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, chaos· 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 oVer·defines 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

· th dlanguage. The natul'e of the universe:

scr^een, 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.

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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 differen·

tiate one house from another. This sense of identity, position, less dis·

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.

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THE PREDATORY INSTINCT TOOK the (

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FORM. Into a narrow alley between _force

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the vacuum groove to gain Advant­_nalis age. The mild harness that hethl'ew ^inG.

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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

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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

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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

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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 set·up. Anything could have hap­pened in the savage interval. The morning brutalised the street with renewed activity. Her shattered image was too melodramatic for

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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 fail­_cause 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 1M·

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 AB·

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 PARA· 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 appe­^All

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

> i·

ad

ad

ra·

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 inci· 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, SOME· 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 at· tention; she had not accorded it much importance. Why not? NO OSTENSIBLE CRIME WAS COMMITTED, BUT SOMETHING DEF· 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 ANI· MOSITY BUT AN UNDERSTANDING OF HIS POSITION AND HER OVER·DETERMINED 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

I·                              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.· 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

--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 clifficulties_l 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 self·concern, 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 land­^{mind 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 ob­_{10 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'4Iho_{U1 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 hang­^{Ollie 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'

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HIS and of p the bree

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wri fie! in t' aga littlE des,

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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 STILL·ACTIVE 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 indestruct· 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 DEVEL· OPMENTS Be considered in any WAY grotesque or unnatural or un· 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 INDIVI· 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 ad­^tl1 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 vulner­^out

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.

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_{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 · 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 1· 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 ·de. · 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 ··bl'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 unreher­_T}~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

r·

•

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. lIIaeimaD^ls .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

c·                       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 thick·limbed 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:

CULT·CULTURE 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

^·n. 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'Y·

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,·FixED 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.

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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