1424 lines
78 KiB
Plaintext
1424 lines
78 KiB
Plaintext
Living in such a state taTestaTesTaTe etats a hcus ni gniviL
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of mind in which time sTATEsTAtEsTaTeStA emit hcihw ni dnim of
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does not pass, space STateSTaTeSTaTeStAtE ecaps ,ssap ton seod
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does not exist, and sTATeSt oFOfOfo dna ,tsixe ton seod
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idea is not there. STatEst ofoFOFo .ereht ton si aedi
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Stuck in a place staTEsT OfOFofo ecalp a ni kcutS
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where movements TATeSTa foFofoF stnemevom erehw
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are impossible fOFoFOf elbissopmi era
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in all forms, UfOFofO ,smrof lla ni
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physical and nbEifof dna lacisyhp
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or mental - uNBeInO - latnem ro
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your mind is UNbeinG si dnim rouy
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focusing on a unBEING a no gnisucof
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lone thing, or NBeINgu ro ,gniht enol
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a lone nothing. bEinGUn .gnihton enol a
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You are numb and EiNguNB dna bmun era ouY
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unaware to events stneve ot erawanu
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taking place - not iSSUE ton - ecalp gnikat
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knowing how or what 12/31/99 tahw ro who gniwonk
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to think. You are in FiFTY-NiNE ni era uoY .kniht ot
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a state of unbeing.... ....gniebnu fo etats a
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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CONTENTS OF THiS iSSUE
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=----------------------=
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[=- ARTiCLES -=]
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RESPONSE TO A READER Crux Ansata
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TWO HOURS iN TWO CHAiRS Clockwork
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THREE HOURS iN TWO CHAiRS Clockwork
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THREE HOURS iN THREE CHAiRS Clockwork
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[=- POETRiE -=]
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[balancing myself against the other] Morrigan
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[=- FiCTiON -=]
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LOST MadS
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A LETTER SLiPPED UNDER THE DOOR Kafka Gramsci
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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EDiTORiAL
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by Kilgore Trout
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Welcome to the last day of the fake millennium. Yeltsin resigned. The
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hostage crisis is over. Airlines are underbooked and grounding flights. And
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there's a Mayberry marathon on TBS.
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That's a pretty memorable last day of the year. Especially since at
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around 3:34am this morning, while watching the news, I scored 79 seconds on
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the expert level of minesweeper. Hoo. Hah. Ain't life grand?
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So what does this fake millennium mean, exactly, in the grand scheme of
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things? I'm not really sure that I care. I've only been alive for 24 of
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those years, and, frankly, I haven't been too impressed. Oh, sure, we've got
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technology coming out of our wazoo, and we drive fancy cars and fax each
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other our email addys and have our cute little cellphones that play ten
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billion goddamn annoying tunes loudly. But is that progress? Is that what
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the last 999 years have produced? Toys?
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I remember when I was a small child. I loved toys. I used to beg my
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mother to buy me the latest action figure because I couldn't live without it.
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And she would. And then the novelty wore off, so I would ask for the next
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one. Repeat ad nauseum.
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As the fake millennium comes to a close, I am trapped in a world of dying
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novelty, where everything is new and interesting but gets replaced by
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something even more new and interesting before it starts to get old. My
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computer is already outdated, my car is old, my tv doesn't have surround sound,
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and I still haven't gotten one of those MagicFingers beds yet, either.
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And now, tonight, millions of people are going to be celebrating the
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start of the new fake millennium. Some will be making sure their guns won't
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jam. Others are waiting for Christ to return. Me, I'm waiting for Christ to
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come back packing .45s so he can clean up this town of the outlaws that plague
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us so.
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[interior shot: saloon in nameless desert town. jesus walks in, wearing a
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flowing white robe, unstained with grime and dust, and a white cowboy hat. he
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saunters over to the bar, sets his two colt .45s on the counter and chews on
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a toothpick. all the men situated in the bar keep a leery eye on him.]
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BARKEEP: What'll it be stranger?
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JESUS: Water.
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BARKEEP: Say, you look familiar. Aren't you Jesus?
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JESUS: Why, yes. Have you accepted me as your personal Lord and
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savior?
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[all the tables at this moment flip over as men draw their guns. jesus flips
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around as his pistols automagically fly off the counter into his hands. he
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empties both clips and never misses. shots bounce right off of him. after
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the gunplay, nobody is left standing except the barkeep and jesus.]
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BARKEEP: You just wiped out the Smith Gang.
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JESUS: Verily, I said unto thee, 'Eat lead.' And I'll have that water to
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go, please.
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[jesus exits the bar through swinging doors, accompanied by barber's 'strings
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in g.' roll credits.]
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But that's so Old Aeon, it's ridiculous. It's not even funny. So, while
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you're out tonight getting drunk on your alcohol of choice, or you're tripping
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your brains out on drugs, or if you're just staying at home listening to the
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Austin Ice Bats game because you love hockey so much, remember: don't drink
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and drive, and hope that you aren't on the highway when the rapture occurs.
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Until next year, aka tomorrow...
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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LETTERS TO THE EDiTOR
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From: -ReWiReD-
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To: kilgore@eden.com
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Subject: If god created men first, why do we have undeveloped breasts?
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Mr. Trout, SoB is not a bad joke -- indeed, humanity may be the bad joke,
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and SoB's the punchline (or at least one manfiestation of it), but at least
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you bring the world into a bit of focus. At least for me. I started reading
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this zine back in high school, when my friend, who you might know as Omin
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Channing, found it when looking for Discordian things on the net. We thought
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of either sending you a shload of things or starting our own zine... He
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procrastinated for a year or two, and then I decided to start my own zine,
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and my senior year I started Gopher. Your work and clockwork's writings were
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a great inspiration for me, and I hope you guys keep the zine going as you
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shoot for bigger and better things. Keep up the quality AND the literary
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trash. Earth needs a good mirror.
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Fellow Scorpio and Editor,
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-ReWiReD-
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[i'd probably have to say that earth needs a good leak, but that would just be
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in keeping with my namesake's jargon. we still seem to be on everybody's
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discordian lists, and i have a feeling that most of those lists are just
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copies of kristin buxton's old discordian link list that i first ran across
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in 1994 or 1995. jeez, i shouldn't remember useless crap like that. as for
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gopher, everybody can go check it out at
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http://www.trianglepants.com/gopher/index.htm
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and see what happens when people get inspired to do their own thing. zines
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by water bastards are always interesting...]
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--SoB--
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From: e n t r o p i c
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To: kilgore@eden.com
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Subject: Suggesting a handle modification
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Hey there,
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"Kill-AlGar-Trout" would sound way cooler on the verge of the
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President election campaign, albeit somewhat politically incorrect.
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But cares after all?
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[algar? algar? algar? huh? why would that be politically incorrect? who
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cares, indeedy.*
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*note: this email originally said something that could possibly become a
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retroactive pres deth th34t. i don't need ss folks showing up at my house.
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again. well, in a more tangible and physical way. figure it out for
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yourself.]
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--SoB--
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From: Siim Kalder
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To: kilgore@eden.com
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Subject: sob crux
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Hello,
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I was just reading SoB issue #57 - now I know it may not by far be
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the latest one out, but I somehow had it saved on my computer and
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only now checked it out at last. I'll check your site for online
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issues soon, OK. I'm somewhere half through #57 right now. I know
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pretty well I shouldn't take it very seriously - first time and all -
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yet it left a good impression at once so I couldn't do much about it.
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Now I haven't read any previous issues so I don't know your standards
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or anything, so my comments may very well be of not much concern... Anyways.
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OK, I'm as glad as the next person to read the writings of, hm,
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kultuuriinimeste, as we say down here in .ee - you'll figure out the
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first part of the word, I assume, and that's the important part. I
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guess whoever writes as Crux Ansata may well go under the term too.
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Nice language, flow of words and fantasies, way to go. References
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reveal a wide sphere of interests. Probably well-read or at least
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aiming for it. Yet then the unfortunate babble about Marxism,
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capitalism et al... OK, I can understand the urge to talk about some
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mysterious Soviet Bloc as it did/does exist in certain contexts even
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though the differences are actually the essential characteristics of
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these countries. OK, I can also understand if someone really thinks
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the literacy rates were in fact as high as stated by the Soviet
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officials and likewise written down in world almanacs - CA already
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seems to start grasping the fact that truth is a quantitative rather
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than a qualitative concept. Geez, is he/she/it American? That would
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explain a lot... Well, anyway, I can probably also see how someone
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may have missed the facts that Marx was not a Marxist and communism
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was never achieved in SU. Yet the pitiful gibberish about
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alternatives to capitalism... For your information, CA, capitalism
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was never an ideology before a practice, it was never made up, bro.
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As opposed to Marxism. Or Marx' theory of economy. Or the Soviet
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economical system. You may well assume that there was no capitalism
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in SU, but it'll never help you understand what goes on in any of
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these countries. As for the late SU - how do you suppose a country
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without a capitalist economic system traded with a country with a
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capitalist economic system? You go figure it out... Oh, and while
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you're at it - don't watch too many news programs... And visit
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Estonia to see how lousy a country from the former Soviet bloc can do
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with the help of capitalism.
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OK, nuff said, I'll post this message now as I'd probably see later
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how it's completely useless to react on anything like this ;) And I
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guess if CA wanted to show the world from the viewpoint of a social
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sciences freshman, I guess he/she/it succeeded.
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I'll get to the rest of the zine(s) now... Or go to sleep - which
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would you recommend?
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Take care and nice going on the SoB zine,
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Siim
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[ansat's response can be found in the articles section.]
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--SoB--
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From: Mania Delight
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To: kilgore@eden.com
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Subject: letter to editor
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I've just waded through the first 35 issues of SoB, not yet beyond, so I may
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be going over something already addressed.
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Anyone else notice how similar the War on Drugs is to the Red Scare? When
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the authories arrest someone, they offer reduced sentences for names. Who
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wouldn't start babbling the names of everyone they knew to get a ten year
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sentence cut to five?
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When the authories get a name, they go ahead and arrest that person on no
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evidence other than the other's say so. This person who has done nothing
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illegal then conciders pleading guilty because they don't want to go through
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the hassle or expence of court. Besides, pleading guilty will reduce their
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sentence, as will naming yet more names.
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Of course some won't plead guilty right away, only after getting further
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hassled. The only research I've done on this topic is flipping through the
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channels of the TV and catching some news magazine program about it. If one
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of your writers wishes to get more in depth about this, it could be an
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interesting article. Drugs: The Modern Day Red Scare. It's more than a
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passing resemblance: notice all the unwarranted paranoia about anything
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having to do with drugs, the United States building more prisons and running
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into over-crowding problems despite the violent crime rate going down, and,
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of course, friends turning on each other to get treated more leniently.
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If you want to use an alias instead of my e-mail name, you can use my old
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BBS handle, Mania Delight.
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[well, without the war on drugs, we wouldn't have very much stuff left to do
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that is taboo. and society needs taboo things to keep the spark of life in
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its citizens. besides, drugs are evil. they make you see things that aren't
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really there. i mean, sure, your tv is basically a hallucinogen box, but
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it's controllable. so what happens when drugs become legal? how do people
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rebel to feel like they are making a statement? if everything is permitted
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*and* accepted, what makes anything special? of course, i haven't done any
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drugs for a whole year now, so that makes me a curmudgeonly old man shaking
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his cane at all the young kiddies.]
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--SoB--
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From: The Super Realist
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To: kilgore@eden.com
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Subject: Mailing list update...
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Hey there, ho there.
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I notice I'm not receiving SoB's anymore. The e-zine, at any rate. Then
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again, I also notice an inconsistency in actually getting issues released.
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Put me back on the mailing list you right bastards.
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While I'm bitching, update the freakin' FAQ.
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By the way, I gave your e-mail address to a bunch of Hong Kong spammers. Hope
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you don't mind.
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Have a good one,
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The Super Realist
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[yeah, we've been inconsistent like a bad hairpiece. secretly, we've been
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planning something LARGE and TREMENDOUS, and even capital letters can't do the
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scope of this THING justice. of course, plans are sometimes those things you
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think about by yourself going, 'well, that would work if i had 2.2 million
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dollars, 300 little people, a giant vat of cake mix, two pitbulls, a cat with
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three legs, the complete dennis quaid movie library, and a bottle of advil.'
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and then you realize you don't have any of those things, except the bottle of
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advil and the complete dennis quaid movie library (both used best together)
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and your plans disappear into thin air. but at least we tried. er, you
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tried. damn, gave myself away. damn tenses.
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you want an updated faq, huh? bitch at ansat.
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as for hong kong spammers: of course i don't mind. what's a little more
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spam in my inbox gonna do to me? maybe it'll be different than obtaining
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dubious college diplomas or making money fast. i doubt it.]
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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STAFF LiSTiNGS
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EDiTOR
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Kilgore Trout
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CONTRiBUTORS
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Clockwork
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Crux Ansata
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Kafka Gramsci
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MadS
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Morrigan
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GUESSED STARS
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e n t r o p i c
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Mania Delight
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-ReWiReD-
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Siim Kalder
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The Super Realist
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SoB OFFiCiAL GROUPiES
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crackmonkey
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Oxyde de Carbone
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ALBUMS LiSTENED TO WHiLE PUTTiNG THiS TOGETHER
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Haino Keiji, _An Unclear Trial: More Than This_
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Pigface, _A New High in Low_
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Sonic Youth, _Goodbye 20th Century_
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Various Artists, _Live at the Knitting Factory: Volume Two_
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John Zorn, _Goddard / Spillane_
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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[=- ARTiCLES -=]
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-
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RESPONSE TO A READER
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by Crux Ansata
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Siim:
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Thanks for your letter, forwarded to me by Kilgore. Finally someone
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takes something I've written seriously enough to disagree with it. I hope
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I'll be able to address all your misunderstandings, and that I'll be able to
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finish my response before the next issue of State of unBeing goes to press. If
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you are still unclear on what I have said or meant, feel free to write again.
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If you disagree, please write an article yourself. We need more viewpoints in
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State of unBeing, and I would particularly like to see articles written about
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life in the former "Communist" Bloc, both before and after the fall of the
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Berlin Wall. If you are old enough to remember then.
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First, as you commented, you were taking this article out of context. For
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the benefit of those who have not been with State of unBeing from the
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beginning, I shall supply some. I am male, and I am American. I am not a
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freshman, though all save a few months of my education has been in American
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institutions. I have seventeen years of institutional education. (I'm not
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sure how it translates into European terms, but here in the States, that means
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I have finished public school, and have a Bachelor's of Arts degree in English
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from the University of Texas.) Although my minor was in history, I have no
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formal education in economics and practically none in philosophy or
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government. As with all self-educated people, I frequently get things wrong,
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but I try, and am open to correction. I try to be well-read, but my interests
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are too varied, my reading speed too slow, and my life too busy to really
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succeed.
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This article was, as stated, from my diary. I don't write my diary for
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publication, but sometimes I take entries from it and publish them, redacting
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only the names. I publish diary entries both because this happens to be the
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writing I have on hand when Kilgore is soliciting, and because this allows me
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to force myself to be honest in my writing. However, as my diary is written
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in a stream of consciousness manner -- and yes, I do think in complete
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sentences -- it should not be read as a systematic writing on any subject.
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That said, I can make some clarifications.
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Some of your comments I couldn't quite follow. Perhaps this is due to
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the language barrier, or the unclear nature of your letter, or my own
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denseness. For example, "And visit Estonia to see how lousy a country from
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the former Soviet bloc can do with the help of capitalism." Are you agreeing
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with me, that Capitalism has harmed the former Soviet Bloc? From the tone of
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the rest of the letter, I would guess not, in which case this would have to be
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read as sarcasm. And, though I know little about the Baltics, and less about
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Estonia, I know they are relatively Western in their economies and relatively
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industrialized. I suppose one could blame the state of the environment on the
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Soviets. I suppose one could turn a blind eye to the vicious economic
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injustices inherent in the new Estonian system. (I seem to recall the
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Soviets, for example, invested in the water infrastructure in Estonia rather
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than in the twin cities across the Narva River, and when the Estonians seized
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this infrastructure and charged those across the river water prices they could
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not afford, they precipitated an economic and public health nightmare, with
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the geographic accident of the water plants' locations in relation the border
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resulting in no fresh water for basic necessities such as drinking or sewage
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disposal in parts of Russia. But I suppose one can dismiss that as an
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inadvertent flaw in the system.) Perhaps, relative to the rest of the former
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Soviet Bloc, Estonia is one of the better situated economically. Perhaps
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further, Estonia -- unlike I have read for every other of the supposedly
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well-capitalized post-Soviet states, such as the Ukraine, the Czech Republic,
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and Poland -- has not yet topped out on its development. Perhaps I am even
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wrong in my conviction that, within the next decade, Estonia -- and Lithuania,
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and Latvia -- will once again be nothing more than a satellite state to a
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resurgent Greater Russia, Capitalist or otherwise. If all this is true, it
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still does not change the facts I listed as happening across the former Soviet
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Bloc: "Life expectancy in Russia has dropped by a third; meningitis is
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endemic in Romania; fleas, locusts, and the Black Death are on the upsurge in
|
|
Kazakhstan and across central Asia because the countries can no longer afford
|
|
immunizations or pesticides. Alcohol use up. Drug use up. And the United
|
|
States could never come near the smallest SSR in literacy rates." And so on.
|
|
|
|
You specifically take exception to the literacy rate claim. I am sure
|
|
the Soviet government exaggerated the literacy rates. (Recorded literacy
|
|
rates, for other readers, tend to be in the 98 percent range for former SSRs.)
|
|
I can say this with some certainty -- as it is well known the American
|
|
government similarly inflates its figures. The "over 95 percent" estimate is
|
|
known to be wrong. Obviously, I am not in a position to know for sure how
|
|
many people have functional literacy here or there, so let us look at what I
|
|
do know.
|
|
|
|
For one thing, one can see the effects of the "free market" on the book
|
|
situation in the former Soviet Union. The Soviets used to subsidize quality
|
|
literature, so at newsracks where Americans -- and now Russians -- can buy
|
|
their Playboys and Sports Illustrateds, one could buy Pushkin and Lenin. These
|
|
were bought and read. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, virtually all fine
|
|
arts have fallen into oblivion. Not only have museums and the like been
|
|
plundered, not only have thousands of volumes of people like Lenin been
|
|
pulped, but the marketplace has changed. Pornography is the rule of the day.
|
|
(Whatever one feels morally about pornography, it is undeniable that it uses
|
|
time that is no longer going to fine arts or the like. While perhaps not
|
|
resulting in mass murders, it does result in a less literate and less educated
|
|
working class -- which has, incidentally, been linked to violence.) Pulp
|
|
novels of the kind called here "Harlequin Romances" -- after the largest
|
|
producer of the books -- are about the only booming market. Because the
|
|
consumer "wants" this -- i.e., because this panders to the basest instincts
|
|
and does not force the worker to do things such as think -- the market
|
|
produces it. Because the market is guided by profit uber alles, it takes no
|
|
concern -- as against the Soviet authorities -- to produce anything of
|
|
quality. Indeed, Capitalist dogma is so set against the very concept of a
|
|
"use value" or "labor value," focusing instead exclusively on "market value,"
|
|
that Patrick Buchanan has been denounced as a "Leftist" merely for publicly
|
|
claiming there is such a thing as a fair price in relation to labor. And, of
|
|
course, this also serves the long-term interests of the ruling class, who
|
|
would prefer a less educated, more bestial working class. Not only are they
|
|
easier to govern, but their "entertainment" can now be even more banal, hence
|
|
less expensive to produce, hence more profitable.
|
|
|
|
As to the figures themselves: To compare the systems, one might compare
|
|
the improvement in literacy in the USSR between 1917 and 1989 with similar
|
|
changes in the USA in the same time period. Or even between 1789 and 1861,
|
|
for a similar position in the life cycle of the nation. But I would suspect
|
|
the literacy change even from 1789 to 1989 would be a smaller improvement then
|
|
in the USSR between 1917 and 1989. The Soviet system educated its people with
|
|
such efficiency because it was not working on a free market system. I can say
|
|
this with near certainty; the United States has still avoided the calls to
|
|
subject our educational system to the free market, too. It is not cost
|
|
efficient to have a literate work force. Indeed, it is in the interests of
|
|
the ruling class to have a marginally literate workforce. Which is why the
|
|
history of revolution so closely parallels the history of education.
|
|
|
|
Here in the United States, free market "reform" is setting in. No longer
|
|
happy just neglecting the educational system, there are now forces working to
|
|
undermine it. Education is increasingly pushed to be "useful" and "relevant"
|
|
-- buzzwords even the students are fooled into buying. What this means is
|
|
that the education system will no longer concentrate on building a better
|
|
person, but merely on building a producer and a consumer. There is pressure
|
|
to reduce the number of years offered to American schoolchildren for free,
|
|
where a rational system would have the opposite. But these children must be
|
|
forced into the "free market" as soon as possible, to have an income and thus
|
|
consume. If they are bringing in an income but under eighteen, so much the
|
|
better. As legal minors, and as probably still subsidized by their parents,
|
|
they have more superfluous income; less fixed costs, such as mortgages,
|
|
health-care costs or children; and less self-regulation in the marketplace.
|
|
Obviously, this is not sustainable, but in the transition to the global
|
|
economy, this helps bleed even more wealth off the people and into the hands
|
|
of the multinationals. This is not mere subjective ideology; this is
|
|
objective fact. And it makes perfect sense within the concepts of the
|
|
Capitalist ideology.
|
|
|
|
Marx was not a Marxist. We can say this with some certainty, as we have
|
|
Marx's word on it. I can't say for sure what you mean by this ambiguous
|
|
statement, so I will address what Marx meant by it. The context: He was
|
|
asked at a conference what a Marxist would believe on an issue, to which he
|
|
replied he was not one. It seems to me what he meant was that he was not
|
|
parroting off a preset series of beliefs. If by "Marxist" one means someone
|
|
who follows a preset series of instructions, like computer software, then of
|
|
course Marx was not a Marxist. He was a brilliant man, and an independent
|
|
thinker. (Though, of course, I think he was flat wrong on a number of
|
|
issues.)
|
|
|
|
The idea that an ideology is such a preset series of instructions, and
|
|
that Marxism is an ideology in this sense of the word, has been,
|
|
unfortunately, a strong trend among Marxist theoreticians. From what I have
|
|
read, save a few stalwart Soviet sympathizers, Marxists in the West had moved
|
|
past this belief almost universally by the sixties. For a number of reasons,
|
|
within the Soviet Bloc, this rigidity tended to set in. So, I can understand
|
|
your backward understanding of the concept of ideology. I will try to
|
|
explain.
|
|
|
|
An ideology -- the superstructure of a society -- is not just a series of
|
|
decorations determined by the base. This is implied in some -- but not all --
|
|
of Marx's writings. I suspect he, like many of his contemporaries, fell in
|
|
for the lure of scientific determinism. We see the same thing in, for
|
|
example, some of the biological dead ends from Darwinism, or "fundamentalist"
|
|
Behaviorism. In truth, the base and the superstructure -- like should be
|
|
obvious from the assumptions of dialectical reasoning -- act upon each other.
|
|
A society's set of beliefs is not dictated but influenced by their economic
|
|
system, and vice versa.
|
|
|
|
This explains your incorrect assumption that, because Capitalism does not
|
|
have a preset series of beliefs, the way Orthodox Marxist-Leninism tended to
|
|
have, it must not be an ideology. It is an ideology, and, like Marxism
|
|
properly understood, is a living ideology. This is why, when I analyze
|
|
Capitalism, I don't just cite Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and say, "This is
|
|
the way it is done." I look to relations and interactions.
|
|
|
|
And this leaves us with: Was the Soviet Union Communist? When I first
|
|
read your letter, I assumed I used the word "Communist" to refer to the former
|
|
Soviet Bloc because I was writing in my diary, and need be less careful with
|
|
the words I use when writing for myself. So, I went over the entry carefully.
|
|
I did not call any nation Communist. So: Was the Soviet Union Communist? Of
|
|
course not. No one claims it was. Was the Soviet Union Socialist? That one
|
|
is more tricky; what does "Socialist" mean? I tend to say "Socialism" is any
|
|
intermediate stage between Capitalism and Communism, though, as neither are
|
|
ever found pure, that definition borders on the meaningless. If you say the
|
|
progress to Communism is irreversible, and goes from Capitalism through
|
|
Socialism to Communism, I suppose the Soviet Union was not Socialist. In that
|
|
case, you would probably say it was State Capitalist or something of the sort.
|
|
I don't ascribe to such determinism, so I say it was probably Socialist in
|
|
some sense, which is to say: It retained elements of Capitalism with the
|
|
intent to move on to Communism. Why did it not reach Communism? Was it the
|
|
Statist prejudices already present in Marx? Lenin's Blanquist political
|
|
structures? The Georgian Gangsterism of Stalin? Or was the time simply not
|
|
right? Does one say, with Luxumberg: Every revolution will fail -- but the
|
|
last one? I don't know. As I believe I have written in earlier entries, I
|
|
tend to think the Soviet Union was itself an Imperialist state, and was pretty
|
|
well doomed to failure in trying to leapfrog the Capitalist stage of
|
|
development. (There is some indication Marx has similar doubts in some of his
|
|
latest letters.) I tend to think Capital must be truly globalized before the
|
|
revolution can be effective. But that is about as much as I can say.
|
|
|
|
One last comment: Barring one reference to a Marxist analysis of the
|
|
nature of the artist, the Marxism and Capitalism discussion was a mere seven
|
|
paragraphs from an article of twenty-six. Although I haven't counted, as I
|
|
recall, there is more misogyny and violence in this entry, as there is in much
|
|
of my published writing. I don't know your specific reasons for passing over
|
|
this, and I wonder at why I have received uniformly complimentary comments on
|
|
the violent and misogynistic aspects of my writing. I don't know whether it
|
|
expresses sides of my readers minds that are -- hopefully! -- not expressed in
|
|
everyday life, or if our society has so fetishized the "freedom" of speech if
|
|
it is violent or pornographic -- though not if it is religious or political --
|
|
that no one feels free to comment against it. In any case, I find this trend
|
|
disturbing.
|
|
|
|
But that is, as they say, neither here nor there, and I suppose I should
|
|
send this off to try to sneak in under the deadline. I hope you keep reading
|
|
State of unBeing, and please feel free to write again.
|
|
|
|
Crux Ansata
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
|
|
|
|
|
"The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no
|
|
affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire
|
|
being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion -- the
|
|
revolution.... Heart and soul, not merely by word and deed, he has severed
|
|
every link with this social order and with the entire civilized world; with
|
|
the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its
|
|
merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose -- to
|
|
destroy it.... He despises public opinion. He hates and despises the social
|
|
morality of his time, its motives and manifestations. Everything which
|
|
promotes the success of the revolution is moral, everything which hinders it
|
|
is immoral.... The nature of the true revolutionist excludes all romanticism,
|
|
all tenderness, all ecstasy, all love."
|
|
--Mikhail Bakunin, _Catechism of a Revolutionist_
|
|
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
|
|
|
TWO HOURS iN TWO CHAiRS
|
|
by Clockwork
|
|
|
|
I was almost not going to mention anything, until it showed up next to
|
|
me again. The amount of people seen eating McDonald's is a bit disturbing --
|
|
fifteen minutes ago a 6'4" aged groomed businessman, suited and slender,
|
|
chicken sandwich in a box held with care and brought to mouth; five minutes
|
|
ago the late twenty-something guy in a horizontally striped shirt, eating a
|
|
chicken sandwich as he dazed and stared at a nonexistent scene some distance
|
|
away; now a mid-thirties man, with mother at side, chicken sandwich and fries
|
|
all at once, no pausing no breathing. So now the display of food eaten from
|
|
squarely shaped boxes, stuffed in mildly decorated bags is becoming
|
|
bothersome. A fiftyish woman in coat and scarf walked through the aisles of
|
|
seats just now, toting her McDonald's bag and cup at eye level, a foot away,
|
|
only to turn around and walk back down the corridor from which she originated
|
|
from. Only here to prove a point -- whether it's my point or not, I have yet
|
|
to determine. What a strange feeling to write about those sitting next to
|
|
you.
|
|
|
|
On the opposite side, a black-clad gentleman has appeared -- literally
|
|
appeared, for he was not there a moment ago -- with hair tied back in a loose
|
|
jet black ponytail, suit jacket hanging over his cart of black luggage,
|
|
sitting, lightly fingering a soundless Spanish rhythm on a black acoustic
|
|
guitar, all beneath the sun falling in from behind him. Off he goes as I
|
|
speak of him.
|
|
|
|
Another larger, stout, gentleman, late-twenties again -- though it is
|
|
highly debatable whether I am a decent judge of age -- no horizontal stripe,
|
|
but a fond casual gray, carrying McDonald's bag and cup looking over at me as
|
|
they would have it, walking by from left to right and keeping on his way.
|
|
|
|
Strange deja vu. As though the "strange" is necessary to convey the
|
|
feeling of the experience. McDonald's mother and son -- dot com generation,
|
|
"Come on, you have to join the dot com generation. You would probably do it
|
|
if your friends were doing it," says son to mother. "Well, Sylvia does it..."
|
|
No mention of Dad. Twenty minutes ago a man sitting in front of me, teamed
|
|
with apparent wife and flowered luggage, made comments on spread sheets,
|
|
sending and receiving spreadsheet, Microsoft Excel, and I wonder how such
|
|
things become household words. Though I guess it is a simple question, if one
|
|
does not stop and reflect, or even if one does. Next to the husband and wife
|
|
is a fifty-year-old woman with a laptop. Behind them, the late twenties
|
|
horizontal striped man with his laptop -- back-to-back.
|
|
|
|
Sofia, Bulgaria is on CNN -- Rally is there somewhere, in a location
|
|
that seems to have been in the midst of hellish events year after year since I
|
|
began paying attention to the news. The mother now tells her son of the
|
|
entire research process she embarked on with the public library to find the
|
|
results of a criminal case she mentioned, and how can I not think of the
|
|
broken-ankled girl I am returning from. Now I notice I have stolen your pen
|
|
-- it sits in my pocket, picked up from the bed where you worked with it,
|
|
taken to the library where we worked with it -- you in pain -- and now, it has
|
|
boarded a plane surreptitiously. Did it have this in mind? Did it ever dream
|
|
to fly about the globe in peoples' pockets?
|
|
|
|
The woman sitting two seats to my right (I am next to the left window,
|
|
now) holds in her lap a McDonald's cup, and in her hand a romance novel. The
|
|
guitarist is sitting three rows in front of me, in the same row as the casual
|
|
grayed McDonald's passerby. Do people still wear berets? Do boys, American
|
|
boys, under twenty-five, still wear berets? It seems this is the case.
|
|
|
|
There is a prediction of turbulence until we reach a cruising altitude,
|
|
as spoken by the captain. How the term "cruising" came into effect, I do not
|
|
know -- it comes to mind there is a "cruise control" available in land
|
|
vehicles, locking one's speed at a specific setting. The word itself, though,
|
|
brings thoughts of a casual, relaxed roaming of sorts: "cruising around,"
|
|
"taking a cruise to the Bahamas," "Tom Cruise," or "Cruise-sants."
|
|
|
|
What is this _Steppenwolf_? I have not finished this book as of yet, and
|
|
I wonder its meaning at times -- what is meant to be conveyed. If anything is
|
|
meant to be conveyed. One may begin a book with no prior warnings or thoughts
|
|
or insights into what sits between beginning and end, and there is doubt
|
|
whether there is anything that is meant to be said. The sporadic highlighting
|
|
of passages, done by a previous unknown owner, only adds to the wonderment --
|
|
each highlight perhaps meaning six thousands different things, all unknown to
|
|
me as well. Here is a man, self-portrayed man, who as far as I can tell is
|
|
grappling with the aspects of enlightenment amongst the unenlightened.
|
|
Perhaps the self-immortalized compared to the self-designated common folk.
|
|
This is what I see. And this woman encountered, who grasps his shoulders and
|
|
brings him from his books to the dance floor, I have yet to be convinced she
|
|
actually exists. It seems to be the him of himself that he does not
|
|
acknowledge, demonstrating the foolishness of superiority -- Mozart over
|
|
popular jazz, morbid recluse academicized men over light-footed casual
|
|
musicians who lack the rhetoric to duel with. All the same, not one over the
|
|
other, perhaps one lacking the other, but non deemed the better or worse.
|
|
|
|
One of the most interesting things spoken on the flight came from a worn,
|
|
anti-social businessman -- upon landing, the overhead compartment above him
|
|
sprung open, and the woman two seats to my right warned him of impending
|
|
injury from a teetering briefcase. Conversation ensued briefly between the
|
|
two in which she advised him that it would not have been a bloody injury, as
|
|
the briefcase was blunt and well-padded. To which the businessman replied,
|
|
"Yeah, that is all I need, to be whacked in the head. It's bad enough I have
|
|
to go to these customer meetings. It's pretty much the same thing." This
|
|
brought on laughter from her, of course, but he stood firm with a rosy grim
|
|
look.
|
|
|
|
In another city, another seat -- the meals have changed from McDonald's
|
|
to Burger King, because the universe loves to play. A bearded, short-bearded,
|
|
man, sitting in the front few rows adjacent to myself, traversed halfway
|
|
towards the back of the plane to accost a burger and fries held by his wife.
|
|
As he came back to his seat, calls of "Daddy!" followed, from the mouth of his
|
|
daughter, as she did not want her daddy, or french fries, to leave her reach.
|
|
So, down the aisle she came, searching for her father, almost walking by.
|
|
After sitting with him for ten minutes and eating some food, back up the aisle
|
|
she went, calling "Mom? Mom?" And Mom responded, swooping her up.
|
|
|
|
The only other significant element of _Steppenwolf_ is the similarity
|
|
between a miniature speech on contentment, or rather the loathing of
|
|
contentment, and a monologue delivered by Steve Buscemi in _New York Stories_
|
|
of the same substance. I would perhaps even say the general themes of the
|
|
book and short film can be connected as well. This is said with little
|
|
confidence, however, as I am heading towards a nap.
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
|
|
|
|
|
"For the days are surely coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the
|
|
barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never
|
|
nursed.'
|
|
--Luke 23:29 (NRSV)
|
|
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
|
|
|
THREE HOURS iN TWO CHAiRS
|
|
by Clockwork
|
|
|
|
So what of the conversation that ensued between the passengers in front
|
|
of me and the passengers to the side of me. In front, early twenty-something
|
|
college pair, and to the side, late sixties travelling, talkative pair,
|
|
jestful and apparently rich as she now uses the Airfone in the seat in front
|
|
of us -- minimum of $12.83/call, even if only for a minute. She being the
|
|
older woman, who sits across the aisle from her apparent husband.
|
|
|
|
"What is that thing there?" asked by the apparent husband to the younger
|
|
two.
|
|
|
|
I am beginning to feel guilty about using the phrase 'apparent husband.'
|
|
As if any older gentleman travelling with an older lady is in fact by default
|
|
the husband of her. Or, as if an older lady traveling with the older man is
|
|
in fact by default the wife of him. And, really, is there such an event as
|
|
'beginning to feel guilty?' Does one begin to feel, or does one just feel?
|
|
With guilt for instance. I guess perhaps I can perform an action and predict
|
|
that I will feel guilty in the future. Do I then begin to feel guilty at that
|
|
moment? Or, at the moment upon which the action is done? Or, before, when I
|
|
have first thought of doing the action, if this was in fact premeditated. If,
|
|
of course, such things exist at all -- thoughts, and actions, and guilt.
|
|
|
|
"A didgeridoo," was the answer given by one of the two college females --
|
|
the one who was carrying this oblong bubble-packaged object.
|
|
|
|
"A what?"
|
|
|
|
"A didgeridoo. It's an instrument."
|
|
|
|
"Oh, is that the one that sits on the ground?" the older woman joined in.
|
|
|
|
"Yes, you kind of blow through it." The same college female answering
|
|
all the questions.
|
|
|
|
"Are you in an orchestra?"
|
|
|
|
"Uhm, well, it's used in ceremonies. Like. Rituals that they have, in
|
|
Australia."
|
|
|
|
"Were you in Australia?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes, studying in New Zealand." This of course puts them in the category
|
|
of those people who go and study in such far-off places as Australia. Or
|
|
Germany, England, South America, China, Russia -- the list goes on, ending in
|
|
Prague, of course, as only those people can end it with. And I automatically
|
|
am filled with contempt for them, because I am not That Guy, managing to
|
|
travel yearly or more to another continent, studying, teaching, or whatever
|
|
they may do. I fear I may never end up in Prague. I do not know whether I
|
|
truly wish to, or not, but the simple fact is, I won't.
|
|
|
|
"What were you studying in New Zealand?"
|
|
|
|
"Education."
|
|
|
|
Long instructions on using the instrument, spoken out loud,
|
|
buzzing-lip-breathing noise-like thing demonstrated, and the magical phrase
|
|
"circular breathing" thrown in at the end. Amusement, giggles, by both
|
|
parties involved in the conversation. I think I may have smiled once, at
|
|
nothing in particular -- more along the lines of oh, my, it's so nice to see
|
|
kind people involved in such a kind conversation. I have no reason to believe
|
|
it was an honest smile, thought it was a kind, pleasant conversation, between
|
|
two passing people, and why should I smile unhonestly towards such kind
|
|
things? Well, they were coming back from New Zealand.
|
|
|
|
This plane has headphones placed with care in each seatback, which I have
|
|
not seen before -- channel and volume controls, along with a jack for the
|
|
headphones, are embedded into the side of each seat arm, allowing one to
|
|
listen to the communication between the plane and air traffic controllers. I
|
|
strongly wish to listen to this, and wish I had a recording device with me to
|
|
record it all. However, I get uncomfortable about doing so, thinking perhaps
|
|
it's all a scam, and I will hear nothing at all, and these are meant for some
|
|
other purpose entirely, and I will only make a fool of myself, and how come no
|
|
one else seems to even notice the headphones exist? And so, I sit and stare
|
|
at them for ten minutes, thinking how silly and childish it is not to just try
|
|
them. Then I think I will in fact reach out and grab these, plug them in, and
|
|
see what happens for the sole reason to overcome this absurd awkward phobia.
|
|
But I can't do such thing just because I want to overcome this phobia. Forget
|
|
about it.
|
|
|
|
Very. Very. Surreal, earlier, sitting at the end of the concourse --
|
|
have I commented about this word before? If not, the word should be commented
|
|
on. People use this word as if it is known by any and all who know the
|
|
English language, as if it is a basic word used in the construction of
|
|
sentences -- but it is not. I first heard the word in such a context, around
|
|
others discussing airports, asking and telling about the concourses, walking
|
|
up and down the concourse, arriving at the concourse, a concourse to
|
|
themselves, and on and on. And I had thought that the word referred to a
|
|
unique location in the airport we were discussing -- I was wrong. I came to
|
|
the conclusion that They should have never implemented this word at all, as it
|
|
is much too alien for a common traveler to use efficiently. The use of
|
|
'gates,' all contained within a concourse, is a much better thing, perhaps.
|
|
Or, maybe not that much better, because there are not actual gates. I guess
|
|
they are gateways of a sort being as you have a ticket that is checked, a
|
|
checkpoint it is, and then you cross this imaginary line, and you are on your
|
|
way -- gateway to another place. Perhaps the designers of airports could get a
|
|
bit more optimistic, less military, with their naming schemes, using terms
|
|
similar to 'doorway,' or 'transport' or 'portal' or 'secret hatch' or 'runaway
|
|
from your life.'
|
|
|
|
Nonetheless, the end of the concourse was a rounded, dead-end zone with
|
|
six gates stuffed amongst the wall -- one television hanging from the middle of
|
|
the ceiling, showing none other than CNN, shots of crowds, daily roaming
|
|
folks, street traffic pedestrians, shoppers -- an anonymous world of people.
|
|
A mention of Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, and Amazon.com -- glance below the
|
|
television, and there is the real live anonymous world of crowded roaming
|
|
travelers, a Starbuck's booth fifteen feet away, Boeing planes outside the
|
|
windows, numerous laptops fueled by Microsoft. I don't see Amazon.com, but I
|
|
am certain a book in someone's possession was purchased through such channels.
|
|
Or at least a traveler who recently completed Christmas shopping doing the
|
|
same. Or both.
|
|
|
|
I sat and watched this scene is what I did. Occasionally glancing
|
|
towards commentary on Republican primaries coming from the television.
|
|
Casual, dazing glancing. Attempting to take in as much of the whole scene and
|
|
situation as one could at once, opening ears and eyes and senses to
|
|
over-stimulation, is what it became. And this all fell into place --
|
|
everything seen was systematic, or seemed systematic, as people walked one
|
|
direction or another, wearing this blue, or that black, or grey, facial
|
|
expressions, companions, lighting, food, sounds -- a subtle, unmistakable
|
|
pattern jumped forth, almost becoming a three-dimensional Bell Curve to view.
|
|
|
|
Well. Bell Curve, you could say. Actors in a movie, participants in a
|
|
play -- scripted, engineered, and coordinated by some quantum sci-fi theory
|
|
only dipped into by science, all the world's a stage, we are all pawns players
|
|
and pieces, everyone is but a player pawn and puppet, even the puppeteers.
|
|
Butterflies cause hurricanes, and coincidence is myth. Invisible karmatic
|
|
worlds, incredibly complex and dynamic, or the eternal war between Good and
|
|
Evil, with subjective and objective definitions of each, played out amongst
|
|
the mortals most often without our notice. Gods and faeries and gnomes, magic
|
|
and witches, citadels and such, or the undeniable presence of mathematics in
|
|
all things, or the all-encompassing dream, or the all-encompassing experiment,
|
|
here for a purpose, here for none, time is in your mind, no past or present or
|
|
future while you are at it, which makes Dickens a liar -- it's all the way the
|
|
universe works, but always in ways you never think of.
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
|
|
|
|
|
"So I'm thinking of throwing the battle
|
|
Would you kindly direct me to hell?"
|
|
--Dorothy Parker, "Coda"
|
|
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
|
|
|
THREE HOURS iN THREE CHAiRS
|
|
by Clockwork
|
|
|
|
Oxford's slightly oversized book of etymology states the word "concourse"
|
|
is a byproduct of, or originates from the word "concur," or "concurs," meaning
|
|
a meeting place of several things -- the point at which several lines meet.
|
|
Not the dot, but the point, as it will most likely strongly remain the point
|
|
in the world of mathematics -- I do not see a sixty-year-old Ivy-leagued
|
|
professor discussing x,y coordinates using the word "dot." I did not have the
|
|
forethought, or obvious logic in my grasp to follow through and look up the
|
|
word "concur" in the Oxford book. And it is the kind of thing only done with
|
|
such a book , as the etymological databases found online have not been even
|
|
close to comprehensive or satisfying. Nonetheless, the concourse is such a
|
|
point, where not only departing and arriving flights meet, but passengers,
|
|
cargo, good, services, and all such forces -- emotions, hopes, parting,
|
|
business deals, families, all concurring.
|
|
|
|
Upon boarding the first flight, a short hop lasting less than thirty
|
|
minutes, I found myself in a blue covered cabin of a plane -- all blue and
|
|
gray seats, walls, and carpeting. Flight attendants wore the same blue but in
|
|
solid form, with little to no gray. Here I sat, and from above came the
|
|
flooding of Christmas music, filling all the air. I found this to be a bit
|
|
different -- I do not recall any music ever being played in the cabin of an
|
|
airplane before departure. (I now notice I've adopted the flight lingo of
|
|
"departure" and "cabin," and hope I don't drown). Yet, here we are, travelers
|
|
galore, all certainly flying for leisure rather than business -- though I'm
|
|
sure seeing family over the holidays may be construed as business to some --
|
|
and cheery seasonal music is being piped in. The psychological effect of this
|
|
is quite amazing. I find myself happier, relaxed, almost a bit giddy -- ah,
|
|
well, as I speak of this, on the second plane, they too have begun playing
|
|
similar music, pearly on cue, of course. I look around and feel as though
|
|
others feel the same way -- everyone is smiling, joking around a bit, having
|
|
incredible patience with others as they stuff the forty-seven packages held in
|
|
forty-seven clenched fists, with no signs of the disgruntled, annoyed,
|
|
impatient plane-riders who litter every airport around. The couple next to
|
|
me, perhaps in their late twenties, are having a joyously entertaining time as
|
|
they comment on and make fun of each passenger coming down the aisle - the
|
|
gentleman being so very witty and quite amusing, actually, and he can not seem
|
|
to stop, for on and on he goes, in voices, assuming characters, becoming
|
|
almost racist at a point, but seeming not to mean to. Debatable whether one
|
|
would admit that as acceptable or not, based on things such as "he meant to,"
|
|
or, "he didn't mean to."
|
|
|
|
There was time for a quick beverage, as the plane does not even have a
|
|
cruising altitude, it only takes a single leap to southern Texas, landing in a
|
|
big sand pile, hordes of workers wearing ear protection swarming out to
|
|
measure the distance and communicate the results to the judges in the massive
|
|
building of concourses. My row is the last to be served, and I decide to
|
|
decline a drink, seeing as it must be taken up as soon as they are placed
|
|
down, and the flight attendants look as though they don't need the added
|
|
stress of providing me with a drink, especially when I am not thirsty. She
|
|
looks towards the couple next to me, saying "Drinks? Quickly." The woman
|
|
requested cranberry juice, the man rattling off three or four words referring
|
|
to something about spicy tomato V-*, to which the flight attendant responds,
|
|
"Tomato juice? Ok," and begins to walk off. He says, "No," rattles off the
|
|
same concatenation of words, with a couple more tagged on at the end. The
|
|
flight attendant ponds with no delay, using her own rattling skills in a four
|
|
word spurt, ending with the words "bloody Mary." "That would be great," he
|
|
said, then comment on and on about the demanding of their order, the use of
|
|
"quickly." When the flight attendant returns, she says, "I'm sorry, but you
|
|
guys are going to have to slam these."
|
|
|
|
This was very true, as we were only a few minutes away from landing, with
|
|
a few minutes actually meaning a few minutes, and not meaning 15-20 minutes,
|
|
as people sometimes use it to represent in sort of a yes-it-will-be-longer-
|
|
than-I-said-before-but-I'm-not-going-to-admit-it manner. I looked out the
|
|
window to my right and saw the downtown skyline of Houston coming into view --
|
|
I wonder if using the words "downtown" and "skyline" together is redundant? If
|
|
perhaps the word "skyline" itself would suffice to convey the view of towering
|
|
rectangular buildings. As soon as these buildings come out of the haze and is
|
|
shot into plain view, Beethoven's 9th jumps in through the speakers overhead,
|
|
like an alternate opening to _Manhattan_, except in this case it would be
|
|
_Houston_ with no Gershwin in sight. The couple next to me and myself all
|
|
looked up at the same time, recognizing the surreal situation we've suddenly
|
|
been placed in. And now, we were characters in the beginning of a mid-80s
|
|
comedy, starring perhaps Tom Hanks, sitting in seat 11F, directly in front of
|
|
me.
|
|
|
|
We land, the world exits the plane before I do, as is always the case,
|
|
and into the Houston airport I'm filtered, a place I have not been in quite
|
|
some time. I quickly come to the conclusion that today I am all kinds of
|
|
loving towards people -- though, honestly, fascinated would be more accurate.
|
|
I am simply fascinated by all of these people around me. It is safe to say
|
|
one could scribble an entire book based on observations in airports. A wide
|
|
array of sociological theories, polls, observations, commentary, rhetoric, can
|
|
all be expounded upon using the subjects, patterns, and events in airports.
|
|
Oh, what a fascinating world we sit amongst.
|
|
|
|
A small case of CDs was sitting atop the seat in front of me well after
|
|
the passengers had boarded this flight, and no one was motioning towards
|
|
claiming it. I asked the gentleman in front of me - no not, his, no the
|
|
people next to him, it is no one's around me. I called to the flight
|
|
attendant on her next pass-by, turning it over to her hands, to be placed in
|
|
an invisible lost and found void, hopefully to be reclaimed by the owner in a
|
|
not-so-distant time.
|
|
|
|
My first ideas of an airline's lost+found system are more than likely
|
|
overly complex. With hundreds of flights crossing the country each day, how
|
|
are items handled? A single plane could visit half a dozen cities, each in a
|
|
different portion of the country, and are these lost object piled up over the
|
|
course of this day? To be numbered, noted, and tagged, then deposited in a
|
|
swirling vat of ownerless objects, which sits in a centralized location? Is
|
|
the country split up into two, three, four sections, each having a swirling
|
|
vat of their own? Perhaps a coordinated Lost and Found Task Force, in which
|
|
members from each airline team together, forming a nationwide network -- LFTF,
|
|
or LiffTiff, with a yearly budget of six million dollars, and a carefully
|
|
constructed underground network of pneumatic tubes to transport items from
|
|
their Vat locations, to the airport at which it is being claimed. A
|
|
subdivision of LiffTiff exists whose sole responsibility is to jump back and
|
|
forth between errant points of the pneumatic pump network and resolve clogged
|
|
pipes or stuck belongings. The piping separated into large sections, each
|
|
large section marked and separated into smaller sections, and so on for five
|
|
generations, so a small section of the tubing -- that which contains the clog
|
|
-- can be temporarily blocked off -- this small section no longer having the
|
|
massive pressure the rest of the piping has. This in itself will sometimes
|
|
clear clogs -- the items rearrange themselves due to the distinct pressure and
|
|
momentum shift. The Dive Team first blocking the section, unblocking, testing
|
|
for the clog -- if it still exists, they block, unblock again, and if it is
|
|
still there, they block and dive, manually having to remove the contents and
|
|
reinsert them at another location. This does sound a bit unrealistic to the
|
|
common, or even well-versed ear, but being as the whole system was designed by
|
|
the company who created the dancing, jumping water jets of Disney World,
|
|
anything is possible.
|
|
|
|
The Asian gentleman in front of me has with him an Asian child of what
|
|
age I could not guess -- under two, I'm certain. The child began to look back
|
|
through the space between seats, as children often do, and we had a glorious
|
|
game of peek-a-boo with went on for ten minutes, until the child turned around
|
|
again towards what I assume is the father.
|
|
|
|
There are dozens of thought fragments in my head, all waiting to be
|
|
thought upon, but I believe I may rest a bit, having been up before daylight,
|
|
and finding myself soon to be in the fast-paced world of family and relatives.
|
|
|
|
* * * * *
|
|
|
|
Some incredible things, really. Well, one incredible thing, the others
|
|
simply interesting. Upon coming through the security checks -- people line up
|
|
in rows, sauntering through metal detecting arches, placing bags and items on
|
|
conveyer belts to be examined by a large metallic box through which it all
|
|
passes. They did not ask me to open my pocket watch, but asked if they could
|
|
search my bag -- my backpack, containing several books (Neal Stephenson, a
|
|
Ginsberg biography, and Ginsberg's _Howl_), two notebooks, both blue for
|
|
simple reasons (plain notebooks bought in grocery stores come in a wide array
|
|
of obnoxious colors, only a handful agreeing with one's eyes), a tie with suns
|
|
and planets and stars, a fork, a bottle of champagne, chocolates, a loaf of
|
|
five-grain bread, and the object I had guessed would cause some problems, an
|
|
AC power adapter. Avoiding the sixteen-year-old rahrah anti-authority mood, I
|
|
agreed cheerfully to the search, curious to see what would occur. The woman
|
|
took the bag to a table, and passed a hand-held metal detecting unit -- a wand
|
|
-- over it several times, with it making no I-found-metal noises. She then
|
|
took another wand-like instrument, on the end of which was held a thinly cut
|
|
piece of cloth -- looked to be cotton, maybe, or a soft leather, or even latex,
|
|
I have not a clue. She swiped this all over the sides of the bag and placed
|
|
the material in a metal cup which was held atop a large metal and plastic box
|
|
-- the front of this box had an LCD display, which I could not read from the
|
|
angle I was at. She waited a few seconds, the machine beeped, she handed me
|
|
the bag, and said thanks. All without opening it.
|
|
|
|
Thousands of fictionally bred possibilities arose to mind -- examining the
|
|
bag for remnants of bomb-making materials, collecting fingerprints, collecting
|
|
DNA samples, comparing fingerprints, comparing DNA samples, perhaps marking
|
|
the bag for some reason or another. I wished to ask what the device did, but
|
|
feared falling into the category of Things-Terrorists-Might-Do and getting
|
|
hassled, causing a scene, etc. etc. Have you heard of such a thing, or have
|
|
an idea what this box may be? Obviously, collecting/comparing DNA is mot
|
|
likely out, as I do not believe DNA can be collected and isolated and
|
|
identified in a 15 second, unclean process, using a thin piece of cloth and a
|
|
metal cup -- I know little of biology, but processes witnessed in media seem
|
|
to be a bit more involved. So what of it then? I do not know.
|
|
|
|
Upon boarding the plane, walking, waiting, walking, waiting towards my
|
|
seat, I saw to the left of me, in 10F (several seats ahead of my 16F) was the
|
|
same Asian gentleman and child I had flown with several days ago - the same
|
|
child I played peek-a-boo with. I hoped for a moment I would be seated behind
|
|
them again, looking forward to another unmatchable game of
|
|
you-can't-see-me-behind-the-seat, but it quickly became obvious that was not
|
|
to occur. And so I read.
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
|
|
|
|
|
[=- POETRiE -=]
|
|
|
|
"In the East poets are sometimes thrown in prison -- a sort of compliment,
|
|
since it suggests the author has done something at least as real as
|
|
theft or rape or revolution. Here poets are allowed to publish anything
|
|
at all -- a sort of punishment in effect, prison without walls, without
|
|
echoes, without palpable existence -- shadow-realm of print, or of
|
|
abstract thought -- world without risk or _eros_."
|
|
--Hakim Bey, _T.A.Z._
|
|
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
|
|
|
[balancing myself against the other]
|
|
by Morrigan
|
|
|
|
balancing myself against the other
|
|
side of sleep
|
|
i slide shakily through dreams
|
|
of people best forgotten
|
|
and places too familiar to visit
|
|
|
|
swimfloatdrifting after a
|
|
sliver of peace
|
|
to wile the night away
|
|
wandering from my shore to theirs
|
|
|
|
we met as i glanced
|
|
past your reflection in my mirror
|
|
and i cringed to see
|
|
the glazed look in our eyes
|
|
|
|
i need a bosom to shelter me
|
|
a salve for my imminent sins
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
|
|
|
|
|
[=- FiCTiON -=]
|
|
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
|
|
|
LOST
|
|
by MadS
|
|
|
|
Jacob looked around. This wasn't familiar. Somehow, over the course of
|
|
several hundred steps, the landmarks of his neighborhood had metamorphosed
|
|
into strange and unfamiliar territory. It was strange. The street corners,
|
|
the shops, the sidewalks he passed looked no different from the ones near his
|
|
apartment. But he could tell they were different. Each object he saw had a
|
|
strangeness to it, an eerie unfamiliarity that reverberated in his head each
|
|
step he took. Jacob felt betrayed. It had just happened, there had been no
|
|
warning, no sign to caution him of the coming change, although he couldn't
|
|
think of why there should be. Somehow, it wasn't right.
|
|
|
|
Jacob realized that he was lost. He remembered the first time he was
|
|
lost, in Macy's. He wanted to go on the escalator, but his mother pulled him
|
|
back.
|
|
|
|
"*No, you can't go up yet,*" she had said.
|
|
|
|
But he had gone up; he had broken her grasp and went up the giant metal-
|
|
striped steps, losing her in the crowd. Her voice called after him, but he
|
|
ignored it, and it soon faded. He had smiled as he went up. He had wanted an
|
|
adventure, but he only ended up getting lost. And now he was lost again.
|
|
|
|
Jacob walked down the street with his eyes lowered, trying to avoid eye
|
|
contact. He didn't want anyone else to see his face, they would see
|
|
immediately that he was lost. They might take pity on him. He didn't want
|
|
anybody to take pity on him. He tried to control himself, tried to get a
|
|
handle on the situation. He looked for a familiar building, street name,
|
|
something, anything to show that he was not lost. But there was nothing.
|
|
Only miles of tar and concrete and metal and neon, all of it strange, all of
|
|
it not his.
|
|
|
|
Cars occasionally glided past him, adding wind to the already bitter
|
|
cold. He thought of flagging one down, to ask for directions. But, every
|
|
time he sensed one come near him, he became more and more unwilling to raise
|
|
his arm, call attention to himself, and admit his inadequacy. He continued
|
|
down the street alone, his head towards the pavement.
|
|
|
|
He hated being lost. It made him feel out of control, like a child
|
|
again, lost in Macy's. In house wares.
|
|
|
|
He had ended up in house wares, flanked by pots and pans and toasters and
|
|
blenders. He wandered through the aisles in a sea of chrome and black
|
|
plastic. It dawned on him; he was lost. He didn't like the feeling. He
|
|
wanted to find his mother again, to go back down. But he couldn't find the
|
|
escalator. He roamed around the store, trying to cheer himself up. It didn't
|
|
work; he hated department stores, always such a rush, nobody looking out for
|
|
him. People tripping over him, rudely, yelling, "Hey, watch it!" or "Look
|
|
where you're going!" It was worse when the strangers tried to be friendly.
|
|
"Excuse me, Little Guy." "Hey there, Slugger." "Coming through, Tiger."
|
|
Jacob hated being called Little Guy and Slugger and Tiger. "My name's Jacob!"
|
|
He wanted to shout. "Don't call me anything else!"
|
|
|
|
Jacob rounded a corner, in a further attempt to gain his bearings. He
|
|
found himself at a deserted rail yard. The wind whistled past his ears, and
|
|
he hugged himself to keep warm. There was no life to be found, only derelict
|
|
buildings and abandoned railways, slowly rusting in the dark blue night. It
|
|
was utterly abandoned, seemingly for ages. Jacob thought that no matter
|
|
whoever walked through here, they would be lost as well. This oddly reassured
|
|
him. Jacob walked down the ancient railroad tracks, careful not to stumble.
|
|
It seemed to him that every time he was lost, he relived that time in Macy's.
|
|
He wondered why. It was the first time he had been lost, but that didn't seem
|
|
so significant, even if you added in the Freudian implications. It's not like
|
|
getting lost in a department store was anything new: Jacob had plenty of
|
|
friends who had experienced similar episodes in childhood. It was just part
|
|
of growing up now, almost a ritual, like a bar mitzvah or first communion. A
|
|
religious consumer experience.
|
|
|
|
Jacob could feel tears welling in his eyes as he walked around the store.
|
|
He did not want to cry. He wanted to find his mother and leave. He felt
|
|
horrible, alone. He felt hopeless. Jacob sat down in the middle of an aisle,
|
|
next to women's clothing. He didn't want to cry, he told himself. He wasn't
|
|
going to. He looked around for anything to reassure him, anything at all.
|
|
The people were no help, nor was the clothing. A sign showed a woman happily
|
|
wearing some pantyhose. The sign said, "Happiness is in your future." Jacob
|
|
didn't think so. He was going to be lost here forever. He would have to live
|
|
at Macy's. They would make him sweep the floors. He hated sweeping floors.
|
|
He hated Macy's. He wished he had never gone on that escalator. He wished his
|
|
mother were here. He wanted her back. He would go back down now, if he
|
|
could. Just as sobs began to force their way out of his body, did he hear his
|
|
mother calling him. He ran to her voice, tears running down his small face.
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He found himself in her arms, hugging her tight, happy to go back.
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Jacob stopped suddenly, leaning back and forth on the track rails. What
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was he doing here? He had been wandering now for some time. The tracks were
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still. Rust had covered the bottom of his shoes in a dull copper brown. He
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sat near the edge of the track, wiping his shoes off. He started to fidget,
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clean himself off, brushing his hair with his fingers, checking his wallet to
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see if it was still there; it was. Anything to keep his mind off of his
|
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current situation. Jacob leaned back, letting his head fall against the cold,
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hard track. Maybe he could get some sleep. He turned his head to a more
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comfortable position. In the distance, the track led over the frozen gray
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ground into a small patch of trees. Jacob focused on them. His eyes led to
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a small communications tower rising out of the woods, blinking at him
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silently. Jacob sat up suddenly. He remembered the day he came to his new
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apartment; he had taken a small walk, and had passed a communications tower
|
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just like that one. He then remembered taking a break at a pair of train
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tracks, and remembered how the rust had come off on his fingers when he
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touched it. Jacob was two blocks away from his apartment! Jacob sprung off
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the ground and followed where the train tracks led, happy to find his way
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back.
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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"I don't know what a WTO is. I just fucking hate rich people."
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--grafitti spraypainted on a car in Seattle
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--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
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A LETTER SLiPPED UNDER THE DOOR
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by Kafka Gramsci
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You wake up, call in sick to work, and then have breakfast. A letter
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arrives. It is pushed underneath the door by someone who is not your regular
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mail deliverer. Though intrigued, you are also somewhat confused, afraid to
|
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open it. You set in on the table, begin circling around it. Then you pick it
|
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up, hold it against the kitchen light. You think it is safe. Though the type
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is small, it isn't very long. You decide to read it.
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In contact with a sharp surface phenomenon, white pages with words on
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them, a non-erasable reality that evokes images of a body in communication
|
|
with another body, you remember an amorous affair, an exhaustive tactile
|
|
sensory encounter, that now serves as the yardstick by which you judge all
|
|
real or imagined sensory experience. It ends with a colon: a silent and
|
|
tragic dissolution of the relationship you were imagining.
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|
Now you are into the third paragraph. You find that the words flow,
|
|
create story out of nothing: solid shapes and vibrant colors, a formless soft
|
|
voice that leads but does not command. Present presence, invisibly visible
|
|
before you, so present you can feel it moving, moving in and through you,
|
|
around you, while also existing as something not you. The words, one after
|
|
another, over and over: the presence inside them gives you life, shapes you,
|
|
twists and turns you until meaning appears. Then it disappears. Re-emerging,
|
|
it playfully teases you out of a shell, releases you from the constraints of a
|
|
textual economy situating you as passive consumer. And there is something
|
|
else, something not in, but around, a floating. But you don't know what it
|
|
is. It is silent, something to move through, something that allows for
|
|
movement. It is warm and strong and good. It fits tight, and you like it.
|
|
|
|
Because it reminded you of a story from your childhood, the one about the
|
|
geese or rabbits or funny cat, you feel safe. The story from your childhood
|
|
is precise and quantifiable, a story whose minute details you already know, a
|
|
story you tell yourself when you are hurt or in despair. You begin telling
|
|
yourself this story. But then the dialogue changes: a new character, one
|
|
that wasn't there before, an alien, an anomic force, tears up your story.
|
|
Mocking you, it pretends to be the story you were remembering. A deeper
|
|
memory rises to the surface: you received a letter in the mail today and now
|
|
you are reading it. You become lost, withdraw in confusion, into confusion,
|
|
into something you can't quite describe.
|
|
|
|
Thankfully, a new paragraph begins: you come forward, annex yourself to
|
|
it. The very distance between surface and structure, form and content, sign
|
|
and referent, interpretation and fact, keeps it together. It begins to
|
|
surround you on all sides, slowly at first, naturally, as if it knows you. It
|
|
is understanding personified in the form and shape of paper with black
|
|
markings capable of, but not limited to, telling a story.
|
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|
|
Or: inciting riots and overthrowing governments; acting as a
|
|
communicative technology representative of the so-called intellectually,
|
|
spiritually and ethically superior instruments of the universal advancement of
|
|
humanity; and mediating to you through a broad range of institutions and
|
|
organizations, including think tanks, business schools, management consultancy
|
|
firms, business media and political parties, that it is capable of, and
|
|
willing to, construct a world of shared, common human lineaments.
|
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|
|
Or: relaying multiple and purely contingent different realities
|
|
altogether; producing alternate spaces and times; and building dissimilar
|
|
worlds of multiple forms of apprehension where formerly you thought there was
|
|
only one conceptual and material plane of understanding, such as: forms and
|
|
ideas, energy and space, or books and yogurt.
|
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|
|
Or: inventing objects of knowledge; techniques of discerning what those
|
|
objects of knowledge are; and how those objects should be used, classified,
|
|
categorized, and conceptually mapped and integrated alongside other forms of
|
|
understanding.
|
|
|
|
Insinuation: these are methods of seeing that actively manufacture
|
|
reality from the unorganized phenomena you lack access to outside of the
|
|
conceptual systems you are embedded in, are unable to step outside of,
|
|
separate yourself from, such as: hidden assumptions and presuppositions;
|
|
intra-psychic mechanisms; cultural biases and superstitions mediated through
|
|
metaphors, similes, metonymies and meta-languages; various interpenetrating
|
|
ethico-politico and socio-economic structures; daily practices grounded in
|
|
habit, conformity, and tradition; and subtle but increasingly destructive
|
|
disciplinary techniques you actively consent to because they disguise
|
|
themselves as forms of pleasure and freedom, as socially acceptable work and
|
|
leisure activities.
|
|
|
|
These methods, and many others the letter itself cannot describe or see,
|
|
constitute discourse and power imprecisely defined: the ruling system of
|
|
assumptions, meanings and values that shapes the way things look, what they
|
|
mean, and, therefore, what social reality `is.'
|
|
|
|
With grace and skill, a soft interface, it first concealed and contained,
|
|
yet now you know the letter releases and reveals. You start to look up to it,
|
|
begin asking it for advice, what books it thinks you should read.
|
|
|
|
But it remains focused. Though invisible, it refuses to let you look
|
|
away, refuses to let you pretend you do not understand what is going on. And
|
|
then it grows angry, starts indexing and adumbrating smells and places, things
|
|
and memories, events and names: park benches and long-term involuntary
|
|
unemployment, gas stations and OPEC, household appliances and contaminated
|
|
bodies of water, street lights and military spending, bars of soap and napalm,
|
|
ideologies and paper clips, political pamphlets and sports equipment,
|
|
dictators and random pieces of clothing, remote areas of countries you've
|
|
never been to, symbols you are afraid of. Cutting back because it senses your
|
|
fear, it realizes it has run aground, slammed into a wall of confusion and
|
|
sensory overload.
|
|
|
|
It erases the map and starts fresh, from the ground up.
|
|
|
|
Problem: you were not ready for the division of territory, for a
|
|
midnight positional reconnaissance with no obvious strategic or tactical
|
|
purpose, a undeclared guerilla war on your psyche, a war of hegemony in which
|
|
you had not yet delineated clearly a moral geometry allowing you to speak
|
|
`for' or `against' whatever is being referenced. All you wanted to do was
|
|
read your mail.
|
|
|
|
Suggestion: adopt a philosophy or set of principles that could serve as
|
|
resources, ammunitions and foodstuffs, in a protracted, intellectualized war
|
|
of either negative or positive maneuvers between you, the author, and whatever
|
|
is being fought with or against.
|
|
|
|
Changing topics, it decides to open a new path for you.
|
|
|
|
It separates into two sentences: one sentence beneath you, giving you
|
|
somewhere to stand, a solid foundation, a sidewalk with cracks and grass
|
|
spreading out in all directions, and a second sentence slightly above you,
|
|
coyly smiling, showing you its fibers and threads as if it wants to impress
|
|
you.
|
|
|
|
No longer wanting to stand still, anxious, self-conscious and
|
|
uncomfortable, you realize you were tricked: it was one sentence, not two.
|
|
You look back: one colon and five commas, no period. Now striving for
|
|
clarity, true clearness of mind, you cut through the rest of the paragraph,
|
|
immerse yourself in concentration, your attention now completely fixed on the
|
|
words appearing before you. You want to know, gradually so that it does not
|
|
blind you, how it works, what makes it tick.
|
|
|
|
Finding new words and feelings, the setting seems to change. But the
|
|
geography of the text, its breath, its body language, its modus operandi,
|
|
moves forward too fast. You begin to feel as if there is no plot. A void
|
|
fills you, makes you cold, gives you sensations without sense, a biting
|
|
hardness and lack of receptivity, a broken mirror of backwards, fragmented
|
|
images brings pain, suffering, and disease.
|
|
|
|
And then there is a dull yet burning sense of existential dullness.
|
|
Perhaps you are you letting the experience you wish to have manipulate the
|
|
experience you are having.
|
|
|
|
Question: is the self that experiences in conflict with the self that
|
|
interprets experience? You imagine them fighting it out in a hotel room.
|
|
|
|
Or: another self watches both of them from the window that is
|
|
consciousness, the window you are now looking at from a new, higher window you
|
|
created while you were reading this sentence. Ad infinitum.
|
|
|
|
Disarticulated, confused, afraid of being hurt, still annexed to
|
|
something you neither know nor understand, you see that the two selves you
|
|
temporarily forgot about, the bony `surface' phenomenon and the `deep' self of
|
|
consciousness, the self that interprets and the self best likened to an
|
|
invisible and unphotographable camera, have now stopped fighting. You are
|
|
whole, unitary, at one with the world. Your journey is complete. But the
|
|
letter you received in the mail keeps going.
|
|
|
|
No longer feeling disconnected, like a bottomless multiplicity, you are
|
|
inside your home, alone in your bedroom, safe and comfortable. It makes a
|
|
promise: a new sentence is on the way. It is close by. A great hunt begins
|
|
shortly. And you are invited. You look forward to it. Coming up from
|
|
behind, you didn't see it. It had its own key.
|
|
|
|
Now it is in your bedroom, behind you, running its hands up your
|
|
backside, beginning to undress you. One of its hands moves to your front,
|
|
runs its fingers along your stomach, then downward to a warm spot, moving in
|
|
soft circles with little laughs. Tiny waves of pleasure ripple throughout
|
|
your body. Feeling warm breath on your neck, you like your body next to this
|
|
body. It feels good. Muscles tighten and breath shortens. Turning you
|
|
around, slowly, in anticipation, it offers up wetness, reaches out in longing.
|
|
You close your eyes and lean forward, aggressively push back, and then take
|
|
in. In your bed, it begins to happen. It is brand new, at first careful; but
|
|
now, thoroughly oiled, working you over, on top, it is more than your equal.
|
|
Closer and closer, in shared symmetric movements, wanting you to finish,
|
|
whispering over and over in your ear, it silently screams: climax. In
|
|
preparation for your release, you pull in close, and then let out a low sound
|
|
of pleasure where before there was only the silent and intimate movements of
|
|
two intertwined and interlaced bodies.
|
|
|
|
Putting the letter down, you realize you are content. If you weren't so
|
|
full, yet peacefully empty, you would feel used and betrayed.
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
|
|
|
State of unBeing is copyrighted (c) 1999 by Kilgore Trout and Apocalypse
|
|
Culture Publications. All rights are reserved to cover, format, editorials,
|
|
and all incidental material. All individual items are copyrighted (c) 1999
|
|
by the individual author, unless otherwise stated. This file may be
|
|
disseminated without restriction for nonprofit purposes so long as it is
|
|
preserved complete and unmodified. Quotes and ideas not already in the
|
|
public domain may be freely used so long as due recognition is provided.
|
|
State of unBeing is available at the following places:
|
|
|
|
World Wide Web http://www.apoculpro.org
|
|
irc the #unbeing channel on UnderNet
|
|
|
|
|
|
Submissions may also be sent to Kilgore Trout at <kilgore@eden.com>.
|
|
The SoB distribution list may also be joined by sending email to Kilgore
|
|
Trout.
|
|
|
|
--SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB-SoB--
|
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