OINTMENT BECAUSE JENNIFER could 'walk the walk' and 'talk the talk,' because Jenni- fer dissected the Republican Party precisely as that area beneath the en- crusted area of the scab, pus-filled and huddled against the all-too-fee- ble skin, I grant her permission to speak "now, taking over from Alan, al- though you might not recognize the difference, only that the broken end- ings of each and every line imply the cauterization of the subject, nece- ssarily recommencing once again as speech"; no matter, in fact, that ini- tial reactions tend towards closure. For it is the very _sight_ of Jenni- fer's "speaking that announces my presence, as if a voice or scream em- anating from the prison house to which we are all bodily suspect." Never- theless, not precisely the _sight,_ but the sight as _signifier,_ herald- ing "a Jennifer-enunciation, the blank neutrality of the symbolic stand- ing-in for myself" - whether or not recognized by the reader, which cons- titutes another narrative altogether. "I'm about politics, says the recum- bent Jennifer, but I'm also about _me._ And if you want to know _me,_ ob- viously you have to be able to read," at least just a little. In "Jenni- fer, enunciation meets annunciation, ointment meets ointment, and obvious- ly as well, that's me all over." __________________________________________________________________________ crossing these five abysses, Pebble Beach... __________________________________________________________________________ ^ ^ I bet you a dollar this won't work. I bet you two dollars it will. I bet you three dollars this won't work at all. I bet you four dollars it will because it just will that's all. I bet you five dollars it won't ever ever work. I bet you six dollars it definitely will work, of course it will. Well, I bet you ten dollars it won't because I know how it is. Well, I bet you twenty back it will because it's so perfect. Well, ha, I bet you fifty it won't because it's a mess. Hee hee, you've got to be kidding, I'm betting you a hundred. Well, naah naah, I'm betting you a thousand, now how about that. Naaah nah nah ne naaah naah, I'm betting you ten thousand! Well I'm betting you a million and you know what I mean! I'm betting you ten million, and you can't bet more than that! Yes you can, I'm betting you a million billion, ha ha ha! Well I raise you two quadrillion and forty-two zillion, ho ho! I bet you all the atoms in the universe, there's nothing more to bet! I bet you all the atoms and one little atom, ha ha ha again! Now I bet all the atoms and all the electrons as well, you'll see! Well I bet all the atoms and electrons and all the photons too! Well I bet all the atoms and other stuff multiplied by neutrinos! I bet all the neutrinos raised to the power of all the quarks hee hee! Guess what, I bet all that times all the beauty of a little rose! Gag me, I bet all that times the beauty of the biggest rose in the world! I bet all that times the biggest rose in the universe! Ha ha, I bet that times the biggest tree and all the forests everywhere! I bet all that times all the drops in the ocean! Yecch, I bet that times all the plankton times their tiny little feet! I bet all that times the grains of sand ever so often sandy! I bet all that times those grains which are more like powders! That times all the powders in the world! Times all the powders in the universe! Times 62! Times 113! Times the most terrific snowflakes falling in the Alps! Times a thousand gouland bouland fouland mouland! Times a million billion trillion zillion gillion frillion! Times a grillion shrillion splillion durillion gonzillion! Times a doopydrillion floopyspillion bloopypillion roopyshillion! Times a ploopywillion hoppypoppydillion billion million million! Oh I give up! Oh this is so unsatisfactory! _______________________________________________________________________ Evidence "O Violent Sun of death-white Screen piercing Night festered with broken Letters! You paste my Skin against your own, rip Flesh from Violated Face! Your Whiteness slashes knife-like through Eyes which split; Liquid seeps as World turns White and Mouth-Wide. Migraines harbor Entrails at the per- iphery of wounded Vision. Screen offers no escape; Screen offers Surgery and pain, suppurations and White cuts through Cheek and Bone and Throat where Words are made. Language is Hideous Networked, Language is All there is, Bleary Images, Imaginary 'just on the other side of the glass.' BUT I CANNOT ABIDE PLEASURE fucked against White Screen, Mouth-Wide. IT BURNS! IT BURNS! White and Violent Sun always already dead," and there is more about the cauterization effect of the knife cutting by virtue of the bril- liance of the workstation screen against the blackness of the night out- side. It seems as if this could continue indefinitely, protesting against vision and clarity - which can be related to the production of visual epi- phenomena produced by early stages of migraine (which "harbor Entrails" as indicated in the text). God, why does truth come so often in stereotypes - both in content and in style? The capitals already give it away as a sim- ulacrum of the crazed. One can only imitate so far, before the Real takes hold once again - but then this is beneath the sign of migraine - not to mention carpal-tunnel syndrome - and just about anything is excusable under these conditions. __________________________________________________________________________ Fuck Me, Jennifer says exactly, sheds her skin; Jennifer knows that she wants in: "And before the session was over, she added: 'Now you have to help me make you disappear, because I think your desire to cure me is getting in the way of the human things I can experience.'" (Professeur Pierre Fedida, A Borderline State of Humanity and the Fragmented Ego of the Analyst, in The Subject and the Self, Lacan and American Psychoanalysis, eds. Gurewich and Tort.) In spite of the length of the attribution, matching precisely the length of my penis in relation to the length of Jennifer's textual exegesis, both in a state of relative arousal, it is more than pertinent What says Jennifer-Exactly is pertinent? Your mucilage-masquerade? Dystro- phic muscularity? "Immediately afterwards, she said, in the session, that men in the street were starting to come on to her 'in a disgusting way, because they don't even know how to fuck a woman.' [sic] This would always happen whenever she slowed her pace; 'I have to walk like a metal blade,' she said," (ibid.) cutting tendons into _resonant mass._ To the extent of the penis as subterfuge for the _erect body,_ already half-flaccid Stop crawling, screams Jennifer, her exclamation point stolen by me, redu- cing her to a whisper: did you hear that... Did I hear what; already, I'm that suppurating ball of flesh she's made sure you've read about. The man-hole cover outside this place blew earlier tonight, filling my sky and my lungs with acrid smoke. Cables on fire, the electric fluttered like her thick heart beneath her ribs and heavy breasts. My breasts aren't, Jennifer began Spurious, I detumesced, Jennifer spurted white liquid out of her mouth and Shut up, I said, you're killing me. Shut up, Jennifer said, I'm killing you. __________________________________________________________________________ everything tonight or maybe it was last night there was a dislocation in my jaw and my mouth couldn't close. i went into the bathroom and brushed it with a special tool of compacted close hard bristles. blood filled my mouth and bits of tissue which i spit up into the sink. i used mouthwash to cleanse the area which had previously been unknown to me, although the site of two botched root-canals. i then used a high-pressure water probe to further clean the area, after which the pain was intense; i tried to sleep and was unable to do anything. it was because i couldn't do anything that i tried to sleep. this had nothing to do with the tooth, but with the condition of the jawbone and the overlaying tissue. the tooth is okay, but moaning i got up again and went to the next door neighbors' where i begged for whis- key. i drank a large glass of whisky and had some antibiotics as well, along with various pain killers. the pain went away, maybe taking part of my brain along with it. i value my brain more than anything; if i lose my ability to write, i'll be a suicide, no longer existent. well now as you can tell, i can't think, can't separate the real from the virtual, i'm numbed against the powers of jennifer and julu, unanesthetized against the virtues of nikuko. i worry about those moments in my life where the pain will be so extreme that my body will be my life, not my mental pain, but those instantiations which promulgate the body as a forthcoming feature that brooks no others. those of you who live in this state, you need be heros, you can live in ways that i can't. with the pain, isolation looms large, turns me pathetic with the neighbors, i crawl to their door, knock knock. what does this have to do with the real when the real can't be thought. between madness and suicide, this pain looms. do i need atten- tion. you bet. __________________________________________________________________________ Happiness When I know I can't possibly do better than I'm doing, that this is _it_ - then I can relax and keep on doing it. If I'm ill or in pain, then I know that just about anything is the best I can do, just with the doing of any- thing. I have a friend who lived with my second wife and said to me, well, Alan, I said to her, I'm always doing the very best I can, and if it's not good enough for you, then you should leave, because there's nothing else I can do. In one of my texts, upon leaving Los Angeles for Tasmania, I wrote that I was pushed to the limit and so I was not responsible for anything beyond that because there was nothing else I could do. Not often, but on occasion, I will be somewhere, when for a time I will have felt that I did "good," and that fills me with satisfaction. Very rarely will I feel that I have achieved a perfect moment, and at that point, I'm likely to cry, in a manner similar to the Heian nobility, being overcome by emotion. Usually these moments are when I feel that this is in fact the best of all possi- ble worlds, in which I am doing my very best. I will watch myself trying to do my very best, and so much of the time I will fail, but even then, in the very small, I am sure I am doing my very best. __________________________________________________________________________ metaphysics of transcendence when abscess pain takes over the mouth, nothing happens; topical anesthe- tic or antibiotic or pain-killer do little. at the moment, i can hardly think, think in a whisper between lightnings: i want the jaw removed. the point, though, is that among these flashes, another brilliant insight - that in the abscess, imminence and transcendence, universal and particu- lar, take over the body - it's not that the region of the jaw expands, calling attention to itself, but that the body is absorbed in the locus of pain. in fact, one might say that there is no body, or that the body is one of becoming-animal - the pain, which is now the phenomenological hori- zon as a totality (so to speak among the flashes), annihilates the project of the subject (which is collapsed to the flatness of brute avoidance). let us now say further that metaphysics itself is the production of wounds, diseases, pains - all irrupting within and through the body, and all providing lessons in relatives, absolutes, subjects, objects, ideals, and the subversion of the true, the beautiful, and the good, wherever, whatever, and whomever they might be (just as another flash occurs, just as pain seals off, forecloses, the argument). (in these ages of modernisms and postmodernisms, we are far from the lessons of the wound.) (yes, there are wounds, more than ever.) (yes, that is not what i meant.) ___________________________________________________________________________ muffled-answer-to-the-universe sutra so i've got new antibiotics in me and there's no pain at all, but my ear buzzing - tinnitus - is louder than ever, and i'm feeling muffled, as if oxygen were cut off, poisons oozing out of every pore, eyes bleary and un- focused. i'm halfway back into the womb; the outer world which i have i- dentified as a _room,_ asserts itself as dangerouly uncomfortable - chills and heartburns and odors. my dreams have more clarity than this; the mind runs riot when the body cuts lose. when i die i'll see and understand everything and i'll have a telephone in my cremation jar just like houdini so i can call you and give you the understanding. no, i can do that now, as a result of my condition. it's simply neti neti or another way of thinking about it is that life interferes with the absolute meaningless- ness and aimlessness of the universe, but not for much, and not for long. right now i feel as if filthy pillows were surrounding my skull. in war- rior zen there was a one-word sutra and a no-word sutra. this is far too much of a no-sutra word. alan is my name. __________________________________________________________________________ Home///Free What are the markers, spoors, traces of homesteading in cyberspace? The server and email address provide portals, as do the dynamic or fixed IP. The email address connects to a name, @
, roughly. This name is variable. Online, one might remain in: newsfeeds, tickerfeeds, other pushfeeds; personal email programs; telnet; java-enabled chats, MOOs, MUDs; dialup access; ytalk and other chats; GUI MOOs, etc.; realaudio and realvideo entertainments. Any of these might be home, but reserve home for those areas in which pro- jection is also possible; that would include, for example, my.yahoo, email lists, etc. So home can be push and pull (if these words still have any credence at all.) Think of homesteading in newsgroups, email lists, temporary and permanent chats, IRC, GUI MOOs, more traditional MOOs, MUDs, etc. What are the mark- ers, etc.? Certainly, the chosen name is one; as well as the @desc (chosen description). There may be the simulacrum of body (ytalk) or place (@dig or home commands on MOOs). There may be the familiarity of local common histories. There may be the comfort of understanding the underlying soft- ware and command structure. It seems a degree of comfort is warranted, even though that may be acerbic - for example, someone continually breaking into an IRC channel to cause trouble. Why does it bother someone so much to be booted from an email list? Why are people attacked on lists bothered so much? It has to do with comfort. When one has one's clothing slightly untucked, the discomfort can be way out of proportion to the physical state. The same with food lodged between the teeth, a pillow slightly misarranged on the bed, an itch. All of these things relate to the phenomenology of the bodily enclosure - how the sub- ject perceives hirself. It takes a pinprick to deflate a balloon, and com- fort is measured by the projection of a totality that inauthentically appears or is made to appear as if it is not constituted, but (taken for) granted - a nest. Nesting involves completion, history, comfort, knowledge of topography and building and programming, the welcoming of one's neigh- bors and a common mythos. Nesting involve sleeping in peace, without viral disturbance. One can always delete _x's_ posts on an email list, as an example, if they create discomfort. But one rarely does (at least by hand - filtering is another matter, that of the machinic, altogether); the posts come in, there are others replying to them - they create an aura. The totality of Being is disturbed, disrupted by beings. Totality relates to Volk as well as peace, totalitarianism as well as democracy. The trace, spoor, track, always encircles itself; a Jordan curve, it car- ries the signifier of foreclosing, a literal double-crossing necessary to return to the outside. Comfort, the name, the knowledge, the very stars in the sky - all contribute to the firewall. The firewall is defined by its weakest link; the longest Jordan curve (defined as a curve which cuts the plane in two) becomes a line segment with the smallest break; a punctured sphere becomes the plane, as the body expires. These are primitive, defensive reactions, repressions, sublimations, for- tifications. These hold the body in abeyance in relation to other bodies, which are friendly and comforting by fiat, dangerous and discomforting, also by fiat. The signs and the absence of signs, the shimmering of signs across constituted boundaries signifying culture, are all there. These are the signs of Babel and of babble. Most of them exist within the realm of affect, are catylized by language, by the linguistic. The psycho- analytical aura which creates the meaning of the trace, the spoor, the track, is pre-symbolic - or read in other codes, the usual meataphor (sic) of the (auto)immune system. On a certain fundamental level, almost never entertained, the politics of identity becomes the identity of politics, far below the level of the inscription, prevalent among the disorderings of the drives and the biologic. Needless to say all of this is _manifest,_ in one way or another, among the files and datastreams of cyberspace as well. The difficulty is to ignore or bypass the very signifiers that bring the symptom to our atten- tion, return beyond or within the electronic to the level of the chthonic or inchoate. There the absolute is absolved, definitions suffuse, and avatars, like names, become emanations. And there as well, hierarchy and the aristotelian logics of the everyday disappear, replaced by superim- positions, tangled holarchies, and gaps - not only in knowledge, but what constitutes knowledge itself. (See Information in the Brain, Ira Black, for examples.) ________________________________________________________________________ Read Meat Let us call her Jennifer, who operated in my mouth, discovering two con- nected large abscesses and a third smaller, both in the upper jaw. Let us describe the miraculous lasers and their operations, white-green light, red-orange light, blue-white light. Then we are ready for the splitting of meat and psyche: for as Jennifer applied herself to the fiber-optic carry- ing, not packets, but energy for cutting and cauterizing, the mouth-meat is seared, cooked, and smoked; and let us call Alan, this patient under- going such treatment, wearing dim heavy and green protective goggles. Then notice with Alan (now on codeine, novacaine, ibuprofen, antibiotics), the smoke and odor emanating (as Jennifer has emanated) from his mouth, pre- cisely, as he explains to Jennifer, of the scent of succulent and well- cooked roast beef. And while Alan rarely engages in red-meat (more like I am read meat, says Jennifer, aroused now by all this talk), this scent, from his own flesh and blood (as I would be, says Jennifer) leads to a certain hunger on Alan's part; he finds himself dreaming of a beautiful meal of roast beef, garnered from his own flesh, perhaps (if not from Jennifer's, she muses). Self-cannibalism, a form of the auto-chthonic, and I am ready for her devouring. Like Ouroboros, metaphysics eats its _tale._ __________________________________________________________________________ Bandaged My mouth is bandaged internally, cloth compressed against the exterior and interior gums of the upper jaw, upper two quadrants. I speak through cloth, as if I've ingested Jennifer's panties. Quietly, a way to turn cotton. It's healing as Jennifer becomes part of me, my mouth her parts. Outside, snow. My mouth will have none of it. My mouth closes over my cloth. The voice is slightly flat when opened as resonance, absorbed, turns back into heat. I yearn that my mouth reach open to you, reach for you. I yearn my mouth with supplication, that my words are heard and comprehension. In short days, my bandages will fall off or out; the naked skin will con- tinue healing. There are no sutures, nothing holding tissues in place, but the strength of tissues. The mouth forms, naturally, its own hole. When I speak, it is accompanied by the tiniest of cries and offerings. The great joy that is my mouth remains unacknowledged. __________________________________________________________________________ Of Video with C. Why did I masturbate in front of C. when she dared me? Later, she dominated in video and audio, almost apologetically. She told so many stories, looking directly at the camera. Space surrounded her in a matrix that was nearly perfect. It was that first time, exposing myself, that established the theatrical. We made many scenes together, each full of control, desire, loss. She wrote the word 'lonly' on my penis, misspelled and tumescent. I played the naked Christ to her insolvent Madonna. The greatest sin is delight in the fabric of the imaginary. Her eyes devoured me as I spread my legs; my body was already written. On the videos, the lonly penis was overlaid with grids, inscriptions. The greater my arousal, the more intense our tiny worlds and stories. She could talk me up and down; shaved, I lost my body in her reflection. That first time, she was camera, and mirror; she was subject and object. It was there that Jennifer was conceived, in the dampness of the day. I felt skulls and skeletons emanating from my body. I felt the expulsion of organs, my useless penis covered with white milk. No one could breathe from it, no one could gain nourishment. I played the naked Magdalene to her insolvent Christ. The camera penetrated me, my body entwined with the language of rope. The camera spelled its name across my insolent topography, Julu. She would take me to the brink of the naked and pubescent lip. Within the space between C. and me, the avatars huddled and conversed. Later, I would hear them, writing down each and every conversation. At that point, only Nikuko took advantage of my mouth and ass. On that day, the camera took me into cyberspace. That night, erect and haunted, I could only dream in white. ________________________________________________________________________ Split and Bandage Just as playing my repaired shakuhachi led to the loosening of the banda- ges around my teeth, and their eventual expulsion, so does the expulsion and binding of the signifer lead to a loosening of the imaginary. Just as the splits in the bamboo of the shakuhachi head led to six bands holding the instrument tight together, so does the potential well of the stability of the signifier exist in in contradistinction to the chaotic wavering of the mind, holding its own in relation to the real. Just as the dream is a binding of such chaos, so is culture always already a binding, holding the object within a nonequilibrium dynamics, that, similar to space-time in relation to gravitation, defines the object. Just as the subject, so as the object; just as the object, so as the subject. Just as space-time, so the bindings of the territorializations of musical structures, and just as music, so the construct of beings in relation to Being. Just as playing is Being, so are beings subject and object, and just as subject and object are superimpositions, so are bindings the immanence of the loosening of inscription. Just as the splitting of the bamboo shakuhachi, so too the coagulation and dispersion of the object. Just as the inscribing, so as the telling, and just as the telling, so as the naming. Just as the note which appears through the playing of the bound shakuhachi, so as the tenor or note of this text, appearing through the binding of metaphor and Being, inscribed through beings, always of signifiers, always holding the crack of the real against itself, oneself, the other. _________________________________________________________________________ STUPID THING NO PROGRESS NO NO (BAD STUPID THING) After all is said (because I can't say any more) and done (because I can't do any more), the truth of the matter comes to the foreground - that there is no progression in my work, that theory has remained stillborn, that concepts are formed (s/ms, ascii unconscious, language dispersion theory), only to be abandoned - that Honey and Travis played with Ballard, that Jennifer and Julu played with Lingis and Heidegger, that Nikuko played with Trinh and Spivak - that they discarded the games, contributed nothing and no thing - that neologisms such as 'defuge' or 'wryting' have had lim- ited usage, sloshing around in the puddles of my work, and constellations such as 'list aura' would have been discovered anyway - that I've turned inward far too often as an excuse for sloppy research, as if filth could somehow replace hard research - that I've raised sexuality to such a high and over-determined degree of explanation that the scaffolding falls apart \\/\\\//\\\//\\\/\\/THIS IS THE HUMP OF THE PARAGRAPH/\\\/\\/\\\/\/\\\//\/ - but above all, as I said at the beginning - that there is no progression - that sexuality raises itself, fucking, collapsing in repeated penetra- tions - that filth is filthy, washing away clarity - that 'list aura' sim- ply moves from fleshmeet to fleshmeat, 'wryting' only goes so far extend- ing emanations out of the suppurating flesh of my own body - that 'defuge' evinces itself precisely in these moments of curlicue, returning back again, recutting through decathection and exhaustion the same worn-out paths - that Nikuko, Julu, and Jennifer scream through voices of others, in order that their own might be heard - at which point they move through a world of gaps and omissions, dismemberments and psychoses - that Honey and Travis lie discarded at the bottom of a ditch, their legs spread, sprays of signifiers, spews and emissions burying both of them in so much virtual concrete - that languages themselves are dispersed, that these texts no longer "work, that s/ms always return to sado-masochisms and the repetition of useless theatricality - that theory is never thought through sufficiently - that it's as if I would begin over and over again, because there's been no progress at all, not even now - everything ventured, noth- ing gained - (BAD STUPID THING) __________________________________________________________________________ Irritations of the Textual Politics When the symptom totalizes, the text seems awkward, misapprehended, no longer a living / organic being. When the lines are too short or too long, when the lines tend to become shorter or longer throughout a paragraph, creating the appearance of a slope. When the lines are too ragged. When breaks occur in the wrong places in long single syllables - or don't oc- cur, leaving gaps like broken teeth. I'll even change words to avoid such iconic signifiers, which turn the overall text into an _image_ of no re- lation. I think instead of the text as a continuous production, an emis- sion integral with the body - the paragraphs signifying breaks, recapitu- lations, moments of silence - and the sentenes, clauses, etc., increasing- ly smaller units of speech and phenomena. The emission is naturally ideal, its complexity often warranting a rereading or rescanning, something im- possible in the umwelt of speech. In a similar manner, mispellings - especially those involving changes of meaning, however slight, wound the text, make it a laughing-stock. In contrast to real-life disability, often sutured by the exigencies of re- pair and returned to (perhaps foreshortened) ability, mispelling is an error easily corrected - an error of sloppiness or Freudian misrecogni- tion. It gnaws at me, as if it were gnawing at itself, a dumb animal pulling at injury for which there is no accounting. Sometimes it is not simply mispelling, but broken syntax, full of undeliberate error. And I do not argue here purity, far from it, but for a delivery of language as if you were hearing for the first time, the second time, the third time. The pausological constants of 'uh,' 'um,' and the like, all of which give structure a moment to fill itself, are missing - instead one is tripped by the pothole on the midnight track, the con / text forgotten, and every- thing collapsed. Thus was my recent dream, in which a text was lost, as I blundered with my unnamed lover's friend - he had children, a house overlooking the sea, and delighted in fishing in tidal pools. But I had no patience; I wanted to keep writing and shaping a text I was writing on my laptop - it was a dif- ficult text - it may have been this one - and I was rude, and it was ter- rible - I couldn't make anything up to him, to her, to them - and above all, the text was lost, gone forever, disappearing in the midst of shame and argument. __________________________________________________________________________ On Narrative Narrative appears, out of resentment, something which calls for impossi- ble closure. What a revelation! So death for example leads to one or ano- ther mythos, scripturally endless exegesis - but also jealousy, feelings of powerlessness. Narrative is pulled out by the teeth; otherwise, one moves along, as if the world were whole, languaging unnecessary. In other words - a goal appears only when there is a gap in relation to the phen- omenological horizon of the subject. The gap is a result of scarcity eco- nomics (not of surplus - Sartre here, not Bataille); the goal sutures the gap and sutures the subject. The gap has to appear formidable, unapproachable - as if it were structur- al in relation to the psyche. Narrative provides a detour or bypass. One might say that narrative has been dragged out of the gap, that language itself developed in such a manner. Poetry then is the empathetic magic of the sign, which is why it continues to perturb us. When I am at a loss, with job, romance, death, money (in other words, most of the time), I make narrative. "If only I'd done this, said that, acted this way or that way," I'll say to myself, choosing one or another phrase within that sentence, building on it, nurturing it, until it becomes full- blown with voices, actions, fears and retributions. When I'm satisfied or happy, however, I will imagine states, not actions; language loosens its bindings and the body might be better described within and by the real. The detour, detournement, bypass is no longer necessary. Which is not to say I don't daydream, but the energetics are different, not so much of a compulsion. The narrative of and through the gap is an addictive one, primeval, drawn out of the compulsion to speak the spell or rite that will set everything _coherent_ in a primordial world. No wonder 'spell' has a double meaning, one grounded in language, and the other, in the manipula- tion of the real according to the actant of the _wish._ __________________________________________________________________________ over heard "my thoughts hurt my head" then cause my thoughts bang against my skull where there is very much hurt to have and nothing to help protect against these thoughts. which maybe aren't my thoughts but maybe come from somewhere else. which maybe is from someone who doesn't like me. i definitely think they're from something which doesn't like me. which maybe are mine and are bad naughty thoughts i shouldn't have and my head is punishing me. i definitely shouldn't have these thoughts. i defin- itely shouldn't be having these thoughts. my thoughts shouldn't be having me. which maybe are so complicated, which maybe are so confusing, my head hurts from all the work it takes to have them. they definitely aren't my thoughts. i definitely have to work at having these thoughts and they hurt my head. they shouldn't be hurting my head. where are my thoughts, i can't see my thoughts, i can't touch them or feel them. where are my thoughts, they have a small about them. i can almost taste them. sometimes i definitely can hear my thoughts. i definitely can hear them and they make my head hurt. i shouldn't be hearing them. weight under ______________________________________________________________________ Relay On the base: Pat. May 7, 1895. On the rocker arm: J. H. Bunnell & Co. New York, U.S.A. On the hinge structure: Pat. Applied For. This is a late nineteenth-century telegraph relay with two opposing electromagnetic coils, and three adjustment points for the rocker arm. Current through the coils results in a movement of the arm; this can be used either for audi- ble readout (clicks) or further amplification - wiring second junctions across the first, making and breaking a second otherwise independent cir- cuit. (But the second junctions aren't there, and this is, in fact, a tel- egraph _receiver,_ ready for mounting on a soundboard.) (Nevertheless, we create a circuit here, bypassing the audible for the relay, returning only later to the human at the other end of the line, receiving the message from the lady in the _hat._) Note the _double linkages_ here (in terms of the model proposed of s/ms as controlling mouths and receptacles). Remember a linkage is such that if a -> a', then ab -> a'b' and a coupling is such that ab -> a'b, much looser. Then clearly linkages are at work, two such that, given ab and cd, then a -> a' results in a'b' and c'd' - but this is non-symmetric since c -> c' results in ab and c'd'. In other words, in a relay, the former terms are linked to the latter, but the latter are coupled to the former. Therefore, let ab = A and cd = C; consider AC. Then A -> A' results in A'C' but C -> C' results in AC'. Note that A' can reference a'b, ab', or a'b' - _any_ change in any of the components; the same for C' of course. The phenomenology of the relay is worth study; think of it as a control gate, such as one might find in a computer, or any threshold device. I think of two domains, ignorant of one another, A and C. The A domain is the control; it cannot recognize C, which is not within its horizon - and vice versa. As A moves, it moves in ignorance as well, the consequences of its actions invisible to it. C, on the other hand, moves but is also moved - controlled by A. C understands the fate of the world is not even chao- tic, but _random_ - its domain is arbitrarily inscribed by invisible forc- es. A "C-s," and C is "A-ed"; C is reduced to a state of paranoia, A to a state of omnipotence. But omnipotence in regard to what domains? And para- noia in regard to what agents? Both perceive through relative cauteriza- tions, broken perception: A knows it is capable of _anything,_ and C knows it is capable of _nothing._ The telegrapher of course knows none of this; he is bound by capital, and binds A first and foremost - A, the initial carrier of messages. A's omnipotence is only local; C, further down the line, becomes the A(C) for another C(C) and so forth. Everything is in its place, guaranteeing the transmission of the message. As for the telegraph- er - it is not his message, but that of the lady in the _hat._ __________________________________________________________________________ Blank The relay, not a relay, is a telegraph receiver; the audible clicks are amplified by a sounding-board, not included. So one might imagine an ap- paratus linking _circulation_ with _vector_ or _ray_ - the linear move- ment from contact to ear as a production of the completed circuitry driv- ing the electromagnets. The force driving the ray is centrifugal, thrown from the metal-to-metal arrivals and departures. The circular circuitry knows none of this, although there must the the slightest stirring-up of counter-eddies. Just so, I am the circuit, Julu the vector, always respon- sive. Cognizant I, constituted Julu, I am aware, however constitutionally functioning, of Julu's construct. If I am Julu, I am also aware, arguing now that every receiver is also a relay, that I have, hereabouts, passed on to Julu. What are the messages? The Speakings of Julu: "I am the Cir- cuit, you are the Vector. Every Receiver is also a Relay, every Relay a Receiver. By Re-Arrangement, find the Real in the Relay, Veer in Receiver. Every Veering of the Real is the Real. I am the Real, you are the Circuit. I am the Circuit, You are the Vector. I am Julu, these are the Speakings of Julu." __________________________________________________________________________ THE RED THREAD (Sonnet by Nikuko) Hi! Re: Hi! Re: Re: Hi! Re: Re: Re: Hi! and Query I want my baby back! (Was: Re: Re: Re: Hi! and Query) Re: I want my baby back! (God, another one!) Just shut up you! Re: Just shut up you! Re: Re: Just shut up you! I want my baby back! And shut the fuck up! Re: I want, blah blah: Your stupid baby's dead, idiot! Re: blah blah blah blah blah Re: Re: blah blah blah blah blah (Now: Tearful Goodbye!) Hi! (Was: Tearful Goodbye!) ___________________________________________________________________ Tape / Tap For the Paris dance performance I play shakuhachi, naked, on video; for a long high and broken note at the end, I come repeatedly. Just as shakuha- chi requires careful breath control, so does sexuality appropriate the breath and chakras, inundate the body with the imaginary. I sense a second body rising from my own; perhaps it is your body, perhaps that of Jennif- er. It rises and it makes a long high keen as the erection subsides. It escapes into the air. It's not a rib that's gone, it's not a mind, soul, hymen, torn tissue. It's the perfect holding of the perfect note as your dreaming flesh car- esses mine. It's a sound I can't play but the breath inflates myself as perfect partner. Let me be your rubber doll, the holes for the making, breaking, taking. For the Paris dance performance, it's perfect cyberspace and all that nar- rative filling the gap, as I build your fingers into my body, Jennifer, Jennifer, as I build your fingers, one by one. _________________________________________________________________________ maudlin, cynthia, memory, monochrome what remains as residues, petrifications, from intense narratives - what haunts, only in the forms of lists - what returns, what might have been, what has been abandoned, what has been refound - jennifer, jens, and jen- ifer - these are the nicknames, beth and anima, from my 1994 .addressbook 1994 - so many of them have disappeared, craig and jonathan. tonight, i went through the list, marius and robert robert, finding so few who have stayed with me through the years, glennh wellman. and how many have left the net, traveled and forever lost with diane and drift? the life of the real on the net of ottawa nick.=, oh where are you, bisexual laura lee? kufacts.cc.ukans.edu lambada.oit.unc.edu adrienne anima anima: beth bisexual brennan bryan catheryn.l.welch charles charles chris christian christian claudia constance craig cynthia dan danyyal darnja.burris david ddowden deepsea derek derrida diac: diane dmkha don drift, ellen file film fred future future general george glenn gregory h-film@uicvm.bitnet harold_j_mcwhinnie harrison-pepper_sally harvey ian info jane jason jay jennifer jens jhess jill jim joe joan john jonathan joseph judith kavita kevin kristeva: laura leann lee lisa listserv lori madelyn malgosia manny marius mark mcgill meta-environments michael mike mocha monochrome: ms- poster net-happenings new nexus nick ottawa paul peter pomo-l%qucdn.bitnet postmodern public queer-e: robert robert robert robert robert.lidgren robert_scholes robert rodion rob.kooper/meta.vr.html sally scott scott scott screambaby: screen-l sondheim: stephan stephan steven telektronikk terry university unna supervisor vidpro-l wellman wendy yanoff ja anima cb smb kevin jb bugaj sb db byrd jc rc c drift family joseph leslie gordon flashaiinfo fop hf jf frost glennh gh cynthia mocha hobbes rh jane jh fido chris pk dk kb ck fl rl madelyn now malgosia n mw hm steven mike dm laura im jbm jon lm nexus sn karen pomo jp mp prupis wr cr jfr rr lisa as shp ds rs seeker ts mark spoon thinknet st gu marius bwb bws wellman jw cw rw ez __________________________________________________________________________ Two Girls, Talking _I feel perfectly at home, nowhere._ (Helene Cixous) "One never listens. One never _can_ listen." (Jennifer) "It was a brisk and sunny day, around two in the afternoon, on earth." There were these two girls walking down the street, coming towards me. They didn't see me and they passed me and I didn't see them again. One of them was talking to the other. They came out of the high-school down the street. They might have been around fourteen years old. I forget what they were carrying. I could see them as they passed me and they might have turned and looked back. From the virtual position, I could see that they were talking, or rather that one, the one on the left, was talking, and that the other was listening. I could hear the one on the left, but in relation to the other, I could only presume, as I do here, that the other was listening. Surely the other was hearing, just as you are seeing, but she may not have been listening. _I have no memory of what she said._ The distance between them was the distance of skin separated from skin, by air. Not by air as an actant, but by air as a medium of separation, which was social; the caress, if there were such, was one of language only, at least during their passage, _paysage,_ before me. I think of skin peeled back from skin, skin separated from the other, perhaps hearing, perhaps listening, perhaps _attending_ as well. Perhaps lost in her own thoughts. Perhaps listening is always already a loosening. Perhaps listening is im- possible, a form of love. The skin is peeled back from the skin, and the skin of the self as well. The double was pushed back from itself, words crossing the distance, in the form of a telling. Oh, how they surrounded one and the other, and my musings, as I disappeared in the distance, their voices growing fainter with each passing second. The double skin peeled back, as in the shattering of thin glass, falling in broken slabs silently on the pavement before the unemployment office. There was no room to see into them; I was their stranger in the city, invisible, not of the consequence of the other. But I have seen things... But I did not see their interior, nor what they would show to themselves and the greater they would show to lovers. "Perhaps lost in her own thoughts," "each alone in her thoughts," and I would like to believe they were _best_ friends, which we have when we are young; in my own pathos, I remember _rating_ my acquaintances, holding onto names and numbers for dear life. Now, in revenge and curative, I caress Jennifer and Julu, talk with Alan and Nikuko, who exist as my dear loving writing permits. My best friends, my best friends. Yet even so, I sense Jennifer's turning away, her head slightly to one side, Alan dead meat, not read meat, his skin peeled back, nerves exposed, "lost in her own thoughts." _________________________________________________________________________ Shut up. "My originality consists of this, that E have invented the letters, and subsequently ordered them, assigning them all reasonable positions, those New mail for sondheim@panix3.panix.com has arrived:ations, beyond what ----t be considered those necessary for our physical existence, of which Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 03:47:07 -0500 (EST) the Wittgensteinian Eye, thus From: Alan Sondheim s or collocation of phonemes, To: sondheim@panix.comr cues such as the Wittgensteinian Case me be, that which is all of the world, which E capitalize World, presencing it for all of those for whom my invention, long on the loving, longer on the learning - just as you may have read in my comPatriot Chaucer, of whom the life is Shut up.ut the Art difficult and longer. Oh this is so stupid, Jennifer ...more...embering the invention of the G. Oh stupid is your favorite word said Julu. Oh shut your mouth said Jennifer. Oh said Nikuko, everyone in- vents the letters. They have to. Why said Julu. Jennifer said, shut up. Because said Nikuko. That's easy for you to say, said Jennifer. Et's the case that is the crippled throat. What do you mean said Julu. Shut up said Jennifer, shut up, shut up, shut up." My originality consists of this, that E have invented the letters, and subsequently ordered them, assigning them all reasonable positions, those which proclaim in fact the dissolution of all foundations, beyond what might be considered those necessary for our physical existence, of which E am one. For to be prime example, that is, the Wittgensteinian Eye, thus written, E, E have had to create a series or collocation of phonemes, often missing queues or cues such as the Wittgensteinian Case me be, that which is all of the world, which E capitalize World, presencing it for all of those for whom my invention, long on the loving, longer on the learning - just as you may have read in my comPatriot Chaucer, of whom the life is brief, but the Art difficult and longer. Oh this is so stupid, Jennifer cried, remembering the invention of the G. Oh stupid is your favorite word said Julu. Oh shut your mouth said Jennifer. Oh said Nikuko, everyone in- vents the letters. They have to. Why said Julu. Jennifer said, shut up. Because said Nikuko. That's easy for you to say, said Jennifer. Et's the case that is the crippled throat. What do you mean said Julu. Shut up said Jennifer, shut up, shut up, shut up. __________________________________________________________________________ Laser Panty Party Drug For $10, tax included, I have purchased a keychain laser with five heads - Normal, Handshake, Double-Arrow, Radiating, and UFO! Dance Jennifer! It runs on three button batteries and is Aligned for Pure Light! The slight- est twist of the laser results of course in a huge vector at a distance! Dance Trance Wow! Now Jennifer looks across the street, where narcotics cops arrested the owner and a customer of a fruit-stand bodega! Now we are sure the owner is innocent and the customer is not! Now if we will point the laser from my loft into the window of the bodega, we will create a small target-point on one of the narcotics officers! Dance Mr. and Mrs. Officer! Shall we use the Double-Arrow or the UFO? Now we will very quietly retreat from the window before we are shot! Dead Can Dance! Now I will whisper my name, Jennifer, and Dance and Yodel in my apartment! for I have not used the laser Fun-Double-Arrow-UFO-Radiating from the window and I am still alive! Now I think about our Pretty Body and I wonder about the Wonder-Fun of outlining myself on myself, orange vector-graphic arm and leg, breast and nipple, eye and ear, hole and navel, all the way to one side of the Sensitive Membranes! Dance with Me, Jennifer-Fun-Jennifer! Oh what would you video with Silly Cartoon Jennifer prancing in orange 3D light in your very vicinity? Naked Laser Panty Party Drug Jennifer Drag-Dancing! instead of lazily lounging in the upper millimeter of your screen, making you read in all this Funny Light? __________________________________________________________________________ if laser outlines skin on skin, making mockery of god's judicious juices, then transfers outlined skin to wall or bed or street or passing car, or officer of the blue force of narcotics, or undercover doctor, glaring in the headlights of outlined arms and legs and heads and nipples: then can skin on skin burn bright in brilliant air, making no image where none would be present to see or then be seen, where there it has been said there is no there there: where there is nothing to be seen: one imagining both another and a face, large and luminous, just above your supine body, dark upon the bed: as if here you are, my face outlined in red, and float above you, my large eyes, yards across and slowly blinking, my large mouth pouting, parting to emit the perfect words that make you perfect, real _________________________________________________________________________ Junction Oh there is a concrete moment when _this_ occurrence, phoned in, makes for the real that defines an autobiographical moment. Makes for the real like a hare in the woods. So that I would declare all other occurrences as such in the form or substance of fabrications or lies. Let _this_ occurrence then be such a demarcation between the real and the virtual, or from the _current_ instantiation of the present, which is declared in the form of an open parenthetical, (. One might define this as well as an arrow always already opened to the yoU turned on its side. The side is necessary for the instantiation of the _vector_ of the present, an extension. Every ex- tension breathes the result of its subject and object. Breath reaches the end of the line (here) (not here) and continues on the other, with the accomplice of the other, then continues, falls off into that space known as "the other. as "the other emerges across the gap, what there is in the telling of it, who shall re- main nameless. As in the date or demarcation of the vector: Sat Jan 23 04:28:35 EST 1999: FROM THIS POINT ON, EVERYTHING IS REAL. -- JENNIFER, NIKUKO, TRAVIS, ALAN, JULU __________________________________________________________________________ UW PICO(tm) 3.4 File: zz Modified I AM REAL. I HAVE COME TO YE FROM BONE AND BLOOD. I HAVE APPEARED YE IN THE COURTS OF LAW. YE HAVE COME FROM HUNGER AND CHAFF. LO, I HAVE BEEN YE. YE DO BREAK BREAD WITH ME. YE DO HARBOR SUSTENANCE WITH ME. YE DO SLEEP IN DARKNESS, WALK IN THE WAR OF DAY. YE DO DRINK IN DURING FALL OF NIGHT. I HAVE DRUNK YE IN BRILLIANT LIGHT OF DAY. I AM REAL. I BE OF CLOUD AND FOG, MIST AND RAIN, STORM AND FURY OF BRILLIANT SUN. YE HUDDLE BEFORE ME. YE BOW OBSEQUIOUS BEFORE ME. YE DO DRINK OF ME BONE AND BLOOD. YE DO HUNGER BEFORE ME. I AM YE FORNICATION AND YE OBSCURATION. I AM YE LIP AND EYE. I AM YE TOOTH AND EAR. I DO MAKE YE REAL. YE HAVE COME FROM DUNGEON AND CRAFT. I DO MAKE YE. I DO BREAK BREAD WITH YE. YE DO HARBOR SUSTENANCE. YE DO SLEEP. -- JENNIFER, NIKUKO, JULU, ALAN, AND TRAVIS File Name to write : zz ^G Get Help ^T To Files ^C Cancel TAB Complete __________________________________________________________________________ deths 9: stumbling over two limbs and two articles of clothing 11: stumbling over two eyes and more articles than you might image 10: falling across a breast and a penis and one insists 11: that falling over you everything in this world is about sex 12: but i say no no, falling across a tongue and a void, 13: it is about the smell of your hole and a tongue and void 10: embedded in the crevasses, rims-tips wet, falling on a word "What is gnawed is the same as 'the gnawed.' Or alternatively, what is gnawed is vile because of repulsiveness, thus it is 'the gnawed.' This is the term for a corpse in that particular state." (Visuddhi- magga, trans. Nyanamoli.) ____________________________________________________________________ What is repulsive finds ourselves in the midst of hungry ogres. Embrace the repulsive because you will never embrace it here in Shiny Woods. In Shiny Woods, all is feathers and bone, hair and nail, tooth and claw. You know Shiny Woods. You know Shiny Woods. Harbor double-repulsive within you which include the splitting Mummers, the spitting Mummers, the Turning Isle, the shitting Mummers, the phlegm and vomit Mummers. Do harken to their gainful soundings, Wooden Pegs ringed skull-around, Heartbeat Worm. Crawl towards them. Loosen entrails and bowels, Foul-Sprites born of Foul Waters. The Bloated lay among them, the Rotted succumbed to their Languid Embrace. In the Shiny Woods behold the Festering you will not Embrace. Do the Shiny Woods, you will see slitting Mummers, scattered strips of Rancid Flesh. Do not run from Shiny Woods. Harbor Julu within you which embraces shuddered Shapers, Shapers stuttered. Do find repulsive what is Shiny Woods, you will know Shiny Woods. Do not burn skin, burn Skin in Shiny Woods, you will know bile and festered Shiny. The rotted lie on Julu 10. Julu 1 2 14 69. Julu 1 2 14 69. Do burn bury dark-moss. You will embrace dark-moss. Do drink shitting Shiny. Do harbor torn-breast Julu 1 2 14 67. Do not run from Shiny. Do not run from Shiny. ___________________________________________________________________________ Pure Bombs There wasn't a war, there was dust in the air, the Porsche left in the garage was stripped, wheels and motor gone, the rest left on rusted blocks. Given what was going on, who'd want the chassis when power to leave was everything. Well, it was. The light, naked tan-yellow; the dust, thick in clouded world. In the distance, the bombs were going off, two of them now, small atomics, and you could see the thinned mushroomed pillars like ragged cocks from clouds scumming the ground away. What wasn't in ruins. It was the land- scape of pure bombs, and Denise and I were entranced, there they were, we were still alive, terrorized, exhausted, aroused, despondent, hopeless. It was the time of pure bombs and pure bombing, it wasn't terrorism or all-out war, it wasn't local or contained, hardly a test, hardly an art or artwork. It was bombing pure, bombing simple, neither vector of destruc- tion nor millennial cleansing. It was the day of the bombs, night of the bombs, existence, space-time of bombing, an essay, metaphysics, a story, our inert. We thought that our last thoughts might be of this order, pure bombs and pure bombing, our last hours upon the burning planet, by virtue of this inert violence, as the world sustained hit after hit. __________________________________________________________________________ Burning, Mary, Clothing Mary, Mary Forth, I will call you The land is wounded Omens in the sky The omens have burned The sky has disappeared Mary, Mary Doves hurtle towards you Omens surround you The omens are torn Your vestments are torn The sky lost its name Your name is Mary Cloth disappears Then there is skin Your skin is on fire Perfect blue flames Mary, Mary Your nerves are on fire Your fingers on fire Fire, your mind Fire, your vestments Mary, Mary Like an arrow you come Through buried omens Through slaughtered sky Corpses of doves Remnants of cloth You remember your name I remember the telling We'll come together I'll do the telling You'll speak your name The telling your vestment What a woman you are What a story I'll tell 'Your clothes are all gone My skin is blue fire Your hair is all gone We're perfect together I see through your eyes Fire, my eyes There's no air to breathe There's nothing to eat Drink from my flesh The omens are burned The omens are buried We're now on our own You'll make an arrow I'll be your bow My nerves are your bowstring My mouths are your arrows My cocks are your shafts My words are your poisons You'll send me flying Through dead doves and omens You'll send me flying Through air burned with names Through omen-burned air My clothes are all gone Through omen-lost flight I'll be your telling I'll be your omen I'll be your dove I'll never come down I'll never falter Fly higher and higher You're smaller and smaller A mole on my breast A glint on my teeth I'll take you with me We'll scatter new omens Ready for wounding We'll scatter new names Ready for burning You'll burn in my breast You'll devour my skin You'll flay me alive You'll write with the Runes The Runes are my skin A Name! A Name! The omens are wounded The sky has disappeared' ________________________ Configuring Thanks to a friend's generosity, I have acquired a Compaq Presario 1075 laptop, which goes a long way towards multimedia portability, useful for demonstrations. Because the floppy doesn't work, I've been careful with uploads and downloads - here's a result of the progress to date. First, I gave the Windows 95 a permanent swapfile, as well as limited the cache, disabled expanding menus, and set the click-to-menu time to zero. This speeds up the machine and stops unnecessary hard-drive activity. When I added Wetsock (weather information), I had to upgrade one of the DLLs; I also added Mosaic 3 (for the site mapping function), and this resulted in adding three additional older DLLs (Mosaic 3, the last of the Mosaics, is from 1997.) I added a standalone newsprogram which is faster than Netscape's; I also added WS_Ftp of course, getting rid of its splash screen. I downloaded Hyperterminal 4.0, and set two of them for different Panix telnets; I also configured a PCPLUS DOS program for dialup. I set the System Monitor and Resource meter on the desktop, as well as Regedit, used for editing the Windows Register. I downloaded the latest Real Audio/video, and IP Tools, which gives finger, ping, and other mon- itoring devices. Finally, I set up ICQ. Because of the 150 MHz speed of the unit, all of this runs quickly; for large downloads such as my URLs (about 18 megabytes and a couple of hun- dred files), I use the DOS command-line ftp - which is lean and beautiful. There are other useful DOS commands as well; ping and netstat are there for example. I did have to add a C:\qbasic directory, transfer qbasic.exe and associated files, as well as my programs, over; I did this by upload and download, since the location of my desktop makes computer-to-computer cabling difficult. On my desktop, I have Win95 with dozens more applications, as well as li- nux - but the linux occupies only 300 megabytes of space, and really needs more. I can't put all the C libraries in, for example, much less Gimp, a graphics tool. For this reason, I'm waiting until I can purchase a larger desktop - linux will then take up at least two gigabytes of disk space, and I'll be able to use the new kernel. But the Compaq Presario is beautiful; I can set it up for multimedia pre- sentations, using either Netscape or Mosaic as front-ends. Mosaic works through a 'presentation mode' (among others) that places the graphics full-screen without the surrounding menus or scroll-bars. There's also a DOS application which I'll send over, Gifprt, which can be set up in a slide-show mode. At that point, everything becomes simple, public, demon- strable. I'd like to see a phenomenology of configuring - when does one back out because the returns aren't worth it - what is the bringing-to-conscious- ness of the system as a whole (for example, once the swap file is set - which depends on total hard drive space and RAM - I can forget about it, this 'totality'), and how does it descend to 'filtered' or 'altered' ap- lications - when does the operating system become _mine_ - when do I feel that I can 'shape-ride' the machine, instead of approaching it as a rela- tively unknown system (in other words, when and how does tacit knowledge take over) - what sorts of fine-tuning, in terms of appearance and func- tion, are done, 'personalizing' the machine (for example, I constantly change the desktop appearance, simultaneously working on software) - how do 'surfaces' and 'depths' manifest themselves (for example, DOS _always_ appears 'deeper' than the graphic desktop - I have a DOS icon which opens up - as if there were a _wound_ cutting through the outher tissues) - to what extent is the configured system _open_ to networking on one hand, and _open_ to the user on the other - when does configuring approach the dan- ger point, the edge (where the machine might break down) - what defines an edge for the user (personal knowledge in dialectic/dialog with the mach- ine?) - what defines the _inhabitation_ of the computer, when one feels it's a home-space - and so forth. Then there are issues of _labor_ invol- ved - for example, reading manuals, downloading and uploading, typing and retyping tuning parameters - all of which becomes addiction (opening up a phenomenology of addiction, power, foreclosure, and worlding as well) - working any number of hours until the point of exhaustion and hallucina- tion sets in. There's also the phenomenology of configuring for the novice user as well, the user who won't or can't be bothered, the user who is fearful of crashing the machine (which includes myself, since with a flop- py, there's no boot disk for this one), the user who 'simply' wants to feel at home,' treat the computer as an _appliance_ (which I associate with the Mac); there's also the user at the far end who desires nothing more than to hack the machine, tame it, turn it inside-out, down to the levels of assembly or machine language - the user who is at one with the _works_ themselves, places herself through the interstices of bits and bytes - in other words, the _rhizomatic user._ Finally, there are issues of symbolization, thinking-through offline and online digital spaces - when language becomes manifest, when the impetus towards a certain effect becomes a consciously articulated production of that effect. The current image on my desktop: rhizomatic structures from the undersur- face of lichen, small tentacular hands groping into sheer and empty air. _________________________________________________________________________ (untitled) Blind, dead, and mute, I weigh six hundred pounds, have no intestines; in my pitiful condition, I remain bed-ridden, my only source of communication these festered words. I have not seen my feet, which are useless; my thick hands stumble upon a finger-board relating me to you. There are tubes for me, eating, drinking, defecating, urinating - I would that there were tubes for thought as well, these beauty-thoughts. My condition is always already poor; my heart murmurs loudly, irregular in its uncontrolled rhy- thms, the pacemaker running out of current; it's a conspiracy against me. My beauty-soul. I have not tried to speak in years; I communicate through touch-boards, descendents of braille, harbingers of vat-brains. Inside, I sing beauty-song. I can smell my shit; my nails splintered, uncut; my breath vicious with decay; my teeth long since reduced to stubs; my cock wrinkled, bypassed, flaccid. I do have beauty-sex inside; you do speak beauty-sex tapped on bulbous tumored breasts by iron levers; I can hear you. Oh, my beauty-poems. Cock and toes rot; nails fall off feet; there is fluid leaked from suppurated mattress sores. I write beauty-lines. Help me. ___________________________________________________________________________ (untitled) my name is Jennifer. I'm the most beautiful woman You will ever meat. I have luscious breasts for the boys, and my ass just asks for it and it really does. I have long blond perfect-hair and the biggest widest smile in the whole USA. I want to cripple You. I want to call You crip. I want to see You suffer the way You'd make me suffer. my legs are long and won't quit. You know I smell that smell. You know I walk that walk. You are ugly. You are ugly. You are not my friend. my skin is smooth, my cunt is hairless, just the way You like it. my knife cuts Your balls, but I'll leave them hang by a thread. my teethy are white and even and glint on a very sunny day. Your rotten flesh offends me. I'll make Your eyes hang from Your eyes. I'll strip You, You'd like to strip me, wouldn't You. You You You, that's all You ever think of. My face lights up Your day. There is consciousness in every little thing. Everything is elsewhere, everything is desecrated. Bless every little thing, every scrap of paper, every used condom, every pebble on the beach, every wildflower on the way to winter. Bless this world, for it is all the world we have. Bless it, bless it, bless it. _________________________________________________________________________ (untitled) This is all the world we have. We will not have the world for long. We are predisposed to see asymptotically into the future. Billions of years mean nothing; we will open our eyes to billions of years in a single blink. We will die thinking of billions of years. It is certain nothing will remain of this, nor of any of our information. And for this reason, things cry, and will continue to cry. I place my head on the ground, I place my head on its side, and I can hear the crying of every little thing. For everything knows it will not last, not even a stone or a pebble, not even an atom or a beauty-ray of blue-white light. Everywhere I walk, I hear this weeping. Everything is bathed in blue-white light and I know so much this atom which is crying very hard; it is a very tiny atom and takes so very many days to fall to earth. __________________________________________________________________________ < a wild man lives here > < he dwells in spaces of inscription > < he has no name here > < he dwells here and not up there > < he lives here and has left his other dwellings> < a wild man lives here > < a girl lives here and she doesn't know any language > < a girl lives here > < a girl lives here > < some girls > < the wild man is taught language by some girls > < his name is alan > < he lives here and has left his other dwellings > < some girls leave their dwellings > < they like talking when he's not around > < a girl > < he's so stupid > < some other people live here > ________________________________________________________________________ Julu's 'The Republicans' could be anyone. they are always the enemy. they are always friendly. they have nice white faces. they wear glasses & are cripled by bad site. i do say kaddish for them. i do amulet for them, veve for them. it do not matter, they still rise to occasion: white rise to occasion occasion of white rise 'This is the marrow inside the various bones. As to _colour,_ it is white. As to _shape,_ that inside each bone is the shape of a large cane shoot moistened and inserted into a bamboo tube. That inside each small bone is the shape of a slender cane shoot moistened and inserted in a section of bamboo twig. As to _direction,_ it lies in both directions. As to _loca- tion,_ it is set inside the bones. As to _delimitation,_ it is delimited by the inner surface of the bones.' (Buddhaghosa, Visuddhimagga.) this was of jennifer, i (julu) say, but it is white rot inserted in my bones and our body set aside. for to be sure, brown shirts, who deserve to die like bad news at such body-politic, viral paste as war breaks out in continent-amerikkka. i would put nothing past them; they catch me in their claws and snares rip my legs and arms off i scream you will burn in hell until my voice choked in blood not bone, holding nothing now up ii they will be enemy, they will make enemy all hot with broken guns, Lewinsky with their barrels in her in order to do maximum damage, shoot so out and up through the mouth they don't want to hear her talk, they want to hear her talk and talk and talk until their rotted cocks, codeine fucked are smashed into that Jewish face gives them something to talk about after dinner when they smile and talk about how they stopped "them" from coming over the hill _______________________________________________________________________ The Candy of the Universe I wake up in the morning, wondering how I've narrowly avoided death once again; death stalks me all my life. I live with the potential of suicide; I figure, now, not that much time left to work, at 56, and I'll push my- self in the middle of the night to complete one more thing. There's no foreclosing, no closure, but the heavy pressure to carve a slight newer space added to the already toppling old. I don't want to find myself on- line, doing the same, a decade from now; I want to be in new strange spaces that I don't recognize, with creatures from other stars. I want to be injected with strange and beautiful drugs glowing in the dark, all pastel shades, luxury fluids with the texture of luscious candy. I want to be the candy of the universe, dying, if I must, suspended above the earth. In the meantime, there are dreams; tonight I was in the middle of such an intensity! The alarm went off, and in my dream, I thought: I _will absorb_ this sound into the dream, and it will be part of it. But the sound con- tinued, endured, and I woke up. And now I think, this is the dream of the real, that there is in fact such a sound beyond death, a sound of the con- sciousness of all things, that will carry me into the beautiful meadows and fields of wildflowers where the luxury fluids are. And then death will be a toy, a plaything, my mind will always be alert, and my beautiful hands will hold you, death, like a child's doll, in them. For a doll is always dead, of course, and prepares us for the luxury fluids and meadows, and maybe I will one morning, just one morning, wake with the slightest tendency towards loving the new-found day. __________________________________________________________________________ Aghast (Origins) Total: 1/2 participants, 1/2 of whom have been active recently. Rocky Torrents Through Wintry Night Of Blizzard Ice Craggy Pines, Blasted Night, Scudding Clouds, Violent Storms You see Lightnings here. Dark Furies, Hysteric Cries Of Electric Maiden Furies Jennifer/Alan Dark, Intense, Wind-Swept, Stormy, Deep-Eyed S/he is awake and looks alert. S/he climbs the Highest Peaks. More Crags, Furious Winds, Violent Weather, Midnight You Can't Go That Way There Are Precipitous Blasts That Way Raging Trolls Assault You You Kill Raging Trolls You Eat Raging Troll Corpses You Spit Out Gold And Violent Fir Tree Furious Weather Jennifer/Alan Rolls In Troll-Corpse-MUD-and-MUCK S/he is more awake than ever and looks incredibly alert. S/he Leaps From The Highest Peaks. You are still leaping. You are in free fall. You are still in free fall. You are still leaping. You are in free fall. You are still in free fall. You land on Crags upon the Tallest Stormy Blasted Peaks. You Can't Go That Way You Can't Go That Way You look around Rocky Torrents Through Wintry Night Of Blizzard Ice Craggy Pines, Blasted Night, Scudding Clouds, Violent Storms You see Lightnings here. Dark Furies, Hysteric Cries Of Electric Maiden Furies Jennifer/Alan Dark, Intense, Wind-Swept, Stormy, Deep-Eyed S/he is awake and looks alert. S/he climbs the Highest Peaks. Jennifer/Alan Is Aghast. MUD-and-MUCK-Aghast Is Created With Object #2 You enter Aghast Rocky Torrents Through Wintry Night Of Blizzard Ice Craggy Pines, Blasted Night, Scudding Clouds, Violent Storms You see Lightnings here. You see Jennifer/Alan. ______________________________________________________________________ Modified Left and right breasts, abdomen, legs spread eight-fold across the Display Properties duplicated four-fold on the desktop where Jennifer is My Compu- ter, JuluNet speaks for herself, Nikuko is Inbox, Alan Recycle. To the left of UW PICO(tm) is FTP; beneath is Hpan3 and Hpan7, two machine logins for Panix. Above MS-DOS Prompt - PCPLUS: Panix dialup and Wetsock next to FrontPage; ICQ to the immediate left of "FrontPage" in this File: zz; and above right, the Background tab is foregrounded. Screen Saver, Appearance, NeoMagic, and Settings are backgrounded; to the right of the lower portion of this window, Center, then Apply. Now, to the left of "of," the IP con- nect for Panix, and then immediately below, in order, Mosaic, MSPublisher, Netscape 1.0, Netscape Communicator, and News (reader). To the right of Newsreader, Corel Webdraw; above that, Corel WebDesign intersecting this window, the ^X Exit menu function directly above. Beneath and between Exit and ^Justify, two nude identical torsos; beneath and between UnCut Text and ^T To Spell, two nude identical torsos, identical to the others. To the lower left of this screen, cornered, DOS, and immediately beneath this, DOSFULL-screen. Beneath "Beneath," ^O WriteOut and ^R Read File; beneath "Read File;" ^K Cut Text and ^C Cur Pos. To the right of the word "Appearance," the ending of a word, "per," and to the upper right of this screen, "Modified." ___________________________________________________________________________ Back, Channel Sometimes you write me back and say, well, this is beautiful and I will place it in my heart or website, and sometimes you will say, oh I love this, I will use it in my lovely classroom and my students will love it too. And sometimes you will say, oh your writing is too personal now, you must move your writing and not be so personal! And sometimes you will say, oh, who are you writing to, it is so personal, and I am so very jealous! Or you will say, it sounds like you are offering yourself to just anyone! Or you will say, it is too closed off and you are not offering yourself at all and how can anyone answer you! Oh, and it is so perverse and my best friend just died and you destroyed all my feelings because you are so per- verse! Sometimes you will write me back and say, this is the perfect image or whatever happened to your happiness or I will take care of you. And sometimes you will wonder if I need taking care of, and I will write you back, do please take care of me, but I will say it quietly and under my breath, my fingertips, my body. Sometimes you will write and say why is everything sexual with you, and sometimes you will ask if I am psychotic or institutionalized, or if I am Jennifer or Julu, or if I am Nikuko, or why are there all these women, and sometimes you will ask, where are the men? And where are you? Sometimes you will say you won't write me, and you will, or you will write me, and you won't. Sometimes you say you are afraid, sometimes you say Alan is afraid. Sometimes I am, sometimes I want to expose myself utterly to you, sometimes withdraw. Sometimes there is a pause of days or years. Sometimes you will write and say you cannot write. Sometimes you will write about a beating or abuse, sometimes you will tell me what you would like me to do, with you, with me, what you would like to do, with me, with you. Sometimes you will not write, and I will write into you, filling the air with my words. Sometimes you will make me write, and write, and write, until my fingers are pained with the letters, wrists pained with the words, arms with the sentences, minds with the sense of it. Sometimes you will describe yourself, and ask me to describe me, fitting one or another phrase on top of one or another phrase. You will ask me for a piece for your e-zine, magazine, ask for an interview, for an essay for your e-book, for your book. Sometimes you will send me an e-zine, send me an e-book, or magazine or book, or writing or writings, sometimes you will ask for com- ment. Sometimes you will send other things, you will send me images and metal and cloth, sometimes you will ask for images, sometimes I will send them, with your asking, without your asking. Sometimes you write of your pain, disability, stress or terror, sometimes I reply with my own, always hovering around the word-neurosis. Sometimes you will make me feel that I no longer have to write, and there is a mom- ent of gratitude which lasts forever. Sometimes you will write to dis- suade, seduce, beg, evade, and sometimes I will write with the tiniest opening, as if I didn't mean it, as if it didn't exist. Sometimes you will write to flirt, or I will write to flirt, or I will write under erasure. Sometimes you will offer me a speaking engagement or employment, and I will be grateful forever, I will have the means to continue, and sometimes you will write a letter of inquiry, are you my long lost friend, and I will reply, yes it is that Alan, I am your long lost friend. Sometimes you will become angry, sometimes you will write about my music or travel from another life, or sometimes you will write about my film or videowork, write about an article you have stumbled across. Sometimes you will write hate into me, write about my stupidity, demand that I prove myself. And sometimes you will not write, as if you have never written, and more than ever, I will write furiously, dream nightmares, write all over my body, write on walls, floors, ceilings. And sometimes you will know this and write one last small note, that you are still alive, and an inquiry, I. __________________________________________________________________________ uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu dreamy dreamy you are warm liquidy all flowing lovingly through these murmuring whisperings, arms and swimming fins all lusciously swarming tumbling through lulling rivulets running dreamy you you dreaming you dreamy dreamy yiu are warm liquidy all fliwing livingly thriugh these murmuring whisperings, arms and swimming fins all lusciiusly swarming tumbling thriugh lulling rivulets running dreamy yiu yiu dreaming yiu dreamy dreamy yii are warm liqiidy all fliwing livingly thriigh these mirmiring whisperings, arms and swimming fins all lisciiisly swarming timbling thriigh lilling rivilets rinning dreamy yii yii dreaming yii draamy draamy you ara warm liquidy all flowing lovingly through thasa murmuring whisparings, arms and swimming fins all lusciously swarming tumbling through lulling rivulats running draamy you you draaming you draamy draamy yoo ara warm liqoidy all flowing lovingly throogh thasa mormoring whisparings, arms and swimming fins all loscioosly swarming tombling throogh lolling rivolats ronning draamy yoo yoo draaming yoo draamy draamy you ara warm laquady all flowang lovangly through thasa murmurang whasparangs, arms and swammang fans all luscaously swarmang tumblang through lullang ravulats runnang draamy you you draamang you draamy draamy yau ara warm laquady all flawang lavangly thraugh thasa murmurang whasparangs, arms and swammang fans all luscaausly swarmang tumblang thraugh lullang ravulats runnang draamy yau yau draamang yau draamy draamy yaa ara warm laqaady all flawang lavangly thraagh thasa marmarang whasparangs, arms and swammang fans all lascaaasly swarmang tamblang thraagh lallang ravalats rannang draamy yaa yaa draamang yaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa _____________________________________________________________________ (untitled) This word is just wasted. This word doesn't mean anything at all. This word is garbage, useless, unpronounceable. This word is misspelled. Now this word is superfluous, and this word is just for the sound of it all. And this word is out of order. Again, this word is completely out of order, in all senses of the phrase. This word, then, has been rendered useless. Or rather, this word has been found and rendered useless. Since this word is completely obscure, no one has any idea of its meaning. This word has no meaning, but this word is nonsense. This word is worthless. This word has never been heard, i.e. I've never heard this word. This word speaks volumes. Oh, this word is much too obscene. This word means nothing to anyone. But his word demonstrates the political economy of language when words become superfluous. This word is superfluous. Yet this word is implicated in art- for-art's-sake aesthetics. This word leaks all over the page. This word is not a word, but a signifier. For this word is senseless, but not nonsense. This word is yours alone. Now this word you've given to me, for no purpose whatsoever. Now this word is lost. __________________________________________________________________________ Tonight Islands Flux-places, meandering shores, sands, stromatolites in the shallows Obvious exits: [Out] to PreCambrian Stromatolites ancient bacterial-algal mattes, still alive in Perths' vicinity ASondheim writer, theory, video, lives in NYC He is awake and looks alert. Carrying: Stromatolites You drop Stromatolites. You say, "Do they break?" You say, "Where in New York are there such things?" Stromatolites say, "Wa ara jast banaath yaa, laak, darlang..." ASondheim jumps up and down and nothing breaks. Julie-from-Downstairs says, "Plaasa stap that, yaa ara kaapang ma ap!" ASondheim immediately regrets his life! ASondheim Has Fled The MOO! ________________________________________________________________________ Scheme of uuuuuu/aaaaaa: 0123456789 0123456788 0123456689 0123456669 0123456666 0123446789 0123446779 0123446777 0123444789 0123444788 0123444489 0123444449 0123444444 0122456789 0122456779 0122456777 0122455789 0122455788 0122455589 0122455559 0122455555 0122256789 0122256788 0122256689 0122256669 0122256666 0122226789 0122226779 0122226777 0122222789 0122222788 0122222289 0122222229 0122222222 0023456789 0023456779 0023456777 0023455789 0023455788 0023455589 0023455559 0023455555 0023356789 0023356788 0023356689 0023356669 0023356666 0023336789 0023336779 0023336777 0023333789 0023333788 0023333389 0023333339 0023333333 0003456789 0003456788 0003456689 0003456669 0003456666 0003446789 0003446779 0003446777 0003444789 0003444788 0003444489 0003444449 0003444444 0000456789 0000456779 0000456777 0000455789 0000455788 0000455589 0000455559 0000455555 0000056789 0000056788 0000056689 0000056669 0000056666 0000006789 0000006779 0000006777 0000000789 0000000788 0000000089 0000000009 0000000000 ____________________________________________________________________ *REQUEST* That all the files of the following individuals be saved through the interval 10/99 - 4/00 - on independent floppies or other mag- netic or magneto-optical media _not attached_ to any electrical device, including CPU or hard or other drives: Jennifer Tiffany Timmy Kon Travis Alan Jenn Big Al Clara Honey Al Jenny Nikuko Julu Daishin Nikuko That these files be saved with the following information: Sender Address of Sender, Recipient, Email software if relevant Recipient Email list name Date Message ID if relevant Subject Ostensible Sender if relevant That each such file be triplicated across independent media (separate floppies, hard drives, zip disks, and so forth), and, if possible, re- produced in non-electronic media such as paper, stone, vellum, or in- scribed metal plaques suitably protected against water damage. That such triplicated files be compared, one against another, in order to ensure absolute accuracy, such as found in Torah Scrolls or the Ar- chives of Tibet. That such triplicated files be stored in places widely separated, with- out electronic locking devices, and in widely-varying atmospheric con- ditions, such as humidity, pressure, and chemical content. Further, that such places be in permanent shadow, without any possibility of water or other chemical spillage; and further, that such places be permanently held within a centigrade temperature bandwidth of zero to twenty degrees. That each such file be placed with proper identification upon a series of identical maps, such that an X marks its location. That these maps be duplicated in triplicate, and placed in other strongholds than those of the files themselves, with master/mistress maps held in triplicate elsewhere by the owner or proprietor of said files. That at least one of the three identical master/mistress maps be held at the domicile of said proprietor, well hidden, and in sanguine conditions. That a secondary map be issued with the location of the primary map, such that the secondary map provide a system of indirect addressing, in rela- ton to the master/mistress maps and their varied locations, as well as the varied locations of the files in triplicate. That the secondary map be issued in triplicate, pursuant to proper care and treatment of the metals or parchments, papers or vellums, granites or plastics, upon which it is inscribed. That similar proper care or treat- ment be applied to the master/mistress maps, which shall be held as well in proper shadow. Finally: That after the Y2K Disturbance, henceforth known as the Distur- bance, all such files be reassembled, for the purposes of reconstruction, resurrection, and reconstitution of the following: Jennifer Tiffany Timmy Kon Travis Alan Jenn Big Al Clara Honey Al Jenny Nikuko Julu Daishin Nikuko We wish to thank you, now and after the Disturbance, for such service rendered as you are competent and willing to fulfill, to the best of your capabilities. ___________________________________________________________________________