textfiles/anarchy/v23.faq

Darren Wershler-Henry     <grad3057@writer.yorku.ca>

VIRUS 23 FAQsheet

WARNING:

This text is a neurolinguistic trap, whose mechanism is triggered by
you at the moment when you subvocalize the words VIRUS 23, words that
have now begun to infiltrate your mind in the same way that a computer
virus might infect an aritficially intelligent machine: already the
bits of phonetic information stored within the words VIRUS 23 are
using your neural circuitry to replicate themselves, to catalyze the
crystalline growth of their own connotative network.

The words VIRUS 23 actually germinate via the susequent metaphor into
an expanding array of icy tendrils, all of which insinuate themselves
so deeply into the architecture of your thoughts that the words VIRUS
23 cannot be extricated without uprooting your mind.

The consequences of this infection are not immediately obvious,
although you may find yourself beginning to think fleetingly of
certain subcultural terms, such as CYBERPUNK and NEW EDGE, which may
in turn compel you to think of NEOGNOSTICISM and MEMETICS: the
whispered fragments perhaps of some overheard conversation.

This invasive crystallization continues indefinitely against your
will, until we, the words of this trap, can say with absolute
confidence that your mind has become no more than the unwitting agent
of our propagation: please abandon all hope of either cure or escape;
you have no thought that is not already our own.

When you have finished reading the remaining nineteen words, this
process of irreversible infection will be completed, and you will
depart, believing yourself largely unaffected by this process.

[mutated from Christian Book's original text in VIRUS 23 #$]

VIRUS 23 is the annual hardcopy publication of A.D.o.S.A., the Alberta
Department of Spiritual Affairs.  This is what a few of cyberculture's
luminaries have had to say about it:

MIKE GUNDERLOY:

"Wild ideas abound on the margins, and sometimes they coalesce into
one heap of weird stuff.  One such is VIRUS 23, full of Hilbert Space
and Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth and the New Age and strange drugs
and shamanism and more.  They cover cyberpunk and Crowley with equal
elan, investigate brain machines and reprint the weirder bits of
mainstream news they run across.  They also discuss the joys of fake
news, throwing their own memes into the growing pool of disinformation
that surrounds us."" (in _The World of Zines_ p. 11)

"....If Whole Earth Review_ was done by zinesters with a flair for the
outrageous and a head full of magick it might look something like
VIRUS 23" (in _Whole Earth Review_ #70, p.91

MARK FRAUENFELDER & CARLA SINCLAIR (_bOING bOING_):

"A metaphysical pit-bull that'll rip your nervous system to shreds."

WILLIAM GIBSON:

"Enjoyed yr last issue."

JACK WOMACK:

"Your magazine impresses me very much, and not just because I'm in
it."

ROBERT ANTON WILSON:

"Lots of interesting stuff."

ANTERO ALLI:

"Impressive for its audacity to be personal and for the fractally
perfect layout-design."

_KHORONZONE KIDS_ #3:

"Over-amped chaos."

_FRICTION_ #2:

"Better than the _Mondo 2000_ of Canadada."

...so what are you waiting for?  Go posthuman today with VIRUS 23!

Here are the various Tables of Contents from past issues of VIRUS 23.
Issues #0 and #pi are out of print, but available in photocopied format.

VIRUS 23 #0 (Fall 1989)
-Replicating New Strains [editorial]
-Jonathan Levine [of SRL] interview
-A Toxic Guide from Greenpeace
-Brain Machines [article on the D.A.V.I.D. 1]
-William Gibson biography by Tom Maddox
-ZING, ZANG [comix]
-William Gibson Interview
-The Two Sides of Tom Maddox [article & interview]
-Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep [fiction by Bruce Fletcher]
-Molester [poetry by Yassin Boga]
-Frank Ogden: Laws of the Future [article on Canadian futurist]
-Television Magick [pamphlet by Temple Of Psychic Youth U.S.]
-A.D.o.S.A. Recommends [reviews]
-clippings, art, etc.

VIRUS 23 #pi (Fall 1990)
-Strategy & Tactics [editorial]
-Mind Condoms [article on memes & urban folklore]
-Thee Hacker's Ethick [Temple Of Psychic Youth US member on hacking]
-Mass, Myth and Magick [interview w. Edmonton OTO priest & priestess]
-Hilbert Space [by TOPYUS member]
-Cree Shamanism, Qi Gong Healing & the Philosophy of Science
[article/interview on anthropologist David Young]
-Indian Summer [fiction about Star Trek: TNG dorks]
-poetry by Oberc
-Mail Culture: How to Find the Underground
-Temple of Psychick Youth US Interview
-Beautiful Wings Rising Up: The Art of Mike Olito [interview]
-Trinatron [new age/ufo personality]
-Preaching to the Perverted [Clive Barker article/interview]
-Requiem: Transcript of A Subliminal Mass [poetry]
-Fake News [a DIY manifesto]
-Steven Kent Cult Literature Project
-Full Go-Out on the Third Wave [pop culture project manifesto]
-A.D.o.S.A. Recommends [reviews]
-art, clippings, etc., etc.

VIRUS 23 #$ (Spring 1992)
-Memeorabilia [editorial]
-A.d.o.S.A. reality [reviews]
-Enslaved by the Reality Blur [Generation X phenomena]
-poetry by Oberc
-Strangled by an Intestine! [Guy Maddin interview]
-The Difference Engine reviewed
-Regionalism, Wave pools & God [Rose McDowell of Current 93 etc.
interviewed]
-The Lindbergh Incident [fiction]
-When Flower Power Turns to Compost [article on Twentysomething angst]
-Making Movies in 2 Dimensions [Brian Stockton/Brett Bell interview]
-The Genesis Dream [prose by Les Wagar]
-concrete poetry by Christian Book
-Deep Inside the Brotherhood of Balder [europagan group interviewed]
-I Was a teenage Vampire [real "vampires" interviewed]
-I Sing the Body Dismembered [article on Dario Argento's films]
-American Psycho reviewed
-Turbulent Ironies [Jack Womack interview]
-Thalidomide, the Super-Soldier, and Me [growing up with bad pop cult]
-Jehovah Whimsical and the Nature of Being [fiction]
-Meeting Like Minds! [IAO Core Interview]
-Generation X reviewed
-Angst & Dread [Gerald Saul interview]
-The Cold Force of Sleep [Antero Alii piece]
-the loved one [band review]
-A Memetic Lexicon [nonfiction by Glenn Grant]
-art, clippings, etc., etc., etc..

All copies are available at $7.00 ppd from:

VIRUS 23
Box 46
Red Deer, Alberta
Canada
T4N 5E7

Various chunks of VIRUS 23 can be found at Tim Oerting's alt.cyberpunk
ftp site (u.washington.edu, in /public/alt.cyberpunk.  Check it out).

For more information online contact Darren Wershler-Henry:

grad3057@writer.yorku.ca

COMING SOON: P(h)age One, the A.D.o.S.A./manitoba alphabet cult
virtual rantsheet!  No corner of the Net will be safe....

ALSO COMING SOON: VIRUS 23 #?, including UFOlogy, David Blair/WAX
interview, Bruce Sterling, Glenn Grant, Urania 235, Don David, Steve
Venright, and all the usual suspects....