AGAINST FICTION
AGAINST
FICTION
JOHANNA DRUCKER
DRUCKWERK
Copyright 1983 Johanna Drucker
ORGA.NIZED A.FFINITIES
AGAINST: As IN, LEANS, Is OPPOSED TO; aDependent
CONFLICT, The REFUtation and the support. Gratifying hook
INTO ATTENTION AND OBLIVION. AN OUTGROWN
FORM, ADDICTIVE, SEDUCTIVE. OPENinG WitH ALL I CAn RECALL Of --The Drama,
Forces and Fate, As an Inevitable Configuration. No Lost Time In The Narrative
--Plunges Deliberate. The traditional obsession with categorical order required
the unities of time, place and chal'acter, one room after another
AVAILABLE TO PLAN, SECTION AND ELEvATION
AS IF THEY HAD BEEN CONSTRUCTED FROM IT. 'AS IF-' ELIMINATivE SUPPORTS.
INSTEAD: The COI'Del' of the I'oom gaped wide open, just as she imagined it
would standing thel'e yestel'day with a gl'in in hel' hand aDd a papel' acl'oss
hel' face stating the conditions of occupancy. The issue of shelter had become a melodrama wide open to
the air. And the social climate so full of abuse there was no way to formulate
those grand statements .-that this was the stock from which the ancient races
had sprung .-and no way not to. Vitality put up strong resistance. Decay was the
active component. The force of communication was no longer contained within
wires, but flew through the open air, wild, exciting, and slightly disturbed by
the random quality of noise. AGAINST. Lean. Force. To no immediate, linear
resolution, no neat artifice opposed to the aCtual. Real. The bullet grazed
God's shoulder. Make directly, make a correspondence to, or make an independent
conceit. Not deeply, just enough to burn along the surface of the flesh,
leaving a red hot welt. Riding the line between the specimen figure and its
activity, ground. He didn't flinch; the muscles of his torso tightened and
gleamed where they were exposed from the shining emerald costume. Invert them,
make their organic struCture inTo a CodifiEd formaliTy. I could see nothing of
his face, of course, behind the painted mask, but the heat inside it caused the
fluid in the fake eyes to glow intensely. ThE program so displayEd ExTEnds
iTsELF Through digEsTiOn; WhaT NEEds TO bE EaTEn is a WAy inTO fOrm. Then smoke
began to stream, quietly, threateningly, from his Jaws. It was
terrifying. This had gone beyond being a game, so far beyond that I began to
have serious questions about the success of the group's pursuit of cult power.
Rgainst all rational instincts I wondered if they hadn't surpassed the natural limits
and touched into something beyond ... What else could explain the control this
Being had over himself and the group so conspicuously forming a cadre around
him. The plaster front of the building blew open from the small explosion. The
whole flat facade collapsed forward on its face, and the heap of bodies
that fell out on top of it in that instant, gems pouring out of a burst casket,
glittered with paste jewels on tan flesh, running with blood from the ritual
wounds. They weren't dead, only exhausted from the frenzy, orgiastic rites of
ceremonial pain. They lay sweating, baubles piled all over each other, slightly
dazed. What a day at the clubhouse. Phrases, whole long passages, imply the plot as a context. Any
overall vision forces them to dovetail. Even placing them between two poles
o£ organiZation.
order, chaosá forces the mass into a continuum, restricts the specificity,
diversity. Not to compose first, that bad habit. Take city air and bite the
landscape out o£ it. That's breathing, hanginG on the industrial, metal frame
window, pressinG aGainst Glass Between the Body and the niGht. Grati£ication o£
urBan density, oBserVation and diGestion, not synthesiZed toward any end; too
much manufacturinG oVerádefines the product. A hiGh noise like a whistle pulses
from a Block away. Listen. Furniture siGn in Blue neon. Not local color, But
distinct. Two BriGht oBjects in the landscape, that and the sTreeTliGhT. Pink
Vapor. A conTinuous eXquisiTe corpse, jusT To see The Body.
EYE CONTACT MESMERIZES. Baunted
á th dlanguage. The natul'e of the universe:
screen, my an
chaos, the primordial
illusion that anything is possible. Theywill always be someplace in
relation to each other.
Not st:rong enough to
fo:rm a bond; :release costs a g:reat deal: collapse to b:ring down the :rates.
Apocalyptic situation stands to nullify the plu:ral totality by its
eXplosjve gua:rantee of singula:rity. Cancels into void. Which was: A missle
bea:ring subma:rine sbained with the effective p:ressu:re of its fu:rtiVe
claust:rophobia. Down
without any indication of what goes on on the literal surface. Collectively
submerged, days without access to a cycle of light. All together in tight
quarters, legs and arms knock against each other, looking for the right time.
Enclosed by the lack of reference. Counter tradition with invention. The limit
of sense still bound by grammar. Hope. Trails. Of. Opposites. Even word by
word, syntax bound. Cradle to grave security has to be more than indulgence in
activity. Liar. The epithet stung home. Like, he says, like too much. It's a
difficult situation no matter where the cut is taken. For him, personally, just
being associated with the statement was a disaster. The inevitable effect of
the pronoun, he shuddered, extrapolating from the particulars of the scene
before him. Everything in order carried the dreadful trace of a rigid sentence;
fixed relations. For the family it meant the reassessment of a definition
spelled out through generations. The community would suffer. The district would
reverberate. The whole social fabric was likely to --but was that the simple
hierarchy established by natural law. No law. His head sunk down on that
surface, the broad table etched into a rich texture of permanent marks recording
countless esperiences. Highly polished --it read his features to him as he read
his own, in a bewildered reflection through which he tried to trace the layered
network which, without any apparent plan, had managed to result with a patent
certainty in his present position. Distinctions get made as the tactile sense
of language. Looking back out: focus
in on the small Globe, small enough to hold in one hand, a stabiliZed image,
verdant symBol, vibrating thru
dimensions of
consideration, flat against the double-paned, pressure-locked aperture. The old
machine. Same basic formula, materialisation of content. Back-lit and GlowinG.
Technological soul not connecting two spaces But connectinG two worlds.
SuBject-ready, adjective, inventinG the user, the feelinG of Earth, haphaZard
phenomena of smell and touch, in spite of the continual riGidity of the social
mind. AN ACUTE DYSLEXIA --applied to the readinG of a life made it strictly
chronoloGical But not continuous. StruGGlinG with the sequence a tonGue
stutters out, 'I haVe to Go Back now.' Overcompensation thrust itself toward
unity. The suBject could not have Been more commonplace. In a room she
moVed around a taBle, peelinG an oranGe, another small GloBe, held By the
AppArAtus. Interlock. PhilosophicAl toys. EARTH: THE GROUNDED MOMENT. Equally interested in the map and
thE landscapE. AblE to sEE and sEEing, most awarE of spacE
as INTERFERENCE,
RESISTflNT ON ITS OWN BEHALF, FORCING EYELINE TO COAGULATE AS A PARASITIC VIEW.
Fed a combination of sugar and blood they became addicted to carnivorous
activity. Ants in a steady stream, they invaded the most private recesses of
the space without question. Nothing they did was without a motive. In this
case, the problem is not so much covering up the differences, but seeing them
in the first place. Intimately. passionately --the surface of the desk. Primary
place filled pieCemeal. Resistant, unwilling To Be Compliant. No simple way out
of order. All This Time spenT esTaBlishing iT, hisTory. FLExIBLE
RECONSTRUCTION, MAxIMUM OPTIMISM, RESISTS QUALIFICATION. THE IMPERATIVE IS TO
LOOK AS WELL AS TO DESIRE, CONTAIN BODILY FUNCTIONS IN THE OUTLINE. ITS VERY
PHYISCALITY ENGENDERED AN ACCUMULATIVE ARRANGEMENT, CROSS-REFERENCED AS
RESPONSE. WE WAITED FOR IT
TO GO AWAY. IT DID NEITHER. SEARCH. COMMAND. EDITING OUT AND CONSTRUCTING IN.
POTSHERDS OF: ARTICULATE
PRODUCTION. DISTINCT
FRAgMENTS, BRigHT PIECES. BROKEN TILE.
A
most sincere effort. I have yet to see any --a bright light appeared on the
horizon just around sundown. We waited for it to get LARGER.
The City: Urban
enterprise. Live Notice.
The ego is the hero against which the
epic backs its ground. Double talk. State of shock. Hand through the Glass.
Speaking at the limit where the report keeps surfacing. Can't see behind the opaque
clay of flesh except throuGh the medium of that streaminG monoloGue. FlashinG
siGnals struGGled in the somatic vehicle. Small fish in his eyes. LarGe wrists,
swollen ankles, the evidence of pain, eXpanded into the physi. cal space as
effort. Less and less return from that investment. This season almost without
crops. Ruin a paGe disinteGratinG as it turned. Some parts of paradise have been used up. Moth dying on the table. Recognition.
It's just a garden. It's what's left over from the Fall.
A small mountain
came down to lick the feet of the sea. The mundane, and the useful, each
jealous of seeming too much like the other. The useful has an edge. Modern
language. Take a field trip. Into the shopping center. A district beyond
repute. Nothing adheres so strongly as a lack of response.
What occurs cannot always forge itself into such authority. First Function of Memol'Y: One wall a window, flat against the landscape.
freeway a swath of movement. the rest more constant; whole contained in a
variable gradient of change. Constant feeding. Memory does not equal
experience. Magnetic clips are motivated to cling to the metal rim of their
container. LETTER PERFECT. The mottled coat. And so we mal'k OUI' points of ol'igin, iDvel'Se
distiDctions giviDg 01lt the pl'ofile of that past pUl'pose. Bad happened.
That Was The Moment Which
Occurred. Sentiment Lifted Like A Vein From The Meat of General Experience.
TOOK EVERY IDEA HE HAD.
Apowerful
(& relative)
materialisation: MIND ImAGES TRANSFERRED TO FILM Take Over and Have It Looked
At By
DRUG STORE PSYCHOLOGY. COUNTERED BY A
YOUNG GIRL WHO HAD NOT BROKEN IN. Flashin a pan, pictureson tape, Eyeball into
the lens & then partially obsel'ved --the face blocked by what the mind
projects.
RIBBONS AROUND THE EDGE OF THE ENVELOPE
HELPED CONCEAL THE ADDRESS. The Contents wel'e clearly Mal'ked On The Covel':
CODtainel' A MomeDtal'Y Sequence Sealed Into Itself. Too much obedieDce decays,
Oat lIIuscle trimmed fol' the file, easy to fold along the lines of weal', depleting
those dch seams of 1Ise. HER
MOOD CHANGED. Rapid Despair Infiltrated The Superstructure Of Her Present
Tense. She dissolved. disintegrated. and the whole of her physical being flew
away like birds. MISCELLANEOUS FILES. DIRECT INFORMATION. Make Available An
Easy Memory. Accesible Without Re-invention. A casual program, neither
constricting nor revealing, simply effectiVe. was also made known. from inside
the machine. reluctantly dependent on the masterswitch. EYE IN HER HEAD, Eye in her cheek, blinking above the strawberry rash of her administrative disability. She kept everything her grandmother had given them. The only way she knew how to
get to her new place was from her old place. The
memory attached to those belongings anchored location to possession; she had the route. Predicated on what. Very slow trucKs.
Billboards. Phone lines. Also
standing literally. GIVE YOURSELF COURAGE. WATCH. My
indians. Settlers and coming across the natives.
Traffic renders things mundane. StroKes convince them they're naive.
Go a long way. Forms of address.
Rs full of activity as an
urban broadway. Not a single bit of information at a single spot, but multiple, myriad bits. Broadway being --what. On display. First time. No first time. Categorical imperative. Cleaning underneath the nails. In search of some insight into what had
brought him there. Amnesiac compulsion to reveal the antecedent event. Everything defined by that limit. How does the presumption of territory
act on nature? AccordinG to the Grid. orGanisation
into cateGories decided on some random pattern. Brave champion of potential,
urGes its own alternative.
BIO-ENGEERING Just the heat of their
bodies caused the steam to run on the windows. Nothing had been thrown to the dogs. A red truck moved with incongruous determination
across a wildly organic landscape. She had been disturbed, waking in the niGht,
to see the colors on the surface of the moon. The patio was
eleGant, but this was still a 8uBurB. If there was actually somethinG in the
suBstance which allowed the DNA to replicate, stimulated it to,
then that was the source material for a whole new Generation. Spontaneous or
not the Growth would have to Be reGulated. She had no desire
to retreat Behind the Bars of propriety in the name of science. Nor were the
Blind spots placed Behind the eyes of the trained animal less
likely to hamper him. The marGin which the company was willinG To allow Them for eRRoR was RemaRkaBle In ITselF. The ORiGin OF LiFe, She
LooKed ThRouGh The Pane TowaRd Dawn --MiGhT JusT Slip InTo TheiR GRasp. TO ISOLATE THE UNIT WAS LOOKING LIKE THE ONLY WAY TO
SIGNIFY. NO MERE BABBLE OF TONES WOULD SUFFICE. WHAT ELSE
DID THEY TALK ABOUT? NOT FOR ILLUSION, BUT FOR EFFECT. FORM OF OBSTRUCTION,
PRONUNCIATION. THE HEAT ALREADY THIS MORNING SMASHING
TRAFFIC INTO CLOSER QUARTERS, SHORT WAVELENGTHS. WORKING CONDITIONS: Position description --curtains
closed against the sun. Cost center accounting from inside the unrecognized
operation goes unchallenged. Approved
wastes. Equilibrium. No faith, no fall into this disintegration. He only sat at
his desk. Too many other things to be doing. Watched the signal puffs of smoke
come over the horizon, clouds, tight, rising. Reflections moved
through the room, wash before a storm. Too many things. Free enterprise. Want
to pass subtly through order. Reconstitution comes afterward, first have to
teleport out. Soul of the onramp, power of the traffic, glare and combustion,
filed. Good behavior a terible form of submission, insidious, more deadly
than an automatic function which can be figured out. When it lights up they all
jump. Describing the scene in the mud he fell headfirst into the stadium.
Slender arms, slender arms. What length. Minute precision. Was there never a
naive period. 11 long morning full of birds in which space was measured by time. They waited for the signal to die away. That left the resolution
unclear. If there
had been an action had there been a response. The Hideous Exaggeration Of The Lapse
Collapsed The Strength Of Motivation. ZYGOTE SWARMS, NECK IN NECK, CAUGHT
BETWEEN THE POLES OF WILL 11ND PRE-DETERMINflTION, GETTING TRACTION OFF THE
CONSTRAINT AND FORCING THEMSELVES TO POLITICS AGAINST THE LIMITS OF EXCLUSION.
Social connections. An old habit. The breakdown of a formal system. Founding relations take the set up of the house as it comes.
Painting seemed devout because it exemplified, in its highly organized
arrangement, exactly such a funnelled compliance, towards a single idea which
literally lay above. A trinity, inside a pyramid pointed
towards the heavens. Gap essential to dynamics; separation essential to the
charge. It was
the elementary exercise. Each one was introduced in turn,
had their moment to reveal themselves, state their presence as a case, one characteristic moment across the room. Their traces
projected into the atmosphere with thE EphEmEral solidity of a shadow cast
by a moving form. It was
Enough To DominatE ThE CollEctivE ILLusIon WiTh ThE SmokEd IMprEssion Of BlusHIng PromisE.
THEY WERE ENTHUSED BY THE
POSSIBILITY OF A REVELATION. RIGHT. ENTHUSIAM MOST QUALIFIED TONE FULL OF LATENT HOSTILITY, CONCEIVED IN IGNORANCE. ORDER SOME
--WHAT. TOOLS AND PANES OF GLASS. STONE AGE TECHNIQUES. HEAT, a
final nutrient. TI'Y diffel'ent combinations. More vocabulary than a bee. Spelling as an intimate concern. Explain the missing
lettel's according to an orthodox psychology which effects
a strong system of accounting. Easy virtue. Rant against the meaning of a
wOl'k. Isolate kernels as a
specious idealism 01' tropological eggsercise. Long enough to acquil'e a new habit:
bODdinG of I'esponse proceeds swiftly_ BelieF
MiGHT FuNctiON aFTer aN act. SOmeThiNG mORE ThaN JusT HeaT: SusTaiNED
ExCilEmENT. VOLUNTARY SERviTUDE: COMMAND MODULE LOCKED
INTO COMMUNICATION TWO WAYS: TO
AND FROM.
Invaded by the social. Pl'esumptuousness
in the tone of voice; no
punctuation used in
the bible; no sepal'ation of wOl'ds in classical texts. Evel'Ything al'l'anged accol'ding to some
I'eliable convention. The way
of sitting is a mel'e echo
of Univel'sal Postul'e mOmental'ily Occupied. It Exists, the Gestul'E, As OnE Of THOSE GRAND PATTERNS. I COME &: GO FROM IT.
The Configuration Is APose Outside Of Sleep, APale Zone of Relaxation
Which Exists WithOut DRIVE
OR DIFFICULTY.
5 SJ
¥
Jf
it
Nl I' Tl hi
h
ac
h" raj
Al c in tn
d"
ea
lo~
is th. e
mf skl
SUJ
mc
sU co tH fl a
l1
ca.
CRIMES AGAINST SELF and OTHER LANGUAgE: ::::c:!S Late afternoon mel-
FROM THE MEAL. " FOLLOWING
Sunset's sweet demise, a vanishing
single point of reference, the phone jack was disconnected from the wall,
hanging by a wire, signs of
its past attachment still visible. If I
NEVER LEAvE THE HOUSE
AGAIN: Anothe:r pseudo:refe:rent. He found himself wanting to eat small
animals. The impo:rtance of activism was undeniable, motivated him by analogy.
He had hijacked a bus to draw the ha:rd edge 01 attentioll
to his :religion. The li:re exchanged ac:ross the fi:ring line was so stiking
that it :reimbu:rsed his expectations. Revealed by mistake in the loose terrain, the idea of the
missle site saved the leader accidentally. All at once the mass practice of the
bands overlapped indiscriminate simultaneous tones and rhythms, finally merging
into a single pattern. The enormous sound vibrated like a transatlantic cable
with all the fibers oriented in the right direction, thousands of filaments
twisted into synch around each other. Their physical urges were an understated
case, locked in. What's innate is in fact. Predetermined: dis place is set.
INITIAL CONCLUSION: Bare bones. She came into the room with a glass in her
hand. It was
filled with dried leaves, each one of them taken from a different
book. Was that the meaning of God's word. The ceiling opened up instead of the
skies. While the light poured in her restlessness played over the surface of
the table. Every object placed before her was worth
a month's consideration. Money. As if anything were possible, she still
thought tHe last essay Had made no sense. A small army could Have marcHed
tHrougH tHe space between Her eyes and tHe floor if sHe'd let tHem. Under
the bandages of sight a mild
flame begins to take
its toll. The cost of being frightened is caution a perpetual caution without
head or tail to break the shell on. The case of riches comes to riches now
thrown out, morality a matter of admission. What was not promised cannot be
held accountaBle. Anticlimactic, not anti-climatic. As if all the
vaporous Balance miGht disappear which envelops, protects, modulates the
surface layer we depend on. In the sweet starch of mind there is vision
pressed into position. Hold it on the screen for a minute, catch the diatonic
scale of those relations on display. This could mean anythinG, he kept
complaininG.
odrama wI-de open
TO THE AIR
BLOWS THE HEADSTRONG CURTAIN BACK WITH
The Breeze. CHASE'S FALL: in the way,
the chair trips his backward
retreat. Beyond circumstances,
the partisan experts
ente:r the game. REWARDS ARE A SECOND HAND CLAIM. PERIODICITY INFECTS AIR
CURRENTS WITh A PLAGUE OF SCIENCE, CLEAN AIR Th:rough The Sc:reeD SETS The
SCENE. HIS FALL WAS RAPID.
HIS CLIMB HAD BEEN STEEP. A MOUNTEBANK WHIMPERING FOR SHELTER IN THE FLAT
FACE OF NATURE. Brutal weather climbed into the back with him covering his
shirt with mist. The precipitation of his judgement kept falling over him,
breaking along the advancing front. The murder weapon made too much noise and
had to be hidden behind his teeth, upstairs, out of
sight, behind a curtain and beneath sand. Weeping as they searched, terrified
with guilt, they held that cold, heavy metal inside a placid sheath. His cool
bluff was so smooth it slid the detective right through the room, past the
whole sweating row of them. But the fear didn't pass with his going, the threat
of reprisal remained with the weapon which they struggled furiously to bury
deeper, all the while holding it close, they thought, anxious not to betray
their efforts to conceal it. Meanwhile she had taken the hideous thing and was
carrying it with her, loaded securely. HE BRUSHED PAST HER CHEEK, LIPS
LIGHTNING FLASHED HER SKIN. MAKING IT MEANT EONS OF STRUGGLE. HE HAD TO BE
PREPARED FOR STELLAR COLD AND SOLAR WIND. TO BREATHE THE RITUAL HEAT OF HUMAN
CONTACT IN THAT RANDOM INSTANT WAS A COMFORT. THE OLD WAYS. NO ONE WANTED
CHARACTERIZATION TO STERILIZE THE SENSUAL ASPECTS OF THE MATTER INTO
INACTIVITY. RESPONSE WAS EVERYTHING, STILL, PARALYSED BY OVERSENSITIVITY
HE STARTLED THEIR ENGINE BACK INTO MOTION. RELYING ON MACHINES WAS
OUTDATED AND PREPOSTEROUS, BUT WHERE WAS THE EDGE TO BE FOUND IF NOT IN
-RECONSIDERATION BROKE THROUGH HIS ENTERPRISE
WITH THE PRAIRIE FIRE OF CHANGE.
BASIC UNITIES, OR AFramework By Which To Organize
FOR
ONE THING, HISTORICALLY there Are Categories of Narrative:
FRAGMENTS WOULD BE
FOUND CONTAININC A LINguistic histol'Y detailing the acquisition of Dotes
into a vocabulal'Y to a final, metaliDguistic state. Fol' this was pl'ivate laDguage
unl'elated to the institute fol' which it fOl'med the specific object of study.
It was written in the past about the
present, a future time. From the schematic to the representational. The
internal metonomy, only the social connections socialise. Analogy remains the most personal game of all, towards a
consistent similarity. But random miscellany, the
ultimate nemesis, the font, the real, cropping up continually, defining rather
than being defined.
A
LESS SUBJECTIVE MEMORY, syntactic, combinatory, general, " metaphysical,
being written out in
Advance, Tl'aDslated
Into A SeQuence As If Thel'e Wel'e 01' Always Had BeeD, Logic BetweeD The
Points. Physical SeT Pieces, Ready To Be WOl'ked. The scratched woman observed
communication, a closet story, descriptive of internal space, those dark places
in which she had learned to feel her way into language, a visionary
articulation fed through the bars of isolation.
Internal reactions of an atom as a process of discovery.
Dangers of Survival, exploration of
THE WORLD, SUBSTANCE AND SYNTHESIS, REVISED
FROM NOTES INTO A COHERENT STREAM, TAKING
OvER EXTEh AL SPACE.
Synthetic environment produces violence, the only antidote to a
lack of response.
Humanism creeps from its
dark hole, willful,
just, conciliatory. The remedy defeats the boundaries which de
fine the illness, but not the conditions.
A decision operates without gloves. Features of distinction
differená
tiate one house from another. This sense of identity, position,
less disá
tinct than letter from letter, accomodates itself to
description. A place
dying to be sold. The earth itself, still newly turned, groomed
like a
budgetary question into order, raked raw, it flung itself wide
open to
the breeZe, for this
was a biG plain sufferinG a well.kept settlement.
Fa HI
ELE SHE SHE ING
If sl1
inte to k4 of h ing Qui4 terri tatio wan strai too J hav4 Ther
His hand was
meat.
auto at g\
THE PREDATORY
INSTINCT TOOK the (
is a
THE LEAD AGAINST
HIS FORMER was
push
FORM. Into a
narrow alley between force
of or
two comets he
slipped " slid, using hew
perai
the vacuum groove to gain Advantnalis age.
The mild harness that hethl'ew inG.
arGu worl,
across the beam was just enough to land him in it. His body was
a turnstile on the way to glory. The following moments THE were framed by the startling eclipse of his half-life, as he VOII gathered the brilliant momentum for a forward thrust. As for THE the scratched woman, was she targeted. Living too close to WIT the mark, a small silver ball bearing centered in the ring. Did TO '] she need to make a more definitive bid for recognition of
a ALO deliBerate self-referentiality as the
cause of her hideous condition. Intention was clearly apparent in an
articulation of those sharply cut incisions in her Face, the graphic evidence
of experience. Nothing like this had ever happened to her
A
BeFore. There was no reason why it should be happening now
either. Everything was slightly out of control.
Or was that only a matter of
conviction. No, clearly
economics did not relate to linguistics through faith. In this situation
both aspects taunted her
P
with equal possibility. The last bridge was down before she found
a highway, the means of ever finding her way back out. On yet another
primordial day her clean nails dug under the woodwork. Splinter mind, the first
brain with sharp accent. She couldn't swim, didn't want to, need to. More and
more grim, she plucked her eyebrows as a form of self knowledge.
FROM ACROSS THE ROOM RECOGNITION OF PROFILE BY POSTURE
ELECTRIC WIRE BETWEEN THE MIRROR AND WHERE SHE STOOD, CROSSED
HER JUST BELOW THE CHIN. SHE KNEW, AND MOVED INSIDE IT, BARELY TOUCHING
THE DARK, HOT ENTRAILS. BLIND.
If she
practised rituals, it was not without a sense of public interest. That may have
been what provided enough material to keep her the subject of the institute.
Correct it. The effect of hierarchy is confinement. Her hands were stuck in the
lining of repressed desire. playing with the analytical fringe. Quick as a
silverfish and dry, he had wanted to begin with a territorial investigation.
She objected. condemning the limitations of a pathway on the course of exposure.
When she wanted to look at him he sped out one swift hit after another,
straight. Reaction to the least inclination. The cold morning too foggy to
allow that kind of intrusion. Vagary wrecked havoc witH normal boundaries and
distinctions. LET IT GO. Then he became the hero, charging into the unknown. It was
automatic to use the mind of man as a character. Built in the fact at gun
point. Such foundations laid at best an orthodox basis, as the alphabet was an
exterior way to get at meaning. Autobiograis a stage for revenge. The question he crowded into everything
was whether to
incorporate. making the issue a test of power. He pushed a tautological program
down their throats. He wanted no extra forces. wrapping his head with Glass.
to interfere with the production of order. If it was possible in anyway to desiGn the
limits of coherence he would want to. His sense of a conspiracy was both
furtive and imperative. not unlike society in General. The distinction
between pater
nalism
and authoritarism made it hard to live without his understandinG of the
limits of control. He spoke with a conviction to which no arGument could be
tendered. But her orGaniZation of the conceptual world depended on a double
vaRiaBle.
THE ASPECTED SELF
DRIFTED FROM PUBLIC TO PRIVATE.
VOICE. AS IN THE DYNAMIC OF LOVERS --OBJECTIFIED IN THEM BY OWN
DESIRE. WE CANNOT HAVE YOU HERE. NOT
WITH THAT ATTITUDE. HE HAD SAID. HE RESTORED ORDER TO THE HOUSE.
A BRIEF PERIOD OF FORMALITY POINTING ALONG THE CLEAR EDGE OF WILL.
ASTATEMENT OF POSITION:Parallax
Memory
lies in this encounter,allowing Firm RecognitioN.
AS
SOON AS I SAW HIM MOVE TO To The Desk I Knew I Knew Him, knew him as surely, as
certainly, as
I Had Always Kllowli
There Would Be No Questioll Of Idelltity Betweell Us. Not his eyes, that 1I0vei
cliche,lIot his hallds, articulate though they were, 1I0t his walk, but his
posture, his gestures, the relatiollship between his shoulders alld his chest,
his Deck alld his head, were what revealed him so ulimistaKably. In a crowd the obvious sinks below the
surface of exposure, or floats, just barely above the mean level of averages.
In this wide flat place, banked with terminals and low partitions, instinct was
nullified by a dull glare. The combined effects of design and technology
cancelled each other in the space. Still, his presence had presence, and I ache
to throw some signal into his field. Was it possible that all this distance had
only anticipated more, that no relation could be formed from the physical fact
of proximity. This was not memory but its opposite, the equivocal uncertainty
of present essaying itself into being, attempting to impress with intention
that polymorphous, exponentially expanding universe of actual activity.
HYPOCHONDRIA:
So much buried stock surfaces unevenly. Nausea permeates the most unwilling
I'egions, causing haze;intl'actable field.
Plowed up alld ulldel', the 10llg furrows ripple ill the WiDd,
sloW, sick billoWs of eartH, movillg fluid ulldel' tHe ilifluEDcE of ¥ sWEll,
iDadEquatE cHiLdHood. History:
the new springs of man detach from something physical into eroticism. Left over
instincts suffer themselves to surface. The insistence belongs to a new race,
and the age is against interpretation, leaning on its outspread wings to
covet experience and ride through the romanticization of realism into spoken
counterparts of language.
Just Like II Was News It Breaks: WAVE
AFTER KNOWING WAVE.
THE WORLD: AMatter of Vocabulary?
HER JOURNAL: What
began as an exploration now threatens to become an institution. More than
threatens. Has become. Take a single term -Who am I? A functional integer
of own inception? Or is my role as inter-E
val, through
which workable gap has been manipulated all I've seen. Just exactly who is she.
That a woman is involved
GI
could be very exciting. The basement in
which she has been living is a veritable index of encyclopedic proportion. But
disordered. The interpretability of signs. Think of it that way. The parts
of the manuscript will definitely require elucidation. ed All in
small pieces, each living and breathing in accord with it's own version of the
whole. No future without dangerous collapse. Woman's identity still not clear.
Quick shift in policy. Woman found in closet. Train whistle dominates the early
light. A small handwound clock and a dripping sink signal intermittently. It was not a
setáup. Anything could have happened in the
savage interval. The morning brutalised the street with renewed activity. Her
shattered image was too melodramatic for
committ
mere focus. She
had found a place. The situation was reassuring. It allowed her to be exploited. Her
resistance had always been
be m tch
vocal. Now she
willingly participated in being taken advantage of. Her robe fell open still
hanging on the hook. This was not the
thro t of
house she had
grown up in. Position was left open. Recognition took
carE of itsElf. ShE did not nEEd to catalog hEr obligations.
and h d n
HEr pErsonal
history had lEft no mark in thE cEmEnt. NEithEr was shE nihilistic. MatErial
dEsErvEs to bE apprEciatEd .-EvEn dEsirEs
phy.ic 1
to bE. FOUR SMALL HOLES IN THE FLOOR HELD THE SEASONAL DISTRIBUTION OF
HER BELONGINGS. WHEN SHE HANDLED
SESSO
THEM
IT WAS AN ATTACK AGAINST REAL TIME, SOMETHING SHE HAD ALWAYS RESISTED. THE
EVIDENCE HAUNTED HER. WARM GLOVES BLOCKED THE SUMMERTIME OF HER VISION. GRASS
STAINS ON HER CLOTHING MOCKED HER EQUIUBRIUM. BROKEN SUNGLASSES RETURNED HER
MUTE INqUIRY WITH A SHATTERED GRIMACE. There was no easy solution breaking with
the waves of warmer weather. After such a destructive cycle did she expect to
get out of this without dragging her father's name into her own eXistence. The
rapidly shrinkinG net which threatened to enclose her also miGht fiX her,
however temporarily, at a moment in chronoloGy. She loathed her inability to
escape the synchronicity which denied her any autonomy. Her journal continues
in an attempt to Get at the institutions orGanised therein.
BACK INTO HIS LIFE, BACK INTO his hands:this roll of flesh, this
wad
of bills; no obsession mOl'e pel'sistent than this need to
genel'ate ideas, sensual images, constant massage. His science was concerned with a system
in which the naming absolutely structures relations. Differences arose, no, were the very basis of organisation. Why worry that after the
first few moments the forms of hydrogen and helium were already fixed.
After all, the fragments are interesting because
they exert their influence as something specific, substantial in their
re-articulation, the reading of essential elements. As if one's
own radicals were forms accesible to chronological playback. Each essential element
Un
was being put back into culture, not through administration.
This
£NeoU
is a democracy, its stability at once absolute and qualified,
per
baCt, 1
manent and elusive. Conceived in the original distinction, they
become. Neither structure nor substance are mutually reducible. False I'esolution of the image
dessicates the lyric, taking the philosophel"s option to attack themes of
infol'mation. Refel'ence is a fOl'm of pal'anoia, succinct, a politics
OF SUSPICION ENGAGED IN THE
reVe
Optimum
Struggle
PUs!:
de~
STRUGGLE TO BECOME: ASubject Of One's Own. Piecemeal
UtteranCe Is Bold
ENOUGH TO PALE THE MOST RIGHTEOUS
ABSTINENCE INTO A RELIGION OF HANDS. Contact, the breath was withdrawn
again. This is not education, just handicap" a crushing memory aiding its
own'digestion.
COMMENTING ON ITSELF:
IN PERIL OF LOSING ALL CONSEQUENCE IN THE REFLECTIVE FIELD OF SELF-REFERENCE.
SHE REMEMBERED ASKING FOR THE BOOK. HE HAD CAREFULLY WATCHED THE TRANSACTION.
NOT ExACTLY AT ODDS, THEIR TESTIMONY NONETHELESS FAILED TO MATCH UP. Besides
singing in public she had committed herself to memory. The diHerence
unmistakable. From the first time he saw her he knew his motives were not to be
matched by prudence. There could be no other way. She had found it as a direct
and tangible act of violence. Into the throat of the machine she hurled herself
with the optimism that the obstacle, oppression was still mechanical. It was not,
and had not been for a very long time. We will not find ourselves any more By
such mismanagement. No simple acts with physical eHects will reveal the
transparency of the vehicle. THE REST OF HER LIFE AND ALL OF HER MATERIAL POSSESSIONS
WERE BOUND UP IN
THIS. This morning she realized how intensely the entire experience had
affected her. She was in no position to experiment. The only possible option
was to get out fast. If she had tried any harder this account would have rung no
less true. LITTLE LAMBS WITH VERY LARGE HEADS HAVE ENTERED THE SACRED PRECINCT.
WHAT ARE THEY AFTER?
BEING SYMBOLIZED
AS INNOCENT THEY CANNOT ACT. EVEN THEIR MOST PROFOUND DESIRE TO REMAIN
UNTOUCHED IS
A PRODUCT OF
EAGER SYNTHETIC HARMONY --SOMEONE ELSE'S ALWAYS. THEY CANNOT CONCEIVE THEIR
CONDITION
WITHOUT BETRAYING
IT. IS ALL SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS THE SAME? OR CAN THE RITUAL BE ABRUPTLY
TRANSCENDED IN
TO SOMETHING
RIGHT, INTEGRATED AND UNASSUMING. WOULD THAT IT COULD. IF MEMORY RENTS ME MY
EXPERIENCE
THEN HOW DO I PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE. MY TIME IS NOT MORE
VALUABLE THAN MY INSTINCTS.
HOME, hopE and heroes: Fighting for
The Things He Most Believed In: Love and profit. Sexually his
life was a flop; No two ways about it. A short. The power had been out for
hours.
THE FLASHLIGHT BATTERIES HAD RUSTED INTO PLACE BEHIND AN EMPTY
COMPARTMENT. PROFIT.
A super-hel'o: what else was thel'e to be, 01' even, he paused, the legendal'Y blue eyes coy in momeDtal'Y
iDdulgence
of his own chal'm, to waDt to be. Given the opportuDity I was
given, I would ¥¥¥ The dl'ive to fame came from the
eVangelical appeal of popularity and his association with it;
his missioD to ride the medium as a wave, the cliche
image instaDed
thl'ough Early, I'aw Exposul'e.
ENCOUNTER NOT CONTROLLED
BY EDITORIAL POLICY. ARRANGEMENTS RND ACTIVITY: From this point onward,
reaching back, let the moments recognise their own recurrence, not just
contained, but outside, resonant with ridiculous assumption of a common
reference continually demanded. We used to have candy before breakfast, sitting
on barrel~, digesting our dreams, and shoving the
sweet sticks around to be sure. Paralysed by morning our minds collapsed from
their free form explorations into the flat grasp of the mundane. The sugar made
a brave attempt to ground that restlessness in one last loose pagan fling.
Across the boundaries of restraint the marble-minded
idiots throw classic tantrums and throw themselves against the subjective
interface of perception.
Shelter--Pl'esence:
All AWkward IntervAl SurfAced
A SUCCINCT DIVISION
WAS MADE BETWEEN TRAFFIC AND FURNITURE: RESISTANT CATEGORIES. The adopted pet adapted, racing in its
track between shelter and presence, flaunting its tradition of invention in the
supplest, most revealing mix of drama and melodrama. Conscious beast, changing
the rutted runway to suit the immediate needs, handsome animal, pushed as close
as possible to the center of his own activity. What was landscape becomes an
economic neighboorhood, full of details without feature, filling out to
accommodate a plan.
MEMORY: A Spiral A Origin In Time, and p
In That Dark Morning When There
THI
Should Have Been Only Cold, There
Borl
Was Heat and Close Confinement.
Inti
THE DETAILS OF A CHARACTER ExPLODE HER
TOLERANCE. The closet stuffed with clothes from which she had ApIselected
this morning a certain look, equally settled as a childhood friend. But
aside from logic there has to be a certain leap. Hit A base,
pragmatic as it gets, rooted in the soil, the garden, longCHIU term,
steady, domestic and fully functional. The entropic force of PLAY her personality not quite subsided even in the face of massively
SENS established stability. Grow.
priv d projec out wI
CHRONOLOGY: If he
bored through that
peelee nothir but of wannt
ConceptioN of the
sequence of EveNts
the ea such a
And Peeled Off
The Sections In Turn, Colored chips Appearing Distinct
a new
By Their Fragmentary Nature, In That Continuum Their Relation
Would ercise
to ong
Be More clearly Evolutionary.
ancier STRUCTURE IMPOSES ITSELF OVER, NOT
WITHOUT ACHIEviNG A CERTAIN EFFECT OF ORDER, A MORAL with fI'1 MEDIATION BETWEEN MENTAL AND MATERIAL.
The pal'ticulal'is evidence of a stl'uggle against type, the failcause ul'e of
the pUl'ge to eliminate unevenness. of evel Cliche
images, as words from somewhere. Through a tower of mist, blowing heavily this
morning. This. Tie it to the present moment,
that so in
writing, as in reading, leap out of the train of narrative to shake one hand.
In the rigid distance the unhampered foe. We eat it.
noma'
Light by the
door. Light in the street. Attempted to make a place infthe night. The darkness a deep shelf of time without discernible
quenci
limit. A cat
reached forward with a slow, deliberate hand. The moment for making a decision
was not marked. It had been a longer
tion or
time since the
beginning of the event than any of the
participants cared to remember. And the final version would not be written
rapid,
for a long time,
not by any of them, if the choice were theirs.
their n morasc
NEVER HAVING MADE
A SEPARATION, THERE HAD TO BE A CRISIS.
lMAGI
A MomeDt Thl'ough
Which To Play Out The TendeDcies, cODteDts. FaD. A hit of cold, aftel' I'ain,
early dal'k. Little
WEAL
ODe involved without seeing the limits. No limits in the
iDtegl'ation. Cil'culatioD low. Weakness, pel'eDial fl'usll'ation.
LOGIC WIZARD. Trash. A long gone mystique not full of fragrances but
images. Changed. Change as all points in a field, relative to each lNDEF other and
a path of movement, memory part storage, part program. How we used to like to
be: in house, airplanes, places of Sh' 1iv activity accumulating wear, crude and
physical. Indulging perception of it without realizing the richness inscribed.
Security risk. .h' tna
record,BORN IN A DARK CLOUD OF DUST LIKE THE
REST OF US. It was
not a new marriage that brought down the house, not that and not
OUru,&J
the promise of
spring, in spite of the dew on the leaves, rain on the precepts of the small
community. Sterile, complete, unyielding and hot;
ally, in
this is the
limit, the bound area, the smarting edGe of knowledGe willinG to suffer
restraint. Porous outGrowth never tried so hard to submit
hou¥¥.
itself to the
struGGle as this mass yearninG toward homoGeneity struGGles toward disinterest.
Finally how much can be eliminated? A mete-
left to 1
orite dispelled iridium
dust, did them in. . ~a. Pre tnt'n.
AVERSION
OF BER IN TRANSLATION:
Personal history:
THE GIFT: ABILITY TO VISUALIZE Born East, Suburban, Very Clean,
Intimate, and Familial. The Images Appear Like A Stigmata When She Hits the
Dark. Reknown: the closet
CHILD SYNDROME. LOCKED AWAY ExCEPT FOR DISPLAY. TOTALLY
STUNNED ON RELEASE. A FLOOD OF SENSORY PLENITUDE. Fame and Fortune. Child sold.
Grows up very beautiful. Pale as a crab. very
light. pure, deprived. Married to a man who takes her out occasionally.
Her project. a personal history. to empty her mind as it fills. figure out
where she knew it from. Swamp. those early days. peeled off her mind. Memories
falling on ephemeral breeze. nothing like scales from the eyes. A crossing. not of paths, but of strains, more productivity in the damp heat. Great warmth lay in
the mud along the banks. deep rivulets incised the earth with running sweat
recycled out of air. The
beasts, such as they were,
clung to each other in rapid
change, spawning a new season every generation. The very act was a constant exercise of optimism, unquestioned
purpose, the original function to to originate a nd replicate, with minor changes. No speech in that ancient quiet, only noise, the creaking trees
spattering the ground with fruit, all impermanent and continuous. One take only because of recall the values inherit themselves into a transformation of event --which could
be called a distinct
point. It was inevitable that some where some time there would be some form of contact, no matter how much it was hoped to be avoided. The consequences of that collision here
described, the
impact, disintegration on contact, even before contact, the sense of disbursement, rapid, uncontrollable, random
movement of particles out from
their norma l
relationships with each other. Initial confusion, the
morass. WE ALL KNOW WHO
SHE IS. AND WE ALL LIKE TO IMAGINE WHAT KIND OF LIFE SHE LIVES. THE DETAILS ARE
WEALTH, PERMISSION, BEAUTY, CONNECTIOMS. A METEROLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF
ART, EVEN WITH THE COLOR INDEPENDENT OF IT. A MANNERISM, SIGNIFYING OPENNESS. She lived a double life. Ezploited by
her parents as a public figure, she made frequent appearances where she was
filmed, interviewed, recorded and eXposed as full of precocious wisdom, a
little white guru, as it were. For the rest of the time she was closeted away,literally,
in the confines of a dark, silent recess in the interior of the house.
Completely isolated, unattended, untouched, unseen. She was left to her own
development. The sophistication of her infant intellect was profound without
any stimulus but the residue of those periods of intense eXposure.
Aso-called archive
COMPUTER GENERATED WANT LIST, BRACE AGAINST EFFECT.
COMMUNICATION JUST BECAME INSTANTANEOUS
From the conception
of a desire to its expression was a mere split
second followed by the execution of a machine command. Re_
turned from that transaction, a resolution. Continuation fetish. Ten
years' material. Not
continually in use. Historical problems become managerial. Possible to say.
IT IS A PARADOx OF THE MOMENT NOT TO
ACK. NOWLEDGE PRINCIPLES FORMULATING ExiSTENCE
Almost any form of
representation available for individual expression. This at once condemns
its analysis and makes it possible. fl man concerned only with himself and the
NEWSPAPER. fl CHILD WHO
GETS MESSAGES. ELEMENTARY SOUNDS ARE DISTRIBUTED INTO LANGURGES. THEIR
DISTINCTION ALLOWS THE ANIMALS TO DO MORE THRN MAKE NOISE.
She became organiZed according to a
system of her own devising.
When her vogue as a media image had passed, her parents eliminated
the exposure cycle from her life. She remained closeted away
until
her marriaGe. She became linked by the arranGement to a wealthy &
powerful man who maintained her as an eleGant artifact. He had
heR
dressed and photoGraphed. On certain occasions he escorted her
into
public. Her direct appearances were very limited. EXposure was
to a
few intimate acquaintances. AccordinG to its nature it can
alter.
She attended school under an assumed name. The publicity of
those
early yeaRs had
seemed inevitABle. IN RETROSPECT IT GAVE
STATUS TO THE POWER OF THE FAMILY. SO EASY TO FALL
INTO IT, THE LARGE, CLEAR MIRROR AT THE END OF THE
HALLWAY,
RESOLVING AS IT DOES TO A MUCH FINER LEVEL
THAN THE SURROUNDING WHICH INPUTS. THE MAIN WORK
WHICH OCCUPIED
HER DURING THIS ISOLATION WAS A
CODED TRACT WHICH SHE RECORDED IN THE DARK BY 1Má
PRESSING HER FINGERNAILS ON SHEETS OF PAPER TO RAISE
THE SURFACE
THROUGH A SERIES OF PERFORATIONS IN A
REPEATED AND
ORDERLY BUT UNIQUE SYSTEM. WHAT
COULD THEY SHOW,
BEREFT AS SHE WAS OF EXPERIENCE,
BUT THE RAW
WORKINGS OF HER MIND. THOROUGHLY ABá
STRACT. INFANTILE
FREE STATE. NOW I BECOME MY
OWN DECIPHERMENT. RITUAL NOTES TO HERSELF: MNEMONICS. THE
PRIMITIVE STATEMENTS. SHE MUTTERED, INCANTING FORMULRIC STATEMENTS:
INTEGRATION, DISINTEGRATION, IDENTIFICATION, RECOGNJTION, BASIC STATEMENT.
The texts were all researches with a developed commenary. The public
speech had all been taken from the newspapers and magazines she had found on
the floor that very afternoon. A form of cultural digestion. Decipher: the thing about the early work is that it assumed
everything was known. Everything she wrote was a phrase lifted out of a
vast context. Without recovering that context the language seems abstruse.
Most of all she wanted to reinstate enough of those fragments to assume
her own sensibility. Thrown into a closet quick so he could go out and eat.
Simple. Happened so fast she didn't balk. Surprise blanked her out. The
unblinking sensitivity played relentless witness to the defects of his moves.
Didn't want to be left alone, afraid of what she might do in the distance.
Unable to Be touched. Remote. Behind the eyes. Deep. Reaching one of those
terminal points of patience. WHOLE FLUID SYSTEM SUDDENLY AWASH. MID-AFTERNOON
THREATENS TO TURN VEGETABLE ALL THAT NEEDS TO BE ANIMAL. EYES UNFOCUSED. ONE
STARING OUT AND ONE STARING IN. ANY MOMENTARY ILLUSION OF ESCAPE MAKES
RESTRAINT INTO INTOLERABLE PARAá METERS SET FROM INSIDE THE EGGSPERIENCE. THE
RUMINATIONS LAYER AROUND
THE SMALL BITS LIKE PEARL,PARADIGMDEVE.LOPmEN:,REAL.GRAIN..
All the focused
Intensity dissolVing
BY ATTRACTION IT BECOMES-MONTAGE,
BECOMES SuBJUcNTlvE
ACTIVE EFFECT ON THE LEVEL OF ORGANIZATION WHICH REFUTES The
LIMIT Of FORMAL CONSTRAINT Limit the parameters. Test case. Fragments mark the
degree of change. If
relldering noted only duratioD it
would be
insufficient. Change more thaD scale. Open the door, make use of the distinctions only when they have
some signifigance. Grace. Retain from each what was wanted on the line. .R pool from which each participant selects a travel
arrangement and a meal from a tray. Her pronunciation was an embarrassment. The
young man who claims the language is handsome. Shyness puts her under the
table, needing to be recuperated into a linguistics of communication.
PERTINENT WORDS from the TEXT Massive
Notes. Derivation. Supplied.
SIZES, WEIGHTS' DIMENSIONS, ALL DEfiNE MEASURE Keeping track.
Systems out of order: the names in the
file, he looked in for a moment, what might it meaD. Smaller
than the palm of his haDd, the field of reference. Sunk in the flat pages between and cast
about restlessly through
the atmosphere of
ongoing activity. Small clouds above the radio. How to abstract that system
into a reliable, coherent matrix. Possible. Only through the pages that
swam before his eyes. Fingering a continued passage through, turning the
corners of the paper to leather, keeping his attention. He wasn't in a welcome
mood. The theme ran through, repeated, over and over. Layers. Interwoven
network manages to make connections. Incidents in relation to the texture
which, back to the initial issue, is reference.
Subversive usage.
Subversive impertinencE. ThE old notion. REad. ing. Priority of changE. By
appEaring to bE pErtinEnt. PrEsEnts itsElf as. A WAY FROM DEFINITION AND INtO
ItSELF.
An importance, not a key. Reciprocal function of calm.
Random walking. Intervals between errors? Tiny shifts of frame.
Independent?
D--t t-I
151n egra Ion
rom
on the SURFACE 01 Formality
InventS BER PERCEPTION AdheSIVe READING
So
DIS(
of a
THEe WINDf HISTO cliche of bead succe.s acterizc
workin intern. the old HOWl
TI
STA
Wa!
vehl
A LIFJ The lor Was it )
been m terial e crimes direct r
The
IFTH: AU the Her cl.
andsi them.
But trut from th A very
througt cipated
'I knew Word bJ assistar,
into a St flUid vo shattere initial ft
Sometimes the ESTABLISHMENT Of A
DISCIPLINE,
he twisted the rope in his hands, is only the development of a consistent
vocabulary.
THE CATALOGUE HAS TO TRANSCEND IT'S CATEGORIES. A DISPLAY OF
TECHNIQUE MUST BRAVE THE WET
WINDS OF GENRE WITHOUT DYING FROM THE CHILL. MANY MORE
ATTRIBUTES CAN BE HARBORED IN A
HISTORICAL DEVICE THAN SEEMS POSSIBLE, LET ALONE APPARENT. LET
ALONE --the moon. Man's reach. The
cliche graffiti. A wall wiped clean. Nothing but intention. The
dual operation of will and determination, within limits, string
of beads. Diversity lunges, in images, out of the carnival. The
word conjures triteness, a whole sideshow of effects. Freak
success almost succeeds in static fascination, no, as static
images. Movement more pathetic. Not that matter should be char
acterized. Whose blemished orange weeps for its spoiled surface.
Without groping, a most profound sufferance. Without
working through a predictable extension, legitimize the execise
of pure investigation. Mind massage, he said, rubbing the
internal points of comparison. EFFect goes way beyond diverison.
Coming across an improvisational history. Documents
the old solar system to draw some Basic conclusions aBout the
nuClear Family, traCing ORIGINS IN EPIC STORYTELLING.
HOW DOES IT
MANAGE TO LOCATE IDEAS IN LANGUAGE WITH SOLIDITY, REGULARITY.
The Other Crime: PUbLIC to PRivATE
STATED PLAINLY, THE STRUGGLE Was against
the transparency of the
Blistering base of
vehicle. Worth making.
COMMUNICATION, Searing Effect
A LIFE FULL OF TREATS AND SUDDEN DEPRIVATION. The long line of motorcycle policemen
moved down the beach. of observation. Her own
history had Was it necessary for there to be so many of them. The couple had been
missing for days. And with them had disappeared the mabeen one of continual translation, terial evidence of one of the most
violent and daring political
hersElf thE mEdium transformEd.
crimes of the century. They were already
too young to have any direct memory of that conflict, let alone have
participated in it. EYES AND EARS OF THE WORLD. IN ORDER TO KNOW, BE KNOWN.
Nostalgia over the new paint smell. In her cell.
The work
requires careful reading.
Why here. Everything brought into
question by the newness of IF
THE LIFE IS TO BE EXTRACTED FROM THE WORK.
the odor. TONIGHT THE LIGHT SHINES OFF THE POL
AU theil'
belongings had been confiscated on suspicion. ISHED SURFACE OF THE WOOD. WARM AND WIDE OPEN.
Hel' clothing impl'essed the
depal'tment with its elegance Lie against it to absorb through the soft clothes, full
of sensatE
and simplicityI the skillful tailol'ing was Dot wasted
on dEtails. What do thEy
want. THE ALLURE. THEY TOOK
ME
them. They thought he was still in Italy. OUT TODAY. TOO MUCH CONTACT, ABUSE OF
THE SOCIAL
But true criminals, they hovered like amateurs around the corner
MODE LEAVES ME STUPIDLY
WITHOUT MEMORY. BATTERED
from the crime, unable to go back to what they'd never left. FROM IT LIKE A BEATING. SICK FROM THE
SMELL OF PUBLIC
A very small, succinct man, he straightened his tie and went out
PLACES, SWEAT AND REUSED
AIR, ACCUMULATED USE.
through the double-glazed doors. His research assistant had antiGONE SLACK AND LOOSE FROM REPEATED
ASSAULT. WANT
cipated this departure. The first remark from his pale lips was,
ED TO BE LET BACK INTO THE
PROTECTIVE CUSTODY OF THE
'I knew this
had to happen: The emphasis he
placed on the fourth DEEP INTERIOR. Dense and personal,
unafraid. The room kept white word bulked it out beyond the sequence
of the statement. The like
a nuptial chamber. Bride to his fantasies. Wanting to have her
back to them throughout the conversation, fully available.
Didn't
assistant took that
influential form and rung the elements of desire
want the visual to impose on her space. TryinG to keep the
blinds
into a separate
compartment. A red streak flowed through the
shut. Barely works. Light cominG strong throuGh the cracKs.
Don't
fluid voice and hung suspended. The door
closing behind him
criticise the displacement. KeepinG her
eyes off her own activity. Digshattered the vague membrane of fear which had restrained his nity of submission --tender and eleGant.
initial reaction, I admit my pad in the invasioD.
SELF AND IMAGE: What A Privilege
TO BE INVOLVED WITH A STORM Bl'ought out
in a cage, fed postage stamps thl'ough the bal's. Men in the
front row trying to
dismiss the whole thing. Didn't know which way to put
them. Rll those young faces in the crowd. Glowing with enthusiasm. Interest.
Eyes in the top of the sockets. Brow lowered. No
heiress was ever better handled. Her debutante week was a month's activity. Her
father bought up all the town. Sexually desirable on his own terms. She'd been so long in the closet. EXTREME CONDITION. Don't make it poverty. Of course they
want
to believe in
humanism, a form of fossil fuel, borrowed time. The ancient waters left a
trail. A brief £lowering, under certain conditions of organisation, will
acknowledge itself, that is the sum total of intelligence. Not to parody,
but to borrow the effective techniques from adversity. NeedinG a form of
speech. AN AWFUL KIND OF LIFE, IN ONE CLOSET AFTER ANOTHER. NO RECOLLECTION OF
THE FACE. Marked By a tendency to sloth, fittinG into forms, soft waxlike and
susceptiBle to the mold. SuBstance a sense of purpose. TOPIC. Doctrine of
affections. Odor on the wind is light and hiGh, sweet and dry. She stood
BreathinG in the openinG. Any medium has the power
of BeinG a
voluptuously transparent vehicle. Smooth functioninG the first key to a Good
ride, here the fatal £law works to perFection --its downFall assuRes its
success. The naRcotic BelieF in heRoes indestRuctiBle. THE ELEMENTAL CAN
BE ESSENTIAL, OR MERELY
REDUCED TO THE
POTENTIAL TO BE --WHAT PRIVILEGED POSITION, PERSPECTIVE, ALLOWS THAT TO BE
QUESTIONED.
ON WALLS, FRAMED
SURFACES, GLASS, IT ALL CON
TRIBUTES TO THE METAPHOR WHICH IS PRECISELY ThAT WHICh Is Not Authorized by usage.
How self-referential was the murder. Could a crime even have
been committed. What possibly could have been the motive for Aaron's denial of
his brother's authority. What part did the woman play in the struggle for identity which haunted the scene of this family. Where was the
helpless father to be figured in.
These wel'e the questions boiling in his mind as he seal'ched The disorder of his I'oom fol' -
his aotes. Somewhere,
somehow, somethiag had happened. Of that he was certain. He was equally sure that the elusive
notebook held at least some trace of the original scene if he could only locate
it. How unaware he had been at the time, jotting those
quick remarks with glib ' satisfaction onto the surface of that
lucky paper, of how signifi
ft
cant they would become when time and
space had separated him from them enough to allow him to see how distinct they
had been from their point of origin. How indeed
... What was inscribed was a mere projection onto that surface of a
complicated
f
configuration with even more than three dimensions. He had tra
velled far enough in
this time to know that what he sought was
I~
not a static,
tangible obJEct Easy to approacH, buT a difficulT and ElusivE
figurE. 511
FANTASMe: Face and foundation ins\.: inthe extel'ior of wl'iting, tl'aclng ITs den
insi grol
PICTORIAL ORIGIN dial
disI in t: eHe
EXTENSIVE DAMAGE PRESUPPOSES ORDER, A
SYSTEM TO FUNCTION ing
THROUGH, FILE
A REPORT FOR THE SAKE OF MAKING A CLAIM. THE BOTTOM HAD BURNED CLEAR THROUGH. ties CAUSING
GREAT CONCERN: THINGS HAPPEN. SHE SLID OVER IN THE BOOTH, STILL CARRYING THE SCENT OF roo SMOKE IN HER CLOTHES. So close she hid her head in his bent arm.
Insurance forms a ring on the table. Come on. Comfror ing.
Birthed. Bursted. First and Furthered. Some more of the information. Turn them
loose. ANTS IN A STEADY STREAM
can EMPHASIzE THE NON-ESSENTIAL NATURE OF
LINEARITY. Tracks in the field devour an artificially defined and demal fining viewpoint. They epitomize the editorial tendency to make a
single coherent logical perception. FACTS. In a barbaric ed age all
ages are barbaric, restrained by the limits of their own definition --vision
the current set of items. The upper room son became the site of a daily devotional so
that this seems like the regular place. Children of no revolution. Sit when there was san no work. They were very ritualistic. They were very ritualistic.
ScopE of gEnErosity rElatEd to sizE of thE gEstuRE. SpEcifror fics of position, a slight toxin,
grappling, to BE EatEn By animals, distant cousIns, thEy prEy on thE Floor of thE markEt Ac and ExchangE. The
most effective aaaDce is more subtle for beiag aeady iDarticulate.
AaticipatioD, like any appeAll
plic
tite, becomes a
sYDtax without ..elief from itself.
lonl ton
How 10 I'esist authol'ital'ianism in language while its level of abstl'action
hrel feci to 1.
Qualifies aFramework of Responsibility am
lenl
Pof
¥
n
¥
e 'are
> iá
ad
ad
raá
nd
5
H,
)F
I'
,
MEDIA
EXIST IN -FORmS Of Address:
IN THE SPACE Of Over.Subjectivity She
Turned Her Back To The wall,
insulted. The
existence excited that space, characterized as inciá dental outsidedness,
linguistic and technical, found beyond the dials .. minature
circuitry, faith without wiring. Performs. Vicarious insidedness provided
caustic complement, served by the wellgroomed matron. Public as a term vs.
mass, the implications in display rather than distribution. Red hat an actively
defined verb in the major marketplace .-no quantity of trash in man's true life
effects a really independent force. For what is authenticity, pressing hard enough to work the carbon, but facing up to the realities.
Small voice. We still have the feeding hierarchy stuck to the roof of the
social condition. Small consolation. Only dissociated from their normal grammar
do things -nails dug into dust -become interesting. MEDIA: Broadcast, took up the radio and
made use; efficiency two way and barely sufficient. It was assumed
that these two men carrying the same paper might be in some relation, even the
same relation as these women in the same pair of shoes. "It was revealed where the messages
are coming
from. Going backwards
in time, to show her to herself, they all know. A certain quote slickness kept
them all moving and on the surface. All desire is fulfilled --that soft music
is like long hair, equally inapplicable to popular mytholoGies. In a cycle
of super stories, it was a lonG time before she would move aGain. At first it
was without editorial restraints. LosinG, she still held to platitudes,
Why am I alive? a milestone on the clothesline effect of statements. First
there was a breakdown of the linGuistic structure. The criticism which can Be
directed at this procedure is that we are still referrinG the damaGe Back
to lanGuaGe. HyBRid child, denyinG her ancestRy foRGet. heR violently how
to speaK.
Bow Did We Learn
WHO WE ARE, WHO WE WERE. His voice
trailed off into the mystery
suggested in the word and in the direct
movement of his eyes upward, outward through the heavens. The dias on which he
was seated, simply, quietly, had the same movement. He looked so gentle, so
mild, so at peace with his relation to the whole of things --it was seductive
by the clear integration it manifested. BEEN IN THIS CHAIR EVERY DAY, SOMEá PART OF ME, FOR THE WHOLE TIME. What does that mean in relation
to what's come before my eyes. Probably more constraints than variables, but
with a heightened sense of how to distinguish between the two. What is fully
established is important in its oWn right. Let me structure the landscape.
KNEW INSTINCTIVELY HOW TO FOLLOW THOSE WAVES, PICK UP A SPECIFIC AND HOOK IN. A
specific: in this mental algeBra that jargoned term Was an all important point
of access. Go WitH iT. NoT sleep. NoT remoTely. Covers disTance along THe
linE of a parTicular.
TRAVEL
RECORDS: A bright blue ticket stuck to the map.
ALL THAT RESISTANCE
MELTS AWAY WITH THE DATE OF DEPARTURE. In its own eDvelope -streDgth. Skipped
off on the chance. Big orders to set out to worK.
Travel
a bore machine but knocking around. She offers the inside seat with no
explanation. Public. Pinpointed. Right along the edge. Just archiving.
NO
SIGNALS. Just the next thing in sequence, all the time.
HOLD ON. TRAVEL.
SPACE. No aggression in the open streets; aveDue of comfort. IDsight: not to
fit or .ettle, not possible. How come, waDt to be let out, too cold already,
grey aDd damp like patty. SomethiDg uDhealthy, used To separaTe, each from each
other, isolaTed, feeT, bacKs of haDds, EveryThing, blue; iT's a mOOd.
The
left hand acts as an indicator. Fixation level. Circulation. Sweat it out.
Dream of it too, ground contact. Transitional moment. In and out.
VISITOR'S
GUIDE: From which the place freely takes its name, sTate.
Infantile
Mementos
)
INTO EXTREMES:
THEIR
PREPARATIONS WERE OF WARMTH AND OF DIGNITY.
What we remember of the voyage: no lifeline. To discover the
forces of gravity I fell. In falling discovered manifestations of a
distant energy source, coming into focus. Double space time. Pushing forward. A
program for history. It was pretty interesting, this last storm. Going inside
for awhile. Was it worldwide. No, it wasn't even local. Quite simply, that dawn
was a form of optimism though he couldn't conceive of going. He vibed in,
synched his wavelengths, and and rode the cheap metallic glare out through the
plasmos.
Ber Father1s Image
Waiting
for a Turn to the Last Car of Mind. Long Distance Trade Ties Are Still Out
There Looking.
In your hands a man
with a dog is vanishing from the landscape. Daddy was a big man from a small
town. Just a speck of dust that got stuck on the roadway. Like burrs in the fence the other bits accumulated around it and that made the town. Once stuff
starts sticking to a spot there's no end to it. But what there was no end to
was Daddy, and the wide open plains. Daddy was long & lank & lean.
His limbs had all the grace of a purebred stallion and his gait was governed by
a stride that seemed without measure to me before I reached his knee and
didn't diminish as I got older. I could never see the end to him. Her experience of him was way outside of
language. She had found out without being
told. When he left
something for her he did it in her absence. When she returned, the envelope was
on the table. She was a piece of his business. He had transacted the eXchange
for the volume while she was away. Her name was in red, she saw it from the
very moment ahe came in. That is for me, she thouGht. Good writinG has an
effect. She did not even Bother to open it Because she already knew what the
envelope would contain. She folded it quickly in half and shoved it in with the
others to attend to later. She had hardly paid it any atá tention; she had not
accorded it much importance. Why not? NO OSTENSIBLE CRIME WAS COMMITTED, BUT
SOMETHING DEFá INITELY HAD HAPPENED. SOMETHING MOVING, POWERFUL EVEN TRAGIC.
THE CITY ALWAYS IN LATE AFTERNOON UGHT, OFF THE DECAYED FRONTS, EVERYTHING
CRAMMED FULL OF INVOLUNTARY RECOLLECTION. SHE JUST WENT UPSTAIRS, THAT'S ALL,
UNABLE TO BEUEVE IN THE WHITE COLUMNS. HER DEFERENCE TO HER FATHER WAS NOT ANIá
MOSITY BUT AN UNDERSTANDING OF HIS POSITION AND HER OVERáDETERMINED RELATION BECAUSE
OF IT TO HIM. HER TRUST PUT THE INTROSPECT IMAGE INTO EXPRESSION.
NEW GEOGRAPhY Dangers of Survival
|
REMARKABLE REtUrN: Went Out DI
There with a most specific objective. In
NOW THE SOLE
SURVivOR WASHED BACK OUT OF
01
THAT EXPERIENCE HAS ONLY A PET MONKEY, AN ALL TOO OBviOUS ELEMENT OF FARCE TO vERIFY OVl HIS ACCOUNT. The tenitol'Y of his
nanative is detailecl TO with the obsel'vatol'Y power of an endul'ing expectation. 'orl This has only partly disintegrated under the influence of an ex
Toy
perience that has
altered his physical form beyond recognition.
of h
The clothing laid
out in static preparation for his return stresses
quia
by its
inappropriateness the dynamic effect of --what.
val. liUlI
DETAILS reported.
WENT OUT fully equippad to proceed, pl'agmaticaUy AI assess the resoul'ces of the al'ea, to quantify its economic, political and ecological potential.
But how could of they haVe
anticipated the radical disPal'ity
between ¥
In
methods of pl'ocedul'e and Possibilities of acTual PheDGmena. For instance, the survivor's notes of the first observations IT ' include
certain taxonomic irregularities that indicate a breakHil down in
the functional hierarchy of terms on which they had ere been signalled out for investigation. eal
They had expected change, they His
did
were prepared for mutation, varieertil ty
and thE BizarrE --of b
mer
BuT whaT came as
a surPrize was a subjetiVE muTabil
eal
ity of forms of enel'gy. It made for
a thrilling exposition of of variety for its own sake. But that
was a questionable value. Variety was a term dependent on specialists, ecology
minded dietitians, starved for context. There was anchovy paste in the salad where his return was being celebrated. Putting aside a stock of staples seemed more like a lesson from
the past Than a program or proTecTion for The presenT.
SIGNIFICANT EVIDENCE: RemnanTs of a narraTive are liKe
fragmEnTs of a shipwrEcK, only
morE valuablE for bEing
rEcovErEd. THEY MIGHT TELL HOW
LONG HE'S BEEN AWAY.
Scraps act on his
old nostalgia as
Random Wanders
SURVlvOR1S
TALE In An Arrangement
OF TEMPORARY STABILITY, HELD
MaPping the Reach by
those pacts that become bargains
DIZZYING WHIRL of OBLIGATIONs which
determine structure. So is en
¥
In the Gratuitous Whirl of Social Obligations, A Dizzying
Excitement
OUR SURVivOR FEELS INSTINCTS LOSING
GROUND TO MANNERS. It was the mODkey's delight which in
t- fOl'med him of his ow. I'eactions.
I.
Toy joy was the monkey's name. He
reached over the plush back
IS of his chair with a grimace of his chair
with a grimace of undisguished glee. He had come to rely on his quick
reach for survival. What he recognized in it now was his present luxury.
The little animal reJoiced.
An overwhelming, sweeping sense
of equilibrium rushed through him
in that brief instant.
IT WAS AS IF THE ALREADY ACTivE GYROSCOPE OF
His MiDd had beeD giveD aD iDcl'edible chal'ge. The iD
cl'eased I'ate at which it was pl'ocessing pheDomeDologi
cal data accelel'ated the monkey's meDtal momentum.
His surprise at the scenes into which his return had thrust him
did not prevent brutal imagery of his experience from vividly ex
erting their influence. Deep in it. Dreamland. A wider stretch
of
of beach than ever was exposed before. Combination of ele
ments: tide, moon. Acquiring form rough and nice. Sounding the
Iá eal deep water as a first move toward
the mapping.
,d
ly
durance
a form of faith in relations_ Sometimes all just shimmering, vibrations
the dominant factor. How we trust those agreements. Of course there was nothing
finite, only needed that sense of closure for the sake of reassurance. Not with
a presupposition of the route. But there were items on the screen which could
come into and out of focus. Window pane space. Ship. Obsessed by a distraction
with detail. Making the document notes for my fellow travellers, what will it
turn into in my hand this record, obsession, Just to get it going. On the way
to not paying attention, massaging the intimate soles of my Feet. We have been
here beFore. How many more times do We make ourselves Festive this Way in the
Woods. In ThE clEan clEar morning of iniTiaL EnErgy, pass OuT through ThE
GALAxY AND INTO PHASE. PASSING. ONE OF THOSE PERIODS LAST NIGHT WHEN THERE WERE
VERY ACTIVE PRESENCES. JUST AS SURE AS x-RAYS MOVE THROUGH SOLIDS THOSE
ENERGIES INTERPENETRATE OUR LITTLE ARRANGEMENTS. IT WAS LIKE WIND ONLY
WITH MORE PURPOSE, DEMANDING ATTENTION, ALMOST COMMUNICATIvE, SEARCHING.
ACCEPTANCE MADE A CALM PLACE TO RECEIVE THE SENSATION. LIGHTS STILL HAPPEN, IN
A ROOM, A CLOUD, HALF-FORMED.
POWEr OF RECALL
SHE KNEW ABSOLUTELY SHE WOULD NOT Be
REMEMBered. NOT
write into a
tautology but the woman who ran the girl's school was peripheral, but still
within the limits of the old city, one of the real bastions of recorded memory.
Respectable in the fullest sense of any connotation in that word, so that
nothing could be more interesting than to pursue the trace left by that
respectability through its formal procedure to a social interlude. She depended
upon her reception to activate the shreds of memory. The event was too long ago
now and had been far too significant only too her. She remembered the very day
and the course of the conversation because of her expectations, an
indelible imprint of a possibility of escape which stamped hEr ovEr-rEcEptivE
statE with a TEprEsEntation which could not bE shakEn through all thE
intErvEning yEars. ShE had comE To validatE that long hEld surrogatE.
SPACE: In The DIFfERENCE Between
HIGHLY REFINED EARTH AND THE DISTILLED
STERILITY WHICH passes as
design. Pl'ogl'ess speculates, along its own continuum. ell¥r
READ IN THAT LANDSCAPE: Desire. Intuition. Or just structure,
form after form. Because he was like --a dilemma of too day
n.r. (
many options, the choice to eliminate
threw him into that cold dark space where nothing's happening --then into the
burning white heat that's all charge. In the dynamic of the two of them
it's happening where it starts. branO .V'.ni
SOLDIER OF
FORTUNE SEEKING TRACES OF A LONG LOST ART. Who can return the pasture to that
£lock. Wherever
hadn
the cattle roamed
they were free, which later could be recollected as the posture of a great
romance. Territory, the very word
to it
resonated with
gigantic possibility. The proportions of the landscape forced an increase in
the Bcale of expectations. Every
cupt
thing coming into the valley could be controlled from a single
straTegic posiTion on THe pass. NowHErE on THE plain liltie
could sucH a movE bE Co-ordinaTEd To
grEaT EffECT. ForCEs of CorrupTiOn, nOT mOrE banal THan THEir ObJECTs, thing
Had alrEady
undErminEd THE sTabiliTy OF THE OrganizaTiOn. nOT a prinCiplE OF ETHiCs, buT OF
pHysiCs, COnTri
.du
BuTEd iTs sHarE OF dEprECiATiON. fte
RESULTS OF THE
EXPEDITION.á no real sane plants but some tran.parent rocks and in them
embedded more unusual specimens. As for the big collectors, they came back with
a sack full of mechanical flies. A high gloss, perfect record wa. recovered
following the survey. This the
i. the worst
thing which has turned up, one conferee exclaimed as he moved into new
territory. No attempt was BeinG made any place WEF throuGhout the conference to position
the spectator. BRIG
ALOl GLlM
FALL of ADANGeROUS OppONeNT, Life
TRA] |
--I-Ibalance. But in the sythesis of genl'es
he
hangs In crl
Ica
is a fairly
decent guy, honest, idealistic.
BE WAS TBE
FOUNDER OF A DYNASTY OF SMALL SCALE GIANTS. Waiting on the runway, a team
player, with
his foot in the door. Games go on, year
after year, located in the arm rest of your chair. But what, what, did that have to do with the fractured body of the revered and
patriarchal older brother. What vile misconception could have overridden the
taboo by which the family remains inviolate.
NARRATIVE: The liDe hooKed first iato
the principle character, maKing the signs of his-her clistillction. A situation
provided details. Be had beea thel'eloag before he shifted his brother's assets
to his OWD advaatage. This motivatioa supplied
an unl'esolved issue, thE 'prEsEnT' condition, beginning of a TexT.
Taking stock
of the altered conditions, table marked by the empty place dealt from the deck
of contingincies. A reward must be gained to resolve the central issue so
apparent to them all by his absence, the low life of situation, the high plight of character.
A crisis had engaged them in narrative with brutal force. He searched their
faces. Their new condition was antithetical to the original.
Ground: Her
house
The piece of real estate foreqrounded itself into a wide range
of possibilities --cabinets needed to be held shut against the intrusive
curiosity of the cat. Complaining of the work the and static tendencies of
dust, her housekeeping randomly identified spot Ft, after
spot. Excluding nature, that mixed blessing, as a means of
\VQ
fully defining the outside. Not quite domestic in the first
establishment, but primary, as an obstacle put on guard, essential distinclile sh tion, 'hearth' making its way as virtual exercise above
ground. washil Painted texture, sealed surface: smoke
in a passive suburban deting i velopment
throws up easy access to sloth; the structure does not hand
. '
provide the activities.
Into hi
first 80
RITUAL: We were
suffocated
after we left. The light air left traces in our lungs. Yester
day we began to make
amends. The blisters came after dinner. Our fortune seems to have been
mismanaged. One small branch of the master plan remained visible to us in the
late evening. All of us watched the path become immersed. We hadn't shut the
door. We had only small packages with which to withstand the monumental
proportions of invasion. Or occupation --whichever we felt it was. Nothing
was less nihilistic than our feathered toes. Each one of us managed something
from the mass of unmarked territory. far outside the sedentary marketplace.
Ready for the rush we listen to the freeway and assume an attitude of leisure.
We made holes in the barrel knowing thE watEr would Want to comE througH. WE
RESPECT DRAINAGE JUST AS WE RESPECT THE
BRIGHT HOWL OF SAUSAGE MEAT IN ITS ANCESTRAL CASING. INSIDE
OUT WE MARCH WISTFULLY
ALONG THE LINE OF
POLES HOPING TO CATCH A
GLIMPSE OF REKNOWN.
An
Essential Search " MORE MAppiNG Where Did It Go-
DONIT KNOW -OUT ON THE GREEN GILLS OF
SOUND. THE LONG WIDE REACH1 LigHT. THE MEANS1 FOCUS. Flat file of pel'ceptual clifficultiesl eatillg
theil' YOUDg1 what cOliclusioDS call be uawli. Made
mOl'e mOllstl'ous by the juxtapositioas which make the most outl'ageo.. il'oDY
011 the basis of theil' total desil'es alld fol' implicative value. Each
item illsulal'. Take each ODe.
Overlap another.
Suddenly start finding places where the peaks and and valleys are not what they
should be. Some peaks too high, valleys too low --the warp. Crossfiled, cross referenced. Personal history of
X. The language survey, exploration of
register. They went out after it. Can't blame them. SomethinG liKe that was
bound to happen. We crept up on their trail just after they had left the camp.
We knew our Guide was more skilled than theirs, just as our scouts were. Ours
had always been the superior power. Our faith continued to Be stronG. THAT
INTERRUPTED ONLY OUR BELIEF IN NECESSITY. NOT NECESSAIL Y THE BEST THING. ALL
THIS TIME THE WORK'S GONE ON, WITHOUT HIM EVEN REVIEWING ITS PROGRESS, NOW
SOMETHING HAPPENS TO DELAY IT A FEW DAYS AND AND HE'S FURIOUS, IMPLYING
NEGLIGENCE. WE HAD CAMPED BY THE RIVER NEAR THE DINOSAUR BEDS, HAD TO TAKE
INTO ACCOUNT WHAT WE WENT THROUGH TO GET THERE, INTERPRETABILITY OF SIGNS.
PHILOSOPHIC OPPORTUNITY.
I saw the plaDe go dowa. LOllg befol'e
the 1I0ise staded I had seeD the sUl'vivol's. My fil'st iDstiDct was to lie
dowli aad let the wl'ecKage fiaish moViDg. Befol'. my EYES ThE hATCh OPENED AND
SMOKE BOThERED TO LIFT ITSELf FREE. I DONIT KNOW If FORCE IS A good WORD TO USE
HERE.
HER IDENTIFICATION: This was it.
FLYING COLORS, A NEW ONE, BRAND NEW.
START CIRCLING; THIS was
the kind of excitement she'd been waiting for. This was the kind of
life she was meant to
lead. In the center of everything, constantly, in demand. Fresh paint coincides
with the constant mania to be washing. At the
same time, making something out of the experience, a long watch, tender and
romantic. Gentle. Thrill of contemplating it quite sensual. High tide. A
form of omnipotence. The breakers felt high, close and generous instinct
uppermost. The kind hand, on a low shelf. Today the tide way in, against the
rocks, the surface smooth glass, no breakers. Horizon indistinct, water fades
into haze at some indiscernible moment. Blurred edge. Suspicion of critical
judgement. Let it go. Typically law-abiding. At first first so arbitrary
seeminq, only the evolution of involvement makes it logic.
BER
TESTIMONY: CEREMONIAL FALL
Not only recording
her fascination with
the forms, but the capacity to hold those forms intact in the system which
functions as her
mind.
So what if it
required records, that made it no less effective or certain an instrument. When
the dispute increased she appeared in court as a mute subject. She had a
substantial claim to be specific. A metaphysical explosion served as
illustration to her, self-conscious, and condemned to observation only. The
duration of the blast stung segmented epithets across the glib surface of the
packed courtroom. The replacement of each section worked to contradict thc
simultaneity of the event by the awesome linearity through which it was
described in the minds of the jurors. The other client was found equally
unknown, but metonymically implicated, you know, by association. His voice had
the tone of a leer, the past he harped on stank with the orderly sequence of
time. fl saw
in the corridor rose and fell in pitch, according to the degree of
friction generated by the blade. This is an afternoon. Full of light and the
substance of light, that ray, that wave, that vision. We know now --think of
what that presupposes --that there has been a mainstream. Our illusion. Truth
and versimilitude. You see, it was like this, at first the tiger, with his
feet glued into striKinq distance, lived in the wood. A woman came walKing. 'We,' again his voice competed with the
worKman's noise to insinuate more than it stated, 'linK their domains and
produce a TexT.'
OUT. Nothing objected so strongly to suggestion as these stray
remnants
expelled from the
parameters of danger and into a personal space. My second idea was to leave. to
hide. to remember all I'd seen and manage it later on. But my final. fatal
decision in that moment was to lend a hand and not know what I was in for. This
just wasn't supposed to happen, you insist. There is no room for this kind of
behavior within the static confines of your structural analysis. Authority. The
tone of disdain caused the form to be almost synthetic looking. Smooth. unblemished. well-defined at the orifices, perfectly finished so you
come to eXpect the perFormance to be likewise.
Becomes geography
PLACE: The historical dimension of humanism, fal'm project. Human DatUl'e, cOl'l'uption of the biological iDtO esseDce: fallow-cultivated,
poteatial
qualities, addicted to comfort aad no mystel'Y.
Through a peephole, the existential aspect --the
relationship of the house to the land. No direction. Own eXperiene pierces the commonplace. Horse by the corral.
Place the very
bones of eggsistence.
Thl'ough the immediate sequence of encountel'
with locality, a uaique circulation, histol'ically emel'ging. Place is a factual event, conscious, dil'ect expel'ience.
In a small outbuilding, behind the Bed, is an old woman, a
link. Stretched as we are, Between knowledge and eXistence. Fern. and the
dark Bath Germinates a fantasy aBout the people who
live alonG the house, on Benches, holdinG the details of their
lives. Routines each fiGures out to spend time in the day, otherwise overGrown.
HarvestinG early this year, they lie ready near the closed-up house.
T
ko .~
ment. 1 And in
to go h
anoth I IN COl TOGE,
to get tJ
pen. F, BIT. 'Ot DOUB1 ORA
T
It' ,
She abou It Will f I
neUr 1
fear. He
-as U Ci In
who e f info
Identity of APlace
PERSISENT SAMENESS, PERSISTENT SHARING OF CHARACTERISTICS WITHIN
ONESELF. Identifiability a fOl'm of identity akeady, iUusol'Uy stable.
What we are doing overwhelms the place. Distinctness in spite of
any change. Inside and outside equally intimate in the dialectical division of
mental space. Relies upon the primacy of action.
VOCABULARY AND USAGE: Aftel' the I'ed liDe, final demal'cation,
hegins again. Ol'iginal syntax had a despel'ate semantics. A lIatul'al
object appl'eciation. He fell natul'aUy into a state of gloom though he looked
evel'ywhel'e fol' humanity, mOl'ality and ethics.
VICTIMS OF PRIVILEGE --Whose cult was it? which allowed the mind
which is mine to be replete this way with images. Trace them to their origin,
that is, to the initial transaction. As currency has a moment when it
changes hands, so nature mechanistically distinGuishes on a binary level which
does not admit to any ambiGuity. Each hand claims its own blind territory, a
physical dexterity takinG place.
In communikation: We Are Attempting
THE
TONE IS GENUINE; The course of life is not to be missed. A happy holiday. Is
coming up but not for me; for us; we enter into, an arrange
ment. This must he politics. Taken off
at the last stop. You knew her formerly. The fresh air funded hy your drive
suhsides. And into it the matchhook cover advertisement makes its claim. A
stated grotesquerie. MyoId friend luxury. A late desire to go hungry, the
policy of nice dehate is critical. To what. After all. We grew up this way,
could not have come here by another route. This is precisely where I am. And
don't forget to put the lights out, replace the hricks hefore they fall. IN
COMMUNICATION .-WE ARE ATTEMPTING, WITH A SET OF FORMAL EXERCISES, TO OBTAIN
PERMISSION TO GET THROUGH. The charge detected, finger on the pulse, may he
just running in the medium. How long did it take us to get this far. Did this
all Begin with a special predestination. Our douBts are raised By the radical
occasion. As often happens, Fate must Be considerEd outsidE this proBlEm.
BUT WHAT WILL ASSERT ITSELF IN PLACE OF THAT OLD HABIT. OUR VERY FIRST
ATTEMPT WAS TO DETECT ESSENTIAL TRACES. THE LAST MINUTE CHECK LEFT NO DOUBT
ABOUT THE DISCRETION WITH WHICH AN OPERATOR WAS HANDLING THE OBJECT.
MANIPULATION OR A WAY OF RAISING QUESTIONS. BIRDS, NATURALLY ARE MAKING SOUNDS
wE RECOGNISE.
RE-W ITE: OF BER CIRCUMSTANCES
THEY HAD ACCIDENTS; LACKING
UNDERSTANDING, THEY HAD FUN. It's going pretty far if a doctor has to treat
--his deep laugh intervened.
She sang with the
radio, said, come here, I want to talk to you, started £lying out and grabbed
me. At which point the man writing about
life in the caves thinks he can embody the Primitive as a cultural artifact and
use that identity through a social realm which will fetishize him as an Indian
to which they may play out Paris. He wants access to that primitivism as if it lies behind the social, a neurosis which brands all
perception according to its own characteristics. He sees everything in
reference to his own selfáconcern, fears. Haunted by the
procreative power of women. Slipping back before the Fall, only way to assure
the male. Fixation on spectacle _. as if there were to be a certifiable History
that had been, the minature in place, behind. Looking
for it as
it happens, happened. Circumstances developed as always. The representation is
its own referent, espeCially when suffering from an excess of empathy. No whole
field, only an outline, encounter of specimens. Obsessive
cataloging on her part had confused her obsevations. The excess of information
suggested a guarantee which narrowed her field of vision against each new
encounter.
We want to choose
The way a nervous twitch wants to
be
the object of study. Some behavior we avoid like heavy metal, as toxic.
Frightened, the touchstone developed as a way to relate. The communication came
by itself to possess value, almost like relaxation. Go back and conceive. Start
from lack of definition, foetal or pre-foetal Jelly full of potential. If one was
burned, what can be assumed. The room moves at will, not so quickly as to
attract notice. Starting to learn Bome moves, shifts around the molding. Fog won't lift today off the foundations, came down like teeth,
sinking in. Adjustments. One by one towards considerable alteration.
SLOW ACCUMULATION Of ARTIFAcTS
EV
FIxED: R
INTO A PRESENT SENSE OF HISTORY. AS HISTORY. OUT OF CONTEXT. index to
CATALOGUE
of automobile upholstery fabrics fol' all makes. Quickly become exaggeratedly
dis-attached, looK we can h liKe
remnants, wrecKage, all weal' accumulates as a resume attesting to their value:
use. Nonentit mech
nil
LESSONS OF THE
MASTER: Like collecting
postage stamps, a single intact Imperial, complete run of monarch issues and a
that i., il1
whole set of regional postmarks. A stone
carved with signs having no intention to be useful. Infinities: impersonal pronouns as lelve. p
subjects, propositions, and lack of
articles. Machine. Pyramids, white clouds and black hope, grammar, sign,
refusal to correspond, same diSCiples, palpable as continuum over shape. degen r wtenchia
Not As A Substitute, but to stand for itself, wires filling in
invisibly.
NO
DISRUPTION, FORM TO FORM. CONNECTION, CONVENTION. Some evolutionary patterns,
brightly marKed, bebay their origias. The line, effacing its own liaeal'ity,
refers out of process, using metaphysics as a passage to I'e-iavent a small
portion of actual magma, hot and spiritual.
Envelope burst from its contents. Nobody
else comes in. What to link up with, to, for. Density of population and
experience of time creates a concentration of occurrences, the stuff of
complexity. Some particular sensation makes me aware. Scanner checks it out
against a bacKlog. Sense of history must be vast, from the first need to
remember, scratched into the paper, marring rather
than using the receptive surface. Effort paled beside the hand's mordant
definition.
STR
hea
CONFINEMENT:She
Yiel
1110
when she got off the train. When she
turned .
WAS A
around, she was gone. You noticed the
landmind of hYOUNG scape and realized you were in a new
place. legs a Iml WOMAN Under the trees, an omen, set to be
bleached fade -co
in the shade. Careful ritual, of care,
the cultirecently vation of a specialised form of maintenance. Noted.
Notches on ing it.h . the bones. Carved into significance. Man with a
stomach betw ~n ~ ache. The photo of the cloth covered
table, an array of metal ob10 I to d jects very stark on its clean, white
ground. Nuts, bolts, forks, and reIch In knives
once swallowed. Rate of production now an issue. di'4IhoU1 1
re.tle¥¥
A DULLARD. UNRESPONSIVE. MARKED. MUZAK COMING ON.
S n.
He didn't allow anything in the house. He put his head, hands
hangOllie of
U ino loose from the elbows, yelling,
'Only the beat.' Foam ran from his mouth with the stream of words. Threw down
the quotas, barriers
overflowed.
F
JUST LIKE ASYNTHETIC MEChANISM
WHAT TO THINK,. REMOTE, ISOLATED, ALLOWED TO BE, THAT IN CLICHE
WORDS RECOGNIZE THEMSELVES each other as a unit. Such a wealth of uDexpl'essed
pel'ception.
If there
were a skelet~n ~ey for discourse, his fingers edged
down the page, it would provide complete mobility, his fingers sensed
the words a non-totahtanan
effect in whl'ch . ld b d f f' .
' meanmg wou e generate out 0 re erence and In
reference always selectmg
Cold type in his hot palm.
Tactile collage, cut-out or
modelled, capable of infinite, extending his great eager rea~h, inflection. .
Sel'~e~tine. UDgentin~¥¥Tang~I'~De. Companion,
to this volume, includes the I'ight to know. She compal'ec1 hel' own sufficient
means to hIS Insuf~lclent means, fOl'cing the intel'est to squeal
acl'oss the tabla rasa of hel' fil'st account. Ch~ds.appeal'ed OD
her eyelids, quantifying her visions into designs fol' AU The Wol'ld. As pad of
the act of I'egu
lal'lzation: ENTER MAN with MAChiNE, FAR LIMITS OF A SUBJECT.
An old solar
system
EVERYTHING
GETTING FLAT,
FIxED: ROADS AND FIELDS, ALPHABETICAL ORDER. An index to future possibilities. Just. Not
to take anything slightly we can hang on it. Suspend. If we set
out to make progress. Nonentity needed in order to function well as a
funnelling mechanism, a channel, a conduit. Windbag, a vehicle for wind that
is, information, to pass through. Particles which are themselve.
ephemeral, a charge redefined as an entity til that too degenerates under
scrutiny into an activity. The configuration wrenching its standard form,
planets, moons, and orbits into
ARCHETYPES AND
METAPHORS
For the new
world
STROKES.
THE AWFUL TENDENCY to be ACCOMODATING, COMPLIANT Yielding on all sides. La peau
du reve; the skin of a dream, comes off like headlines in large strips. I
survived a tidal wave; innundation the foremost principle of this act of
survival. Soaked past the skin, the soggy
mind of this
brave soul struggled out onto dry land. 'Look at me,' he said, raising his hands out of the mud. A
perfect letter x, his legs akimbo, arms wide apart except for the nasty interference
of his head. Take it off.
His father takes his place, a substitution and a fade --could have been more rapid. How far
did he go. He must have left home after me. I never knew his whereabouts until
very recently and that was
by an accidentatmeeting. We
were caged in a room with water and we looked it. Am I the only one feeling it shake.
If I
doubt that what I am about
to tell is true, then how good an argument can I
make for it. Critical judgement stands between myself and the object of my own desire. Is this deserved. Where is the host of enemies called for in the name of conquest. If I am to defeat the opposition, where is it? Stretched out in my
striped arm chair, bare toes in the streak of sun. Light should be able to
reach
anywhere. But if the obstruction of window panes is also their support, how can
I tamper with it without coming away bleeding from a disastrous comBat which reduces
ruBBle to shreds of pitifully vulneraBle flesh? Don't cut me up. Caution. That
suBtle warden, does keep the restless energy in Bondage.
The Greatest hope, to Be Born throuGh the act of discipl~ne, not
passed, like a stone in oatmeal throuGh the Gut. Some of us have left and not Been Back aGain, left with stunninG respect for the mamtenance
of space.
Folded uP her
speech" after that, Left.
GOES " DOES NOT ENCOUNTER ANY
OBSTACLE: CONTACT LOST WITH THE HEADS,
REWIND GONE SLACK. Down after an entire afternoon, then parts of the program
kept appearing long afterwards, ghost light, an image barely altering
expectation.
TYPOS, ALMOST MAKE
SENSE, COUNTER-SENSE, REVEALING AN INTENTION, DESIRE WHICH TAKES ITS OPPORTUNITY WHERE IT WILL, A DIRECT
RESPONSE. Mouth modified according to the opening, easy spokesman, not to be
dismissed. The initial moment was the best, making speech, gliding like marbles
off the production line tongue. Let it slide. Initial tension slacks, lower lip
echoing the shape of the long-lost first words. No residual IMPACT Rebuil~ing the
young surveyor said, is as casual or complicated as you make it. What gets
pulled through ¥ determInes
the force of restraint.
Lethal injection feeds the program its resistance, not passively, crawling on
the walls immediately seeking release. The trigger device essential to
coming back. Waste streams. Proprietary information. Rip the confidential envelope from its moorings, wide open. Contrary to policy.
RISK of expression: not under control.
ADMINISTRATIVE
METHOD CONTRADICTS ExPERIENCE. A
social romance. I entered his rooms. A
series of physical movements, arrangements, configurations,
in the elevator, hall, livingroom. Time into late evening. Passageways.
IMAGINE.
We fouad ourselves ia a geaeration which was not aging. All around us our
contemporaries retaiaed the same eggsubel'aat youth they had always eajoyed, to
our continual amazement. The
birds all had their faces to the sun, the whole field of them.
Painted faces to the light. Of course it had an effect on us. We
didn't settle. Never permanently. There was a
day she spent half an hour in the stairwell, back against one of the poured foundations.
WAITING: FIRMLY AND QUIETLY. Erect aad
attentive, as if hopiag for iastructions, hoping to be beamed up, hoping to succeed in isolatiag herself in that corridor
sufficiently to be distiaguished from other LOCAL DISTRACTIONS aad by this concentrated focus to
achieve an ATTRACTivE RECEPTiViTY. Blow the judgement. Fuse. Craving heat. Some association. Serious enough. Into the face of the
machine, locked, held up in front of his eyes, riveted on the tiny screen which
his fingers struggled to control. He was a multi-pocketed
apron in which the winds of life had made so many small deposits of sand. Into
each flap a small
depository. Are you kidding. Change of
tone. Go and look for it.
ACCORDing to their Fears they regulate
Limitations, Themselves, The flash of Light and then we :reconstruct from prompting; friends
that swim, crawl, fly. So smAil -how iT TAkes over your mind.
So
pretty when they're little.
Nail polish coming off,
chipped, flaked, chin very clear. Tiny beaded sweater, wanting to be appreciated.
Leopard cap, guitar chips, picking through air, unifying
perceptions. To make a place and call it a place. See what's here. Street
tales. Not their fault. Clothes don't fit. Legs too long. Series of folds in
the cloth mocks marble statuary, draping the classical disproportion of the
bodies. Hormonal swelling a response to a certain instinct to survive.
Developing out of a desperate necessity.
THEY GET THE WORD AND
THEN --The assignation of validity came with the realiZation that there weren't
alternatives. THE PRODIGY. PRODIGAL. Not too sterile. No.
Ineffable. On the back of the sleeping baby, shifting tracks of sand, drifting
into dunes, only to shift
and reform elsewhere, below
the protruding shoulder Blade, a sheltered hollow, Become the last pocket of
Belief, Become like the ear
of my Brother, a hiGhly
protected, over-sensitive place. My Brother. The BaBy. With passaGes of time
played out across the shiny soft
Barely finished skin,
the ominous poetry choreoGraphed with meteoroloGical mystery OVER AND OVER
AGAIN WHILE HE LAY PRONE,
UNMOV. ING. GAGGED WITH
SLEEP OR TERMINATED BY THE SHIFT OF SCALE IN WHICH HIS ONLY ROLE WAS TO SERVE AS A STAGE FOR THE EVENTS.
1'1'
W
Line
obje killiI of £Ii
HIS and of p
the bree
I
t
TJ FJ
I! ¥
In
PUI
wri fie! in t' aga littlE des,
clo~
yelJ in tJ gan is 0 as i' hon MiJ the sTr
UJ
Qr
re
I TAKE AWaLk,
MY MIND WANDERS, WHO ARE
MY ANCESTORS?
Lines of force.
Coiling angle. Age of the animal. QU:lsi-stellar
objects, the
elusive center. Recent history, dinosaur's lifestyle,
killing the
primates. Maya. Crater in a sandfield. Flashing light
of flights to
deceive and then devour into straight sequence.
HISTORY AS
CHRONOLOGY: The mess, morass, all charged
and differential is transformed by the initial event, the
inception
of physical and
chemical formation. In the cooling mass there is
the settling out of elements, land and water. The land forms
break apart and
drift, forming the features of the landscape.
MORE Work, Not a Literary arChetype.
THE
CONVENTION IS SEPARATE
FROM THE ACTIVITY. Abstracted
into solid reference, rocks in a bag.
Punishment. Intel'nal standal'd
solution. Mechanical, wl'ist-action shakeI', appl'oximates the changeability of
flesh. The same number of strokes, steps, establish a practice in the hand
which slips the mind. Now the woman holds a baby against a black background.
Suspended infant. Articulate child. A little dictator. Says what he wants.
Infantile mind. In isolation. The description keeps slipping from his grasp.
Then he suddenly closed his fist, picked up and took off. Syntactic tantrum
turns into yelping or bleating, original speech. Habits change into customs in
the mouth of the minor miracle, not to be mentioned in the gameplan. Hooks and
links. Absolute signifigance of the sounds is organized around iconicity, each
little shape coming into its own as it escapes from the jaws. A long step from
the initial registration of presence and absence. Consuming a hot surplus.
Swell. Mission: Just liKe that, last night, a plane cl'ashed ovel' the houses
of the city spilling debl'is OlltO I'ooftops and sTl'eeTs sUl'I'oundillg. I
DON'T BLAME IT.
URBAN CENTER: high probability of any possibility
--cannibal image of regular folks meaning to eat a meal.
Definition: selection
WHAT
THINGS"DO THEMSELVES IS ONLY PART OF IT. Oil
the bellis, the vines chose what to do with them also.
ROCK,
the piece is primordial. Everything we assoiate with age, the primary, the
primary, the crust, the jelled hard piece full of the record of formation.
History. The initial combinations out of cooling. Rapid phases, changes. A
particular law forms, in quick succession.
ITS
OWN SCIENCE. THIS IS OURS. MISSING STEPS IN SEQUENCE. Halldling the I'ock she
said, it'. special. So vel'Y special. To live with it al'ound would be a
pl'ivilege.
Back
to the man at the machine. He's more opinionated. That makes him more
selective. That makes him more knowledgeable. Speculates --what if I take
my Genes, isolate the chromosomal basic pattern, the least differentiated, most
reduced model, factorinG it out, so that the complex factors dissolve
themselves Gradually into smaller and smaller units --with a phase of evolution
for each factor.
WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO TRACK BACK TO
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS OF MOTHER CARBON. OH, MOTHER CARBON. HE FELL DOWN
WEEPING, OVERCOME WITH EMOTION. HIS HANDS FILLED WITH FERTILE LUMPS OF
PASSIONATE SOIL, REACHING IN SENSUAL RILLS ONE AFTER ANOTHER ACROSS THE FAMOUS
PLAIN TO THE STILLáACTIVE AND ONCE PRIMORDIAL SEA.
Areflex he strack
,
agal-n-like
a real s.tate~ent, is
_ unequal to Its stimulus.
Forget this business of signs. Carefully notice the difference
--still absent. As a current topic, the fugitive, warehouse energy. Her names
qualify as more information. Similar undertaking, people from the area and
long codes required in the struggle. Ordering goes about. In a publication, the
place of the artist is basic passson. Ted and his sister tend to have a couple
of reams up in the attic, a lot of black all over the page, an active design to
evoke not just a material-historical process, but real actions. The image
maker. He was possibly the most powerful man in the world. Without douBt
within the next few hours he would put that power to the test in a trumped up
crisis designed to put himself Boldly Before the puBlic eye. MAN MUST
DEFINE HIMSELF BEYOND THE ENSEMBLE OF HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS. AS FOR THE
SPACESHIP, WHO GETS TO GO. LOGIC & ILLOGIC
IMPRESS EACH OTHER ON THE SHEETS AT SOME GREAT RATE PER HOUR. NOT SINCE EARLY
NINETEENTH CENTURY HAS THE PRACTICE BEEN IN WORSE STRAITS. SHE PLUGGED HERSELF
VIOLENTLY INTO MATERIAL AS A STARTING POINT.
GATHERING Rain, Weather Conditions.
OEgaaic
compounds indulge in theiE capacity fOE combination and then a chaEge, the bEillianllightning strikes the sUEface of the
pond.
Swimmers,
eaters, the basic
activities furnished with distinguishing characteristics. Evolution leads to
complexity, ?rganisation, s?ecialisation and
replication. The fishes have gills for breathing. The amphibians crawl out.
Reptiles crawl out. R~phles ?eco~e gIant reptiles. There is incredible foliage, dragonflies, the
swamp scene of primordial nature. The birds take to the aIr, making wmgs
of skin; mammals get hot blood, primates develop social relations. In a deep
gorge of history the chippers and flakers seek
caves and fire after hunting. Tools
and paint structure the
domestic arrangements.
Of Some Organism All MundaNe Issues
AND IF SOME MILDEW BEGAN TO GROW ON SOME
PATCH OF EARTH, ROCK, AccorcliDg to the opportuDity afforded it aDd ill growing begaD to modify itself through successive generatioDs so
tbat it complicated itself both OD the level of the iDcli.idual orgaDisms
comprising tbe colony aDd also iD tb. orgaDizatioD of tbe coloDY itself.
THEN IF THAT DEVELOPMENT SHOULD FURTHER
MODIFY THOSE ORGANISMS, CONGLOMERATING SOME, SIMPLIFYING SOME, MUTATING OTHERS
TO PERFORM SPECIFIC TASKS AND THEN IF IN SO MuTaTinG FORMS of LIFE began to
APPEAR which were capable of SYNTHETIC PROCESSES, absorbing and transforming
MATERIAL IN the ENVIRONMENT INTO indestructá ible MARERIALS that ORGANISM was
makino use of in the further CONSTRUCTION, DEFENSE, OR FUNCTION of the COLONY,
then should any PART or the WHOLE of that entire SYSTEM of DEVELá OPMENTS Be
considered in any WAY grotesque or unnatural or uná desiraBle.
THE
POROUS VACUOLE SPORTED A PLASTIC CAP UNDER WHICH A MuTaTiNG spore produced
rapid fire Generations unaBle to retain the INFORMATION Genetically deployed to
the INDIVIá DUALS who counted separately.
DESIRE SEEKS A LEVEL
OF NECESSITY.
51
exb
city gio1
In t
AW M(
dri Bre elill
wa. Pre
Just like everybody crol
oh
HIGHLY DISTURBED, STANDING AT ATTENTION, WAitiNg.
I
FOR ORDERS. Crew cut hair stands straight up.
Posture is straightforward, belly out, arms hang limp, slack, ready to twitch;
they do twitch. All tuned, waiting, at rest. Lead in the shoes adtl1 heres flat
to the sidewalk.
he
HE FACES AWAY FROM
THE SUN, SHADOW CAST BEFORE hiM. Receives a signal, drops a coin, lets it
go. Who a~ was picking
off the flies. Loses
control, slumps into control. tel
Slumps down against the
cinder blocks. It was a difficult position. th. How much
more difficult if he should fall against the panes and R! pitching himself forward it seemed like
a possibility. cat
Can't do anything but feel vulnerout
cm
able, RAW
SENSitiVitY. til
anI Ion
Th,
p~
ANOThER ONE OF thOSE, I ThOUghT, COl
COl
SUPPOSED TO BE
VERY EXCITING, A GREAT MYSTERY. BUT ALL I
an
could think was, another one of these
parts of the missing manuscript routines. Everybody goes for that one. Having only the parts to!something. not the whole, makes it suddenly very
important. The half missing makes the whole irresistible. A grc
gil::
whole found text just routine, tedious,
on the line. But with a partial text the rest could be anything. The
possibilities of the unknown portion loom so large they
overwhelm the limitations of something reduced to pathetic accessibility. BUT I WAS est
the
NOT INTERESTED. I
told Sally from the first I didn't care what Jonathan was willing to oHerme for
the Job, I wouldn't take
Visl
it. SHE SHRUGGED. SHE KNEW. HOW COULD SHE NOT KNOW. THE SHAPE OF
HER THIGH IN THOSE JEANS .SHE KNEW. ALMOST EVERYTHING. IT WAS AN
UNCANNY POWER OF, WELL, I HESITATE TO CALL IT FORESIGHT.
BETTER CALL IT INSIGHT, A REMARKABLE POWER OF REAL PERCEPTION. BASED ON
EXPERIENCE.
tl
See, heEe"s what happened and the Eeason I didn't want 10 gel involved.
¥
Q
d
s
,y
G
Ie:
ho
Ion.
nd
¥
e
:e
ADAPTATION LEADS TO HOUSING, CLOTHING,
MOVEMENT OF GROUPS SEPARATION OF TRIBES,
TABOO, THE POSSIBILITY OF FAMILY AND
extension. Settlements and culture occur along the river where a
place acquires identity and organization. Certain spots support city
structures, social structures, real places. Civilisation promotes trade,
promotes shifting powerover the control of those spots. Religion is the
state; out of the city state emerges the city state. The heroes. The monuments.
The monuments. The edifices. Mythology. In the next large city state municipal
order administrates its extension over savage lands.
Mutant Organisms Breeding Copiously
ANYTHING THAT COULD BREED WOULD, IT WAS THAT KIND OF DAY.
INCUBATING PERFECTLY: WARM a
MOIST. In the lab the
doctor leaned over the culture samples he was examiniag, uaable to believe his
eyes. Sweat dripped off his face. Teasion combiaed with uabelievable humidity
to produce a coastaat crop of 'resh perspiratioD. Breaking ground. Off his brow. He didn't
want to alter conditions in the lab into conflict with the climate outside. The
treatment system mioht
eliminate what was going on, rather than findinG it out. How
else was he to fiGure out. If
what he was seeinG riGht
now under the small microscope was any indication, what was happeninG on a
mass scale was GoinG to be terrifyinG to confront. He wasn't sure what to
believe. He was seeinG. ImaGininG? ReadinG anthropomorphic illusions into the
GRANDEUR of the pattern to satisfy his own complexity. A quandary. Presented
with this rather too vivid embodiment of his wildest EXPECTATIONS he had a hard
time with thinkinG how to deal with it. Worst of all it BEGAN to BE a constant.
Every place he'd GO he ENCOUNTERED LITTLE colonies, CIVILIZED and STRUCTURED
and UNIQUE.
Be was Toying
with
the
idea, sitting by her, of handing her the rash pronouncement of her affections.
All the frustrated past
tease overworkiag itself up iato coafessioa, each one of them
iato their owa, well-practiced form of aaoaymity. R social program of politeness allowed advantage to be taken because it assumes a
level of civility. A certain definite smell rung out of the water.
CRUMBS HANG OFF HIS LIPS. Caa he stand it. lasensitiVe
animal. Disgust implies a blind spot. The cloth is cheap
and ugly, colors all on the surface, but a great and outrageous longing rush
comes with the drug, an unreconciled recollection. That's
love, the possibilty.
PARKINg. ThE ElusivE youag hEro: hE. Not everything
It Was Like this:
congeals so nicely. They just wanted to
go out together. Who could say what each of the others was doing sitting in the
garden, Jonathan showed up
filii of excitean hour
before sundown, basking in the light. Three women
ment. There was something in his
grooming each other in profound
agreement. Utterances unintelli
hand. But
what was it. A moment before he'd been certain
gible. fl man is rattling chains on the path. Not
his fault, an earn
it was
something quite dead, now he couldn't be sure. For
est young engineer, visible in a
structured social system. Back to
one thing,
the child claimed she was picking up signals
the street. A car cuts close to a
crosswalk, close. Whose air. The
in her feet.
TWO: What was JOB. Patrick had descri
visual dialogue takes
place without ownership. Broad space on
bed it as a special club, a kind of
costume theater where the exclusive clientele could dress themselves up for any
role they chose to play. It was just for entertainment, he
the City/s Surface.
stressed, laying careful emphasis on keeping a neutral tone.
AProphet Is Born
A son becomes the cult I'ock fol' the
chul'ch.ln contl'ast to the state I'eligion thel'e al'e games, spetacles.
The issue forced is
order and religion, conformity and morality. A wide range of morality comes
from the East. A split between the capitals: the scribes are chased into
cloisters. The court in the castle depends upon the artisans, guilds and city
gates. Feudalism preserves lineage, creates aristocacy, the static line
with a claim to power, divine against the upstart contenders. Invaders disrupt
the comfort of order and the next prophet arises burning. The latitude of
Influence is so broad that there are both courts and states. Exploration is of
land, discovery is of mind. War and trade use the excuse of religion for
territory and claiming commerce. The new world is full of primitives, settle
ments occur along a frontier, pioneering patterns of development.
Independence leads to revolution, rationalism fosters
sensual refinement. Expansion is a romance seeking the West
with the poetic
imagination of political art attempting to express
itself out of bounds.
R
Something Becomes WB
A DENSE CONCENTRATION HOPPING IN T~E DISH, le.ding
on their static state. Peak rate, absorbing the Why'. swelliag
glut i. the abdomea. Where does t~e br~.kdowa year-. occur
into more aad more sudace area lor digestloa.
Pickin~
IT WAS FUN ENCOUNTERING THE LITTLE COLONIES. Sewer the del
á Its I'n walls and floors
where an accumulation of debris tance b
draIns, crac .,.
ly fetid
swamp ripe for breedmg. Couldn t get a more
fertIle wood v
d tru
ma e a 1á d' th ft'
ground to mutate through whatever it
supp Ie In e way 0 nu nents. who WI SOLVING THE MYSTERY PUZZLE IN HIS MIND THE IDEA BEcame almost synonymous with the idea itself. Just a
figment fed off his HE 'maGination as if the
little civilisations had developed after the fact of
Noae
:hem. Their ~ental existence didn't alter his mind thouGh he tried to
tobe
fiGure out how to
operate on the information which pre-occupied the
thiajJ
thouGht outpost villaGes. She nt
kid did
put 10 her hal
TENTATivE FLASH
Shes of dis
ClOse to the Ground LA~
Th.l
GIRL IN RED
DANCING TIGHTS Whicl
the cal
TRAILS ROSES THRU
FOUL AIR
started
INTO THE BALD GLARE OF DAY NIGH
the lit1
Bits of this, that aoa-comittal warm vibe ia the stiff dis
I'm no taace. Parking. A little
bird begs for mercy. Crumbs that feed. Fall. Come on already.
Fatigue. Everything disintegrates into fragISS ments.
Discrete spaces. Disconnect.
DOl
WORLD
TEETH. These womeR with a developed iastiact 101' fashioa,
come aad go l!rom the eveat. Push
plate symbols for the door: points of attachment. Seeing the order they
went on strike. Rather than solve each thing just once; got to let go the grasp to come back with a question. Then left
as in agrEEment.
No IllumiaatioD came ofl the Pla.e Metanic SURFACE
A
THE BLANK IT TAKES to MOBILIZE ¥
Busin
UNDER CONSIDERAbLE ~oRt~~S~~~ =::::=::~::,~n 1511
war c insCIi
have the I'ight cl'edentialsl an underling in the bUl'eaucl'atic
hiEl'al'chy.
trol ~ TRUE, he
came from a good old family faded in fortunes from
the stock. So he wasn't, as she was so fond of putting it One denCi of the
Ones. But his girlfriend --now that was a high class girl: blue chips in
breeding, poise, education ... She was ~lso That driven, determined to scratch out a
place for herself commensurate with all of those privileges which she construed
as rights. sionn
Whatever there was available just belonged to her. She had Th I áde. á and
t
integrity a~d she'd alwaysha.d everythin~, 80 she
co~ld~'t see e nSI e Ir"ult
a gel
why anythmg
should be outSIde her provInce deep withIn ., ¥
clysn face
~~,
'~"
|
WHAT KIND OF MEAL WAS IT?
Why's
it mattel' about the plastic. All pUl'pose holly, yeal'-I'ound synthetic.
Picking crumbs from
the weave in the cloth, not from hunger but from the desire to cultivate that
much interest. His gum was the right distance from where he sat. Breadth
of the room cross-seeted by prefab wood veneer shaping arches to shape the
vinyl room dividers. Only who was lookinG?
HE BEGAN TO EAT THE PLATE.
None
you can't look into with some heart. So sweet as to b. what. Accol'ding to some
distinguishing guideline things fell to eithel' side.
She nudGed him with her Bowl. They did not do these thinGs. The
kid did that. The kid ate three of these sweet ones first. Then
she
put somethinG in her waterGlass. She savoured the flaVors. She
put
her hands in
the waterGlass. SuBtle flaVors. She asked for more.
LATER: IT'S HARD to WaiT.
She spoke sympathetically. They enjoyed the val'ietY
of dishes. TheY enJoYed each othel'. It was. good meal.
TheY sat bacK
satisfied.
Which is the one? It is the one who refused. Soldiers sent to
Guard the camps. Said, the GIRL flipped out, GOT UP on the TABLE and started
SCREAMING ABOUT how they all GO HOME and HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT LIVING FLESH
THEY'D EATEN. WILL the little SHRIMP come KNOCKING at my THROAT LATER, HEY I'm
not DEAD yet!
ISSUES, the I'eal issues; Don't. Don't what?
ct
AModel for Order
E The Classical Empil'e, As Victorianism
Is Fol' Tight Industl'ialisation.
Business encourages the breakdown of an
old order, brings on war and change, depression and revolution. Worker and
realities, inscribed by public funds before another war is followed by control
and affluence, the baby boom system of patronage. Confidence to
conservatism counteracted by the violence of cult youth. That sense of
causality gives in to paranoia, succumbs to disillusionment and cult power
along with disintegration of structure and the image. Technology generates
information, confusion and a general loss of faith. The newborn is defined
against the cataclysmiC, tested by corrosion, sick progress, equally
useless in the face of decay which reclaims only its original autonomy.
ReducingDigestion NIGhT of TALKING
ABOUT EvOLUTION
LIFE
ON THIS PLANET POINTS UP THE LOGICAL CONSISTENCY fl'om ol'ganic thl'ough
inol'ganic. Compounds
as an argument against any outside influence being necessary to produce life.
The self-:-I'eplicating
spal'K. The city teems with
little spores. Effect of'the envil'onmenT.
There was this doctor doing
research on space cultures in the lovely amber-colored agar medium, waiTing to catch onto whatever was around and bl'EEd it. The ongoing experiment was a constant scanning device, the usual debris ended up in the medium, making the usual mess of not very ordinary molds.
Ber SincereInterest
Patrick was a bl'ight young man, many
people said a áábl'illiant ODe. ID the five yeal's since
he'clleft school.
at the top of his class, he'd conquered lots of territory on the
way towards his goal, a full-blown political career. But he was still young.
Brash. Outspoken. A bit too much to make those compromises essential for thi!
achievement of power. Consequently he remained outside the tight interior workings
of the party, wrestling himself with the conflict between his desire to
succeed at any cost and the desire to succeed on his own terms. The combination
of energy and intellectual ambition threatened to overwhelm his dynamic.
NO DOUBT about aTRANSFORMATION
THE EXACT PROCESS HARDER TO ASCERTAIN, LOOKING AT THAT
fragmentary and distorted landscape. It was
seemingly impossible to tell if the surface should be read as the projection of
a flat image onto a physically dimensional form, or whether it was the skin-like
result of a sieving process in which a whole significant portion of the
original medium has been filtered out leaving only the ghostlike remains of
imagery as indication of the initial figure.
In that text which was the image of a landscape lay a linearly
accessible context which could be extracted by
the process. Or was it really a problem of needing to go beyond the limits of
reading itself, in order to assimilate that figuration for its own sake, in itself,
as itself, as a direct reference which provides experience, no, which is
experience. CURIOSITIES OF GEOGRAPHY: PARTICULARS In relation to the
resources we colonize. The location of the animals. Was left place after place. A subsequent invasion allows certain identification of the
track. In order to justify the arrangement it was made the border.
Li
Ob
Stl
Buil butie cOOS
ON'
the hiB nobi
BET evel
INCLUSivE CRowDs
DREAM IS OF A WHITE HOUSE With Complex Interior Structul'es.
Rarer than the rarest of diseases, cases of human combustion.
rind just a pile of ashes, maybe a footprillt, recognizable shadow, burn
through the 0001'.
All
white walls, density increasing through division of space. Gets invested. Gets
settled down. Dispersed.
SEEPS: Invading the base; taking hold into NO MOBILITY.
,j
Abeady cloying,
inadequate I'oots of the vi.e. Each
door opening throws in the light: revealing construction. Rooms-relations. R real place. What it meant, historically, to occupy each
of them. Not accounted for.
as bea
Flat, head-on drive
acCC
old
Breeze shot down a wind tunnell thaI
ing
power
of conviction, it had overwhelmed even her cool disdain fol' men in general and in politics in
particular. The first afternoon I had
any hint of the activity at Job was the brittle moment he told me
they had decided to Til call it quits. Hadn't seen it coming
even as he bent forward or to free his wayward feet from the errant phone cord. Between
I. i fragments of lobbying he fed the abruptly disjunct summary All of his situation. Professional matters
in such a grueling
stint WaJ only tapped his resources leaving his stamina intact for a wit series of
linguistic negotiations Juggling the freight train on air which he was running his compromises.
Yielding at the turf
point of greatest RESISTANCE let him
take advantage of Ot the MOMENTUM of that rush to slip what HE really wanted
Thl
into the BACKWATER. MEANWHILE HIS HAND DIAtrel GRAMMED THE ESSENTIALS OF THE EVENTS AT THE thr no)
PLACE IN VIOLENT GLYPHS HE PASSED OVER TO ME.
is t
What GuaranteeS
IN THE ANTIQUE SOLITUDE or TIME I
THE MIND OF MAN CROSSES AND RECROSSES TRYING TO DEVELOP.
J1
The la~s of some inevitable enel'ClY demand
playing out the unreherT}~able dll~~ma of discovering the means according to
which those
UJ
llre.Gulanbes and vaGue distinction. of this sense of sel£ distin
.p,
Gu~8hes between
that identifyinG entity and the texture of the mass whl.ch
endlessly surrounds it. Not too clean. Wait for it, let go them tin fo; It, eaG~rly. HallucinatinG
quietly, it occupies. Little spots of liGht tat
c~ or ~opPlnG, appearinG on the surface of vision with
discrete kinds Or.
o mlohon. Not all, but some of it. More conGealed form comes with acce erated eXperience. an
fir
,
Little
by Little!..~;::IY RAid AT pROJECT
.ty
to
d
n
nt
n
d
E.
E
rá
¥
Obscul'es
the Olhel' Discovel'Y ia the Sll'uclul'e, the Pl'ime Achievemeal.
Built
by them. Considered insignificant. Becomes a form of distribution. Native
manufactures, local industry, and trade along the coastal regions all previous
to penetrating the interior.
ON THE RUINS: Just the trunk of a young
male, seventeen meters, the fragment, arms rigid, limbs ponderously virile,
stable, placed, his posture noble, endowed with a faith in the sanctity of that
nobility, apex of cultural respect, the native hero.
BETRAYED BY THE
ELEMENTS OF ORDER: Carvings depict events as sequence, beasts and grains making
all the sense. An account. My mother. My earth. Song and
ritual. Men pressed flat as symbols, their stance choreographed as meaning.
Driving the beasts. Decay on the freize. Remnant outpost under the tree. So old
now. Ancient, history stuck poles in the mud and had marked them out. Spaced
carefully. Now rotten, nearly formless, still retaining their deliberate
future.
Defying Description
THIS BEING BAS WASHED UP ON TBE VAST SHORES
OF SCIENCE.
Is it loosely bound force fields. protoplasm,
or metabolic organisation. All descriptions are foiled by its gleaming surface.
It responds to warmth by drying into scales, melting like a piece of aspic, and
risinG with the enthusiasm of fresh yeast. And to cold by splittinG the clean
air with the sharp crack of dissonance. In fact, its only consistent feature
seems to Be that it has a determined area of resistance.
OUTSIDE ThE
LIMIT OF KNOWN TOLERANCES
The sustainment of life is not considered to Be aBle to reach
the extremes which this BeinG has survived. Some are callinG this a BreakthrouGh
for scientific investiGation, a slap in the face of modem technoloGy.
Whatever other deep structure may Be revealed. its sunace is the Result of a
continual pRocess of tRansfoRmation.
Five Squal'e Miles
of this Estate
The
plac. beal'l a p.at.1' I'e¥¥mblaac. to th. lIIalel'ialisaUoD of. lIIaeimaDls .chem. thaD to aDY al'chitectls
iadalg.Dt ekealll of the possibWU¥¥ sagg¥¥ted by aDlimited lIIe.as.
Or does it. The intention in the maze of
construction may be hard to define but was overwhelmingly clear to perceive
when aerial photos were released following a police raid yesterday.
Pl'ompled by a Moalh's loag lavestigalioa of the Case
Th.
I'aid was tl'iggel'ed b" a phoD. caD ia which th. tel'l'ified ...oice of
the "ouag wom..I'apidly blalted ¥ siBg soag message into th¥¥al' of the
seDiol' 1 ......UgatOI' ia the cas. whosE coafa.Ed I'Eactio. to what hB
ekEamUy chal'actErizEd a. pal'dEct SU"EI' TODE. oDly complicaTID ThiagB
lIIaCh fUI'ThER.
The
taped voice on the call was traced to a rural party line. One extension of that
line led police to the caretaker's cottage of what residents of the area have
long considered to be an unoccupied Estate .
BOUSE: Present phase of boxes arriving
JUST BEGINNING TO MAP OUT THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE PLACE.
THEME ROOMS IN
TABLEAU SEQUENCE. PARROTS IN THEIR LITTLE SUITS. ONE LEANS OVER, PUTS ANOTHER
UNDER HIS ARM, SMACKS
IT. Not out there, not on the edge, but back here in this retracted,
entrenched, domestic space, our household. HOUSE: I have lived here eons. All
of Mama's afternoons. Inconsequential corridors of light this time of day,
inadequate to sustain activity inside the flickering, uncertain spots, now
diminishing rapidly. Each position dictates an activity. In the desk of
course the elaborately structured order fully formed, functional, complex and
uninteresting order. Now aging fast the fragmented assemblage of architecture.
Not least of all, the constant presence and movements of animals. A settJing
motion creaks the beam and throws the view through the glass doors. One of
those antique skies like the first one ever. EVERYHING DEFINED AS FRESH AND
PRIMARY, SIMULTANEOUSLY SELF-CONTAINING. PLACE.
STARTED IN TAR
UPPER SURFACE RETENTIVE, Super sensitive in response through the
sticky top layer of perception.
Here where things have just begun every
piece was beautiful. There had been a larger population at one point --but are
there populations that haven't been mapped yet. The one who went originally had
the intention to make claims. His recognition of the place, eyeball to mind,
gave him rights. He went right through that recognition and planted himself on
the home ground of known reference. And the places retain the titular charader
of the genteman's name, a history in itself.
Can
you tell what it is as you ride across it. Cuts through the wall which was part
of the foundation. The layers disintegrate so easily into
each other. The loosening and maintaining of boundaries act against each other
as the inevitable catalyst of change. But the hardest point from which to gain
leverage is the regular surface of routine.
ANSwERING the AD
Screaming pits of pain.
Theil' unison is a reminder of
unfinished busines~. Elegant it's 1I0t. He is a great
naive, a centul'Y old homuDculus ill a space suit, slime detel'iol'atiDg
the extl'emities.
So old. The yard wild. The outbuildings reclaimed according to a makeshift sensibility.
Calls and keeps asking to be let out.
HoldiDg the bowl up close to her chest she huddled
around it keeping wal'm off the steam. Also to pl'otect.
Because
of pl'esel'viDg thl'ough so maDY lives. Sevel'al hundred traDsient occupants
ovel' a tell year span.
Nothing
blocked up. Nothing broken down. Plans to build. Stacks of future projects.
Working out the sibling relations.
Family: She came into the room.
ThErE was a golEm. Do you Eat chEEsE and crackEl'S. No, I ollly
swEEp UDdEr thE tracKs. HaVE you bEED OD
a train latEly.
He growled and his
stomach went off with a loud alarm. I can't stand that, she cried and ran out,
shutting the door. A little while later there were very suspicious stains on
the floor. She traced them as far back toward their origin as she could. Full
and light. Simultaneous vision reads along and integrates momentarily. Spots
rebuild from a personal myth.
What Conventions?
TH
A RANDOM VARIABLE
GONE CRAZY
There seems to be
a fat maXimum of substances which can be con
BE
verted into its fuel. There is a supple
medium which contains discrete units of capture and release. At the very least
the peephole scope of or intention has been maintained in the
puckered surface through which
She pil
all manner of
consistent correspondence pours. The content clear as
called
oatmeal. Computer analysts are working to digest the data. unbl it'
PROFESSIONAL
REACTIONS
bits of
At first I
thought it was some kind of mistake, said doctor. He refuses
back tl
to claim any
responsiBility for the appearance of the oBject. It simply
the flo
appeared, he went on to say. The entire
laB was reduced to watching. We wish we could say we'd cultivated it.
in the
BATTERY OF TESTS The appearance of the now-famous
suBstance has no more staBility than its aCtivity. While it can Be held it
cannot Be cleArly outlined. VoltAGe is its mosT ConvincinG ConsisTenCy As well
As iTs mosT TerrifyinG. The meTer of This mAdness BeGs To Be BrouGhT inTo BeinG
As A Response.
BJ
Wh
wanf
Every So m\ u.ed I
Spirits Move Objects
tUUD
her b;
VariO\
Agreeing on the concepts: little ;
A mist that came out from the paint. sat
on their bare arms Sh. ' and heads and over their eyes, rolling along the skin of their uph fa~es, catchin~ in
streams on the stubble growth of their Ther chms so that It clouded
their eyes and muffled their words. voliti, One just hit her. No reason. Flat, open
hand. not hard. The So hI
every
dog who had been leading the way stopped
and started chewing on his leash.
I dOl No, t:
Not enough. Nevel' enough.
pRe.
,
¥ Return to Paradise
THE EVENT: One organizer regulates the program. Not
just a version but a varied mode
REBUILDING
of presentation. Bio-extracts. Land has OF BABYLON an order to it outside of
sanctification.
She pinched them, bit them, caused them to write in a book she
called mine. The text, 'cosmic'
introduces italics, more and more, until
it's bigger on the inside than on the outside. Sit among
the bits of rubble like it was nothing. Street all torn up, fence holding back the curb, old taxi parked right on the
sidewalk, interrupts the flow of pedestrians without asking
the required fare. Guns in the background we ignore sitting in
the sun. Direct our eyes.
BEFORE SHE
KNEW
What was happening to her, a condition
she had always wanted to bring about, she was rushing along a wide tunnel fiUed
with scales. Every siZe,
shape, color, teXture of the little chips swirled around her.
So much for the gardening. So much for a lot of things. They
could be used as coins, armor, cards, shingles, or just --the course deposited
her by a steep bank of telephones on which the dials were written in various
languaGes. There was no tellinG what time it was and very little left in her
cup.
She looked again and thought maybe she better make
up her mind
to wrestle with those mechanical aUigatol's.
The riGid surrealist eGGsercises constantly his will aGainst the
fri
volities of our eGGsistence. Such concerns. BeGan to rain. A
blessinG.
I iI So blessed. TryinG to concentrate. On
it. Two children, allerGic to everythinG, sittinG on a couch toGetheR.
I don't want
any of that, do yoa.
No, the otheR one aGReed completely Beyond the need foR eGGs
pRession, noR any of that eitheR.
NO RELATION TO :
Anything: PARADIGMATIC
Still inhibited by
virtue of refusing
to acKnowledge the limitations forced on
it By its quite inevitable
relationship with its surrounding environment. An allencompassing definition exists by distinct
differential. The contact and the gap. Sometimes
they have whole pocKets with apertures, not overly
apparent, not indicative of the whole globe sackful
of reserve stocked in. SyntheTic fiber, because it doesn't disintegrate, becomes a permanent and
constant irriTanT, a counter value to the aesthetics of
wear.
Color ¥Quick, Light.
Woke
up with a million very small scratches allover the skin of his ordinarily
unmapped palm.
The tiny army had
scraped across it in the night, while he slept, arm out of the covers. As if
the soles of their feet had had razors stuck like ice-skate blades on the
bottom, every step cut through just enough to break through the skin, and the
resultant texture was like the surface of a small, frozen pond on which the
local kids had exercised during the whole of a short winter afternoon. All h.
could thinK of was that the migrations had begun again, and he envisioned all
the slight transient masses moving tHrougH, moving tHrougH.
Mutation
Localized PARADISE AGAIN
The red hurricane
Something had come
iato beiag which could peak and then dissipate, be succeeded by couatless
anaagemeats of gaseous matter.
The resources
of the unit countries display their real diversity. A shallow pool of certain
chemicals shine beside a vast lake of open diagram.
Non-negotiation
Cuneacy goes obsolete
ia circulation, working towards an absolute I'elatioa of terms. Now playing with
predictions. Lights out, Gain the advantage.
Slow time of
indulgence
NOTE ON THE STATE OF DECAY
Shell-shocked,
battle fatigued. Peaceableness of the road in spite of the sirens. It was
something in the air allowed an organism to relax.
The actual softness, mildness of the temperature, the light stimulation of
the breeze, a caressing breeze. In fact, it aroused a fine kind of excitement
in him as he lay feeding. Mind off on a momentary tangent, tongue lapping
meditatively at the bulk substance, assured that it would not Sizably diminish by this long
afternoon's activity, nor the next afternoon's, nor a week's worth, nor a
month's, but would last over years, expand into an eon
of bland comfort. Meanwhile the bees chewed on the soft wood, maybe revealing
by their anxiety something he could have been better off aware of.
Maintained Indulgences: Brutal confrontations
with experienced reality
A few bites of something which when
swallowed will open up inside like a flower germinating renewal in the
eXplosive eggsperience of its petals. Contrives to feel that eGGsperience is
raw enough to be considered real. Elements of culture sometimes falter beyond
their own milieu. From the nuclear family the little Girl dreams of beinG a
star. Appearance yearns for a place in affirmative attention. Never
sufficienfly out of synch
to have to deal with the actual transGression aGainst that self-adoration.
Won't withstand the subtle mode of constant patterninG, quick curtain calls.
Swam and played in the water like sleek, younG seals in affront to the
indifferent will of passinG time, then struck in
the face
of its complete determination. Time to
Go alreedy.
G aCE: TBE REST
FIRE ENGINES: Put my head inside a paper bag.
The
omni mind of X fits new shoes to fashion, which disorients,
so unaccustomed to the novelty sensation. The radio left
open all night on the roof, absurd as art.
You will never again all of you sit
together on a sofa like that_ Youthful exuberance dissolved by that prophecy.
Unloading her groceries with a great sense of urgency. She said
it will be called Burned Brain and it will be
Hot.
Pathos
of the expectation. They knew she was alone in there Seeing
her every morning at the bus stop he developed an attachment.
Who could blame him.
Silica seeps from the pores of hsrself,
forming beads that hardened in her hair. They sHook loose
as sHe walked, clicking to THE floor around HER and rolling OFF under THE furniture and into every corner OF THE room, BOUNCING and spinning, BLACK, SHINY MARBLES.
SO EXACTLY ON THE SURFACE of this planet.
BO
It', ¥ it wh r
account
IE .1 W
|
ViJ Scan % sm 1ex pldY
food.0
|
Co ~
Payin Ih v
being, ing th hl.h
I'i ¥
Jln\tI1 hoi, t Illentu
let in,
DOWN the BEACH
RANGED. ARRANGED. ALL OF US, as fl'om a class tl'ip, Ollt along the
beach. For some reason, put
at the end, picnic blanket, as a
finishing parenthesis, as a containing term. Attention depletes
the intermediate seats. Day passes. Wind comes up. From the
blank drive of direct sun the changing angle of light becomes
more functional, Can see and do, attentive to nuances, classes
of items, like food. Cracker as a unit of complexity, broken
into
gridwork. Destroyed between sand, which shifts on the wind,
and salt.
The COMFORT
of ThESE SMaLL SpaCEs
ROME. My sistel' has kids who
al'e leal'lIiDg a 10l'eign lallguage. Did it have al'ms alld legs, does it
stand like this.
t
It's a high chamber. I am being sealed
in. You will be here for years. Can you stand it? I
am in another place. Pointing proudly he said, this is where I live. One small
red spot, on my skin, burning, kept me aware that I was playing host to
microbe. whose settlement and whole account was to Be at my eXpense. Our
purchase, passinG the postman, daGGers.
TIES. No I'eal 01' DOl'mati"e connectioD to the state 01
thiDgs. Always the capacity to be a pel'maDent aDd dangel'ous illusioD.
Activity the sole l'equil'emeDt 101' occupation 01 the place. A pl'opedy 01 the
text itsell, DOD-mimetic.
A FACT is that which completes itself.
Challenge
assllmes a
solid fOl'm. JIISt Ollt of phase.
Visual synthesizeI': Dial a scene, one
grows and then another, not regular but diagonal. Dimensiollal illusioD,
projectors. Scanning the whole and replicating through it, thick images, rather
than point by point. Equally field dependent. Dialogue. The smell coming
through the air-conditioner is wet. An absolute l'elaTion, incidenTal, among
all things, at all times. Roadside dis
e plays a front, bright boxes strewn
through sacked rooms. Violence as an item above the front door, to abate a
compulsioD, wet food. Old explosives. Seething with the utmost possibility, a
long-kept, ancient, metabolic pl'omise.
'0
Riding a
Runway
ConCl'ete,
sllper fast
Paying attention to the rules. Observing. He said to her, can I
have some. Why does he look at me defensively. It was
a being. Don't really like the way they look, peeled and reveal
J'
ing their pink skins. Ladies looking like the 21st century,
fresh growth and burned out ends. Flight boots, bare thighs.
Firing at jet
Jammed camera worKs again. New position will assure control,
at least of this initial territory. Before returning the mo
cá mentum will collapse the vehicle's
drive. Reruns of the screening will contain more information. The posture of
invesigation eats into the margin of applicability, somber.
f
We are not permanently stllck
STOPpiNG by the PATH. SIT. BACK to
the vast ocean. Facing a wide, I'ough
plain. Beyond it the I'agged edge 01 a young
mountain, shl'ouded with clouds, hit with sun. Spot 01 obvious
. .. 10
power and obscure mystery. Other travellers dot the landscape. All this
movement, transience. R man sits comtemplating the scene. A
young woman starts to pick her way down from the road. Over the edge of the hill behind her, from behind the crest of
the ridge slJl dent (
another woman rises to reprimand her. The distance is very large, but the young woman looms even
larger. Her voice brings her close, quickly. Why not come further, into the
light and clear open space. No need to get your feet in that mess. Come on.
Just a de little farther. A little farther for all
mankind. Do the masses rise, swayed by her conviction. ag
inU
no ch sequ
INQUIRY: Struggle on a primary level mula
in a h
DOUBLE IMAGE OF SUBJECT It could be
aatul'al 01' it could have beea bOl'a ugly. How could
he kaow. Oa his he'd s owa. As a l'eaUy little thiag he had beea
cOl'nel'ed by aacestol's. Grandfather"a
big old bear, wore lenses up very close to the thickly featured face. He saw
distortion reflected in the glass before that visage with round teeth in a
grin. Which of themtw.9 most affected by that image. Stocky
and thickálimbed he contradicted any clumsiness By the adeptness with which he
handled and was aBle to control material. Mind to earth through the vehicle of
his hands workinG the medium of linoleum into compliance. This aGility redeemed the physicaOorm with its capacity to Be so
articulate in the makinG of tactile decisions.
A product, I'aised by aafapeemeat. Be grew up ia a pal'kiag lot.
The first cal' he I'emembel's is a studeBaKel', Big,
It ¥ spacious,
comfortaBle, with upholstery so thicK it stined his mo"emeats. in the Tumb
Something com
_ plex and
adult
in which the system
of reward had to do with a whole iatl'icately stl'uctul'ed process of
accamalated expel'iEncE aad knowlEdgE -to position, on the hierarchy of machine relations,
interactions and achievements. Summarized in the discrete charm of a change of
scale. Fission an introvert attitude in the face of change. Everything has unit
value. Some things also have character value.
much c liltenil S
As Nice a Location
AS
YOU WOULD EVER WANT TO live
in, patently I'esidential, complacent. The wide open stl'eets stink of
exhaustion, too Open alsO.
The
oldest we've got. Practiced.
Rearranged into a form of
arcane knowledge, actually through use and application. Stay where the sky has
no limit.
Carnival
atmosphere: some clinging, some scented, many, many of them standing on the
platform, loose from sun and fresh air, other intoxicants. It will be fecund.
Come as a particle does to fruition. Costume --who thought of comfort.
Didn't even see him until I was past him, sitting upon the unsorted concrete
beside the stairs, totally wasted. Didn't want to assume anything. Whose
amusements. Again. the vast urban landscape; over time, no way to predict the
random wanders.
|
To know things in the point of impact, impossible. only
L
reflection closes the gap. As soon as I began I WaS ready. To.
Scale a system of relationships, How does regularity y affect form. JUST PUTTING THINGS IN THEIR PROPER
WOod
PLACES. BEAR CUBS OF A LITTER. TO ROMANTICIZE
fllnil
ABOUT IT IS RIDICULOUS. THESE IMAGES OF ANI
patern."
MALS, ALL
ARCHETYPES, EVOLVING
EROM DREAMS.
'.a,p
WHOSE LEGENDS
APPEARING? Rt"
fully.
Present Pleasures:
CULTáCULTURE Today's address
ne.
ge was an outbreak of symptoms ¥¥¥
. . . indicating the changes which have occurred in his attitude
since taking office. R struggle
against the accidental, the presi
dent claimed, is the basis of his program. The adviser who wan
dered in the wilderness did not know whether to assign himself
a greater or smaller depth of field. He was suffering under the
influence of short descriptions. The best outcome he could for
mulate reeked with well-meaning falsifications. If he were
alone,
no change in scale would be enough to alter the inevitable con
sequences. On the other hand, if there were any way to believe
in a hidden
variable he might be able to reveal what he thought
he'd seen.
I lin
¥ Mundane
Menace
9, It was like that for me. It will be like
that for you. She was standing in the street. Arbitrary. Remember her. She'll
be important later on. Tum back on yourself. So faBulous you want to stay with
it. Too much of everything. She'd Been hanging off the edge of the Balcony
listening to the radio. CaGe. If only it would have Been safe to.
Swallow that pl'ogl'am into the
stl'eets.
k
f
d n
r.
THE EXCITEmENT
SUSTENANT EXPERTRE
The waltz step into ail', a I'ailway to
the stal's, a quick I'ide on a hot shot. Pea shootel' vehicle fol' dl'eams aDd
dl'ama. A trick on free backlog of exchaDge, summonecl abl'uptly.
A critical mass necessary to summoning libido. A breakthrough
challenges the industry. A small detail in the change of spin more inspired
than the damp in the Florida air.
WORLD COLLAPSES
The chain of effect. No bettel'
offel'ing came thl'ough the pulsiag chal'ge, and no mOl'e ,definitive action. It all came natul'ally, because of the shape
of time. Dumb aTTiTude in litel'aTul'e, in science, pUl'e luKsul'Y, a magical
bElief.
Shape itself. Amazing
mythos. The little units
struggle to achieve supremacy. R mastermind of chartlike precision, bride to its own anathema. The vile sportsman of imagination
purposefully invents moves in violation of all acceptable boundaries.
NO LIMIT
án. LIGhTS FLASheD RApidly ACROsS his
eyes,
turning red in a trail behind him. No one holdiag up the seat today.
Wood sheet leaned against the wall. There were swarms and there
was progress. something to be made. What about the
R family.
generations and generations. So we watch the changes in Age to Age. the details
of the code. the way of keeping it. tZE paternal guardian of authority. maintaining old order. which
yields. point by point. to change. Have to force it. not to any (easy place. High priest in white coat
and domed temple. Some of us were enjoying him. Shy and frightened of the
ability.
Raw material: requires an act of generosity in return. Have you
ever been in love. Ice cream floating in the lake being care
~S.
fully eaten with spoons.
|
The CarrentClimate
d
Controversial adviser alleges motivated
takeover. Quitting his post he
attempted to put the best face on the situation. Today he
rounded
up forty-two hopefuls to compete. Dying for honour. Noone was
particularly distinguished in the trial heat. These consisted of
mopping the dry floor of the organization. There was passing
traf
fic in the interludes meant for conversation. The condition of
the
people did not respond to the character of any of the
candidates.
Waiting to re-open the road. Trai lblazing teams, all contenders
for the top pOSition, hesitated to discover the source of the
emer
gency. None was forthcoming. The interviewees wanted to report
to the president directly. The road was still closed.
Resignation
had forced
slides and floods after the allegations. Search continues.
PUBLIC: The
Long Night of mach Mist
THE THICK HAZE MADE EVEN THE DENSE SHADOWS OF ThE DARK
COMPLETELY INDISTINGUIShABLE
It was so long since we had been out at
night. I barely knew the neighborhood. When I went I was supposed to find,
right at the end of the
street, a place where I could buy a split of very eXspensive
champagne. A gourmet niGht shop. Passed my coat throuGh the Glass to make
chanGe. Almost no visibility near the Ground, owinG to the tule
foG, But with lonG, dense vistas in the hiGh clouds. A foretold But unpre
ventaBle act of canniBalism. I participate, suBmit, review and
am aBle to act only in the moment of presentation of what I knew would come to
Be a fact.
Jaws unaBle to preVent the choice of action, only workinG throuGh the
enGaGement.
Mystery
Triangle:
¥ Where cars
and trucks disappear.
People can claim anything. The vel'y I'eal melancholy
of the soul diffuses itself into the ail'. The fil'St I'eal
sight.
ing an instance of cl'eationism. Listed on the mal'quee
of the matchbook in a digital display.
Could be programed from the driver's seat of a well-stocked bank
they called the lost institutional memory.
Retrieved, the partial imitation of the tampered with and never
vio
..
lated original
Stl'uggled
thl'ough the I'etl'ials into. padiall'ecovel'Yá
Conlcientious coUection, yeal's' wodla of junk, soded
The OriGinal Scene by indelible pl'ofile. Wlaole pilei of
seemingly 1I1elell sluff, .e"el' pul to obvious use, but claa.eLLed
towal'd METHOD: COMING into KNOWING aD amusing, disTl'acTing aTTEmpT.
References become familiar. Petty
thievery. Trace that Transform the break in labor and materials into a
marketable
theme. Once here. Snapshot. What's owed.
My time. Sure commodity. Not significant enough to advertise. Just waste, con
thing. Give it a little edge.
Manufacture complete parts. Resumption, and now the stuff of the earth
re-arranged into a rigid
placement parts. Caught in
the rug. Folds to the sheep. Operand unnecessary structure. Beyond
cellular collapse. In the per
ating term. Preliminariel. Environment.
fect moment, occasioned by a series of experiments. Minimum
What is REAL TIME?
form. Suction cleaned.
TAKING the OPPORtuNitY of her own
GENERATION. FULLY. In order to
institutionalize oneself. Grace. My flat
savage reached his state of beatitude. Religious figures, standing celibate in the warehouse alcoves,
one beside another, separated in a line, each in a niche, unmoving. My premiers
slip into your premises, assumptions of the culture. Moving out of --no more
play. Figured out and not getting anything back for it. A dead cold space, only
the facet, not the phenomenon --lens and medium the distortion was obvious.
Crystal. Could be anywhere except for the discussions whose specificity
discounted all generality. The falling
words
like silver: counting the ~~umbs,
become transp~re~t by virtue of the liqui~ skin,
C plete permission. a permeable resIdue. Lapse. GIvmg up the
urge orgamze mto a secure personahty. om
SENTENCED
TO LIVE. Let me go : and drink deep of yesterday's news as if that will
suffice; what is it they need comfort for? Another sofa:
House relates to mine like two pieces of
&n illtedocking three-dimensional puzzle, contact at the edges define the
ullique sectiolls of each separate piece accordillg to the disturbillg features
of that piece. What is
known not just the sum of all but the leap beyond. Initial strike random decide
positive or negative, then go on. Attentive to the self-effacing familiarity. The figure itself no indicator of force,
boundaries held against a greater or minor tension. In an age characterized by
affectation, affection. Interior relations. Loose knit but interlocking groups.
A noble vehicle, docile by nature, barely full enough to keep from rising into
the air. Blatant subtleties. Unforseen incidents
destroyed a sense of method, not of order. Recuperation only a
restatement. Memory attaches, into belongings, anchoring location to
possEssion. MarKed with
grids, recordillg actioll as.a field of aliticipatioD. She had the route. IDitial observation. As a sympTom which
mighT indicaTe The aDdedying DarraTivE consTrucTion. IT insisTs.
Solar system: STAR. Immediately Gone
HOLDING ONTO THE RUSH, LIKE BREATH UNDER WATER, hiGh orr COMPULSION AND RESTRAINED AIR. Some kind of catalyst for change. What's unezpected.
Another way. Not to be blocked; eXhaust backs up the machine. Instead, the hot
light off the rough surface. A mesmeriZinq effect, so glad. The continual.pin.
Watch the warp; always relative to where it has been ¥¥ is. No humor, drag, the
record of the transit held by the medium. Gaps make heavy disturBance, But
anythinG can Be moved, even transported, in the spaces. Mass in its present
form from location to location. BecominG, position, indices to future
possiBilities. NothinG like density, want the motor GoinG all the time Gives
the sense'of somethinG happeninG. Last attachment
full of flaws, fiction factor. What will Be the purpose of a sense of
posterity. Implosions, eGGsplosions, announcements, new formations. What rises
from the ashes?
WORLD WOrd. CoMing ¥¥ the act itself.
LOOKING BACK WITH LONGING: The ultimate musical instrument, any
sound you want to make you have
Prophecies
of doom. Ministry of fear. Top studio contenders. Major stars. Intruding
without apology. Bright lights as manifestos. Hope. Getting sophisticated.
Changed my mind into gentle rain. Leisure creates its own necessity. Vinyl
could be a herione, built like a blonde, midwestern front page headline.
DOCUMENTATION --poured conceTe,áFixED
FORM OF EXAMINATION
What does it suggest. Blank room at the
start. Bigtime inability to see, digest special. The capacity to know, what's
that. Cliche of personal mythology, still precious. Flux the stimulating
constant, ambitious for the variability of change, a vital counterforce to
definition. Self to self to other in any, every, medium sparks excitement in
the method of ordinary function. Answering the ad, screaming pits of pain.
Their unison reminds me, I am noT done yeT. Image forming fighTs To speak and
againsT IT, WARY ofTHE TERRITORIAL INSTINCT of SENSE. CONFeSsING AWARENESS,
INTENSITY RESPONSE.
,
t
y.
ng
¥
ly
uá
rht
y
p. ttd
st.
|
Of one hundred and twenty-five copies attempted, one hundred
were on Warren's Oldstyle, twenty-five were on newsprint. Handset Stymie. Printed on a Vandercook Proof press. In Oakland,
California. From June to October. By Johanna Drucker.
Of 1J copies
completed, this is number: ::< 5
|
|
|