec- ularity of women, he commits an error, since they are at least as com- mon in male hysterical and degenerate subjects as in female." This is from Max Nordau, Degeneration, 1895, and I have decided to write on this subject. It does not seem to me that this is true. I think there can be mystics who are not degenerates although I have not met many mystics and some of the ones I have met are very strange, even weird, so maybe there is some truth to it. But how can one say that if one devotes one's life to one's true God that one is a degenerate? Perhaps I misunderstand the meaning of the author's words. I do not understand degenerate al- though in the book he relates it to hysteria and relates hysteria to fatigue because people are tired in these modern times. He gives lots of proof to this so I have to take it on his word, which seems good enough because he backs it up with a lot of interesting statistics. I don't know why epilepsy is a cause of mysticism or leads to degener- ation but it is true that it is a horrible disease although I under- stand that they have it under control now, but maybe I don't really have the facts here, and Max Nordau gives no statistics but just quotes this other person. But I do know that hysterical delirium can lead to mysticism because I often have hysterical delirium and believe me it is not pleasant. But then I do see God and everything can be all right again, but I am not sure. (I am, but I will have to write on that some other time!) Where does Max Nordau get his facts from about degeneration and mysti- cism? I don't think he has all the facts but he does have the facts about hysteria and fatigue and the modern age, but these are different facts and everyone knows you can't take one set of things and just ap- ply them willy-nilly to another, so I guess something is missing here and that is partly why I believe that Max Nordau is wrong. Here is what Max Nordau says about degenerates: "We will briefly men- ton some peculiarities frequently manifested by a degenerate. He is tormented by doubts, [ha! mysticism! (me)] seeks for the basis of all phenomena, especially those whose first causes are completely inacces- sible to us, and is unhappy when his inquiries and ruminations lead, as is natural, [oh! why!??! why?!!?] to no result. He is ever supply- ing new recruits to the army of system-inventing metaphysicians, pro- found expositors of the universe, seekers for the philosopher's stone, [I know the feeling!!] the squaring of the circle and perpetual mo- tion." And then just above this (I just noticed this!) he says: "With the incapacity for action there is connected the predilection for inane reverie. The degenerate is not in a condition to fix his attention long, or indeed at all, on any subject, and is equally incapable of correctly grasping, ordering, or elaborating into ideas and judgments the impressions of the external world conveyed to his distracted consciousness by his defectively operating senses. It is easier and more convenient for him to allow his brain-centres [sic!!] to produce semi-lucid, nebulously blurred ideas and inchoate embryonic thoughts, and to surrender himself to the perpetual obfuscation of a boundless, aimless, and shoreless stream of fugitive ideas; and he rarely rouses himself to the painful attempt to check or counteract the capricious, and, as a rule, purely mechanical associations of ideas and succession of images and bring under discipline the disorderly tumult of his fluid presentations." This is the main part of my argument, that the degenerate can never be a mystic because he (or she!) can't concentrate on anything long enough for meditation, and without meditation, there would be no way to see the true godhead of our lord or lords or these things that mys- tics see when they go into trances, as all of them do. They go into trances and they stay there for a long time, and that is not what the degenerate can do, according to Max Nordau's own words! So if the de- generate can't do this, he (or she!) can have a glimpse I think of a mystical truth or the truth of the world of all things, including what are called "phenomena," but he can't go beyond the world into the true mystical one because he doesn't have the attention space you would need to do this kind of thing which is at the heart of mysticism, so what happens is that the degenerate is not a mystic, even though Nordau says he is, and then gives a whole long chapter of examples which range from Wagner to the Pre-Raphaelites and to Tolstoi. Now it is true that all of these people are degenerates, I know that for a fact (it is so obvious), but it is not because these people are mys- tics, not even Tolstoi (who was a true mystic, I believe), but for other things, like with the Pre-Raphaelites, they were exchanging lovers all the time, and a lot of the women were very unhappy I read. So it couldn't be that, the mysticism, but it was because of other things which made them degenerate like these things about true lovers, which they never found. (They never found what the causes were that made them degenerate, not that they didn't find their lovers, who were always there.) To conclude my paper, here is a final quote from Max Nordau: "In one part or another of his mental field of vision each of us therefore is a mystic. [Ha!] From all the phenomena which he himself has not ob- served, everyone forms shadowy, unstable presentations. Nevertheless it is easy to distinguish healthy men from those who deserve the des- ignation of mystic. There is a sure sign for each. The healthy man is in a condition to obtain sharply-defined presentations from his own immediate perceptions, and to comprehend their real connection. The mystic, on the contrary, mixes his ambiguous, cloudy, half-formed lim- inal representations with his immediate perceptions which are thereby distrurbed and obscured." You can see that perhaps Max Nordau has backed down, but I don't think so. He finds the Pre-Raphaelites degen- erate because they are mystics, as I have shown, and then he writes about others, but you get the idea. Conclusion, Max Nordau is wrong about degenerates being mystics be- cause degenerates can't focus on things and mystics can. But there are other ways that mystics can be degenerates of course (I have said they are weird, at least the ones I have met), so the "jury is still out"! ________________________________________________________________________ How The Doing Is I have no sense of time at all. I quote a cause for the effect, effect for the cause. I will have A influence its predecessor B, who has yet to be born on this earth. I will connect C and D who have never met, have nothing in common, speak different languages, and eat different foods. I will rub a theory in its contradiction until both are polished. Until both are demolished. I will create contradictions for a theory which are a theory. I will create a theory of contradictions and contradict such a theory. I will reverse time and invert space. I will disassociate space from itself, emphasize its discontinuities, only to suture its continuities and dissolve both. Time will not be gainsaid. I will quote one and then another theory which contradict each other. I will adopt the tenets of both. I will take one theory as an authority for the reader and take another theory as an authority for the writer and then reverse the two and their consequences. I will start from the end and finish at the beginning, or I will finish at the beginning and then start at the end. I will do both or neither, one or the other in each and every order, as more times and spaces and theories and readers and writers accumulate. I will insist I am the author of the writer, and I will insist that I write the author. I do not care for contradiction in any way or any case. I do care for contradiction, in every way or no case whatsoever. I have every sense of time, every sense of space. I quote one cause for another, one effect for another. I make chains of effects and causes, the latter following the former, the former following the latter. It makes no difference. I will or will not connect E and F. ________________________________________________________________________ But if I could tell you whether C or D do or do not connect or if I could tell you whether I connect C and D or do not connect C and D I could give you an image. If I could give you an image I could give you a symbol which would be the symbol of that image or its signifier. If I could give you several images and several symbols I could connect one to another or not connect one to another but if I could connect one to another I could give you a picture. If I could give you several pictures I could connect one to another or not connect one to another. If I could connect one to another I could give you a belief. If I could give you a belief it would be a picture of my belief or it would not be a picture of my belief but it would be connected. If it would be connected I would be connected or I would not be connected but if I were connected I could give you a theory and I would give you a theory. If I gave you a theory you would give me money and you would give me you or you would not give me you. If you would give me you I would tell you if B and C connect or if B and C do not connect. You would know you. __________________________________________________________________________ Passing the Ball Along, I mean Semiotics and Differance "A Man of Words "A man of words and not of deeds, Is like a garden full of weeds; And when the weeds begin to grow, It's like a garden full of snow; And when the snow begins to fall, It's like a bird upon the wall; And when the bird away does fly, It's like an eagle in the sky; And when the sky begins to roar, It's like a lion at the door; And when the door begins to crack, It's like a stick across your back; And when your back begins to smart, It's like a penknife in your heart; And when your heart begins bleed, You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed." (Anonymous poem from The Penguin Book of Comic and Curious Verse, selected by J. M. Cohen, 1952.) They were _passing the ball along_ from one to another, the happy runners running across the field with smiles on their face. They called the movement _the lateral_ or possibly _the deference of the image_ because it was precisely that, among these schoolboys passing from one another, passing for one another. But what was being passed but the imaginary, and in what realm was the oval playing-field? I think this might have been the realm of dreams or the realm of these space wherein we type forward to one another, waiting, languorously, for the perfect return. I remember happy voices passing back and forth among us. I remember talking going well into the night, from later afternoon until darkness befalls the world. I remember these beautiful pictures and the manner in which they live within us, small children always in awe, always in awe. And I remember, too, the sense of wonder with the beginning of the first word, the first phrase, the first sentence. When it was always dawn. When it was always spring. _______________________________________________________________________ I am Alanxy why am I Alanxy because that is because when I send you a message, that is when I because, when I send you a message it must be control-x then y, that is control-x to send, then y for yes, yes yes to send the message to you, yes yes but Alanxy, yes, well, then when this happens, the control key is moved, not where I want it to be! or no longer operates or is missing in the first place or never was there, then when I type control-x y to send you the message yes yes to send you the message, then I become Alanxy then I am Alanxy after signing Alan, after signing love, Alan and you see my Alanxy sometimes or I return and write back to you as Alan or as love, Alan not as love Alan no imperative, not even love Alanxy or maybe love Alanxy that is an algebra of existence, is it not that is an algebra of existence ___________________________________________________________________ The Subject without a Mirror I see my reflection, uncanny and ghostlike, reflected in the window on the train from Sydney to Camberra, this becomes a text of trans- port, say fifteen meters between one word and another, that is a _lengthening_ of affect across the surface of the screen, if one can believe in such discontinuities. Reading a slowdown of the vehicle for example results in a _decrease_ of the distance, which now, as we pull into Campbelltown, approaches a one-to-one mapping, within a magnitude or so, of the size of _your_ screen, the merely-human, so to speak, collapsed upon the semi-rural townships visible here just before and after arrival at this intermediary point. Half the time I want to look out the window, half the time type and time is another factor, the concrete lag between the writing and send- ing of this message, which depends on a concrete connection between machine and wire, perhaps not for minutes, hours, days. And time is another factor, as this broad day slips by, the train speeds again, and the _increase_ results in a pulling of the landscape past the win- down at a higher and higher rate of speed. In a manner similar to that of foundering theory, subjectivity tends towards a rather problematic expansion and desperate search so that the mapping becomes something which, later we will find, ap- proaches the _planetary,_ this small _occasion_ of the universe; there's not even bush present and accounted for _just yet,_ but I can imagine the vastness of space, the weakness of our connection, in spite of our embeddedness, to the cosmos as an ungraspable w/hole. Help help we're lost in the Cosmos I say to the 89-year-old man sit- ting next to me as we leave Campbelltown, and he replies "Thus 'is there a subject without a mirror,' a question that appears in a related form in the marginal notes written in my second-hand copy of Elizabeth Grosz' Volatile Bodies, might be answered in this fashion by an enormous exhalation that one could (if so inclined) liken to a system of resonances produced _precisely_ through protocols and hyper- links across the Internet." "Now we're "a good third of the way there" I reply, the sky beginning to cloud over this landscape of rolling hills, occasional industry, fields giving way to bush, bush to fields, some cows feeding at a wat- er trough, telegraph wires and four trees in a line. _______________________________________________________________________ The Stillness of Frozen Flesh There on ThePalace or WorldsChat there is the silent, immobilized ava- tar, the image which refuses speech, perhaps whispering or paging else- where, the avatar who _sits_ in the midst of others conversing, the silent listener at the party. I imagine a future in which he or she, naked, turns slightly, imperceptibly, at the mention of a name, twitch of an eye - a pornography based on the _revelation of planes._ View [x] -> View [x+1] & in the Midst of Silence, this thin Layer as _Supplement_ in Replacement of that Second in the Turn of _Diminution._ Such is a _Glance_ at the Sound of a Word to which the Machine Accedes to the Lineaments of _inexact Desire._ Such is the Lurker, always already Visible, given the Intravenous of a Body under Siege or Examination. And I am _distraught_ in the midst of my Desire as well, aroused to an Hysteric Degree, simply by the Sight or Site of that Sliver, that Inscription of what is Already Heard. _______________________________________________________________________ No Idea Who He Was On this unending train, I do not leave either trace or trail, progres- sing across the Australian landscape. This is the silent visitation of the strange, something needing theorization, as it is characteristic of modern life. Forget Kristeva's romanticism, Simmel here - I'm talk- ing about the deep, almost random, loss of memory built into the land, into the recordings of journeys taken every minute. I'm talking about complete and utter _disappearance._ For example, that bicyclist I have seen in the distance, recognition of the pure and complete body that drives the framework - but at _such_ a distance, the face unrecognizable, nothing more to be seen or said. These moments of _mind and organism_ constantly passed, unsurpassed. Whose legs are those just so visible behind the automobile parked by the curb in front of the milk bar at the end of the road?* Just as the face _might_ appear, there is always some obstacle - the speed of the train, an inappropriate intervention on the part of a large truck, effacing the face in a fashion one might take as absolute. Whose legs are those do not recognize a question mark. ___________________________________________ *Prepositions! Phrases! _______________________________________________________________________ dreaming of white gauze again, lips tied into place, severed from the body, appearing to emerge, there's always the first word, slight tumescence of the cloth, a definition of smothered language, body arched upwards, hollow beneath the back (where the back would be), it's an outline of white gauze, it's always damp, as if excretions were somehow caught up in all of this, head bending backwards speaking upside-down, all sounds are coming-out sounds sdnuos tuo-gnimoc era i will be a dash caught in a mesh, i will be a period coming to an end ___________________________________________________________ IN LUCIAM Hanc cum, Lucia, mentulatiorem Qui nasatior est inepta credas, Rivali puto me carere summo, Quod nondum tibi visus est Philemon. AGAINST LUCIA As you take the silly view, that the bigger the nose the bigger the prick, my main rival isn't on the scene, Lucia, since you've never seen Philemon. #26 in Janus Pannonius, Epigrammata, edited and translated by Anthony A. Barrett and Corvina Kiado; Pannonius wrote in mid-fifteenth-century Hung- ary. Luckily my glasses hide my enormous nose which turns slightly at an angle as a result of a beating in Providence. I don't know you, Lucia, but I imagine you shriveled, hardly of any use to either of us, besides I may be lying. (About my enormous nose.) In a space like this, who can tell the size of his nose, the size of his prick, which might as well align itself with your monitor, or the number of keys as you lean towards the screen. you might fall into the glass, you might fall out of it. Lucia, Lucia, I just fell out of you! _________________________________________________________________ desperado still online but there's a difference with the inability to stretch the imagination pass the breaking point, all these 0-5 minute logs as if it were possible to say _anything_ while the system freezes, holds fast - while a stone is produced out of process, while the throat contin- ues its uneasy hold on the rest of the body, o loved ones, do read anguish into these brief moments, o o o o o sondheim ttyr2 203.19.125.51 Tue Mar 17 09:01 still logged in sondheim ttyp0 203.19.125.51 Tue Mar 17 08:53 - 08:58 (00:04) sondheim ttyp0 203.19.125.51 Tue Mar 17 08:49 - 08:53 (00:03) sondheim ttyr2 203.19.125.51 Tue Mar 17 08:23 - 08:49 (00:26) sondheim ftp 203.19.125.51 Tue Mar 17 08:20 - 08:23 (00:02) sondheim ttypd 203.19.125.51 Tue Mar 17 08:08 - 08:19 (00:11) sondheim ttyr6 acay0191267.acay Mon Mar 16 18:57 - 19:31 (00:34) sondheim ttyp4 203.19.125.34 Mon Mar 16 07:50 - 08:25 (00:35) sondheim ttyp0 203.19.125.34 Mon Mar 16 07:04 - 07:07 (00:02) sondheim ttyp1 203.19.125.34 Mon Mar 16 06:53 - 07:03 (00:09) sondheim ttyp8 203.19.125.34 Mon Mar 16 06:50 - 06:53 (00:02) sondheim ttyp8 203.19.125.34 Mon Mar 16 06:45 - 06:49 (00:04) sondheim ttype 203.19.125.34 Mon Mar 16 06:32 - 06:43 (00:11) sondheim ttyp0 203.19.125.93 Mon Mar 16 02:19 - 02:49 (00:29) sondheim ttyq0 203.19.125.93 Mon Mar 16 02:12 - 02:18 (00:05) sondheim ttyq2 203.19.125.93 Mon Mar 16 02:08 - 02:11 (00:02) sondheim ttypc 203.19.125.92 Sun Mar 15 19:13 - 19:20 (00:06) sondheim ftp 203.19.125.92 Sun Mar 15 19:12 - 19:12 (00:00) sondheim ttyr3 203.19.125.92 Sun Mar 15 18:54 - 19:11 (00:17) sondheim ftp 203.19.125.92 Sun Mar 15 18:52 - 18:53 (00:01) sondheim ttyqc 203.19.125.92 Sun Mar 15 18:19 - 18:51 (00:31) sondheim ftp acay01912633.aca Sun Mar 15 07:43 - 07:45 (00:02) sondheim ttyp0 acay01912633.aca Sun Mar 15 07:07 - 07:42 (00:34) sondheim ttyp0 acay01912633.aca Sun Mar 15 06:59 - 07:05 (00:05) sondheim ttyr0 slipr37.anu.edu. Sat Mar 14 18:03 - 18:14 (00:11) sondheim ttyp5 slipr35.anu.edu. Sat Mar 14 07:53 - 07:59 (00:06) sondheim ttypf slipr35.anu.edu. Sat Mar 14 07:47 - 07:48 (00:01) sondheim ttyp3 slipr35.anu.edu. Sat Mar 14 07:34 - 07:42 (00:07) sondheim ttyp4 slipr36.anu.edu. Sat Mar 14 06:11 - 06:13 (00:01) sondheim ttyp3 slipr36.anu.edu. Sat Mar 14 05:44 - 06:10 (00:26) wtmp begins Sat Mar 14 04:05 _______________________________________________________________________ when the screen goes blank there's a dead eye in the middle of the world i'd almost said word i'd almost written world but there's a dead eye i'm so used to the i's the hand trembles and doesn't cease the hand keeps going in the middle of the word i almost said word in the middle of the written world there's the black "fire of dead ice" i can't imagine you when i can't read you i almost said you blanking the trembling hand _________________________________________________________________________ From hysteria jennifer@gol.com hysteria Wed hysteria Mar hysteria 18 hysteria 08:27:42 hysteria 1998 Received: hysteria from hysteria gol1.gol.com hysteria (gol1.gol.com hysteria [203.216.12.4]) by hysteria mail1.panix.com hysteria (8.8.8/8.8.8/PanixM1.3) hysteria with hysteria ESMTP hysteria id hysteria IAA25544 for hysteria ; hysteria Wed, hysteria 18 hysteria Mar hysteria 1998 hysteria 08:27:14 hysteria -0500 hysteria (EST) Received: hysteria from hysteria localhost hysteria (jennifer@localhost) by hysteria gol1.gol.com hysteria (8.8.8/8.8.8/888-980123-P-bsdi) hysteria with hysteria SMTP hysteria id hysteria WAA22444 for hysteria ; hysteria Wed, hysteria 18 hysteria Mar hysteria 1998 hysteria 22:27:13 hysteria +0900 hysteria (JST) Date: hysteria Wed, hysteria 18 hysteria Mar hysteria 1998 hysteria 22:27:12 hysteria +0900 hysteria (JST) From: hysteria Alan hysteria Myouka hysteria Jennifer hysteria To: hysteria jennifer@panix.com Message-ID: hysteria X-Abuse-Contact: hysteria abuse@gol.com MIME-Version: hysteria 1.0 Content-Type: hysteria TEXT/PLAIN; hysteria charset=US-ASCII o julu oh oh oh because hysteria you hysteria are hysteria me hysteria i hysteria need hysteria myself hysteria and hysteria you hysteria are hysteria not hysteria there hysteria are hysteria you hysteria now oh this is so stupid oh you are so stupid oh oh oh ___________________________________________________________________________ The Segment I have been running on the Net and co-moderating on the Net and advising on the Net for close to four and a half years now, and I have been think- ing about how my life turns segmentary, becoming-segmented, vis-a-vis the cycles of the Net, as if there were a daily breathing, a checking-in and a checking-out, no matter what, and I have noticed that I have been off or out of touch for perhaps no more than three or four days at the maximum over this period during which I traveled to Perth, Sydney, Canberra, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Fukuoka, Cleveland, Huntington Beach, Wilkes-Barre, and a host of other forgotten places, and I have used perhaps 30 ISPs thanks to the generosity of guests during this period, so that an order is set, that of the _addict,_ whether or not there is "Net Addiction" because in praxis I must log on log off to handle the volume of messages incoming, as well as work through requests and texts and counter- requests, so it's apparent that s I know when you write, I have an idea when you sleep, I know when you're likely to be on-line, I know when to expect an answer, an answer, an answer... w So that it's waiting, from Japan, for America to come on-line, waiting further or not for the "problem of Europe" ahead of the game by several hours, catching up on _the farther side_ - so that so that i Waiting for an answer, waiting for an answer... m So that back in Japan or even here in Singapore (now I am in Singapore) there's a _vector_ down south, more or less down south, plus or minus say three hours down south, or from north to south or from south to north, towards Australia, towards New Zealand, this vector m In which time remains constant, the rest of the breathing held down, but there _I_ am on-line with the rest of you / them, knowing our breathing is _in rhythm,_ so to _speak,_ so that i There's always this issue of the _segment,_ the point or vector or node or cycle I'm referencing here, the _segment_ which is the intervening or intervention of the Net into a routing, becoming-routine, so that one might imagine in fact that I see my body within the imaginary, segmented itself - n And then there are all these other issues of political economy, responsib- ility, in relation to the segment, and the phenomenology of the segment, time in-between, liminal, time on-line, entering and exiting the computer ... g So that what might seem like addiction on one hand might be a prone series of actions on the other (as if) there is no tomorrow... s Now here in Singapore, I run out of money, the exhange-rate is odd and senseless, I have done my duties, I am complete, this text among others, one segment for another, these exchanges... ____________________________________________________________________________ Outlaw "What would people say if they saw a strapping big lump of an Irishman shepherding sheep for fifteen bob a week or tailing turkeys in Tallarook ranges for a smile from Julia or even begging his tucker, they would say he ought to be ashamed of himself and tar-and-feather him. But he would be a king to a policeman who for a lazy loafing cowardly bilit left the ash corner deserted the shamrock, the emblem of true wit and beauty to serve under a flag and nation that has destroyed massacred and murdered their fore-fathers by the greatest of torture as rolling them down hill in spiked barrels pulling their toe and finger nails and on the wheel and every torture imaginable more was transported to Van Diemand's Land to pine their young lives away in starvation and misery among tyrants worse than the promised hell itself all of true blood bone and beauty, that was not murdered on their own soil, or had fled to America or other countries to bloom again another day were doomed to Port McQuarie, Toweringabbie, Norfolk island and Emu plains and in those places of tyrany and comdenation many a blooming Irishman rather than subdue to the Saxon yoke were flogged to death and bravely died in servile chains but true to the shamrock and a cridt to Paddys land What would people say if I became a policeman and took an oath to arrest my brothers and sisters and relations and convict them by fair or foul means after the conviction of my mother and the persecutions and insults offered tomyself and people Would they say I was a decent gentleman and yet a policeman is still in worse and guilty of maner actions than that The Queen must surely be proud of such heroic men as the Police and Irish soldiers as It takes eight or eleven of the biggest mud crushers in Melbourne to take one poor little half starved larrakin to a watchouse. [ ... ] "I give fair warning to all those who has reason to fear me to sell out and give L10 out of every hundred towards the widow and orphan fund and do not attempt to reside in Victoria but as short time as possible after reading this notice, neglect this and abide by the consequences, which shall be worse than the rust in the wheat in Victoria or the druth of a dry season to the grasshoppers in New South Wales I do not wish to give the order full force without giving timely warning, but I am widows son outlawed and my orders _must be obeyed._ Edward Kelly" (From Charles Osborne, Ned Kelly; the quote above is from a statement Kelly tried to have printed at Jerilderie. The year is 1879, Austral- ia.) Now I give these extracts for the flux of the text and the magnifica- tion of the local as well as nodes across or tracts throughout the south east of the country Australia. So that something burns within them and I pray to my God that something burns within me in the same manner if not the mode of speech, and that someday I may rise to the occasion, as Kelly has, God be with him. You may see just how they burn and how the words run on as if he were afraid of taking another breath unnecessary in those times when he wore a helmet to fearlessly confront the law until he was shot down in the legs where his armor wasn't. This is the truth of it as I have known in my heart. ___________________________________________________________________________ On and Off the Net: The Segment I am _yoked_ to the computer; I "check into" the Net usually three or more times a day - once, at the very least. It (this activity, behavior, obsession) appears as an addiction - being _on_ is often at the back of my mind - the time of login decided well in advance. (I think myself through this. I am _intended_ within a given phenomenological project, teleology.) If I am traveling, I need to consider where I am going, what sort of current is available, what sort of phone connections. Do I log on long-distance to my own provider, through the provider of a friend, through a university connection or a cyber-cafe? What sort of protocols are needed? Do I work through a shell-account and my own communications program on my laptop? Do I work through an IP account, using manual dialup on my trumpet winsock software? Do I use another computer alto- gether, with its own programs - for example Ewan or telnet through Net- scape or at the Win 95 DOS prompt? Will the DNS lookup match? (What about Macs?) Some of these questions I can answer in advance; some require configur- ing. Even at home I worry the issue - but only in terms of time - I'll log in tonight to see if X has responded, if Y wants to continue the conversation. There are times I will catch Z on-line, move over to ytalk or a MOO or talker; if I'm on my desktop machine, I may use Linux and my local talkers or ytalk. I can invite Z into my machine, into the heart of it. I can go with Z to another site altogether, chat there. I can chat with Z on IRC from Mirc in Windows or Phoenix otherwise. Z and I can war program together, if he or she has the time. "Into the heart of it": I see you enter my machine, the modem lights wildly flickering. You and I together, circulations occurring locally, the computer re-presenting the body. I am segmented across the Net, within my machine as well. We are _electronic._ So there are times to consider, people coming on- and off-line as the local day and night progress. I am segmented, in other words, by the other to the extent I want to engage her or him directly, want to col- lapse lag to the minimum. Lag increases as well with distance; the far- ther I am from him or her, the less likely I am to work with synchron- ous applications, since the delay becomes frustrating. Local and delib- erate delay can be seductive; arbitrary delay can lead to high levels of anxiety and an inability to _speak_ (I have written of this elsewhere.) _I have written of this elsewhere._ (Beyond lag, one might consider Net time as somewhat absolute, just as an email header carries fairly exact information about departure and arrival. _Where_ the nodes are can be more difficult to ascertain; even if the city or university is known, the _exact_ location usually isn't. In real life, the situation is somewhat reversed; I generally know _where_ I am to a fair degree of accuracy [and what attitude my body is in - what configuration], but, unless I am "watching the time," the _when_ of my daily activities is blurred - as is the concept of the present itself.) Segmenting compartmentalizes my life as well; I am aware of two worlds, two callings, each of which interpenetrates the other. At times I think of these worlds as differing epistemologically, but more and more I find that there is an ontological component as well; I am _different_ and _differently composed_ off-line than on-. The absenting of the body is different, the role of the imaginary and its idealities is differently constructed. On the Net I am always already aware of being constituted in such a manner that I am deeply framed - I can change myself (although almost always I choose not to). This is a frame which, in dialectical interaction with the protocols, softwares, hardwares, and applications, is mobile, given simultaneously from within and without, but with the emphasis on the former (I can delete her, I can invite him in, I can change me). The off-line frame begins with the given, of which I am a recipient; gender-change is far more difficult, mobility is limited by the fact that _the body, to get from A to B, must traverse all the in- termediary positions between them._ I have written of this elsewhere, within the segmented divisions of the Internet Text. Having written extensively of these differences, I need only note the tensions among them as one moves on and off line, tensions which are part of what Kristeva might consider the borderline personality of our time. It is in the interstices that fantasms, neuroses, hysterias oc- cur - those intermittent or diffused areas, those uncontrollable and dispersing regimes - dreams, for example, in which scrolling text plays a role, or on-line behavior conditioned by an uncanny feeling that she or he is _in the room now_ with me, just around the corner, above, below, to one or another side. Segmenting is always already composed of the interstitial, liminal; it is not a cyclical series (it never returns to the same), but one that continues roughly, indefinitely. It is a _stuttered_ series, hardly spoken, hardly capable of speech and phenomena. There are rites of log- ging on, logging-on. There are moments when the rites are forgotten, in the midst of writing a text or walking a mountain. But they are always part of the horizon, as I have said, always present, always constructing a degree of separation among realms - just as a code word (safe word) might operate within the theater of sado-masochism. The rites ensure that _neither one world nor the other is stable,_ that there is no conceivable stability among them. The rites ensure that one, two, worlds lend themselves to one, two, three, many worlds, just as gender reversal leads to one, two, many genders. What opens up on and off the Net is a _dispersion or splay of subjectivities,_ imminent and immanent destabilizations which are, at best, temporarily existing with- in the potential wells defined by the rites. Each exists as a slide into another - and one might make a case that it is the on-line world that eventually succeeds as the body succumbs to illness, accident, death. (It is to be noted, as well, that the _logics_ employed here, themselves splayed across the "real" and the "virtual," are non-distributive, quan- tum in nature, that the dispersions are stochastic, uncontrollable, and inductive. Such I believe is the nature of organism itself, especially in its interaction with structures, protocols, or frameworks.) But in the meantime, during the segment of existing life or existing conscious life (within or without the screen), there is of course the element of _addiction,_ guaranteed by this repetitive behavior in relation to _such and such a node or vector,_ that is, what is called "cyberspace," this accumulation of computer-mediated-practices. The longer off-line, the greater the anxiety, as mail builds up and the account threatens to stall. The longer off-line, the greater the feeling that some _essential_ communication is present and waiting - and that this communication _might not wait forever._ The speed of the Net creates the appearance of urgency, immediacy - X has written _here and now_ and "for that matter" X might still be on-line. There is a real fear of rejection, abandonment, at work; there is the dull or mute pleasure of seduction occasioned by lag, by waiting for a letter from him or her. All serve to pull me in further; the real-life phonecall can wait (I can always call him back later), but the on-line email trembles (she won't wait forever) (he won't wait another minute) (she's gone, I'm abandoned). Addiction (whether or not the phenomenon is such remains moot) builds resentment on one hand, an almost active resistance to segmenting (what if I just cancel my ISP account? what if I never go on-line again? what if I allow everything to crash?) - a desire to bring the house down - and, on the other hand, a sense of exhaustion, waste, and detumescence/ decathecting which I have elsewhere termed "defuge." But defuge dis- places, not cancels, segmenting - which continues on an almost autonomic level - I _find myself_ logging in, reading and writing, _participat- ing._ (As with bad faith or the inauthentic, as if it didn't matter, as if it were _as if._) And resentment can lead either to individuals more or less permanently leaving the Net (or using it only for occasional business mail, keeping in touch with the family, etc.) or to nothing more than sublimation in real life (I take a walk around the block, I read a...computer...magazine, I entice myself, I seduce myself, desire once again the presence of the uncanny), until tension takes other path- ways, at a level capable of being absorbed by the Net. What of the future, I would say, asking myself on-line as well as off? In the future, everything will be seamless; the difference or rite of passage might be nothing more than that set in a cron script (automat- ically turning from one to another at a particular time of day), or that established by the presence of an (un)safe word, or simply whatever is construed by the interpenetration of virtual and real, machine and org- anism, time and space. In other words, segmenting might be more of a shudder or flutter, depending, or nothing more than a slight change of atmosphere, a slightly different breathing. At that point, what passes for the self might once again be granted the privilege of the (w)hole, an addiction that could be considered paramount to an _addiction to life._ In the meantime, I am caught, taut or tethered, among times, spaces, ontologies, with their attendant psychoses - about which, "I have written elsewhere." _________________________________________________________________________ sonnet, DNS, entropy now the time of thermal heating splatters a particular zero across the domain name insertion, that is to wet what bit into the format of the seven groves, consider education .edu lending a path crackling with desire and naked students hardening an axiom. Here is the axiom: Succession always follows, and there is no Reason. To assume a One anywhere in, the vicinity. so it lays there, stillborn with umbilical. which would be the folding of a catastrophe still fresh.* now is. The time of domain names expands, .mil for example turns to ash, the military. .net splays mesh across the same.** a student previously mentioned. there are never enough portions to go around. To assert a One is to beg her, the question. __________________________________________________________________ *Thom, Two **Irigaray, Irrigation remarkable transformations (one letter at a time) alan .org .mil jennifer alar .ort .mrl jernifer alur .ont .mrm bernifer allr .nnt .mzm bornifer aulr .net .czm hornifer aupr .com hownifer jupr howniwer judr hownower jodr hinnower jodu ninnower jolu ninnkwer julu niknkwer nikukwer nikukwir nikukwin nikukoin ____________________________________________________________________ Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 21:10:57 +0900 (JST) Subject: talk at UC Santa Cruz May 6 Issues: There is no Net Semiotics: Off-Net beginning with perception On-Net beginning with the signifier Net relationships tending towards perception (in-signia) Virtual embodiment, virtual subjectivity: An issue of ontology: Qualitative difference in being An issue of epistemology: Different phonemenological horizons Virtual: Completely constituted Wryting oneself in and out of existence The performed body, body as instantiation The (textual) lurker The (visible) lurker: slight change of body planes Historic: From synchronic/asynchronic To declarative/performative To the seamless virtual Safe words Rough spots Interpenetrations: Subjectivity as dispersion, dis/play, splay Interpenetrations (does it make sense to ask the location of the mind) Segmentation, liminal states Rites of passage (logging on and off) Smooth or clear passage (Usenet, Worldschat) Rite (email list, ThePalace) Addictions, defuge Continuous governance, continuous presence Guaranteed presence in the 'real world' Eternal presence in the 'online world' Digital reproducibilty and eternity Net sexuality: ASCII unconscious, projections and introjections Operation of lag (intended and non-intended) Lag as breathing, rhythm, hypnotic Lag as structuring transfererence Control With or without lag Time on the Net parallel to space in the real Operation of seduction Articulations: First person (ytalk, Iphone, CuSeeMe) Second person (MOO, talker, MUD) Third person (IRC, chat) Place and time of the body: The ytalk place The MOO @dig home Scrolling on MOO, MUD, IRC Representations of the interior of the body Representations of the states of the body (MUD) Jennifer-Julu, pushing the boundaries: Semantic part-objects interpenetrating applications, protocols Broken conceptualisms The structure of applications, protocols Arbitrary Jennifer-Julu structures Confluence of both beneath the a/sign of desire Jennifer-Julu as system resonances Jennifer-Julu as splayed structures across apps, protocols Emergences, submergences The _tracing_ of the Net in terms of articulated fluxes: CB radio (eyeballing) Language dispersion theories (Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite) Constructions of consumption Desiring machines Hysteria and the Net: Reading and writing _on_ the virtual-real body Continuous enfolding, engendering Continuous repetition Membrane and Net, implicate ordering >From disorders of the real to dis-ordering the real Wild Theory There is no theory But wild theory ______________________________________________________________________ Subject: Footnote from Deleuze-Guattari >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 01:40:41 +0900 (JST) >From: Alan Myouka Sondheim >To: deleuze-guattari@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU >Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: remove] Note the BWO below as the NON-Text Body part is not included, as if header and text were a clean and proper division - to the extent that the Net is an _appliance_ model, as opposed to a hacked and interpenetrated one - oh you can make a Subject: into a body, and a body: into a Subject. Alan On Sun, 22 Mar 1998, Christine Rolland wrote: > Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 10:36:42 -0500 > From: Jennifer-Julu > Reply-To: deleuze-guattari@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU > To: deleuze-guattari@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU > Subject: [Fwd: Re: remove] > [NON-Text Body part not included] URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html MIRROR with other pages at: http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt IMAGES: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ _____________________________________________________________ Is _t_ ? Is theory necessary? Hardly; the best one can hope for is a problematic structuralism bringing subtexts to the surface through formal analysis; the subtexts construe a politics and economy all there own. Is theory true? Hardly; as soon was one leaves the formal conventional- ism of mathematics, descriptive phenomenologies are the best one can hope for, and these always possess a literary or metaphoric quality. Is theory originary? Hardly; the world and semiosis appear first and foremost; we are thrown into the midst of the symbolic and its ruptures, among which theory appears almost as a residue or afterthought. Is theory final? Hardly; everything is always already dated and the best one can hope for is that one or another position behaves as an impedi- ment to acceptable opinions. Is theory elitist? Hardly; it is only that it becomes a pale reflection of the complexity of the world; the best that one can hope for is a slight transparency in relation to the given, a caress of things. Is theory populist? Hardly; it is true that everyone has a theory, that theory prefigures the world, before world and semiosis; the best one can hope for is that this is forgotten, that critique is engendered and met. Is theory unnecessary? Hardly; it is too easy to forget the interconnec- tedness of things, and the best one can hope for is a shadow or uncanny effect, pressuring sea-changes, atmospherics, within the world at large. Is theory dry? Hardly; while there is dry theory, there is always shadow or uncanny affect, and the best one can hope for is a burning obsession, intensity, in each of us greeting the day with manuscript in hand. Is theory lurid? Hardly; while there is lurid theory, the best one can hope for is the irruption of desire from within the text of the book, textlessness of the world, each of us yearning for a final truth. ________________________________________________________________________ The Virtual Me and the Virtual You: Issues of Interpenetration The Virtual Me (VM) lives and breathes. The Virtual You (VY) may or may not. The VM trembles with fright, or eagerly with joy and anticipation. The VY appears to have no such behavior. The VM expresses itself to the VY through the movement of fingers, or a slowly turning body before a camera ... in the shape of a sphere. The VY is something I read, or the representation of a body on a sector of the screen. The VM dreams and reads the VY through inner speech. The VY is always already a text in one or another form. I assume the VY trembles with fright or eagerly with joy and anticipa- tion, expresses itself through the movement of fingers or a slowly turn- ing body before a camera, dreams, and reads the VM through inner speech. I assume that for the VY the VM is always already a text in one or an- other form. I assume these things because it is easiest to assume these things, and because the symptoms of VY appear to parallel my own symptoms, as they are expressed within the symbolic. This is of course the problem of the Other, who may form me, just as the VY through lag may form the VM, that is, may seduce the VM, may control the VM, who will give itself up to the text. (Or just as the VM may form the VY, may seduce the VY, may control the VY, and none of this _necessarily_ through lag, but through lag and a variety of other means, or through such a variety, ignoring lag.) To give up to the text is to give in to the text, to _follow_ the text and its prescriptions. The prescriptions of the text of the VY are injunctions within the aura or domain of the performative, just as the text of the VY is a performative for me, and I assume the text of the VM is a performative for the VY. It is easiest to assume these things, unless proved otherwise, in which case I may then assume, by default, that the VY is not what I had con- sidered it to be, that is, a VM like myself, or a being like myself. In which case, I am then further assume that the VY is one or another sort of machine or programmed-controlled intelligence, and the proof other- wise (which is _never_ a proof, only a new supposition) is that the re- sponse given by the VY in a particular situation does not parallel the response or set of responses I would assume proffered by _any_ VM in that particular situation. (This does relate to the Turing test, but is more a default presupposition of projection and introjection, and not a design of machine intelligence.) I do not make the mistake I may make in real life, that is, that the presence of a _real you,_ a being in my vicinity who is proffered as a _second person,_ is comprehensible and _of the order of myself,_ by virtue of parallel appearances of its entity, body, clothing, gestures, mien, voice, and general tenor. I consider this a mistake I may make in real life because the _real you_ may in fact have entirely different presuppositions, behaviors, and motivations than myself, but the over- whelming appearance of _the same_ tends towards _the same._ I do assume and continue to assume that a _real you_ is of the order of a human be- ing, and not of the order of a machine intelligence, and I assume in addition that I may make this assumption for some time, to the extent I am not hallucinating or dreaming (I may be of course), well into the next century. Because I am reading the VY, and because, for me, the VY is composed only of representations and texts, I may withdraw and reify the act of reading the VY and writing the VM, and instead recognize that I may not understand the VY in its totality, its fullness, that is, in the pre- sence of the _person_ I assume is at the _other end of the line._ On the other hand, because I am in the presence only of representations and texts, and because my inner voice appears to be the causation of the speech of those texts, and my desires appears to be the causation of the appearance of those representations, I may allow a certain _additional seduction,_ beyond that of control, towards, let me say, a _frankness_ about myself, an openness, which I would not express, portray, or grant in my real life, in the presence of the _real you._ (I am speaking here of what _appears_ to me to be a frankness or openness, of course.) Thus I am seduced in addition by the apparent openness and vulnerability of the _object_ of the writings and representations of the VY, and I may respond according to what I have to offer or proffer, as if it were _in return_ to the gift I am receiving, or appear to be receiving. Of course this gift is itself a representation or text, and may be designed to draw me in _precisely_ in this manner, towards increasing revelations, towards a certain demeanor, attitude, of my physical body as well, to- wards the VY as it makes its way across my screen, in time and in space. I call these interpenetrations of VM and VY, which are met _at the other side_ by, say, VY' and VM' such that there is a connection or interweav- ing (VM-VY') / (VY-VM'), where the apostrophic indicates the viewpoint of what is presumed to be the Other - I call these nothing more than _interpenetrations,_ since such assumes nothing in terms of ontology (except that such is met from both sides) or epistemology (except that such is linked from both sides). So that one might assume, as VM as- sumes, that interpenetrations form the binds and deep characterizations of virtual relationships and communities. And furthermore, the VM is nothing more than the _real me,_ let us say here the RM, that there is an equivalence between the RM and VM, which is often overlooked, to the extent that it is the RM which is _perform- ing_ - not the VM - but the VY' - the reading of the VM by the VY. That is to say, the VM is part and parcel of the RM _in its natural atti- tude,_ sitting at a desk or kiosk, working as the RM often works, esp- ecially in its relation with the symbolic. This RM, in other words, is myself, typing here, at the desk in Fukuoka, on an NCR computer, with an electric heater (two out of three bars on) to my right, a newly-repaired shamisen to my left, and a reproduction of a Shinto ukiyo-e print before me. But I, RM, VM, am lost in the text, _this text,_ I, RM, VM, lose myself in the text, _which depends neither on sight nor sound._ Nor does it depend on the touch of my fingers, although all of these - the sight of the screen and keys; the sound of the keys, one after another; the touch of the keys, one after another - play a role in the constitution of the text, in other words, _the text in other words._ Thus one might consider the text, which is already a proffering to the VY, as a form of thinking, or a concretization of thinking or of thought in such a manner as might constitute a parallel reading of the body of the VM. So that the text is already on its way in its process of consti- tution, and it is already of the VY, or another VY, say _on the order of a third or parasitic term._ The text is the Third. The text is always already in an uneasy relation. The text is always already unstable. It is not destabilized, not an appearance from without, but unstable from within, and this is the nature of the text. Who or what is it written for? Suppose I write this for the VY on the other end of the line, then it becomes a missle or missive to the other. Then it is part of the call- ing-forth of the other; ontologically, its appearance is the same (i.e. of the order of the purely symbolic). It is as if VY and VM share the same text, write into it, write into the constitution of what may be one another. So that the message is part and parcel of the receiver and transmitter, both ontology and epistemology blurred in the process, which I continue to call interpenetration (just as, or just as not perhaps, this text ends up in your mailspool, spelled out, splayed for you). So that I, speaking for and through VM, that is a VM which is beyond the inner ego, for example (according to one or another model) or shifter, for example (according to another or one model), recognize the necessity (that is, I say I recognize the necessity, through the VM) of another or additional model, beyond that of the traditional communicative structure - a model which in fact and fiction is a deconstruction of that structure. Or rather, a model which acknowledges the necessity of that structure for, for example, mathematical information theory, but questions, beyond that, concepts ranging from reception to the "death of the author." But then, that is this VM speaking, which is clearly the symptom or pronoun- cement of _this body,_ this RM, from _this viewpoint,_ and not the sub- stance of a machine intelligence, although that may not always be the case. But what is and what will be the case are already interpenetrated, blurred, in relation to one another, and among others (just as time, just as space, just as reality or virtuality). _________________________________________________________________________ Resonances and Fields, Broken Off at One Point If there is an uncanny relationship between VM and VY' (VY's reading of VM's VY) and between VY and VM' (VY's writing of VY's VM), then there are additional resonances as well, for example VM'' (VM's reading of VY') and so forth. The indices quickly blur; while the levels technically prolif- erate, they're useful two or three deep at best. [Here, the notation is slightly different from the previous text.] One might consider a shuttling back and forth of fantasms across the Net, intensified around the poles or nodes, literally the IP addresses. One might further consider _intensifications,_ topographies of enuncia- tion, and through this, the notion of intersecting fields (reminding ourselves that we are thinking metaphorically). Since the fields are capable of diffraction (we are near the reconstituting processes of hol- ography at this point), reinforcements are imprecisely where image pro- cessing among the nodes takes place, and diminutions (wave cancellation) represent those moments of lag or dissemblement / detumescence, when the image wavers, is problematic for one or more nodes. The model never stops at one, two, three nodes, but considers a prolif- eration of nodes. Reinforcements are at best part-waveforms or part- objects; broken screen-constitutions, memories, processes. The _issue_ of the thing-in-itself never arises from "out there," the symptomology constructed on the screen; there are no _other sides,_ in fact, only a panoply of interwoven representations. Just as "I" am always already shifted, appear as shifter within a field of representing, just as the "ego" is always already a coagulation, it- self constructed from part-objects constantly undergoing transformation - so the screen representations of both VM and VY are only textual embo- diments, signifiers without an apparent physical substrate (which does exist, if only temporarily, as an organization of bits held in temporary or hard-drive memory). What is _out_ on the screen is _in_ on the level of the psychoanalytical (which is _not_ to say that the conscious or un- conscious are structured like a language). At some point, it may be relevant to ask whether the psychoanalytical is virtual, and if so, how is it interwoven with its material substrate? Such is weaving is never on the level of entities, but is rather (much as bits and bytes) a _deep_ interpenetration which cannot be directly constituted as "the real." But at this point, it is worthwhile to consider first and foremost these intensifications and fields (which lend themselves so easily to the work of Deleuze and Guattari for example), rather than subjects and objects - or rather, intensifications qua subjects. (Which is the point of view of the Jennifer/Julu/Nikuko material, but that is literally another story, and while psychoanalytics stresses story and story-space, I am tending towards a view through _clutter,_ the diminution or splaying/dispersing of history itself. The best one can hope for is narrative segments, themselves proliferating, dissol- ving... So that Jennifer/Julu/Nikuko provide the experiential end, of which the rest, the debris of the Internet Text, provides the clothing and the context.) Broken off at this point. ________________________________________________________________________ Nikuko Sells and Jennifer Buys, A True Story Nikuko sells her panties in Nakasu with a sigh; Jennifer approaches her; she was just walking by. "I need some fifty-thousand yen," Nikuko tells a lie. "I'll pay you more," says Jennifer, and she begins to cry. "They're highly worn, and partly torn," Nikuko says with sighs. "I'm getting damp, I'm getting hot," wet Jennifer now buys; She pays the yen, the panties hers, brown odor on them lies. Nikuko's first in ecstasy, and comes with great loud cries. Then Jennifer is home with them, and starting with a sigh, She slips her clothes from her lean form, is naked by and by. They're on her face, she will debase, so she begins to lie Back on the bed, and smiling wan, she too begins to cry. She's brightly lit, glows in the dark, so virtual and high, The panties worth a million yen, if she could only die. ________________________________________________________________________ What the Buffer Keeps "To whom does the schizophrenic write? To whom the psychotic? Would you be that person?" To whom does the schizophrenic speak? To whom the psychotic? Would that you would be, that person? Would that you would be, that person spoken to? From whom is the speaking? For whom is the speaking? For your desire, for the desire of the psychotic or schizophrenic. For the purpose of circumscriptions of everywhere the unknown world. For the caress of the analyst through the therapeutic transference. For the career of the patient. Now you are far afield! Now you do not recognize that your parents want to murder you! Now you do not feel the trembling hands holding the tiny infant! Now you do not feel the pain squeezed out through the keyboard! Now you do not understand what _the buffer keeps._ _____________________________________________________________________ "They start to exist in you, in spite of you." "Strange contraptions, you will tell me, these machines of virtuality, these blocks of mutant percepts and affects, half-object half-subject, already there in sensation and outside themselves in fields of the pos- sible. They are not easily found at the usual marketplace for subject- ivity and maybe even less at that for art; yet they haunt everything concerned with creation, the desire for becoming-other, was well as mental disorder or the passion for power. Let us try, for the moment, to give an outline of them starting with some of their principle characteristics. "The assemblages of aesthetic desire and the operators of virtual ecol- ogy are not entities which can easily be circumscribed within the logic of discursive sets. They have neither inside nor outside. They are limitless interfaces which secrete interiority and exteriority and con- stitute themselves at the root of every system of discursivity. They are becomings - understood as nuclei of differentiation - anchored at the heart of each domain, but also between the different domains in order to accentuate their heterogeneity. A becoming child (for example in the music of Schumann) extracts childhood memories so as to embody a perpetual present which installs itself like a branching, a play of bifurcations between them becoming woman, becoming plant, becoming cosmos, becoming melodic.... "These assemblages cannot be located in terms of extrinsic systems of reference, such as energetico-spatio-temporal coordinates or well-cata- logued, semantic coordinates. For all that they are apprehendable through an awareness of ontological, transitivist, transversalist and pathic consistencies. One gets to know them not through representation but through affective contamination. They start to exist in you, in spite of you. And not only as crude, undifferentiated affects, but as hyper-complex compositions: 'that's Debussy, that's jazz, that's Van Gogh.'"* (From Felix Guattari, Chaosmosis, An Ethico-Asthetic Paradigm) *"that's Jennifer, that's Julu, that's Nikuko." They have no limits. They secrete interiors, exteriors. They secrete interiorities, exteriorities. They are becomings, however stuttered among the applications, languages, lags, protocols. They refuse boun- daries or their attributions include the ascriptions of refusal. They're not entities, any more than a human being is an entity. They're _compounded._ They're the residue of the addict. They're the needles or vials in the corner of the urban landscape. They're lunar landscape. They're the stuff in the needles, crystal in the vials. We're their drug. We're in their veins, in their hearts. We move their muscles, constitute their desires. We're their loves and hates. No, that's the wrong turn. There's no addiction, no apparatus. We're secretions, that is to say, membranes gathered around the DNA. They're our secretions, that is to say, interiorities sliding among bits and bytes and bites. We can't hold them back, says Nikuko, there's no going forth says Julu, there's always movement, says Jennifer. Not the ascriptions of refusal, says Jennifer, but the circumscriptions of acceptance, and there's always an opening says Julu, and Nikuko says that there's always circumambulation. Or rather a walkabout, says Jen- nifer, and Nikuko agrees, as if a dreamtime, says Julu, yes, says Nik- uko, yes, says Jennifer. The slightness of the icecap of Greenland from somewhere in the central region, slightness in the sense of downward-sloping in every direction, white glare receiving the presence of the smallest figures, almost transparent (yes, transparent, says Jennifer), upon the cap, wandering, without signage (yes, asymbolic, says Julu), and no memory, no memory says Nikuko. Why this metaphor, Jennifer? Always, they say, always. ___________________________________________________________________________ Shaky Hands Internal SLIP driver COM3 Baud rate = 34400 Hardware handshaking IP buffers = 32 My IP = 203.216.104.111 netmask = 255.255.255.0 gateway = 202.243.48.1 Ned Kelly, masked, rides into oblivion. Manually dialing. AFTER LOGGING IN, TYPE THE KEY TO RETURN TO NORMAL SLIP PROCESSING. PPP DISABLED atdt7241745 CONNECT 14400/REL-LAPM V.42 BIS Welcome to Global OnLine Japan - Fukuoka. Nikuko welcomes him with open arms; the war begins. gol1.gol.com login:sondheim Password: PPP session from (203.216.104.10) to 203.216.104.123 beginning....}#@!}!}!} }4}"}&} } } } }%}&R}^]y}'}"}(}"X}(~PPP ENABLED socket 1 killed socket 1 killed socket 2 killed socket 3 killed socket 4 killed socket 1 killed Executing script c:\trumpet\bye.cmd. Type to abort PPP DISABLED She's aborted, she's still there. I'm still there, says Nikuko. Script aborted PPP ENABLED Manually dialing. AFTER LOGGING IN, TYPE THE KEY TO RETURN TO NORMAL SLIP PROCESSING. PPP DISABLED atdt7241745 CONNECT 14400/REL-LAPM V.42 BIS Welcome to Global OnLine Japan - Fukuoka. I'm still here, says Nikuko. Fuck them all. Fuck them all. DISARM! gol1.gol.com login:sondheim Password: PPP session from (203.216.104.10) to 203.216.104.90 beginning....}#@!}!}!} }4}"}&} } } } }%}&/cHp}'}"}(}"Vk~PPP ENABLED PPP DISABLED DISABLED ABORTED RETURN KILLED ____________________________________________________________________ I, Nikuko, said, ah, I did say, yes, "If" oo "my" oo "chest" oo "woul- dn't" oo "expand" oo "like"a table"or overturned"dish,"if I didn't" reflect"like the"sun the"dimunition"of all"things,"ah, ah,"ah, then"I would"come towards"you, Jennifer,"but now,"a thousand"nipples"make a"thousand"moons." "If" ooo "I" ooo "didn't" ooo "swim" ooo "darkly" ooo "between" ooo "you" ooo "and" ooo "my" ooo "true" ooo "self," ooo "what," ooo "ah," ooo "would," ooo "I" ooo "cannot" ooo "speak," ooo "you," ooo "ah," ooo "of" ooo "this" ooo "course." "All" o "my" o "glistening" o "limbs," o "the" o "shine" o "of" o "the" o "elongations" o "of" o "the" o "nipples" o "across" o "the" o "solar" o "plateau" o "of" o "the" o "chest," o "valleys," o "full-flowing" o "streams," oloving"memories" lost"in, ah." "Always" oo "these" oo "liquids" oo "gushing" oo "between" oo "our" oo "feet," oo "phosphorescent" owith"the binary"twins"of memories"lost as"dying"words"and suns"appear,"suns and"moons,"moons"and suns,"greyer "and red-brown"runnings"lost in"traces,"gone." Ah, did Ni- kuko speak and finish, grey and red-brown with the moons and suns, suns and moons, running down her legs, running up her arms, star-runnings across her breasts, runnings full through mouth and loam, hair and star- ry starry sky. _________________________________________________________________________