textfiles/magazines/SCREAM/scream-baby.1993-01-03.txt

       ------------------------------------------------------------>
       |
       |    "Should you then, in time, discover all there is
       |     to be discovered, your progress must then become
       |     a progress away from the bulk of humanity.  The
       |     gulf might even grow so wide that the sound of
       |     your cheering at some new achievement would be
       |     echoed by a universal howl of horror."
       |        --Bertolt Brecht
       |
       ------------------------------------------------------------>

                          obligatory big ol' header:
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scream -- vb. 2a. to speak or write with intense hysterical expressions
               b. to protest violently
               c. to produce a vivid startling effect

baby -- n. 1. aw, hell, we all know what one of these is, huh?

  __________________________________________________________________________
 |                                                                          |
 | Cyberlicious <tm> | Publisher : Blade X       |  The Bamboo Gardens      |
 | PO Box 4510       | bladex@wixer.cactus.org   |  (512) 385-2941          |
 | Austin, TX 78765  |  Neo-Wobblie Node # 269   |  WWIV : 46@5285          |
 |__________________________________________________________________________|

                               The Leri-L Issue

                             With your guest host:

                                    Scotto
                          (moore7004@iscsvax.uni.edu)

      Note: Scotto is the moderator of the Leri-L mailing list and guest
         editor of this issue of Scream Baby.  So if you don't like or
      understand something here, blame him. Space is available in Scream Baby
                         for those who will amaze me.

                Enough meddling, I'm outta here like last year.
                                 -- me 1/3/93


      INDEX:

EDUMATORIAL #1
Subject: NetSurvey II
A SLICE OF LIFE IN MY VIRTUAL COMMUNITY (excerpt) by Howard Rheingold
EDUMATORIAL #2
Subject: (blank)
APPROACHING THE HYPERTEXTure by Heath Michael Rezabek
Subject: [deceased]
EBIMATORIAL #3 featuring Andy Hawks
Subject: commercial break
LERI-L WELCOME LETTER (excerpt)
EDUMATORYAL #? featuring @rez
Subject: Agrippa
Subject: RE: Scream Baby
EDUMAURINAL #N
ARBITRARY MUSIC REVIEWS
Subject: LSD
ENDNOTE

---------------------------->>

EDUMATORIAL #1
(Wherein we begin to define our reasons for being Here.)

First of all, let me just say that the Internet is the largest single example
of public masturbation I believe I have ever seen.

Second of all, I do not claim to represent all of the fine-feathered gang at
Leri-L.  I basically represent myself and the other couple of entities who
occasionally manifest themselves within me.  But I tell you what, I'll be
durned if I know what the hell is going on here.

I have been busily grooming myself a net.personality, and doing an issue of
Scream Baby seemed like the next logical step to getting myself *really
noticed*.  I'm a selfish, cynical pig at heart, oinking for love and
attention.  I'd give you a little autobio here, but you shouldn't care,
because the point of today's issue is not my selfish motivations, but what I
decided to do with those motivations, dig?  By making such a disclaimer, I can
truly prove what a groovy froog I am -- "I'm not a proselytizer, but I play
one on the Net."

So.  All the hackers and crackers and phrackers and cracker-jackers and apple-
jackers and cyberpunks and cypherpunks and cyberphunks and fruitnfibrepunks
pay attention, please, I mean, I'm entreating you as politely as I can,
because I represent the Other (gasp).  I represent the World's Computer
Illiterati, and we are insiduously making our way into your backyards, and we
see your Blind Spots, dig?

Now that that's been said, on with the show....

----------------------------->>

>From REZABEK1037@iscsvax.uni.edu Tue Dec 15 01:24:03 1992
To: leri-l@iscsvax.uni.edu
Subject: NetSurvey II

hmmmmm... 42 new messages in 9 hours; 5 an hour, eh? boy, the hits just keep
a-comin... :)

ok, this Question has an Expiration Date of 3 pm TUESDAY (today in this neck
o' de woods):

* Define: "The Net."

heh.

;)rez

------------------------------>>

A SLICE OF LIFE IN MY VIRTUAL COMMUNITY (EXCERPT)
by Howard Rheingold

(Ed notes: Howard stayed on Leri-L over the summer while writing a book on
virtual communities, and claims to still occasionally peruse the Daily Comp.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of the "Whole Earth Review," and his is the point of
view from which we will enter the thrust of this issue.  CMC = computer-
mediated communication)

Something is happening here. I'm not sure anybody understands it yet.  I know
that the WELL and the net is an important part of my life and I have to decide
for myself whether this is a new way to make genuine committments to other
human beings, or a silicon-induced illusion of community. I urge others to
help pursue that question in a variety of ways, while we have the time. The
political dimensions of CMC might lead to situations that would pre-empt
questions of other social effects; responses to the need for understanding the
power-relationships inherent in CMC are well represented by the Electronic
Frontier Foundation and others. We need to learn a lot more, very quickly,
about what kind of place our minds are homesteading.

The future of virtual communities is connected to the future of everything
else, starting with the most precious thing people have to gain or lose --
political freedom. The part played by communication technologies in the
disintegration of communism, the way broadcast television pre-empted the
American electoral process, the power of fax and CMC networks during times of
political repression like Tienamen Square and the Soviet Coup attempt, the
power of citizen electronic journalism, the power-maneuvering of law
enforcement and intelligence agencies to restrict rights of citizen access and
expression in cyberspace, all point to the future of CMC as a close correlate
of future political scenarios. More important than civilizing cyberspace is
ensuring its freedom as a citizen-to-citizen communication and publication
medium; laws that infringe equity of access to and freedom of expression in
cyberspace could transform today's populist empowerment into yet another
instrument of manipulation. Will "electronic democracy" be an accurate
description of political empowerment that grows out of the screen of a
computer? Or will it become a brilliant piece of disinfotainment, another
means of manipulating emotions and manufacturing public opinion in the service
of power.

Who controls what kinds of information is communicated in the international
networks where virtual communities live? Who censors, and what is censored?
Who safeguards the privacy of individuals in the face of technologies that
make it possible to amass and retrieve detailed personal information about
every member of a large population? The answers to these political questions
might make moot any more abstract questions about cultures in cyberspace.
Democracy itself depends on the relatively free flow of communications. The
following words by James Madison are carved in marble at the United States
Library of Congress: "A popular government without popular information, or the
means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps
both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be
their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
It is time for people to arm themselves with power about the future of CMC
technology.

Who controls the market for relationships? Will the world's increasingly
interlinked, increasingly powerful, decreasingly costly communications
infrastructure be controlled by a small number of very large companies? Will
cyberspace be privatized and parcelled out to those who can afford to buy into
the auction? If political forces do not seize the high ground and end today's
freewheeling exchange of ideas, it is still possible for a more benevolent
form of economic control to stunt the evolution of virtual communities, if a
small number of companies gain the power to put up toll-roads in the
information networks, and smaller companies are not able to compete with
them.

Or will there be an open market, in which newcomers like Apple or Microsoft
can become industry leaders? The playing field in the global
telecommunications industry will never be level, but the degree of individual
freedom available through telecommunication technologies in the future may
depend upon whether the market for goods and services in cyberspace remains
open for new companies to create new uses for CMC.

I present these observations as a set of questions, not as answers. I believe
that we need to try to understand the nature of CMC, cyberspace, and virtual
communities in every important context -- politically, economically, socially
, culturally, cognitively. Each different perspective reveals something that
the other perspectives do not reveal. Each different discipline fails to see
something that another discipline sees very well. We need to think as teams
here, across boundaries of academic discipline, industrial affiliation,
nation, to understand, and thus perhaps regain control of, the way human
communities are being transformed by communication technologies. We can't do
this solely as dispassionate observers, although there is certainly a huge
need for the detached assessment of social science. But community is a matter
of the heart and the gut as well as the head. Some of the most important
learning will always have to be done by jumping into one corner or another of
cyberspace, living there, and getting up to your elbows in the problems that
virtual communities face.

--------------------------->>

EDUMATORIAL #2

I hang out all over the Internet, you know.  I mean, my quest for net.entity.
ship has taken me lots and lots of places.  I'm on about a billion mail lists,
dutifully annoying on most of them, I even (claim to fame!) started one that a
few people seem to like.  But, hey, you know, I'm no hacker or computer whiz.
Listen up, dudes, I'm an ARTIST.

Yeah, that's right, scoff at my pretention, won't you, but your pitiful cries
become simply angst for me to recycle at the end of the day.  Now then, some
people say that the Internet is this big ol' information transfer mechanism,
and some people actually claim to get WORK done on the Internet (heh, yeah,
right), and some people say, "Oh, wow, but cyberspace is the next untamed
frontier," and some people even say, "The singularity is on its way, all of
cyberspace is one big attractor, pulling all of humanity's consciousness
straight into a gravity well the size of, well, er, Gibson's imagination at
least," and I would like to add to that, "The Internet is, at the least, more
fun than television."

The Leri-L gang may groan to see my favorite leitmotif (note the groovy ART
terminology) pop up in ever more public forums, but hey, it's true.  Internet
is Interactive, boys and girls!  Insult people millions and millions of miles
away from the comfort of your own homes!  Waste larger and larger quantities
of that mythical entity known as "Bandwidth" with nary a scratch on your
conscience to show for it!  Cruise the newsgroups in search of unwary and
unprotected populations upon which to descend and propagandize at will!  Get
all the nudie GIFs you'll ever need!  YEEHAH!

Sigh.  If only they GNEW...

Even the actual productive work that gets done on this contraption is nothing
more than auto-eroticism of the most banal sort.  NOTHING'S HAPPENING HERE,
CAPTAIN.  And, look, folks, it's up to you to make your living environment
into the Brand New Paradigm, but unfortunately, William Katt lost the
instruction manual, and we have to make this up as we go... (note the groovy
ART reference)

I say, no more.  Luckily, that's not all I say, or this'd be a short issue...

----------------------------------->>>

From: Scotto <MOORE7004@iscsvax.uni.edu> Tue, 15 Dec 1992 01:14 CST
To: LERI-L@iscsvax.uni.edu

>* Define: "The Net."

The thing I hit the ball over.

>heh.

That's what you think...

------------------------------>>>>

APPROACHING THE HYPERTEXTure
by Heath Michael Rezabek

(Ed note: popularly known as @rez, Heath is a frequent contributor to the
Leri-L Institute's Division of Memetic Grafting and Home Ec.  @rez believes
that perhaps one way to screw everything up is through HYPERTEchnology.  We
shall see...)

    "HYPERTEXT denotes an information medium that links verbal & non-verbal
   information. ... HYPERTEXT does not permit a tyrannical, univocal voice.
  Rather, the voice is always that distilled from the combined experience of
  momentary focus, the LEXIA [information block] one presently reads, and the
   continually forming narrative of one's reading path. ... Electronic text
processing marks the next major shift in info technology after the development
   of the printed book. It promises (or threatens) to produce effects on our
  culture... just as radical as those produced by Gutenberg's moveable type."

                     - George P. Landow, HYPER-TEXT, 1992.


Working hypothesis, in perpetual dispute: vast mimetic mutation is necessary
before crucial advances in such fields as physics, mythology, botany,
chemistry, psychology, theatre, literature, education, and cultural studies
can be made.  These changes, however, shall not be made as long as these
fields are approaches as discrete entities, separate from each other for
purposes of consideration and development.  A sort of mimetic grafting must
occur; the boundaries must be denatured without sacrificing the relative
positioning of the ideas toward which these memes gravitate.

Technology is yet considered an entity separate from the human organism--means
to our aspiring ends.  It's becoming slowly but persistently apparent,
however, that this view cannot be seen as True.  Nor, however, do we seem to
be utterly successful in our attempts to yank the Information flux of our
communications into Everyday Life.  A change is occurring, and it is occurring
very slowly, slowly in the way that melting ice is slow; the unlocked river
rushing from its freeze is not slow.  All speed-change is relative, and the
gravity well is but a Force.

These changes seem to many TOO slow.  I suggest that whether we WISH the
social and cultural changes to be FAST makes no difference; there is a logic
to mimetic mutation and evolution which seems an inherent PROPERTY of the
medium of biotech.  Instead of slamming up against it, we might do well to
appropriate its finer machinations for our own aims.

The use of "we" is always a gamble.  Something's up, something funny's going
on.  Terence McKenna: "Something very peculiar adheres to the adventure of
being human."  Especially now.  There are ways to feel the way into this flux;
folk have travelled far and wide, some by way of sexuality's river, some fly
on the winds of meditation, some ride the rails of technology, some trust
themselves to the avalanche of hallucinogens.  But here we are.  With tools,
no less.  A machete, a flint, the knowledge of fire...

The perennial problem of communication is that the means aren't there to
communicate some things--often the things which need most CRUCIALLY to be
communicated.  The Driving forces.  Internet seems to be a crucial tool in
this process.  Another, one which may in fact hold more in the way of inroads,
if not cohesion, is HyperText and MultiMedia.  Immediately, of course, Jargon
comes into play.  "Is it HyperMedia or HyperText or what?" This question has
never been a problem for me.  When I was talking with someone about this
phenomenon, I could adapt my meme-tag to facilitate communication.  WE knew
what we were talking about.  "But what about the Literature?  There MUST be
Terminology; if not, there would be no Standards."  Phooey.  The hypertextual
technology carries within its womb embodiments of approach which make views
such as these self-limiting and utterly obsolete.  One needs Terminology only
when there is no Communication taking place--when there is but the Master and
the Servant.

In order to immediately indoctrinate someone to the notion that my
communications will never escape (much less TRY to) the realm of Personal-
Subjective, I choose a Word which tags the meme of my ideal for this
technology.  It's like talking of archery sheerly from the vantage point of
the bullseye, as if it will guide the conversation, like the arrow, more
steadily toward its goal: the HYPERTEXTure, a network of linked lexias (bits
of appropriated information) to which access can be gained from an unbound
number of entrances, a progression of ideas defined from the start as up to
the whims of the individual HYPERTEXTure Rider (reader/writer).

And why not?  The HYPERTEXTure, even in its present stages, incarnates just
these approaches.  The HYPERTEXTure is a technology by which individual bits
of information--be they quotations, or maps, or musical phrases, or what-not--
can be linked to each other by the discretion of the individual Rider.  The
HYPERTEXTure seems to have tendencies and inclinations--showing amazing
proclivity for such a young technorganism.  It embodies the deconstructionist
approach to literature: that the reader is constantly WRITING in the margins
of the text, writing the text ITSELF via hir own interpretations of the words
and ideas.  Deconstructionism attempts to unground objectivity in favor of an
honest subjectivity based on the actual experience of reading at its most
fundamental level.  But this is yet nothing more than rhetoric in
deconstructionism; the HYPERTEXTure provides a petri dish in which the fray of
mimetic determination is played out.

This de-centering seems to be at the heart of the HYPERTEXTure--it extends
eventually to the boundaries between Teacher and Pupil in education, between
Subject and Object for the scientist; it grafts the figure to the ground,
instilling a profound sense of vertigo in any sane artist.  How IS one to
approach such a beast?  No other way but to climb right inside the pulsing
heart, into the blood.  And of course, once this is done, chances of Turning
Back become slight.  Such is the way with Comprehension.  Yet without getting
in, one misses out on a chance to have the Organism tell you where It's going,
and the chance to play some part in what It does once It gets there.  Even
better than a front row seat--the wheel is handed right over.  And whenever
you wish, you can ride shotgun.

Perhaps the most interesting Thing about the HYPERTEXTure as It can be seen
today is that there IS some fashion of TEXTURE there.  It is NOT an impersonal
machine.  It is a ways and means to closer embodiment of the Things It
implies, nothing more and nothing less.  It is benign or malevolent depending
entirely on the hearts of those embedded in its developing structure.

I realized this first by rote.  Then, slowly but surely, I got to see more and
more of what WAS in my heart of hearts, thanks to the inroads which
approximations of the HYPERTEXTure such as Internet provided.  Once my
comprehension of my role in the HYPERTEXTure became apparent, the fear began,
because not everything in my heart was something I felt SHOULD be incarnated
outside of its confines.  How do I KNOW I'm right?  Again, slowly but
surely...I know because I FEEL it; the program cannot contain a thing other
than itself; ergo my Approach has a function, or would not be there.  The
HYPERTEXTure has a function or would not be there.  I feel what I feel utterly
and wholly, even if I have no Words for It yet.

And I looked around me, at the surrounding culture, the surrogate suicide
taking place at every moment, and pondered the alternative to my heart's
involvement in fulfilling the passion of the HYPERTEXTure.

      "I require the nervous system of a human.  Do you have one handy?"

And the fact of the HUMAN is one which cannot be ignored.  The other reason
that the expanding technology lives and breathes is that it is run in the
space between the human and the machine.  The human, and everything that
implies: love, fear, hate, desperation, gentleness, sublimity, tactile
connection, and sensuality.  The machine, and everything that implies:
facilitation, efficiency, function, the creation of the human.  Heisenberg
presented us with the bill: we can never ever know the utter actuality of the
phenomena we aspire to observe.  Instead of chafing against this axiom, we
have the option of succumbing to the machine's infinite play, and setting it
aflame with our grandest hopes.  Once this is done, it becomes less and less
possible for us to say that Heisenberg was pointing out structural
inconsistency and more and more likely that he was inadvertently showing us
the way inside our narrow margin of utterly free Will, the Will which whispers
in our ear that what we are doing has its roots in the Heart, that It is a
thing and a process which cannot go awry if followed to its core, and if
facilitated with sensitivity to its power and sublimity.

Mathematical equation is grafting Itself to its Other.  Between the It and Is
of language lies the tool of linkage.  Our links are only as good as our
tools; and our tools are only as good as our tasks; our tasks are hand-picked
by our hearts and minds.  All the rest is beyond our concern.

------------------------>>>>

Meanwhile, elsewhere in CYBERSPACE....

---------->>>>>

>From blosser_cy@alice.lrc.EDU Wed Dec 16 11:22:54 1992
To: leri-l@iscsvax.uni.edu
Subject: [deceased]

                    OBITUARY


     we mourn the passing of our dear friend, jessica.
     jessica was tall, green and incredibly beautiful.
     she had a personality of her own, and could carry
     on quite a conversation. she thrived on distilled
     water and listened to pink floyd and the grateful
     dead. unfortunately she outgrew her environment &
     her size became a hazard. to protect her from the
     government that made her illegal, & the pigs that
     sought to murder her, we (shedding many a tear of
     regret) put an end to her brief but fruitful life
     thereby postponing the misery to come. her leaves
     will bring us pleasure, as we sanctify the corpse
     in the all-consuming fire and offer the fruits of
     our labor as a sacrifice to jah. =)

     jessica is outlived by 2 younger siblings...amy &
     sue.

------------------------------>

EBIMATORIAL #3

What's going on, then?  Am I just missing the point?  Do I have anything to
say here, and is that even a prerequisite for attempting to communicate with
all of you? (all of WHO, I might ask, but then again, I might not)

On the one hand, see, you got this desire to split the Internet up into two
categories, utility and entertainment, and on the other hand, see, you got
this desire to throw out arbitary dichotomies altogether.  This entire format
may be obsolete by the time I'm finished writing it; hopefully, that will be
the case, since I've got sumpin' in mind, of course.

And, to quote the infamous Andy Hawks, founder of the Future Culture list and
on-again-off-again Lerilander (note clever name dropping):

-----

        The closer we get to 2000, the quicker information will fuck us
    (interpret that any way u want to)....It's going to take more and more
      vision to fuck the info before you get fucked, to keep ahead of the
      edge... That should be kept in mind for any potential technoculture
     editors... It's also another reason I choose to focus on E-.....E- is
      life, here and now and the advent of information....Paper is almost
      dead, it is a snail when we increasinglymoreandmore have lightspeed
                             z00000mz at hand.....

    this is all along the lines of what Paco posted earlier, and the irony
      of it is..........YOU ARE HERE NOW....Even an e-magazine is not as
      current, is not on the edge of information as groups like this list
     are... No e-magazine could be as current as a daily trip to MindVox,
      or a daily scan thru FutureCulture, Leri, Cypherpunks, whatever...

      These small groups (2 tie in wit da InterNet discussions) allow for
     individualization of a likes that has never been seen before....Thus,
                 magazines are irrelevant because they are not
    specialized....E-magazines the same, to a lesser degree....USEnet is a
               trashpile, with a ticking Rolex or 2 per week....

         The point is, the net is the answer....in the net, you are as
       specialized or as group-defined as you want to be....there are so
       manly outlets:  Usenet, email lists, private email, IRC, internet
                               BBSes, MUDs.....

-------

So think about it, then.  You have on your screen, basically, a corpse.
You're missing the real action; it's somewhere else.  This isn't it, is it;
this is fake, behind the times, a loss before it's even seen the light of day.

Right?

----------------------------->>>>>>>>>

From:     IN%"TOOMSEN8928@iscsvax.uni.edu" 28-OCT-1992 13:49:19.38
To:  IN%"LERI-L@iscsvax.uni.edu"
Subj:     commercial break

Jeff: Hey, you spilled your LSD in my cocaine!

Angie: No, you spilled your cocaine in my LSD!

          Two great alterants that alter great together...

---------------------->>>

LERI-L WELCOME LETTER (excerpt)

Hi.  Welcome to the Leri-L Metaprogramming Mail Service, alternately called
the Leri-L Electric Commune, the Leri-L Institute for the Investigation Into
Higher Consciousness, or the Leri-L Center for the Metaphysically Inane.

What we're "supposed" to talk about here is metaprogramming, higher conscious-
ness, expanding technology, the psychedelic experience, etc.  But what we
actually *do* here is live.  We do not simply discuss metaprogramming; we *do*
metaprogramming.  This list has a reputation for noise; ah, well, and so it
goes, but we are a family here, and we're not just trading information, we're
getting inside of each other.  Or something like that.  It's very hard to come
up with a concise and accurate intro, and suffice it to say that this one does
not do the trick.  At any rate, welcome aboard, and I sincerely hope you have
a good time.

---------------->>

EDUMATORYAL #?

Time to start blurring the lines a bit, I think.  Even if you spend 24 hours a
day buried in IRC on one window and scanning volumnious amounts of email on
another, you're missing it.  It's all a scam.  It is NOT as interactive as YOU
think it is.  It isn't good enough.  Why?  I said so.

Some interesting ideas pop up when you start considering the Meta Implications
of Phreaking out the Internet.  I'm not talking about some big ol' prank
that's designed to grind everything to a halt simply because I can do it.  I'm
talking about a way to energize the Net, make it more fully aware of itself,
see how many different parts of the brain are willing to communicate directly.
Here's an example from our friend @rez:

------

ok. any mailing.list, like leri or extropians, has a "husk" address which all
messages are sent to; thus you send to "leri-l..." . this "husk" address is a
FILE which contains all the REAL addresses of all the INDIVIDUAL SUBSCRIBERS.
so when any message comes IN, it goes OUT to any address in that FILE.

so the meme is, create mailer.address somewhere, say "internetix" or somesuch,
and instead of the addresses of INDIVIDUAL SUBSCRIBERS, put in the
husk.addresses of the various and multi-faceted future.mailers. ie, the husk
address would read... (paraphrased...)

SEND TO:
"leri-l@iscsvax.uni.edu"
"extropians@gnu.etc.etc"
"future.culture@etc.etc"
"various.assorted@etc.etc"
"..."

THUS, any message sent to THIS address would go out to those husk.addresses,
and THENCE to all THOSE subscribers. the Benefit would be that a sort of
internet.catacomb system would exist "underground" so that people could HANG
OUT on whatever of these kindred.lists they felt most At Home on, but any
earth.shaking Happennings or FleshMeets or Items Of TransMutual Interest could
be sent to "internetix.catacomb@bumblefuck.arkansas.TECH" so we'd ALL feel At
Home, and we'd ALL be able to inter.stand each other, as it Seems To Me That
We're All Headed In The Same Direction, via different methodologies...

IMAGINE a NetRip on "internetix.catacomb" ...

does THAT make sense?

-------

Sure does, @rez, except that the potential for ABUSE of such a thing is VAST.
But....ideas, ideas, ideas....check out the Leri-FAQ for a full on definition
of a Net Trip (available via anonymous ftp to penguin.gatech.edu under
/pub/leri I think).  And then, hey, remember, I'm an ARTIST, what about the
potential for creating not just text-art but PERFORMANCE art, right here on
the Net?  Or...has that been done...

---------------->>>>

From:     IN%"wixer!gaia.matrix!wgibson@cs.utexas.EDU" 13-DEC-1992 15:31:24.65
Subj:     Agrippa

Just wanted to let you know that this morning's posting of my
copyrighted work constitutes a flagrant violation of international
laws.  Keep up the good work.

WG.

-------->>>>

Oh.  Right.  Sorry 'bout that, Mr. Gibson.  I'll go ahead and keep keeping up
the good work, right here and now:

AGRIPPA
(A Book of The Dead)
Text by William Gibson and Scotto
All Rights Reserved At 7 PM tomorrow night; we have your favorite table...

I hesitated
before untying the bow
that bound this book together.

Then I decided,
why the hell not,
it cost me a couple hundred dollars.

A Kodak album of time-burned
black construction paper

Like the stuff I used
to do in kindergarten art
only without all the Elmer's glue

---->

Ah, skip it, it sure ain't worth it now.  Anyhow, I hear *Kroupa* (trumpet
fanfare) beat me to it....

--------------->>>>>

From:     IN%"majcher@acsu.buffalo.EDU" 21-OCT-1992 18:12:46.45
Subj:     RE: Scream Baby

     "As these charts clearly indicate, trippers that were subscribed to leri-
l reported on average a 32% _better_ psychadelic experience than those who
were not subscribed!  Would you pay $29.95 for this?  Okay, how about $9.95?
Well, we'll give it to you for a low, low, _nothing!_  That's right!  And if
you subscribe _now_, you'll also receive mind blowing semi-fictional sagas,
philisophical debates, and more kilobytes of Pure Silliness than you could
ever want!  Call now!  Operators are standing by..."

Murali

---------->>>>

EDUMAURINAL #N

That's the thing, then.  Leri-L was named after Commodore Leri, aka Dr.
Timothy Leary, who preached and proselytized that you could dissolve all your
boundaries with a simple drug we call wood pulp in these parts.  And if I may
draw the necessary analogy, you can dissolve all the boundaries on the Net
too, but I can't tell you the drug that'll do it, because that'll spoil all
the fun.

Let's say I had a plan for whipping the Net into a frenzy, for blurring the
lines between utility and entertainment, for exploring the vast catacombs of
the Internet, for making this whole contraption into the biggest Performance
Art piece the planet has ever known.  Now if I had a plan like that, I
probably wouldn't be able to tell you, because then you'd know it was coming
and that would ruin the effect, I think...I mean, Gibson musta known they'd
crack Agrippa, right?  That was part of the plan, right?  Unfortunately, I
haven't got a plan, just too many vague notions and too few allies and
assistants.  Of course, perhaps even this is part of the plan, even my denying
that I have a plan might just be a set up for the eventual plan, but of
course, now you'll be suspicious of me, now you can't possibly buy into any
plan that might come from me, not if it's to affect you subliminally at least,
but then again, perhaps part of the plan is to simply imply that there SHOULD
be a plan, so that some enterprising hacker or slacker or knick-knacker might
pick up the stick and run with it, but even then, it would have to be
EXCEEDINGLY clever, now that I've just WARNED you that it's COMING, I mean,
for it to be the most PERFECT example of Performance Art, the Artists should
NEVER KNOW that they are performing, and thus their performances will be so
much more honest, so much more natural, and plus, the perpetrators will be
able to have bigger and bigger laughs at their expense.  Think about it: I
have.  Gibson and Kroupa and whoever the hell else haven't gone far enough.
They're wrapped in areas where they already have a stake, and they're
unwilling to acknowledge the futility of those very stakes, and meanwhile,
I've got NOTHING to lose, in fact, I WANT A NET.PERSONALITY, dammit, and this
is my TICKET TO NET.IMMORTALITY!  When the proverbial disgusting slop hits the
rotary oscillator, I'LL TAKE ALL THE CREDIT!  When the singularity is finally
upon us, I'LL BE LEADING THE PLUNGE!  This issue of Scream Baby is one monster
fucking bungee cord, that's all it is, attached to my back, slick with the
efforts of my mental masturbation and ripe with pretention and mind-numbing
pomposity.  AND YOU'RE ALL UNWILLING PAWNS, DO YOU DIG IT?  "There'll be no
escape for the Princess this time..."

------>>>

ARBITRARY MUSIC REVIEWS

Here's some music you should own.  Buy it.  I insist.

"PASSION" -- Peter Gabriel.
   Whew.  Ain't that something.

"BLACK ANGELS" -- Kronos Quartet.
   I can only listen to it a couple of seconds at a time, but ah, those
   seconds...

"A NIGHT AT THE OPERA" -- Queen.
   Cheese never tasted so good.

--------------------------->>>>

>From majcher@acsu.buffalo.EDU Tue Dec 15 00:23:47 1992
To: leri-l@iscsvax.uni.edu
Subject: LSD


Zen medication.

----->>>

ENDNOTE

That's it, kids, I'm outta here.  Thanks to Blade X for having me over; hope
to do it again some time.  You can reach me any time at
moore7004@iscsvax.uni.edu.  If you want info on Leri-L, get the Leri-FAQ at
penguin.gatech.edu.  Also, I'd like to take the time to publicly get off even
further and plug my novella, it's also on penguin, look around for it, it's
not as polished as Gibson or anything, but it also never cost a couple hundred
dollars, either, and didn't take a team of top scientists to distribute.

I'm an actor and a writer, and this entire issue is nothing more than me
playing a character that I thought was appropriate, and suckering some friends
into playing along.  I don't know what it all means.  It's bigger than
anything, right, that's why it's so damned attractive.  If you have comments,
I'd love to hear them, honestly, and it certainly won't take six weeks for a
reply, I guarantee.  Because, ultimately, the thing is in our hands, the
keyboards will do our biddings, and we don't need no stinking VR to blow
everyone's brains all over the screens.

              "All you need is love, love, love is all you need."

                       Love, and a nice big .357 Magnum.


Sincerely,

Scottoubj:     RE: Scream Baby

     "As these charts clearly indic