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GRIST On-Line, #5 February, 1994
John Fowler, Editor and Publisher
Copyright 1994 by John E. Fowler. All individual works
Copyright 1994 by their respective authors. All further
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EDITOR'S PAGE
Some months you just can't quite seem to get it together, he
said from the shambles of crashes, bugs, fixes, transfixes,
uploads, downloads, trashed files, lost drivers, corrupted
exe's, lost sys's, DOS down the drain, incompatibles, re-
copied to wrong name, lost carriers, busy signals, snow
storms, slipped discs, lost sleep and drugless days without
end.
Oh well, she sighed, maybe another time. He zipped up the
limp thing and cried. I tried, he sobbed, I tried.
There should be many things to announce and announced they
shall be.
There should be many things to denounce and denounced they
shall be.
Here in heaven, known as NYC, we pronounce all announcements
announced and all denouncements denounced. Carry on; they
shall be.
Other than that, things are most like they seem to be;
always searching the gutter for new things; always snipping
cutouts of the old ways; never sure, never far behind;
looking for great things, even if only the glimmer of an
eye. We pass on and pass on and turn to one another saying,
bye; been here before? Gone there aforetime? Now bye fore
shore; hello hind dog, bringin' up the pack; hangin' out
back. Look out! here they come:::::::::) or og (::::::::::
:
;
:
;
:
########################################
TABLE OF THE CONTENTS
TWO POEMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Forrest Richey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
CUT OFF THE CRAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Wes Chapman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Masses Manifesto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Jean A. Heriot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PROPHET TALKS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Jim Esch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
TWO POEMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Larissa Shmailo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
ONG'S HAT: GATEWAY TO THE DIMENSIONS!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Joseph Matheny. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
MAUNDER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Carol Berge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
19s A PLAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Ellen Zweig & Lou Robinson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
THE PERFECT CARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Keith Dawson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
I am sure... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Tadeusz Kantor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
LETMETELL (contd from #3). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
ezra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
AMPLIFIED ART. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Paolo Barrile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
CYANOBACTERIA INTERNATIONAL - A DISCUSSION . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
ezra & j.lehmus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
VIRPO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
FOUR POEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
j.lehmas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
an interesting story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
(Huth). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Zappa lives on.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Michael Bloom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
A REVIEW of _BEN'S EXIT_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
A definition of "Networker". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Andrea Ovcinnicoff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
ON THE INTERNATIONAL SHADOWS PROJECT: 1990 . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Karl Young. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
HIROSHIMA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
j.lehmas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
EVENTS - ANNOUNCEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Karl Young. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Creative Writing on MU*. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Tom Meyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
SIG Overview statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
DEANNA MORSE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
new edition of e-zine-list out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
John Labovitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
ISEA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
FineArt Forum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
E-MAIL ARTISTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
FLOPPYBACK PUBLISHING INTERNATIONAL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
CONTRIBUTOR NOTES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
########################################
TWO POEMS
Forrest Richey
my phone rings
and when lifted
exhales a grainy hiss...
it's the network looking for me.
///////////////////////////////////////
INVOCATION
Forrest Richey
Oh, VOID,
by thine ovoid thighs' shine,
by thy shins too,
too by thy toes...
by KUPFERBERG
and ATOM ANT
by all that's wholly discrepant,
bless this, our holey endeavor!
Amen.
F.s. 13 Jan 94
on the occasion of the LastBook birthing
########################################
CUT OFF THE CRAP
Wes Chapman
c r a p n c o r _ a b p o cdr i a eps
cra p c rap nco rap c r a pcr a pcr a p
c r ape cmr o a t p i c o r n a s p :
########################################
Subject: Masses Manifesto
From: Jean A. Heriot
The manifesto of an early American anarchist journal,
beautifully typset, which can only be approximated in
ascii.
The Masses Manifesto, 1913
A FREE MAGAZINE
THIS MAGAZINE IS OWNED AND PUBLISHED CO-OPERATIVELY BY
ITS EDITORS. IT HAS NO DIVIDENDS TO PAY, AND NOBODY IS
TRYING TO MAKE MONEY OUT OF IT. A REVOLUTIONARY AND
NOT A REFORM MAGAZINE; A MAGAZINE WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR
AND NO RESPECT FOR THE RESPECTABLE; FRANK, ARROGANT,
IMPERTINENT, SEARCHING FOR THE TRUE CAUSES; A MAGAZINE
DIRECTED AGAINST RIGIDITY AND DOGMA WHEREVER IT IS
FOUND; PRINTING WHAT IS TOO NAKED OR TRUE FOR A
MONEY-MAKING PRESS; A MAGAZINE WHOSE FINAL POLICY IS TO
DO AS IT PLEASES AND CONCILIATE NOBODY, NOT EVEN ITS
READERS--THERE IS A FIELD FOR THIS PUBLICATION IN
AMERICA.
HELP US TO FIND IT. SEND YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS WITH
ONE DOLLAR FOR AN ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION. PASS US ALONG
TO YOUR FRIENDS.
TALK ABOUT US. PRAISE US. CRITICISE US. DAMN US
PUBLICLY. WE MUST HAVE A LITTLE CONSIDERATION.
########################################
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PROPHET TALKS
Jim Esch
He talks about leaving his one room house. The house
where he was conceived, born, bred, and which he now
occupies. No door. No windows. Walls of changing
colors. Yes, he talks about the walls changing colors.
Purples, deep red, forest green, sandy rock, painted
sky, flesh. Colors he can touch and fondle. With no
door to exit from, he talks himself out of his room.
Talking to the walls, which he assumes have listened
without protest for a lifetime.
He talks about the climbs up mountains of rock. Higher
than any building. Stones slip beneath him. He has no
time to think, grabbing for secure holds to place his
hands and lift his feet. He little remembers the colors
of things. All is instinct and the touch of the rock
and the texture of his palms, and how the rock rubs off
on skin, leaving a mark, and how his skin scapes on the
rock, leaving a trace, however fine, of his presence.
He talks about how one man is less than the wake he
leaves, the debris left in his name. Whose force is
this? Tramping the ages, whose echo bounces through
this valley? One of infinite possibilities, is it the
accumulation of mouths talking, picking up on something
he may have said, for which there is no proof he said
it? Only more voices talking -- a tree to hang their
words on. One thing strikes him as true: it is foolish
to reattach leaves fallen off the branches.
When he talks, things happen. No questions asked. Only
within...without...you can't really talk about that
because it can't be included. Even this talk doesn't
include it. It just probes the edges of his talking.
He talks about losing his foothold. How when once three
limbs held fast to the rock, now only two hold on. He
talks to the rock and asks it to rescue him, to allow
him a foothold, to allow him to climb again. But the
rock doesn't hear. It is objective, inanimate.
He wonders whether it is the same for algebra,
calculus, musical notation. How the language of numbers
or sounds excludes more than it includes. How they ask
more questions than they seem to ask, how they lose
meaning while fixing it. "Rock. Rock. Rock," he says.
He says he knows and expects no resolution. He talks
about running, how it sounds to be running over dirt,
over gravel, over smooth asphalt, over tiled hallways.
What is he running from?
"Too much God destroys," he says.
########################################
TWO POEMS
Larissa Shmailo
Lager NYC
You, volunteer:
Reichsgeboren.
You, Herren Doktoren und Geschaftsmanne
Profesoren und Burokrafte
You
You choose to be here
Select.
You, volunteer:
Jugend Profesionell
You know the difference
Between cause and effect:
The people on the street
Are too stupid to have homes
Too filthy to wash
See them root through the garbage
Nicht essen aber fressen
Ni yest' a zhryat'
They deserve to be there
They deserve to be there
Select.
Concentrate:
See the dark people
Sitting in the cells
They deserve to be there
They deserve to be there
And the women of the Frauenblock
The Fraulein triple X
Control her, detain her
Pick her up
Select.
Cause and effect:
You know which is which.
You, volunteer:
Geschaftleute, Burokrafte:
We see you
On the job where you whisper
Half of what you think
And none of what you feel
Watch the watch, see the clock
The digital tatoo says run:
Rush to the train the transport
Who cares who gets in
Who cares who gets out
Push into the car the transport
Who cares who gets home
Who cares who gets shot
Arbeit macht frei.
You choose this
You choose:
Select.
Hey, you, volunteer
You, Herren Profesoren und Burokrafte
We find ourselves together in the subway
The Grand Ka-Ze Zentral:
Here in Ka-Ze
Your face is not a face
Ni litso, a morda:
Your face is not a face
But a snout
We don't eat here, we devour
Nicht essen aber fressen
Ni yest' a zhriat
We don't give an inch
And we don't give a damn
Only weaklings fall to the tracks
God knows the difference
Between cause and effect
The selection is over:
Look how it happened that you fell.
You choose this
You choose
Select.
////////////////////////////////////////
HOW MY FAMILY SURVIVED THE CAMPS
Larissa Shmailo
Was micht nicht umbringt, macht mich starker:
What does not kill me makes me stronger
Nietzsche said this about other things
Not this.
How did my family survive the camps?
Were they smarter, stronger than the rest?
Were they lucky?
Did luck exist in Dora-Nordhausen,
Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen?
How did my family survive?
They were young, my mother and father, in 1943
Twenty years old when taken as slaves.
No one knew my father was a soldier, a communist
So he was not shot
Or taken to be gassed.
My grandmother said quickly to the Germans
He is a mechanic; they needed mechanics
My grandmother, Soviet businesswoman
Begged and bribed the Ukrainian kapos
Begged and bribed the Germans, not SS
They took my father, son of a commissar
And shot the other men.
How did my family survive?
They offered no resistance
Did they collaborate?
Is complicity possible without choice?
They marched to Germany, working
Following the German army
Following the front
Digging trenches, carrying metal
These were the good camps, Kalinovka, Peremeshl
There was still food:
My mother recalls eating an entire vat of potatoes
Fouled by kerosene, discarded by the Germans, not SS
The treatment was not cruel, comparatively, not cruel:
In 1944, the Germans
Were as afraid of the Russian front
As the prisoners were of Germany
And of the other camps.
Where they went nonetheless
Where they were sent nonetheless.
How did they survive Erfurt, the selection?
My mother spoke good German
I see her now at the staging camp
Her keen anticipating wit dancing aroung the SS
Like her young slavic feet
She was young and goodlooking
Filthy and thin
But smart and goodlooking
And the SS liked the Ukrainian Frauen.
On the cattlecar to Dora
The extermination camp
My mother rode with her family, intact
Smaller but intact
And ready for work.
How did my family survive
Was it luck?
In Dora-Nordhausen
Where the air smelled of gas and diarrhea
Where the sun rose but never shone
Was there luck?
The boxcar stopped
At the Nordhausen factory
The way out through the crematorum chimney
In Dora
Here, my grandmother learned languages
Wstavach, Stoi, Ren, schwein, Halt.
In Dora, where not to understand an order meant death
My grandmother learned six languages; after six months
My family could work, hide and ask for bread
In all the languages of Europe.
They learned English the same way.
How did my family survive?
I see my mother in Dora
Running from the allied bombs, running to steal food
Lying in the trenches made by the screaming shells
Looking at the dark sky, chewing a stolen turnip
Watching the bombs fall, a diversion like a movie,
Her first in years.
When the Americans came, with chocolate and blankets
My father, six foot one
Was one hundred and twenty pounds
And still we were rich, my mother interjects,
rich compared to the Jews.
A few months longer, though, we would not have been
We would not have been alive.
How did my family survive?
My grandfather, a teacher
Told this story:
When the Americans came and saw the camp
They invited the people to loot the nearby towns
Take anything, the well-fed soldiers said
My grandfather stood and spoke: We are not animals, he
said
But we were, my father interrupts, we were.
How did my family survive?
Survive is not the right word.
I'm alive, my father would say, alive
Alive because I did not die; others died.
Keep breathing, he encouraged me in difficult times
Keep breathing.
########################################
ONG'S HAT: GATEWAY TO THE DIMENSIONS!
Joseph Matheny
A full color brochure for the Institute of Chaos Studies and
the Moorish Science Ashram in Ong's Hat, New Jersey.
Introductions
------------
You would not be reading this brochure if you had not
already penetrated half-way to the ICS.You have been
searching for us without knowing it, following oblique
references in crudely xeroxed marginal 'samsidat"
publications,crackpot mystical pamphlets,mailorder courses
in "Kaos Magick"-a paper trail and a coded series of rumors
spread at street level through circles involved in the
illicit distribution of certain controlled substances and
the propagation of certain acts of insurrection against the
Planetary Work Machine and the Consensus Reality-or perhaps
through various obscure mimeographed technical papers on the
edges of "chaos science"-through pirate computer networks-or
even through pure syncronicity and the pursuit of dreams.
In any case we know something about you, your interests,
deeds and desires,works and days-and we know your address.
Otherwise...you would not be reading this brochure.
Background
----------
During the 1970s and '80s, "chaos" began to emerge as a new
scientific paradigm,on a level of importance with Relativity
and Quantum Mechanics. It was born out of the mixing of many
different sciences-weather prediction, Catastrophe
Theory,fractal geometry, and the rapid development of
computer graphics capable of plunging into the depths of
fractals and "strange attractors; "hydraulics and fluid
turbulence,evolutionary biology, mind/brain studies and
psychopharmacology also played major roles in forming the
new paradigm.
The slogan "order out of chaos" summed up the gist of this
science, whether it studied the weird fractional-dimensional
shapes underlying sworls of cigarette smoke or the dis-
tribution of colors in marbled paper-or else dealt with
"harder" matters such as heart fibrillation, particle beams
or population vectors.
However, by the late '80s it began to appear as if this
"chaos movement" had split apart into two opposite and
hostile world-views, one placing emphasis on chaos itself,
the other on *order*. According to the latter sect--the
Determinists--chaos was the enemy,randomness a force to be
overcome or denied. They experienced the new science as a
final vindication of Classical Newtonian physics,and as a
weapon to be used *against* chaos, a tool to map and predict
reality itself. For them, chaos was death and disorder,
entropy and waste. The opposing faction however experienced
chaos as something benevolent, the necessary matrix out of
which arises spontaneously an infinity of variegated forms--
a pleroma rather than an abyss-a principle of continual
creation, unstructured, fecund, beautiful, spirit of
wildness. These scientists saw chaos theory as vindication
of Quantum indeterminacy and Godel's Proof, promise of an
open-ended universe, Cantorian infinities of potential...
chaos as *health*.
Easy to predict which of these two schools of thought would
recieve vast funding and support from goverments, multi-
nationals and intelligence agencies. By the end of the
decade, "Quantum/Chaos" had been forced underground,
virtually censored by prestigious scientific journals-which
published only papers by Determinists.
The dissidents were reduced to the level of the *margin*-
and there they found themselves part of yet another branch
of the paradigm,the underground of cultural chaos--the
"magicians"--and of political chaos-extremist anti-
authoritarian "mutants".
Unlike Relativity, which deals with the Macrocosm of
outer space,and Quantum, which deals with the Microcosm of
particle physics, chaos science takes place largely within
the Mesosphere-the world as we experience it in "everyday
life".,from dripping faucets to banners flapping in the
autumn breezes. Precisely for this reason useful
experimental work in chaos can be carried on without the
hideous expense of cyclotrons and orbital observatories. So
even when the leading theoreticians of Quantum/Chaos began
to be fired from university and corporate positions, they
were still able to pursue certain goals. Even when they
began to suffer political pressures as well, and sought
refuge and space among the mutants and marginals, still they
perservered. By a paradox of history, their poverty and
obscurity forced them to narrow the scope of their research
to precisely those areas which would ultimately produce
concrete results--pure math, and the mind-simply because
these areas were relatively inexpensive.
Up until the crash of '87, the "alternative network"
amounted to little more than a nebulous weave of pen-pals
and computer enthusiasts,Whole Earth nostalgists,
futurologists, anarchists, food cranks, neo-pagans and
cultists, self-publishing punk poets, armchair schizo-
phrenics, survivalists and mail artists. The Crash however
opened vast but hard-to-see cracks in the social and
economic control structures of America. Gradually the
marginals and mutants began to fill up those fissures with
the wegs of their own networking. Bit by bit they created a
genuine black economy, as well as a shifting insubstantial
"autonomous zone", impossible to map but real enough in its
various manifestations.
The orphaned scientists of Q/C theory fell into this in-
visible anti-empire like a catalyst-or perhaps it was the
other way around. In either case, something crystallized. To
explain the precipitation of this jewel, we must move on to
the specific cases, people and stories.
History
-------
The Moorish Orthodox Church of America is an offshoot of
the Moorish Science Temple, the New World's first Islamic
heretical sect, founded by a black circus magicain named
Noble Drew Ali in Newark, New jersey in 1913. In the 1950s
some white jazz musicians and poets who held "passports" in
the M.S.T. founded the Moorish Orthodox Church, which also
traced its spiritual ancestry to various "Wandering Bishops"
loosely affiliated with the Old Catholic Church and schisms
of Syrian Orthodoxy. In the '60s the church acquired a new
direction from the Psychedelic Movement, and for a while
maintained a presence at T. Leary's commune in Millbrook,
New York. At the same time the discovery of sufism led
certain of its members to undertake journeys to the East.
One of these Americans, known by the Moorish name Wali
Fard, travelled for years in India, Persia, and Afghanistan,
where he collected an impressive assortment of exotic
initiations:Tantra in Calcutta,from an old member of the
Bengali Terrorist Party; sufism from the Ovayssi Order in
Shiraz, which rejects all human masters and insists on
visionary experience; and finally, in the remote Badakhshan
Province of Afghanistan, he converted to an archaic form of
Ismailism (the so-called Assassins) blended out of Buddhist
Yab-Yum teachings, indigenous shamanic sorcery and extremist
Shiite revolutionary philosophy-worshippers of the *Umm
al-kitab*, the "Matrix Book." Up until the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan and the reactionary orthodox "revolution" in
Iran,Fard carried on trade in carpets and other well-known
Afghan exports. When history forced him to return to America
in 1978, he was able to launder his savings by purchasing
about 200 acres of land in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
Around the turn of the decade he moved into an old rod & gun
club on the property along with several runaway boys from
Paramus, New Jersey, and an anarchist lesbian couple from
Brooklyn, and founded the Moorish Science Ashram. Through
the early-to-mid-'80s the commune's fortunes fluctuated
(sometimes nearly flickering out). Fard self-published a
series of xeroxed "Visionary Recitals" in which he attempted
a synthesis of heretical and antinomian spirituality,
post-Situationist politics, and chaos science. After the
Crash, a number of destitute Moors and synpathizers began
turning up at the Ashram seeking refuge. Among them were two
young chaos scientists recently fired from Princeton (on a
charge of "seditious nonesense"), a brother and sister,
Frank and Althea Dobbs.
The Dobbs twins spent their early childhood on a UFO-cult
commune in rural Texas,founded by their father, a retired
insurance salesman who was murdered by rogue disciples
during a revival in California. One might say that the
siblings had a head start in chaos-and the Ashram's modus
vivendi suited them admirably. (The Pine Barrens have often
been called "a perfect place for a UFO landing.") They
settled into an old Airstream trailer and constructed a
crude laboratory in a rebuilt barn hidden deep in the Pines.
Illegal sources of income were available from agricultural
projects, and the amorphous community took shape around the
startling breakthroughs made by the Dobbs twins during the
years around the end of the decade. As undergraduates at the
University of Texas the siblings had produced a series of
equations which, they felt certain, contained the seeds of a
new science they called "cognitive chaos." Their dimissal
from Princeton followed their attempt to submit these
theorems, along with a theoretical/philosophical system
built upon them, as a joint PhD thesis. On the assumption
that brain activity can be modeled as a "fractal universe,"
an outre' topology interfacing with both random and
determined forces, the twins' theorems showed that
consciousness itself could be presented as a set of "strange
attractors" (or "patterns of chaos") around which specific
neuronal activity would organize itself. By a bizzare
synthesis of mandelbrot and Cantor, they "solved the
problem" of n-dimensional attractors, many of which they
were able to generate on Princeton's powerful computers
before their hasty departure. While realizing the ultimately
indeterminate nature of these "mind maps", they felt that by
attaining a thorough (non-intuitive and intuitive) grasp of
the actual *shapes* of the attractors, one could "ride with
chaos" somewhat as--a "lucid dreamer" learns to contain and
direct the process of REM sleep. Their aborted thesis
suggested a boggling array of benefits which might accrue
from such from such links between cybernetic processes and
awareness itself, including the exploration of the brain's
unused capacities, awareness of the morphogentic field and
thus conscious control of autonomic functions, mind-directed
repair of tissue at the cellular/genetic level (control over
most diseases and the aging process), and even a direct
perception of the Heisenbergian behavior of matter (a
process they called "surfing the wave function"). Their
thesis advisor told them that even the most modest of these
proposals would suffice for their expungement from the
Graduate Faculty-and if the whole concept(including
theorems) were not such obvious lunacy, he would have
reported them to the FBI as well. Two more scientists--
already residents of Ong's Hat--joined with Fard and the
twins in founding the Institute of Chaos studies. By sheer
"chance" their work provided the perfect counterparts to the
Dobbs' research. Harold Acton, an expatriate British
computer-(and reality) hacker, had already linked 64
second-hand personal computers into a vast ad-hoc system
based on his own _I_Ching_ oriented speculations. And
Martine Kallikak, a native of the Barrens from nearby
Chatsworth, had set up a machine shop. Ironically, Martine's
ancestors once provided guinea pigs for a notorious studt in
eugenics carried out in the 1920s at the Vineland NJ State
Home for the Insane. Published as a study in "heredity and
feeblemindness," the work proclaimed poverty, non-ordinary
sexuality, reluctance to hold a steady job, and enjoyment of
intoxicants as *proofs* of genetic decay-and thus made a
lasting contribution to the legend of bizarre and
lovecraftian Piney backwoodspeople, incestuous hermits of
the bogs. Martine had long since proven herself a
*bricoleuse*, electronics buff and back-lot inventor of
great genius and artistry. With the arrival of the Dobbs
twins, she discovered her tre metier' in the realization of
various devices for the implementation of their proposed
experiments.
The synergy level at the ICS exceeded all expectations.
Contacts with other underground experts in various related
fields were maintained by "black modem" as well as personal
visits to the Ashram. The spiritual rhythms permeating the
place proved ideal: periods of dazed lazy contemplation and
applied hedonics alternating with "peak" bursts of self-
overcoming activity and focused attention. The hodgepodge of
"Moorish Science" (Tantra, sufism, Ismaili esotericism,
alchemy and psychopharmacology, bio-feedback and "brain
machine" meditation techniques, etc.) seemed to harmonize in
unexpectedly fruitful ways with the "pure" science of the
ICS.
Under these conditions progress proved amazingly swift,
stunning even the Institutes founders. Within a year major
advances had been made in all the fields predicted by the
equations. Somewhat more than three years after founding
there occurred *the* breakthrough, the discovery which
served to re-orient our entire project in a new direction:
the Gate.
But to explain the Gate we must retrace some steps, and
reveal exactly the purposes and goals of the ICS and Moorish
Science Ashram--the curriculum upon which our activities are
based, and which constitutes our *raison d'etre.*
The Curriculum
--------------
The original and still ultimate concern of our community is
the enhancement of consciousness and consequent enlargement
of mental, emotional and psychic activities. When the Ashram
was founded by W.Fard the only means available for this work
were the bagful of oriental and occultist meditational
techniques he had learned in Central Asia, the first-
generation "mind machines" developed during the '80s, and
the resources of exotic pharmacology. With the first
successes of the Dobbs twin's research, it became obvious to
us that the spiritual knowledge of the Ashramites could be
re-organized into a sort of prearatory course of training
for workers in "Cognitive Chaos." This does not mean we
surrendered our original purpose-attainment of non-ordinary
consciousness-but simply that ICS work could be viewed as a
prolongation and practical application of the Ashram work.
The theorems allow us to re-define "self liberation" to
include physical self-renewal and life-extension as well as
the exploration of material reality which (we maintain)
remains *one* with the reality of consciousness. In this
project, the kind of awareness fostered by meditational
techniques plays a part just as vital as the *techne'* of
machines and the pure mentation of mathematics. In this
scenario, the theorems-or at least a philosophical under-
standing of them-serve the purpose of an abstract *icon* for
contemplation.Thus the theorems camn be absorbed or englobed
to the point where they become part of the inner structure
(or "deep grammar") of the mind itself. In the first stage,
intellectual comprehension of the theorems parallels
spiritual work aimed at refining the faculty of *attention*.
At the same time a kind of psychic anchor is constructed, a
firm grounding in celebratory body-aware-ness. The erotic
and sensual for us cannot be spirit-ualized and aimed at
anything "higher" than themselves--rather, they constitute
the very *ground* on which our dance is performed, and the
atmosphere or *taste* which permeates or whole endeavor. We
symbolize this first course of work by the tripartite
Sanskrit term *satchitananda*,"Being/consciousness/bliss"--
the ontological level symbolized by the theorems, the
psychological level by the meditation, the level of joy by
our "tantrik" activity. The second course (which can begin
at any time during or after the first) involves practiacl
instruction in a variety of "hard sciences", especially
evolutionary biology and genetics, brain physiology, Quantum
Mechanics and computer hacking. We have no need for these
disciplines in any academic sense-in fact our work has
already overturned many existing paradigms in these fields
and rendered the textbooks useless for our purposes-so we
have tailored these courses specifically for relevance to
our central concern, and jettisoned everything extraneous.
At this point a Fellow of the ICS is prepared for woork
with the device we call the "egg. "This consists of a
modified sensory-deprivation chamber in which attention can
be focused on a computer terminal and screen. Electrodes are
taped to various body parts to provide physiological data
which is fed into the computer.The explorere now dons a
peculiar helmet, a highly sophisticated fourth-generation
version of the early "brain machines," which can sonically
stimulate brain cells either globally or locally and in
various combinations, thus directing not only "brain waves"
but also highly specific menatl-physical functions. The
helmet is also plugged into the computer and provides
feedback in various programmed ways. The explorer now
undertakes a series of exercises in which the theorems are
used to generate graphic animations of the "strange
attractors" which map various states of consciousness,
setting up feedback loops between this "iconography" and the
actual states themselves, which are in turn generated
through the helmet simultaneously with their representation
on the screen. Certain of these exercises involve the
"alchemical" use of mind-active drugs, including new
vasopressin derivatives, beta-endorphins and hallucinogens
(usually in "threshold" dosages). Some of these tinctures
are simply to provide active-relaxation and focused-
attention states, others are specifically linked to the
requirments of "Cognitive Chaos" research. Even in the
earliest and crudest stages of the egg's development the ICS
founders quickly realized that many of the Dobbs twins' PhD
thesis predictions might be considered cautious or con-
servative. Enhanced control of autonomous body functions was
attained even in the second-generation version, and the
third provided a kind of bathysphere capable of "diving
"down even to the cellular level. Certain unexpected
side-effects included phenomena usually classified as
paranormal. We knew we were not hallucinating all this,
quite bluntly, because we obtained concrete and measurable
results, not only in terms of "yogic powers" (such as
suspended animation, "inner hear, "lucid dreaming and the
like) but also in observable benefits to health: rapid
healing, remission of chronic conditions, *absence of
disease*. At this point in development of the egg (third
generation) the researchers attempted to "descend" (like
SciFi micronauts) to the Quantum level. Perhaps the
thorniest of all Quantum paradoxes involves the "collapse of
the wave function"--the state of Schrodinger's famous cat.
When does a wave "become" a particle? At the moment of
observation? If so does this implicate human consciousness
in the actual Q-structure of reality itself? By observing do
we in effect "create? "The ICS team's ultimate dream was to
"ride the wave" and actually experience (rather than merely
observe) the function-collapse. Through "participation" in
Q-events, it was hoped that the observer/observed duality
could be overcome or evaded. This hope was based on rather
"orthodox" Copenhagian interpetations of Quantum reality.
After some months of intensive work, however, no one had
experienced the sought-for and expected "moment"...each wave
seemed to flow as far as one cared to ride it, like some
perfect surfer's curl extending to infinity. We began to
ssuspect that the answer to the question"when?" might be
"never!" This contingency had been described rigorously in
only one interpretation of Q-reality, that of J.Wheeler-who
proved that the wave function need never collapse provided
that every Q-event gives rise to an "alternating world"(the
Cat is both alive and dead). To settle this question a
fourth generation of the egg was evolved and tested, while
simultaneously a burst of research was carried out in the
abstruse areas of "Hillbert space" and the topology of
n-dimensional geometry, on the intuituve assumptions that
new "attractors" could thereby be generated and used to
visualize or "grok" the transitions between alternate
universes.
Again the ICS triumphed...although the immediate success of
the fourth-generation egg provoked a moment of fear and
panic unmatched in the whole history of "Cognitive Chaos."
The first run-through of the "Cat" program was undertaken by
a young staff-member of great brilliance (one of the
original Paramus runaways) whose nickname happened to be
Kit-and it happened to take place on the Spring Equinox. At
the precise moment the heavens changed gears, so to speak,
the entire egg vanished from the laboratory. Consternation
would be a mild term for what ensued. For about seven
minutes the entire ICS lost its collective cool. At that
point however the egg reappeared with its passenger intact
and beaming...like Alice's Chesire Cat rather than
Schrodinger's poor victim. He had succeeded in riding the
wave to its "destination"--an alternate universe. He had
observed it and--in his words--"memorized its address."
Instinctively he felt that certain dimensional universes
must act as "starnge attractors" in their own right, and are
thus far easier to access (more "probable") than others. In
practical terms, he had not been dissolved but had found the
way to a "universe next door." The Gateway had been opened.
Where is Ong's Hat?
-----------------
According to Piney legend, the village of Ong's Hat was
founded sometime in the 19th century whena man named Ong
threw his hat up in the air, landed it in a tree and was
unable to retrieve it (we like to think it vanished into
another world). By the 1920s all traces of settlement other
than a few crumbling chimneys had faded away. But the name
appealed so much to cartographers that some of them retained
it-a dot representing nothing in the midst of the most
isolated flat dark scrub-pines and sandy creeks in all the
vast, empty and perhaps haunted Barrens. W. Fard's acreage
lies in the invisible suburbs of this invisible town, of
which we are the sole inhabitants. You can find it easily on
old survey maps,even trace out the the old dirt road leading
into the bogs where a little square represents the decrepit
"Ong's Hat Rod & Gun Club," original residence. However, you
might discover that finding the ICS itself is not so simple.
If you compare your old survey map with the very latest,
you will note that our area lies perilously close to the
region infamous in recent years, the South Jersey Nuclear
Waste Dump near Fort Dix. The "accident" that occurred there
has made the Barrens even more mepty and unpopular, as any
hard-core Pineys fled the pollution melting into the state's
last untouched wilderness. The electrified fence shutting
off the deadly zone runs less than a mile above our enclave.
The Accident occurred while we were in the first stages of
developing the fourth-generation egg,the Gate. At the time
we had no idea of its full potential. However all of us,
except for the very youngest (who were evacuated), had by
then been trained in elementary self-directed generation. A
few tests proved that with care and effort we could resist
at least the initial onslaught of radiation sickness. We
decided to stick it out, at least until "the authorities"
(rather than the dump) proved too hot to endure.
Once the Gate was discovered, we realized the situation had
been saved. The opening and actual interdimensional travel,
can only be effected by a fully trained "cognitive chaote;"
so the first priority was to complete the course for all our
members. A technique for "carrying" young children was
developed (it seems not to work for adult "non-initiates"),
and it was discovered that all inanimate matter within the
egg is also carried across with the operator.
Little by little we carted our entire establishment
(including most of the buildings) across the topological
abyss. Unlike Baudelaire who pleaded, "Anywhere!-so long as
out of this world!" we knew where we were going. Ong's Hat
has indeed vanished from New Jersey, except for the hidden
laboratory deep in the backwoods where the gate "exists."
On the other side of the Gate we found a Pine Barrens
similar to ours but in a world which apparently never
developed human life. Of course we have since visited a
number of other worlds, but we decided to colonize this
one, our first newfoundland. We still live in the same
scattering of weather-gray shacks, Airstream trailers,
recycled chicken coops, and mail-order yurts, only a bit
more spread out-and considerably more relaxed. We're still
dependent on your world for many things-from coffee to books
to computers-and in fact we have no inclination of cutting
ourselves off like anchorites and merely scampering into a
dreamworld. We intend to spread the word. The colonization
of new worlds-even an infinity of them--can never act as a
panacea for the ills of Consensus Reality--only as a
palliative. We have always taken our diseases with us to
each new frontier...everywhere we go we exterminate
aborigines and battle with our weapons of law and order
against the chaos of reality. But this time, we believe, the
affair will go differently--because this time the journey
outward can only be made simultaneously with the journey
inward-and because this bootstrap-trick can only be attained
by a consciousness which, to a significant degree, has
overcome itself, liberated itself from self-sickness-and
"realized itself." Not that we think ourselves saints, or
try to behave morally, or imagine ourselves a super-race,
absolved from good and evil. Simply, we like to consider
ourselves awake when we're awake, sleeping when we sleep. We
enjoy good health. We have learned that desire demands the
*other* just as it demands the self. We see no end to growth
while life lasts, no cessation of unfolding, of continual
outpouring of form from chaos. We're moving on, nomads or
monads of the dimensions. Sometimes we feel almost satisfied
..at other times, terrified.
Meanwhile our agents of chaos remain behind to set up ICS
courses, distribute Moorish Orthodox literature (a major
mask for our propaganda) to subvert and evade our
enemies... We haven't spoken yet of our enemies. Indeed
there remains much we have not said. This text, diguised as
a sort of New Age vacation brochure, must fall silent at
this point, satisfied that it has embedded within itself
enough clues for its intended readers (who are already
halfway to Ong's hat in any case) but not enough for those
with little faith to follow.
CHAOS NEVER DIED!
########################################
MAUNDER
A Restoration Fragment
(from GRIST #11)
Carol Berge
Scene: Dinner Table. Time of the Restoration (or Minuet
Music, a Gavotte, like that.) Or Bronx Modern, pale
furniture, doilies. The first would be Rhoda and Zelda.
Brenda. You know. Or any Chateau. Or the Club, velvet
curtains, crystal everything. Old men.
J. Scott, to
crony and his own wife: `I've just discovered it. It
will revolutionize everything, I tell you. Nylon, I
will call it, after my aunt. Shaped like a paper clip.'
Japanese Man comes in stand ready to shoot
him, but does not.
Mother of J. Scott, to the audience,
who sits about on mock toilet seats: `O, I tell you,
that boy is smart. Smart as a whip. If there's one
thing I know, in fact have always known, it is that
that boy there is smart. Only one of the brood to
amount to something, always knew it would be like
that.'
Japanese Man turns and fires point blank at
Mother of J. Scott, but they are blanks, so she lives
on.
Chinese Man enters: `I am enraged at your new
invention because it will put all of the silkworm
people out of business and they will starve. I cannot
see all of my people starve. So you must give me
royalty options on this product you will call Nylon,
and I too will grow rich, and will put my people on the
dole.'
Rhoda, from her end of a long trestle-table,
leaning on her elbows: `Goddam these political-minded
people. I wish they would keep the shit their ideas to
their goddam selves and stop confusing the issues.
Money is money and all this rot about the poor is just
ridiculous. I am now going up to Alexander's to buy
myself a new thing of that Nylon stuff. And to hell
with who gets what, as long as I get mine.'
Swiss Man
enters, smiles, always smiling, very untidy, very very
untidy indeed, pockets full of cheese which gushes out
as he walks, shoes, everything. In his mouth is a gun
and out of the gun comes silk-liquid, so labelled. `Ho,
ho, ho, think you're so smart, I figured a way to
convert spit of _people_ into silk-liquid, & that will
earn the Swiss banks a lot of moola.'
J. Scott, to own
wife: `Okay Jez, you swinger, level him. Them.'
Own Wife
does so. Levels the Japanese Man, Chinese Man, Swiss
Ma. Levels Rhoda with a glitter of dislike. Pauses and
titters then levels Mother of J. Scott. But it does not
stop there. Own Wife reaches across table in center of
Club room near where beautiful fire is burning.
Snatches up recipe for new paper-clip-shaped Nylon
item. Throws same into fire.
J. Scott, to self: `Wonder
hell did that fer.'
Own Wife: `Big Dummy he is, doesn't
know that doesn't get invented till long years away,
yeah Mr. Tantalus always thinking yer a bigshot, you
and yr oriental concubines.'
########################################
19s A PLAY
Ellen Zweig & Lou Robinson
ACT I, SCENE I
Blanche Wittman (a plump and dimpled blond girl): He de-
veloped the habit of ripping in half deities he has just
finished decorating.
Louis: If more is needed, we'll make more difficulty walking
and standing. The person who is gazing expectantly won't
ever lie.
Blanche: Let him stop living in the basement, looking at the
living optic nerve.
Louis: Sugar overstimulated her, peculiar twists and turns,
bizarre and grotesque feats of dexterity were performed.
The development of modern science can hold back sobs.
Blanche: Leaving Dorrians, male or female, you've got claws
to capture the split second commotion. All the musicians
were there: battered thirty-five millimeter jugglers, court
bards, actors, dancers, athletes, wrestlers, tambourine
players, buffoons.
Louis: Those who play with ropes won't let me do service.
Blanche: The devotee who made the call referred to them by
their diseased body parts.
Louis: See what you can do to resolve the perceiver into
that which was perceived. Get him something decent, pure in
eye.
Blanche: Some ecstatic children were rolling it down the
hall when the fictive mother made those marks herself. A
man grown suddenly old may be a physiognomist or picture-
explainer.
Louis: Many married women will always be in your footsteps.
Blanche: He had his history there, too, walking on tiptoes.
Louis: Her arms shot out numb and rigid.
Blanche: The more I work on these plants the more the
fascination of them grows upon me.
///////////////////////////////////////
ACT I, SCENE II
(Third character enters: Gabrielle Russier--30 yr old french
schoolteacher who had an affair with 16 yr old male student
of hers. Police, govt., family drove her to imprisonment,
madness, suicide.)
Set: (loose stones lying on the ground are generally white
but otherwise dark)
Blanche: collecting seaweed during a seaside holiday relaxes
in the long run.
Louis: those long lines of gentle puppets. Continued her
plant experiments. Lombroso's skull collection.
Blanche: In whose shadow such alternative relationships had
always been conducted.
Louis: Knows how to deserve her--flash, flit, shine, look
like, adorn who amuse others by uttering the same thing in
two or three.
Blanche: Not after she told those two dreams but later.
Like those who depict infernoes. Might have simply fallen
back.
Louis: Very different arms receive him.
Blanche: That's why he associates with us, using a picture
of a skeleton.
Louis: To bring the machine into perfect timing.
Blanche: We want him alive and we want him agile. Balancing
on her heels and head like an acrobat.
Stage direction: (the runaway should suddenly decide to
talk)
Gabrielle: I wasn't there.
Blanche: Fathers who encouraged daughters, every kind of
caution. Try to have more presence of mind.
Gabrielle: I thought it would be safe to see you again.
Blanche: Could not drive in poor light.
Gabrielle: The charges against me may be reduced.
Louis: The opportunity to study birds. I really must settle
down to drawing horses.
Stage direction: (his angels haul him off to the stall)
Blanche: Who make drawings on paper of such things as men,
birds, beasts, eagles, or insects. The erection of a palace
set with jewels. Objects or images by which you may earn a
living. really meant tottering.
Gabrielle: I didn't waste too much time.
Stage direction: (she hands her a sheet of paper typed on
both sides)
Blanche: We whisper, we go over the same ground again,
again. Texts confiscated and destroyed.
Gabrielle: Look for chinks.
///////////////////////////////////////
ACT I, SCENE III
In a circular chamber, quite dark
Blanche: Her grief spreads throughout her body: hybridism,
artificial breeding, rudimentary organs. She looked for a
victim, anyone who had dissected the hand, the viscera, or
even a feather.
Louis: Who dare say whether it is or it isn't more beautiful
than nature?
One or two small shrouded lamps placed on the floor serve
dimly to light the way to a few descending steps. He, who
is beginning to suffer under her domination, becomes
conscious that the scene before him is slowly moving away.
This room in reddish-blue, ruined windows, half choked with
ivy.
Gabrielle: Here is clearly seen what's left of me from
before: bits of stone that happen to look like organic
forms.
Blanche: Have you really experienced all that? The wish to
capture evanescent reflections?
Gabrielle: Instead of staring at an ancient photograph, he
resorted to a peculiar technique.
Blanche: If you want to study seriously, right after the
first woman you mention in your book, go out into the open
air.
Gabrielle: The whole night with her, threatened by a
revolver, kept alive by rumors...
Blanche: Systematically to construct the head, the sensitive
condition of the eye, I mean, your head, which unites the
shape of the landscape as we know it with this apparent
mirage.
Louis: Concept and execution reveal a touching effort,
occasionally obscured. His striving for extreme naturalism
also holds good for hues and broken colors.
Blanche: The eye soon became sufficiently accumstomed to the
priviledged case of a parallel projection, the various
ways it can be disturbed or made to look strange as a
process of degeneration.
Gabrielle: When speaking parts are forbidden, the ear has no
direction.
Louis: The same sentence has three meanings: they were
consumed with curiosity as to how it was done. And now
something strange happened to our Charlotte: the desire for
newsreels and travel films.
///////////////////////////////////////
ACT II SCENE I
A long, very brightly lit room, where there are several long
tables on which you can see, standing side by side in wooden
supports, test tubes containing powders of the same dazzling
colour as the streams in the courtyard . . . liquids of the
same colour are being heated in retorts suspended above
little flames.
Blanche: What is he talking to you about?
Louis: The son of an itinerant miniature painter found it
fun to make his entry upside down. Lost all judgment of
time and place. Joined believers. Finally found the
marginal. In exploration lies disillusionment.
Blanche: Has she forgotten you for casting colored shadows
on the floor?
Louis: Effects that had to be achieved with oil lamps. Each
time she took a photograph, they insisted these gaps serve
to remind us--images are hardier. My brain burns under a
kind of writing table.
Blanche: Where did you steal it?
Louis: I can't understand why you scientific people
feverishly examine his clothes. Rarity and distance permit
oddly beautiful disregard. Better to shun science
altogether. All we need for process to appear as plot--
shoot a sudden . . .
Blanche: Why are we doing this?
Louis: To perform extraordinary feats of endurance,
haphazard visions dumped allowing anyone wild locusts and
miraculous relics. The discovery that an actual
thunderstorm was going on at the same time spread like
wildfire all over Europe . . .
Blanche: Up to his neck in water, a seam opened and he
followed her foolishly up. As are as we are sane, lumpen,
stranded, witness of the invisible world, placed in sudden
darkness, barely trace her scowl.
///////////////////////////////////////
ACT II, SCENE II
Louis: Past a certain degree, the old show business premise
persisted.
(The grotesque object, witnessed at all times, in squalid,
cramped quarters)
Gabrielle: Mediums can be physical: in a kind of silent
transparency.
Julian: Deprived of memory and understanding, balance helps
to orient us in mental space.
(The only space we experience assumes the terrible
appearance of a desert.)
Gabrielle: A skateboard-sized device reveals this secret
like a rebus. One person and not another entered his memory
as a disconnected sequence of optical displays.
Louis: You must stop moving away from us, threatening to
shake the whole building down.
Blanche: All the drifters on earth provide cases and covers
for their possessions.
Louis: Such feelings were exaggerated for the mere
gratification of gazers.
Blanche: The end of any alliance with them: the random
gestures and words.
Julian: Lavish all these considerations on a broken brain?
Gabrielle: Continue the journey, proud, vindictive; slip
into this excess.
Blanche: Monstrous and alive, quite close, the face is
removed like a mask.
Gabrielle: You thought you held someone, the apparent
dryness and coolness of the skin.
(His memory is suddenly flooded with her shoes, in the final
flash)
Louis: Words were threadbare; the tin cascade was done away
with.
Gabrielle: Why do you try so desperately to explain
everything in abnormally cautious language?
Blanche: Swimming back and forth across the river without
stopping in the serene world.
///////////////////////////////////////
ACT II, SCENE III
Set: ottomans and sofas are dispersed around awkwardly
shaped rooms and niches. magnifying glasses mounted around
the platform to provide maximum display.
Gabrielle: I lay on the backseat.
Julian: The scene of secret and hidden experiments. Stricken
on the road, both repulsed and grateful.
Gabrielle: The doctor gave me Stelazine. Peril followed by
beauty. Then, invasion, sickness, whiteness. . .
Julian: The many shapes of the agony of imprisonment
decompose into images . . .
Gabrielle: Not into narrations, all those stammered,
imperfect words. Julian, there were people who couldn't
move. There I was, kindling their spirits.
Julian: Whoever looks on this from outside, some
culpability, even complicity.
Gabrielle: With the addition of Julian and his monstrous
music inserted mysteriously into the background, as he lies
embedded in the 19th century, with chains still on his feet.
Julian, the mind is luminous. From the running, I like to
brag.
Julian: No denial however vehement, with her mechanical
smile, fugitive and waning. Expresses on the ground, rotten
field, ideas only rendered partially visible by plays on the
surface of things. Does not remain loyal to the spectacle of
the skeleton.
Gabrielle: But when I kneel, certainty vanishes.
Julian: The wish to be twisted.
Gabrielle: These are no angels. An implicit conspiracy or
something when they give me money. It is very important that
you pay for what you brought.
///////////////////////////////////////
ACT II, SCENE IV
Louis: Did you sleep with everyday objects and profane
texts?
Blanche: The brain can see desire drawing a curtain. Eau de
nile, the name of a color, an unbounded fragment of a world
open to everything that lives, but not admonitions.
Gabrielle: Take white pillowcases to the ocean to scatter
the guts out on the ground.
Different surfaces on panels, colored or not, a woman
reading a letter.
Blanche: Didn't you feel it didn't you hear it, a piece of
white satin?
Gabrielle: Why have you come back to their monotonous
nights?
Blanche: The skies are scanned with pity from close up a
decline, a breath to the pride, a trust to devices, thing
devoid of hope which opened intimate links to the world of
shadows, phantom content unfolding, like that of the eye
itself.
Gabrielle: You cannot tell what is causing unfolding
shadows.
Blanche: Something is happening that is going to happen in
caves or in rooms without windows.
Gabrielle: Only oblivion can suppress unceasing interplay of
sound and sense.
Blanche: An arm dangling in the bus aisle, the world
staining the surface as if it were an outside force, a
certain disposition of the heart.
Louis: They become them without my permission, monsters -
that is, etymologically, beings or things to be shown.
Gabrielle: The task of healing these broken vessels projects
itself out of me.
///////////////////////////////////////
ACT III, SCENE I
Blanche: You can't just walk in here you know, with the same
gestures to set them apart.
Gabrielle: In the geography of haunted places she would walk
him to the water.
Louis: Prudence, about to put his foot in a puddle, blasts
apart.
Gabrielle: He seldom omitted to introduce Mem, a woman, a
being in unlimited space.
Blanche: (With a firm, apparently brutal grasp) You didn't
try hard enough.
Louis: The phenomena, curiosities, and philosophy of the
sense of sight, they warned me not to get inflated ideas
Gabrielle: He's getting weaker every day.
Blanche: Has actually married his gallery of statues.
Shadows from the stag antlers on the wall. To think such
nights will never return.
Louis: We live in the picture, we were all great pretenders.
Gabrielle: To conceal and reveal, that's not a lot, is it?
Blanche: Do not speak in a human voice. Speak as if they
were true.
Gabrielle: Everyone knew I was writing something about that
night--faces torn by bites. But an animal with strange
mechanisms. Doing the work of a machine.
Louis: Every second was the narrow portal become special and
set apart. The bleak world of beasts and things, of my
magical prowess.
Gabrielle: So perfectly solid. Leaves little space for
aberration.
Louis: An arguable relationship to the knowledge of
cadavers. Time itself moves slowly, if at all.
Gabrielle: He has color, he is calm, he speaks of the prior
world. This wedge of light, would you wander around in it?
///////////////////////////////////////
ACT III, SCENE II
(Lit by two sad white neon shells of sea-green light.)
Blanche: I did not know in what vague manner I would see
myself on some pages, what counts as evidence: strange,
forgotten, lovely things.
Gabrielle: The ramparts of his solitude deep in our genes
feel safe now with me, locked within the theater of his
body. There were these candles and he was moaning through
intricate, recurrent sequences.
Louis: To be able to see clearly distant things inside the
usual Parisian thunderstorms, select four sentences which
you think are keys; scribble, breathing hard. If you don't
like the words or gestures, revisualize the opulent flesh
which once covered these bones, amoeba-like fissioning
wherein the word exudes an erotic aura.
Julian: What really matters is that she was a foreigner
without ever being at a loss for words, a condition acquired
in a green chair in the park in the afternoon.
(Scattering various sheets of paper and maps over the
reeking carnage of the furniture with their legs, the angels
straddle corridors of quaint and amusing things.)
Blanche: Revelations are unclear: I pacify the bloody-
minded.
(Huge thorns or soldiers in uniform quiver, extend, grow
small)
Gabrielle: All these pretended peddlers of the future are
susceptible to the ceremony of her hands.
########################################
THE PERFECT CARD
Keith Dawson
"Conrad," Louis says.
The clerk looks up from the box of cards he has been
sorting into neat piles. It is an 800-count box of 1979
common cards. All the stars have been removed to sell
separately. Conrad is sorting the mass into team sets and
placing them in hinged plastic boxes.
"Here comes an important customer. Show him whatever
he wants to see."
"Right. Will do." Conrad has a way of speaking that
makes him seem slow, even though he is not. He is
deliberate. His words tend to emerge with distinct stops
between them, as if he is waiting until just the last second
to decide which word to use. Conrad is of medium height,
with coarse reddish-brown hair and gray eyes. He has a
tendency to look away when speaking to people, and to cover
his mouth or pull at his beard when he is nervous. He has
never sold anything before this. He is at this job for just
two weeks, and in that time he has helped precious few
customers. Louis doesn't trust him yet.
Louis unlocks the display case in front of Conrad.
"He'll want to see the good stuff," he says. "He's picky,
but he buys big."
Frank Kissell, about forty-five or fifty, stands about
five-eight, slightly stocky for that height. His suit is
italian cut and very sharply tailored. There is a silk
handkerchief in his breast pocket that matches the lapis
floral print of the tie. His shoes are soft, buttery and
narrow to a point. They shine as brightly as his gel-slicked
hair. His face is round, not fat, but a little fleshy around
the neck and jowls. He smiles often, and his teeth are white
and straight.
There is a fat, jeweled ring on each of his hands.
Conrad cannot help but notice them. Neither one is a wedding
ring. Kissell is the last person you'd take for a baseball
card collector, Conrad thinks. Yet here he is.
"You're new here, aren't you?" Kissell says to Conrad,
who gets a whiff of his cologne. It smells fruity, like
oranges, Conrad thinks.
"That's right."
"Frank Kissell. I knew I'd never seen you here before."
Kissell sticks out a hand.
Conrad notices that his fingernails are well manicured,
with a touch of polish. His grip is firm, and his hand dry.
Conrad's own is chapped and hairy. His nails are bitten down
into the corners. "Conrad. What can I do for you, Mr.
Kissell?"
"Please call me Frank." He pulls a small red leather
notebook from his jacket pocket, along with a half-sized
gold pencil. He flips up the lid of the notebook and leafs
through the pages, licking the point of the pencil.
"Let's start with Cracker Jack, 1915."
These are among the best cards in the store. In any
store. An opportunity to take the old cards out of the
display case is rare. Cracker Jack cards from the early part
of the century are notoriously hard to find in perfect
condition. The cards were added to boxes of candy, so the
majority of them are stained yellow or brown with the
remains of caramel. Conrad has noticed that most people,
kids especially, don't appreciate the old. He favors the
pastoral cards of an earlier era. He has admired them since
long before he started working here.
Conrad hands Kissell a tray of cards, each one sealed
into a thin lucite screw-down block. The lucite block is not
opened, even for a customer like Kissell. No one handles the
cards with fingers. Kissell peers through a jeweler's loupe.
He takes his time, looking at both sides of each card and at
the painted face of the player. He flips through the drawer
looking for particular players, until he comes to a Joe
Jackson card. He gives it special attention with his
eyepiece.
Conrad admires it upside down from his side of the
counter. Jackson looks vaguely cross-eyed in the portrait,
he thinks. The ballplayer is wearing a floppy, baggy flannel
gray uniform, with a C on his cap. He's caught mid-swing
against a sharp red background. The Cracker Jack logo is
still the same after seventy years. The card looks sharp and
new to Conrad. The last time he had Cracker Jacks was at a
ballgame; his prize was not a beautiful card, but a tiny
booklet of lick-on tattoos. He thinks he was born seventy
years too late.
"This card has tweezer damage and corner wear," Kissell
says.
"It's the nicest we have," Conrad says. "There were
only twelve Shoeless Joe cards issued before he was thrown
out."
"I have all of them," Kissell says without looking up
from his loupe. "I even have one of these." He holds the
card under the light. "But I'd like a better specimen. This
isn't it."
Kissell takes Conrad on a leisurely trip through the
store's most valued inventory. He consistently finds
blemishes that Conrad's eye misses. Conrad would give his
right arm to own the cards Kissell toys with buying, but
they are far, far out of his reach, no matter the condition.
The Cracker Jack card Kissell rejects costs more than he
makes in half a year. He takes home $320 a week, without
health insurance.
First Kissell calls the year and the set, sending
Conrad back to the display for the drawer. Then Kissell goes
through it, pulling all the cards he's interested in and
making a stack on the counter. He works his way through the
pile, scouring each card with his loupe, turning the card
this way and that under the florescent lights. Like
undersized fish, most get thrown back into the pool.
To Conrad, there does not appear to be a logic to
Kissell's search. He skitters from year to year, set to set,
player to player, all over the map.
From Cracker Jack they wend their way to the 1950s,
where Kissell finds a Phil Rizzuto card made by Tip Top, a
long-defunct bread company. Then back to the thirties, where
they spend a long time searching for a Goudey 1933 Mel Ott.
There are three in the case. Kissell immediately dismisses
two; one is creased slightly and the other is very off-
center. Conrad just shrugs; he knows this card well. Ott is
young in the picture, a painting. He holds a bat behind his
shoulder, hands choked up, brow wrinkled and lip twisted
into a menacing snarl. He looks as though he's about to bash
you on the head, Conrad thinks. Pitchers must have hated to
face him.
"I've always wondered why they put the first names in
quotes," Kissell says.
Conrad looked closely, and sure enough, the name was
printed as "Mel" Ott. Many of the other cards in the set
have the same feature, he sees. "Maybe because it's not a
Christian name," he says.
Kissell takes the loupe off and lifts his eye from the
card's border to scrutinize Conrad more closely.
Conrad tugs at his beard and turns away with an
embarrassed half-smile. "See, Mel is like a nickname, for
Melvin."
"Yeah, I guess that might be right." Kissell turns the
lucite block over in his hands, then places it face up in
the pile of chosen cards.
Kissell pulls three cards from Topps 1965: Lou Brock,
Steve Carlton, and Willie Mays. He declares himself
finished. There is a pile of seven cards on the counter
between them. Conrad puts the last drawer away and locks the
case. As he does, Kissell spreads his cards out in a row to
see them all at the same time.
"Quite an impressive collection you have there," Conrad
says.
"This is nothing," Kissell says. "I've got rooms filled
with stuff. My collection is worth almost a hundred grand."
"That's an awful lot of money." Conrad frowns a little
at this. "Is there a theme to it, or something?"
"A theme?"
"I mean, is there something special you collect, like a
favorite team, or player?"
"Value," Kissell says. "I collect what's worth
collecting." Kissell looks at him with what Conrad thinks is
a patronizing smile.
Conrad says nothing. He just rolls up the sleeves on
his faded shirt, checks the time on his digital watch, and
goes on about the business of helping the customer. He rings
up Kissell's cards and the total comes to more than $1,400.
He thinks about his own collection, painstakingly assembled
over almost twenty years time. Many cards are dented from
flipping with the boys on his block in the when he was
young. It is worth maybe one thousand dollars, if that.
He looks at Kissell out of the corner of his eye. Kissell is
wandering down the display, poking his stubby fingers at
hologram cards and whistling a blank tune. Conrad sees
Kissell's little red notebook and smells his robust perfume
and knows he'll never have a collection worth anything to
anyone but himself. These cards will leave the store and sit
in Kissell's vault until they appreciate, Conrad thinks. He
is sorry to see them go.
"Hey, who is the hottest rookie this year?"
"I don't know, I don't really collect rookies."
"Well, who sells the best?"
Conrad names a player who's cards have been flying out
of the store.
"Let me have ten of them," Kissell says.
"Ten?"
"It's an investment."
Conrad dully collects ten cards and adds fifty dollars
on the cash register. "Enjoy them," Conrad says sullenly.
"What kind of stuff are you interested in?" Kissell
says as he pulls hundreds off a large money clip.
"Ryan, Gwynn, and the '75 Reds," Conrad says, the words
tightening in his throat, as if parting with them is
offering up a precious jewel.
"A pitcher, a hitter and a team."
"The best."
"Well, that ought to keep you busy for a while."
"A lifetime, I think." Conrad says in his slow, guarded
way.
"Do you have the '75 Bench in your Reds set yet?"
"No, that's a little too expensive for me." It is a $25
card. Even so, it represents a week's worth of groceries,
Conrad thinks.
"Can I see it?"
Conrad, more than annoyed, fetches it from a different
case, one not kept locked. He thinks Kissell is rubbing his
nose in it. The card is in pretty good condition. Kissell
has already put away his loupe and notebook, but he gives it
a good eyeballing front and back.
"How much?"
Conrad quotes him the price and Kissell pulls two loose
twenties from his pants pocket.
Conrad picks up the card, admires it, and starts to put
it in the plastic bag with Kissell's other cards. Kissell's
hand on the bag stops him.
"No, it's for you," he says. "For your help. Add it to
your collection."
"Seriously?" Conrad doesn't know what to think.
"Thanks, thanks a lot," he says.
"Forget it, it's no big deal." Conrad sticks out his
hand and Kissell pumps it.
"Nice tip," he says. He slides Johnny Bench into a
clear plastic envelope, holding it gingerly by the sides as
if he doesn't trust his own coarse hands. Johnny is leaning
into a crouch, ready to catch a ball between his legs.
"I don't think of it as a tip," Kissell says with a sly
smirk. Turning to go, he looks back at Conrad over his
shoulder. "I think of it as an investment."
########################################
I am sure...
Tadeusz Kantor
from FLORA + ANTHROPOPHOBICA 1993
I am sure that INCREASED PSYCHIC ACTIVITIES AND THE
INTENSITY OF THE THOUGHT PROCESS PRODUCE A FREE NETWORK
OF IMAGES, ASSOCIATIONS, ALLOW US TO MOVE AWAY FROM
RATIONAL UTILITARIAN CONNECTIONS BETWEEN REAL ELEMENTS.
A sewing machine, an umbrella, and a dissecting table
could not possibly have been merged together in the
Comte de Lautreamont's dream. Of this I am sure. It
must have been done by a newly liberated freedom of
thought.
The Surrealists maintained that the PSYCHE IS A STATE
THAT SHOULD BE RESEARCHED, AND THE RESULTS SHOULD BE
USED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
I am full of doubts here.
These doubts, however, allow us to hear clearly "the
inner voice."
ART IS NOT PSYCHOLOGY. THE CREATIVE PROCESS HAS
NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. THE PSYCHE
SHOULD BE ACCEPTED RATHER THAN RESEARCHED IN ART! IT
SHOULD BE ACCEPTED AS A SUPERSENSUOUS CONCEPT. THE
PSYCHE--THIS IMMATERIAL "ORGAN," WHICH WAS "PLANTED" IN
A PHYSICAL BODY, NATURE'S OR GOD'S GIFT--INDICATES ITS
OWN DESIRE NOT TO GO "BEYOND MATERIAL REALITY" BUT TO
SEPARATE ITSELF FROM IT. THE PSYCHE CONTRADICTS
MATERIAL REALITY. IT ONLY TOUCHES IT. IT CREATES ITS
OWN CLOSED REALITY WHICH MAKES ONE FEEL THE PRESENCE OF
THE OTHER WORLD. IT IS THE PSYCHE THAT EMANATES THE
FORCE CALLED IMAGINATION. IT IS THE PSYCHE THAT GAVE
BIRTH TO GODS, ANGELS, HEAVEN AND HELL, FEARS...
And now I can enter my little
room of imagination and say:
IT IS THE PSYCHE WHICH CREATES AND EXHIBITS REALITY AS
IF WE WERE SEEING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME.
And this is all. My last advice: "remember everything
and forget everything..."
TADEUSZ KANTOR
From IRONS BULLETIN No5,
August 1993
Edited by Raphael Nadolny,
ul. Krancowa 2,
62050 Mosina, Poland
########################################
LETMETELL (contd from #3)
ezra
IV
Brown eye full of mud, green eye full of sea, he lifted
injured lips from her bruised thigh and took another draught
of air. Poised on the brink of bristling conceptual
transformation he sang once more the song of his fathers.
Humping, humping, goat-skinned, TN Blue Ridge Satyr.
Removing his microscope the Doctor lost no time in pulling
off his garter. "Scientifically speaking..." he mumbled as
he plunged through KY, "There's no relation...between,,,(on)
..again...and, and (off)...again...Bizarre publication
awaits us all in...."
Shamed, of course, beyond abuse, tiny person loosed from
ball-headed retainers took instant tube to Clevis' elbow.
Chagrined Nurse--or was it, Angel--took reverse shots in
navel and Nips dug trenches through gravel. Instant by
instant war became clear. No trench on Ellis Island, no
bomb in Hiroshima Bay, only mallows roasting over beach
fires and silent rutting in the sand.
You think three radios report the whole attack?! Burning
shreds of canvas flak emerged from his eyes and Bo Tree Boy
wins a kiddy prize for seeing with no eyes.
"Couldn't wait, couldn't wait," he said.
"Savages, savages," the Doctor cried, "with this bare stick
I'll cure them all!" Whereupon he fell to incantation,
bitter spells and knowledge driven reign of constant
uplifting:
"YTEOSDTAEYRDAY"
PYREOSGTREERSDSAY
YPERSOTGERREDSASY
TYOEDSATYERDAY
PFRROEGERZEESSS
FPRREOEGZREESSS"
The black sap of festered wound ran down hairless arm. Tiny
sternum, plumed with ermine fawns, pale in pus-light wax
candle, rib-cage exposed beneath the skin; shaven, forlorn,
hospice-bound, terminal without a word, black eye-to-eye,
filled with oil, scariated flesh shrinking on shrill beak of
horned owl framed in fireplace light; writing on the wooden
floor, splintered fingers in every ear, nose-ringed, "No-
thing but narrative; nothing but narrative," slumped asleep
across the dead child's hump.
////////////////////////////////////////
"Who was this little creep, anyway?" the Sergeant asked as
he dragged the body toward the door. "Anybody know?" "A
Doctor," the plebe muttered.
"Doctor a what?"
"Things. Just things."
"Huh. Don't look like he cured hisself, does it? Haar,
haar, haar."
////////////////////////////////////////
V
today is yesterday
progress freezes
spray drips across
no measure
in the morning
pain reaches up
is progress across
no morning pain
today freezes
drips measure
in the reaches
yesterday spray
across the morning
is progress pain
yesterday reaches across
up in spray
across today in measure
spray freezes
drips today in pain
morning no measure
today is pain
yesterday is in the morning
reaches, freezes
no progress
yesterday is today
////////////////////////////////////////
VI
"Wednesday, only Wednesday...and just LA. Oh my, what's that
shit in the trees? Where's my jar of Y-K? How many times can
a poor girl die?"
Who rides hogs? Who fucks dogs? Where does this cum-line
lead, cunnilingus?
"Shores! Lead me to the shore. Gimme pink shrimp for my
red dip. Maybe corn bread."
"Kosher?"
Back of the bus mad dog lies, tail tellin', bare, thin
sailor's back flexed mutual array, blades scraped--
stretched white scars of Hiroshima flesh annals of neurotic
sex bound lingering salvation saliva to stone. On deck Gulf
Coast flounder flop ten shrimp limp. Slurps Gulf Coast mop
sorghum-brown pail of anal glop.
Up, up the Hasid danced, eyes putrid from strained glazed
front-seat staring. Pronouncing hyphenated holy names he
circles bus and climbs aboard.
"To CA by way of LA! Onward electronic flag! My father
from Sofia taught me not to drink too early."
////////////////////////////////////////
VII
Bottles of alcohol, grain for the brain, drained the
insights of table legs, smooth-grained as sculpted mares'
withers food for the race track as blind angels' rivers.
Naked nuns rejoiced in corporate policy eating apples of a
ripe old age leaving slobbers of dung up chimney plums.
Nearby, Race Horse Mary slung in hammock sifters makes goal
of April saying, "So you think it's easy? This being nifty,
all in polka dots? Not so easily remaindered as over-
printed tomes on mundane woodworking. Pests, I'd call them
pests on a needle incapable of extraneous work and highly
over-valued poised like success on the verge of table tops
lost to excess in scrambled chairs and lace."
"Ah yes," the Doctor sighed once more, "crossed legs in
haste spare no time for stethoscopes. I'd pine away 'twere
it not for time and mares' legs fine as any fall weather."
"Seasons part in seamed reunion," Eunice responded, "leaves
gather in lost parks peaked caps appear amidst the cabs hail
and hail blade-ers slip on livery, silk green and flashing
gold racers' colors, pacers trotters: raceway clutter. If
only Grace were here now, what conversations we'd have."
"But Paris passed only days ago; now Miami's upon us. No
hope for the Jersey Shore besieged by Mediterranean strains
of Asian flu. Poor girl, poor girl, my Doctor; dress up,
it'll do you good; you'll see what food's in the closet.
`No loss in arrears; no sand in gears', I always say."
"My dear, you're past Paris yourself, many days ago. If we
could only get over tomorrow today would seem so famous.
Yet here we are, stuck in bottles of alcohol with no brains
left, only sour food and empty blades, swords of hunger down
our throat and "A's" and "B's" embossed on office doors."
"Too true, jaundiced thing. Here, take a ring on this
Cherry Bell; not much else to do having already set records
for notoriety paled in comparison to the courthouse ninnies
that scream, `Justice, justice for all the juices.' No end,
pet, of what's not yet occurred; no hope of reaching
yesterday when today's already upon us." She paused, "But
you'll see," one hand on wrinkled bosom, "life's not too
late to take you yet."
The Doctor rose from Suzy's face. "No, Eunice, you're NOT
right there. In fact you're wrong to assume the catsup's all
in place. Too soon your bony arms will flap their flesh;
tombs will rise among your guests and this old houseboat
will glide once more to sea."
Up from her statue, full stature tuned to beleaguered
nonsense Suzy slapped her knee and color rising chose her
muse's early siren. "Out!" she cried, "all of you out or
I'll have this horse dyed green."
But Doc and Eunice, arm-in-arm, skipped town in time aboard
the next, flying artibus.
////////////////////////////////////////
VIII
Video cameras hum, padded mics protrude "Only one without a
viewfinder; but, such a bargain!" Gangplank raised, the
barge flapped down harbor as sailors' tipped the bride's
bouquet. "Home, home," they sang, "we'll sup well once
home," and jigged on down the hall past Mazie's room.
Decked and curled, magenta microns, steeled icons of early
electric undergrounds, the obese girl ducked the balcony
rail and fell toward whirling roulette wheels. Pink chunks
of ripe punk and red liver came up the coast claiming
righteous stanchions of memorabilia. Now in a circle, now
in a square, Mazie cantaloped, left nothing bare.
"I saw her," the small boy called as he looked toward the
left.
"Not there my son," the squat priest moaned, "oh please, not
there."
"I'm sure, I'm sure, " the small boy squeaked, "Mazie,
Mazie, on a spoon!"
Is there no room for the practice of science?
Is there no room for plebiscites?
Take presidents for example;
is there no room for spite?
On tabular grains of envy;
on spiknards of growing cankers,
take a dance and bless the cars.
Yellow, yellow grow the answers;
blooming, blooming in....
But, but.....
////////////////////////////////////////
IX
"None of this singing," the pietist screamed, "we'll have
preaching, or no hide inside."
Stared down, looked up, table coiffed and stirred. "Here,
take this piece of wafer, thin as silk, pure as a micro-
processor chip, zero insertion force required, pass, blessed
to past, repast of noble lips. Kiss tender champs, chomp on
mendicant poseurs or lozenges."
"Peace at last. No frenzied walking chairs or caped coffins
plying elmwood stairs. I'll sleep tonight."
Pups on the table peed in Billy's tea; Polyps of deep
seaweed waved "Envy, envy." Traded up one rung higher don't
take a calf for granted, don't take a thigh to dinner; all's
lost, but none are thinner. Sinner's attention attracted
delicious bricks in red cement. In tents the Arab sits,
decked in harmonious incense. "It's what you see crossing
the plain," he said.
"The plain sees what you are as you cross," the other
replied.
"No gettin' around it."
(to be contd)
########################################
AMPLIFIED ART
Paolo Barrile
Milan, March 1992 - (via j.lehmus)
from FLORA + ANTHROPOPHOBICA 1993
The new artists are born. They are the artists who
express themselves through the actions, behaviour,
participation and works of other artists.
The "new" artist conceives a project, announces it,
"proposes" it, explaining to other artists its meaning
and aims. If they are tuned in to the new artist's
thought and objectives, the other artists act.
The "new" work of art--which will be exhibited,
criticized and commercialized--is the whole project,
consisting of dozens or hundreds of works and/or
actions of dozens or hundreds of artists.
Amplified art is--or can be--"global art" because
artists from the remotest countries can participate in
any project.
This is made possible by mail-art.
Apart from the technical ability and adequate
competence of participants, a successful project
requires the artists to be deeply involved from the
point of view of ideology and of the new artist's
pivotal idea. The idea must be valid, it must be able
to kindle enthusiasm and to motivate artists to
participate.
In the past, the artist expressed himself by means of
colors, clay, marble. Today, the "new" artist's media
are the other artists.
In conclusion, amplified art enables the "new" artists
to abandon their traditional working tools and adopt
other means of expression. The "new" artist conceives a
project and, in order to carry it out, stimulates and
involves hundred of other artists.
Amplified art is very often global art.
PAOLO BARRILE
Messaggio Terra,
via G. Milani, 9,
20133 Milano, Italy
########################################
CYANOBACTERIA INTERNATIONAL - A DISCUSSION
ezra & j.lehmus
"To Mr. j.lehmus with all due respect and with true
comradely intention the following critique is submitted for
mutual edification and forwarding of the laudable goals and
refining of the methodologies of research, discovery and
realization of the indelibly inscribed transmissions that
rest too often hidden in inner depths of all souls wandering
outside unification as raised this evening of 20 october,
1993 after creation 5754 by ezra in search of truth.
JL: C.I.
>>JL: REFLUX / REWIND : IN ORDER TO DIRECT A MOVEMENT
(The physical laws of movement can also be under-
stood as attempts to define an artistic movement.
Energy theories, wave theories. Interstellar
radio flux. Waves emanating from Lesbos : ethereal,
electromagnetic waves echoing through the Time /
Space. Yeats dreamed of converging gyres, in-
terference, the angels who emit.)
is an unstructured body...
>EZ: How can a body not have structure--do you mean a
particular kind of structure is lacking, e.g., a
hierarchical structure? How can it be totally devoid
of structure and still stand up?
>>JL: I. Structure. True, it is impossible to devise
a functional entity devoid of structure. On denying
the structure of CI, I thought more specifically of a
rigid, organized hierarchical structure. I think
that "structure" in the classic sense of "order" can
be seen as an accidental state of chaos. Organized
structure pertains inseparably to civilization. Thus,
we should adopt a new name to address our state of
altering, mutating structure : d e s t r c t u r e,
tumult. Undefined viral growth flux movement in-
fecting hosts via changing media.
JL: of Artists.
>EZ: Why a capital "A"?.
JL: C.I. perceives and exalts the true aesthetic quality...
>EZ: How defined? this `true aesthetic quality'?
JL: as the highest value and meaning of all information.
>EZ: The aesthetics of `information', an interesting idea-
-beautiful information.
>>JL: AESTHETIC QUALITY. Chimaerae perceived through the
language system of Beauty (as opposed to Knowledge
informative quality). Information is a memory
bank of perceptions. The highest value of in-
formation is the access to Beauty. We absorb the
information of the civilization for our own ex-
periments.
JL: This sublime quality is the hidden spirit seed of
information : the veiled Meaning through which it is
possible to find a contact with the sphere of Ideas. The
Art of information is the science of change : Art Magic.
Primordial Ideas : poetical translations of the Book of
Changes...
>EZ: is this not an `order' of sorts?
JL: stellar mechanics, dreamwebs of the Sephirothic
correspondency.
>EZ: Zohar, Tree of Life, Jewish Kabbalah, Yetzirah?
How deep is our experience in these areas?
JL: The purport of C.I. is to experiment with new mediums
and languages for propagation of the poetical message.
>EZ: Of information?.
>>JL: LANGUAGE. Living language growing out of dead,
rigid systems ; language through entropy, de-
struction ; chaos language, dream language.
Language = terrain vague.
JL: This study is extended to embrace forgotten, neglected,
abandoned or otherwise unknown territories of expression and
logic. C.I. is a research for Alchemistic connection,
correspondence, transmutation and dislocation.
>EZ: Synergy, synchronisity [Jung].
>>JL: SYNERGY. Our dream entitled : Negative Entropy.
New meaning emanating from an uncontrollable
interference of two or more interconnected
factors. Virtual poetry.
JL: Flux transmit : shadow Idea, dream image, confluent
analogy. C.I. stays away from all scientific and religious
orders.
>EZ: But from where comes information? Have not the
`orders' also been sources?
JL: C.I. is a quest for implicit freedom in thought and
expression.
>EZ: Certainly, but not at the expense of ignoring the
sources. The fear of authority should only be
appropriate in the face of those who have no claim
to authority.
>>JL: SOURCES. CI stays outside of all scientific and
religious orders. Our creativity should not be
be enclosed within, or hindered by, any dogma ;
including definitions offered herein. We do accept
and appreciate already existing systems of symbols
as key-boards. We employ these systems as devices
for our expression, indeed like the biologists
base their study on various systems of fossils.
But our practice is more of an intuitional
quality.
JL: C.I. is an oscillating, transreal ectoplasm, its nucleus
centered in creative chaos : change, vitality, instability,
C.I. is a living germ, mental disease seeking continuously
new forms of expression : new symptoms, new hosts, new
surfaces to infect, C.I. is an uncontrollable revolt against
the rigidified form. C.I. is a see embryo for new aesthetic
perception. This revolt delves its rudimentary roots into
the works of the Symbolists and the Decadents, the
experiments and methods of the Dadaists,...
>EZ: And surely also the surrealists, Ernst, Breton,
Eluard, et al.
JL: and the vital correspondence and interference of the
worldwide Network
>EZ: online electronic and offline.
JL: New members are invited to enter the collective. All
members receive information about the proceedings of the
collective. No membership fees are set : the only requisite
demanded from a member of the Cyanobacteria International is
activity. Upon all requests for information and contact,
please address the Archivist j. lehmus.
**************************************************
j lehmus to collective creativity 7 vi 1993
l e m n a p i s t i a
JL: "lemna pistia" is documenting a gyrovague experiment
operating upon the chromosomes of beauty and perception :
muses and daemons of beauty and information : chaotic
information : chaotic evolution , mutation : rebirth through
destruction.
>>JL: DOCUMENTATION. "lemna pistia" and other publi-
cations are documents of the process, fragments
published in order to communicate outside the
collective. The process itself is in many aspects
similar to processes executed in cyberspace, but
our "material" exchange and dissemination of
(mostly) visual ideas rarely attains the level of
interactivity pertaining to cyberculture.
JL: "lemna pistia" is a salamander, omniplasm protean chaos
diffluens, striving to live in the streaming flux of
continual creation and destruction, in the fiery ether of
irrationalism, in the sphere of lucid inspiration. lemna
pistia is a procession of muses constantly altering their
glistering robes, veiled, veiled, shifting through burning
chambers of fevered logic : dancing, dancing, matrix-step
and hallucin. The Artist is invited to participate in this
uncoordinated project. Please submit, a) visual material
for publication, no restrictions of size ; or, b) 100 copies
in size of 149 x 209 mm. lemna pistia is published upon an
irregular basis, three numbers composing one volume of
approximately 200 pages. All collaborators receive a copy
of the journal.
>EZ: Here begins what interests me most--
JL: The C.I. invites distortion of the published data. All
methods of alienation, association, destruction, dislocation
and duplication are accepted. The published work serves as
source material for future experimentation ; every number of
the journal will thus be a depiction of a successive
generation in one continuous mutational line.
>EZ: If this is true then the material contained in issue
#11 will be the same material as contained in #1,
having, perhaps, but not necessarily moved through a
series of mutations. But what are the mutational
rules? How is change limited to mutation, i.e., how
is the introduction of (totally)new material avoided
or disallowed? And by whom? Is this in fact
actually happening? Is text being passed about and
being used as source material by others? How is this
being accomplished? What are the results? Are F+F
examples/results of that process? Is lemna pistia?
There is a sublime agony involved in giving up the
fruits of one's own torment to the hands of another,
granting them full freedom to "do with it what you
will"--an agony that no previous generation has been
noted for. Rather the fixing of the concept, idea,
or aesthetic information has been the goal; the form
released from the material but, once expressed, never
changed, or only replicated/repeated precisely, with,
perhaps, some leeway for interpretation in the case
of music. Once printed on paper the text/image is
fixed. How can it continue to mutate or evolve?
Rather it assumes successive states. Within the
electronic media the text can evolve, for the
previous state is lost or displaced. Already this
text I am writing now has evolved through many states
and stages, none of which you have seen. You are
reading only the results. In a cyberspace there need
be no final state. A text/image could/can be
accessible to many, even simultaneously, to be
"worked on" in real time. If one stops even for a
moment, a part of it may be lost. For what is being
"created" is the process itself; the work is the
process, not the results of the process. On paper
there is nothing to watch--only something to look at.
JL: Within this publication, the C.I. attempts to banish all
forms of copyright in order to reverse the fundamental
concept of "originality".
>EZ: All is material; nothing is not material; all
creativity is nothing but the manipulation or
refiguring of pre-existing material; no new material
is created, only a new arrangement or configuration
of the material. But is not the new configuration
itself new, and, therefore created? The question
hinges on material, not on originality. Originality
is a prerequisite. If it is not new it is not
interesting; if it is not "original" it is old, i.e.,
boring. What has been done with the material, what
material has been chosen and how it has been
manipulated is what attracts our attention--it is the
drawing out of the aesthetic quality from the
informational material that piques our interest and
produces an insight. I present to you these words as
materials I have selected out and which I have
arranged in this order which projects a set of
meanings and contents that is derived from the
denotations and connotations of the words and their
arrangement. You may take these words as material
for the construction of another set, just as if I
offered you a particular palette and set of
brushes and a canvas on which to exercise them. May
I watch? Will you show me what you have done when
you are finished? May you use additional, different
materials? I don't know, ask j.lehmus.
>>JL: MATERIAL. All material is available for mutation.
It is impossible to "protect" the sources.
-----
(end of discussion)
########################################
FOUR POEMS
j.lehmas
IN SITU - IN VITRO
As most important mosaics in contrast connection study
by representation background environment for causing a
man whose development galling fetter VII who is of
nature (blank) inthe course Io Pan ! witness the Rosi-
cruzians truest esteem frontispiece graphics as being
the structure patient duplications Turner's syndrome
backbone nationally accepted further Pan falls in love
expecting Nature to conform
You cannot illustrate the phenomena as information to
hue his works which alrady characterises to break
through between an artist their sensitive plastic
originality we must start looms the figure suggestions
coming from the magnificent Titans furs dyed from
natural position with short round castor blanc theory
eliminate conditions course to pursue implicit enough
to sum here that their will principles firmly fixed
outline patients with types of deletions however with
allowed intent to oppose every man impersonal failed
passive voice
j.lehmas
////////////////////////////////////////
KINGS' SITE
Tombeau. Cloister church lichen buried beneath
shrieking stones gaping virgin tears, ethereal
milk white projection across obscure space.
Sundials tarnished ancient pewter lead framed pale
stream descending misty Western lands decanters
offered, two candles and waxen hands : ectoplasm
apparitions, miss King dancing solemnly curv'd eyes
washing gore incubi incubi incubi -
De Sinistrari, he is reading : old transcript faint
ink on parchment. We are surrounded by the heathen.
j.lehmas
////////////////////////////////////////
SPUTNIK 2
Lean bitch moving in her sleep eyes brown amber parted
lids low voice running through a dark shore passage
nightly autumn arch white moon upon these black waters,
frost laying herself white gravemirror rais'd against
to meet the countenance.
Constellations revolving statellites orbit more
ellipsoid bright lines across photographic plates :
perigeum / apogeum.
I switch play-back radi voices echoes of dream
generations from the distant stars GEMINI canine
remains frozen inside the capsule (chromosomes
colloidion print).
Fancy crossing the Atlantic. Aviation pioneers, opium
seers. Mine wings white pinion'd piercing the foil
metal film azure glistering silver starry canopy.
Lucifer unanime telegraph spark ozone.
j.lehmas
////////////////////////////////////////
Betwixt dream and reverie
we sail, our ship descending
blind captain, feeling colours through his body :
many-coloured moire fields
white eyes, coral, slumb'ring Sappho
all in blossoming magnesium photographs
"do you feel pain?" old man
this is how th emuses dance, antediluvian Spring
j.lehmas
########################################
an interesting story
(Huth)
from FLORA + ANTHROPOPHOBICA 1993
[to j.lehmus]
-- Here is an interesting story. Not being a botanist
or biologist, I had never run into the term
"cyanobacteria" before I heard from you. But one day
a few weeks after first hearing from you, I was on the
campus of a nearby university. I was examining the
campus for a conference of archivists to be held there
in June. (That is my profession: archivist.) One of
the rooms I needed to check had a class in session, so
I stood at the back of the room staying out of the way
and checking the room. Suddenly, I realized the
professor was giving a lecture about cyanobacteria.
Then I left.
dbqp ::
Ge(of Huth), Prop.
317 Princetown Rd.
Schenectady, NY 12406
1 May 1993
########################################
Subject: Zappa lives on... (and so does Bloomdido)
From ALLMUSIC list <
[email protected]>
From: nighean donn bhoidheach <
[email protected]>
Posted with encouragement and permission from the write
dishonorable Michael Bloom, music critic and bearded-guy
extraordinaire *and* celibate author of the enclosed
obituary. (He also promised to flash me his hairy breasts
next time I'm in Bean Town if I posted this to the list for
him :) Enjoy, Libby Doe
===========================================================
FRANK ZAPPA, 1940-1993
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American original, a highly
improbable successor to Charles Ives. A self-taught composer
and guitarist, he released in a 28-year recording career
over 60 albums of wildly diverse music that could fairly be
described as threatening. Because of his uncompromising
approach to his craft, he was better known as a symbol of
non-conformism and all-around weirdness than for any
specific achievement. But he has contributed substantially
to just about every musical form in the Western tradition,
and smatterings of the other arts and letters as well.
His records with the original Mothers of Invention helped
bring about the '60s revolution in rock music, from
disposable popular culture to high art-- not that he drew
such distinctions himself. His songs on such albums as
_Freak Out_ and _Absolutely Free_ were as likely to
mongrelize street-corner doo-wop with Charlie Mingus-style
swinging improv and themes from Stravinsky ballets as to
invoke the rigorous statistical density of his hero, Edgard
Varese. He voraciously absorbed all the music he could get
his hands on, and rearranged it all into a kaleidoscopic
dada stew that not only gave his characteristic melodies the
most unprecedented settings in rock, but forecasted the
current experience of information overload.
At the same time, he was one of the most observant
commentators of the psychedelic era. He was also the most
clear-headed, being neither ideologically blinkered nor
stoned (he disliked drugs). When the summer of love devolved
into a marketing scheme to swindle the youth of America, he
didn't hesitate to say so explicitly, in _We're Only In It
For the Money_. If his work has had any consistent theme, it
has been to encourage his listeners to make up their own
minds about things, and neither follow trends nor take
anything on faith.
Such landmark albums as _Uncle Meat_, _Hot Rats_, and _The
Grand Wazoo_ anticipated, and heavily influenced, jazz-rock
fusion. The technical demands of his music spurred the
evolution of rock performance practices, i.e. "chops," and
pieces that the Mothers had to mess around with the tape
speed to realize are now well within the reach of your
average Berklee grad, who will now find "Peaches En Regalia"
in his fake books. Incidentally, Zappa himself was simply a
monster as a guitar soloist, with a highly inventive melodic
and rhythmic facility.
As producer or talent scout, he helped foster the careers of
numerous ground-breaking artists, including Alice Cooper,
Tim Buckley, and Captain Beefheart, as well as documenting
such unique urban characters as street wacko Wild Man
Fischer. He has founded no less than four record companies
in his career, often in response to double-dealing on the
part of a major label or industry functionary.
He wrote, scored, co-directed, and appeared in a feature
film, _200 Motels_, about the misadventures of a rock group
on tour. Much of the footage was shot in videotape and
transferred to film, using innovative techniques that MTV
has adopted--even if the subject matter and sarcastic tone
of the movie itself have proven too provocative for
television.
His orchestral compositions, for this movie and elsewhere,
are magnificent. While they don't adhere to any given school
or discipline-- he had no use for minimalism or
neo-classicism, and his most "modernist" Webernian works
aren't even properly serialist-- the writing itself is
intensely disciplined; he knew exactly what he wanted to
hear, and his ear was excellent. He didn't often get to hear
precisely what he wrote, as his scores were punishingly
difficult, especially rhythmically, and required more
rehearsal than was ever feasible. (For that reason, none of
it will probably enter the symphonic repertoire either.) His
most recent release, _The Yellow Shark_, consists of
compositions played by the European chamber orchestra
Ensemble Modern, which Zappa painstakingly edited from the
tapes of all the performances, and while it still wasn't
perfect, he professed to be pleased with it.
He had a wicked sense of humor and a deep appreciation of
absurdity, which served him well as a social critic. His
songs were often considered-- damned with faint praise-- as
rock comedy, despite that their content was often literal
truth. One of his songs, "Valley Girl," about the curious
culture and speech patterns of well-to-do southern
California teenagers, became a fluke hit, and nearly spawned
a TV series.
In the '80s he was dragged into the political arena when
"Washington wives" Tipper Gore and Susan Baker founded the
PMRC, crusading against obscenity in rock music. In
testimony before a Senate committee including Tipper's
husband Al (now the vice president), Zappa was articulate
and forceful in his defense of the First Amendment, and
appropriately scathing about the probable motives of the
major participants. He also pointed out the impossibility of
balanced enforcement of any legal stricture, mentioning for
example that country music was not being considered for
sanctions and noting that "These guys have been to prison,
and are proud of it!" His view of the whole affair is
captured on the CD _Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of
Prevention_.
With the onset of perestroika, however, he was heartened to
discover that his music had inspired a generation of freedom
fighters behind the Iron Curtain. He travelled to
Czechoslovakia to advise Vaclav Havel on how to nurture his
fledgling democracy and promote industry. Back in America,
he began lecturing on civics and democracy, presented his
philosophy of "practical conservatism" in his sort-of
autobiography, _The Real Frank Zappa Book_, and, on his last
concert tour in 1988, invited the League of Women Voters to
set up voter registration tables at the concerts. He also
wrote a sheaf of uproarious music skewering the religious
right, which can be heard on such records as _Broadway the
Hard Way_, _You Are What You Is_, and _Thing-Fish_, which
was written as a Broadway musical. He very nearly ran for
president in 1992, more to stimulate discussion of what he
considered the real issues than because he had any real hope
of winning-- although he certainly would have had my vote.
Was this weird? Zappa rejected the charge absolutely--
although, if pressed, he would acknowledge that drawing dots
on manuscript paper was possibly an odd occupation for a
20th century American. He described himself as a composer
first and foremost: "give me some _stuff_," he said, "and
I'll organize it for you." The domains where he was
effective were by no means limited to music; his intuitive
sense of structure would lead him to new ideas for running a
record company or proposing cellular telephone technology
for Czechoslovakia just as readily as they might spawn a
composition for string quartet, trumpet, bass clarinet, and
rock band.
Back in the '60s, Grace Slick called Zappa "the most
intelligent asshole I ever met." Both parts were valid:
Zappa could be arrogant, fractious, or rude, although seldom
to anyone who didn't deserve it. He was stingy about sharing
the credit for his art; the list of his influences from the
_Freak Out_ liner notes was removed from the CD version.
Worst, he consistently underestimated his audience's
intelligence, foisting upon us music that was often
insultingly crude--albeit a satire of the crap on the radio.
We didn't wanna hear it; we listened to Zappa because he was
the only alternative in earshot.
And yet his penetrating insight was generally obvious even
to his adversaries, except to a certain poltroon senator
from Washington state--Tipper Gore had allegedly sent him a
get-well card. This quality had nothing to do with book
learning, where Zappa was admittedly weak. Zappa was blessed
with a built-in bullshit detector, an unerring sense of
enlightened self-interest that alerted him to snow jobs,
both in the fine print and in the greater cultural arena.
And his unromantic deflating of this windbaggery is the
second greatest thing he had ever done for society.
But the greatest thing was the vast body of music he left
behind him. Horribly inconsistent as it was, the best of it
is unequalled by any living composer. Even a prolific
eclectic like John Zorn never approaches Zappa's peculiar
symmetry-- not to mention that his working methods would be
unthinkable without Zappa's example. (Not that I'm carping;
thinking about it now, I real- ize how much of my personal
style I've appropriated from Zappa too.) And certainly, in
the overly corporate music industry of the '90s-- where an
original opinion is even rarer than an original sound, and
certain prescribed "dangerous" thoughts are even marketed as
commodities-- a popular phenomenon like Frank Zappa can
never happen again. For this alone, he will be sorely
missed.
########################################
ANNOUNCEMENT
GLEANINGS by David Ignatow
GRIST On-Line is pleased to announce the publication of
GLEANINGS: Uncollected Poems of the Fifties by David
Ignatow. As the first author in the Grist Electronic
Publishing Program, Mr. Ignatow, our senior American master
poet, remains in the forefront as always.
GLEANINGS, available March 1st on diskette for IBM
personal computers and online from the Grist On-Line Book
Store, is a collection of more than one hundred and twenty
poems written between 1950 and 1960. Many are published
here for the first time, others have appeared in a variety
of magazines, but none have been published in book form.
I first met David in the mid-60s in Lawrence, Kansas
when he was visiting professor at the University of Kansas
and I was publishing Grist magazine and operating the
Abington Book Shop. Several of his poems appeared in Grist
in those days and now in the 90s others are appearing in the
revived Grist, now on-line on Internet. My admiration and
respect for his work is evidenced by this desire to see it
presented over this span of time. I know you will recognize
the significance of the publication of this group of poems
and the significance of the fact that Mr. Ignatow has chosen
to present them in this innovative format.
I urge you to read these poems which reveal a man
already mature in his vision and manner, presenting, as he
says in his Brief Preface, "...poetry [that] stood apart
from the thing itself. It was a reality of its own kind.
From it, I could look out upon my immediate world with a
lens of my own making and feel free, at least for the
moment, and with a sense of mastery. I wish all my readers
the pleasure and relief I felt in writing these poems, but
for my readers to experience this pleasure and relief in the
poems themselves." Amen.
John Fowler
[email protected]
Gleanings: Uncollected Poems of the Fifties by David Ignatow
on diskette will be $25.00 including shipping & handling.
The toolbook edition will be released March 1st, 1994 and
requires an IBM PC or compatible with Windows and VGA.
The ASCII edition will be available April 1st, 1994 and is
suitable for any IBM PC or compatible.
Information regarding the Apple Macintosh version; the GRIST
On-Line Publishing Program for authors; the GRIST On-Line
Book Store(BBS)for small press poetry publishers and
information regarding the GRIST On-Line Poetry Bulletin
Board for poets is available via e-mail from
[email protected].
########################################
HORMONES, ASTRAL BODIES, SURFERS, SERIAL KILLERS, ACADEMICS,
AND DISNEYLAND:A REVIEW of _BEN'S EXIT_ by PAUL TRACHTENBERG
"Are hormones qualitative aspects of a pure spirit?"
"That's the basis of my research."
-- from _BEN'S EXIT_, p.106
As a sucker for novels interweaving art/humanities and
science I loved reading Paul Trachtenberg's BEN'S EXIT.
Metaphysics is the catalyst, enzyme, unifier of his main
themes, and his spate of kooky characters (including a
novice novelist, a couple of professor-researcher
scientists, a sociologist with feminist leanings devoted to
mass murder, and a hunky surfer-plumber) keep you turning
the pages wondering what the next party or next outing will
provide. The setting is Orange county, where Trachtenberg
has lived all of his life. He's thoroughly entertaining and
familiar with the rich plethora of coastal and inland
settings, the right-wing politics, the gay, beach, and
academic cultures, and the local histories of farms and
orange groves, the rich plethora of beach and inland
settings, KKK groups, the reactionary politicians and
congressmen, and movie star mansions.
The book is an impressively original fusion of art,
science, spirituality, and humanity. The characters'
preoccupation with a gruesome serial murder case works an
evil, dark magic on the humorous, airy metaphysics, creating
a unique tone, an awful depth that makes the humor and love
int he novel all the more vital. There is much fascinating
material from fresh scientific discoveries interlaced with
the business of the hero's getting on with his novel, in
which his idiosyncratic friends are thinly disguised
protagonists. The idea of the novel transpiring within the
novel works as a bright example of what these days is called
meta-fiction. Aficionados of Tom Disch's _On Wings of
Song_, Thomas Pynchon's _Gravity's Rainbow_, and Dom
DeLilo's _Ratner's Star_ will love _Ben's Exit_.
In the midst of the big ideas, topics and words there
are wonderfully earthy things: scrumptious cheesecakes,
curry omelets, Christmas nog, bloody marys, excursions to
the beach and Will Rogers' Park, visits to Disneyland (a
central motif), and surfing. There's even a might temblor
during a Christmas get-together. The surfing world is
wonderfully evoked through surfer banter (the most authentic
I've read) so generic to Huntington Beach, California, and
other area surfing towns. Impressive too are descriptions
of Santa Monica wild lands and the presence of the vigorous,
attractive Randy, a surfing plumber with a lion-like body:
"Randy," Trachtenberg writes,
walks like a mountain lion. The guy's fatless body
straw-colored hair are due to his daily surfing...
Sara has said how much Randy worships the sea. Ben
also notices his slightly sagging lip; it seems baked
by the sun; and he is intrigued by a coldness in
Randy's eyes, possibly a misreading, for at that
moment he seems to purr as he walks with Sara. What
a lion tamer she is, Ben thinks, loving the chemistry.
Their path through the Santa Monica mountains is
surrounded with a thick chaparral of native scrub oaks
and wild oleanders. The rocky hills of feldspar,
gypsum, potash, and quartz crystal are a microcosm
of mineral-rich California. A prehistoric ghost
enshrouds this area. Among indigenous wild flowers
are matilija, poppies, and Indian paint brush. The
hiker's ears twitch for sounds of mountain lions,
bob-cats, foxes, and coyotes, though these creatures
are usually nocturnal. Any shrub rustlings are from
hopping and scampering rabbits and native birds.
Though the central friendship is a gay one, females are
sharply and sympathetically drawn, and the novel should
please all readers male, female; hetero, gay. It's a sign
of our cultural conditioning, I suppose, that most people
these days who feel comfortable reading/seeing hetero sex
still feel edgy about gay sex. In any case, that's been my
experience. Like most heterosexuals I have far less trouble
with lesbian love than I do with male love. Countless
"Penthouse" pictorials show sexy women going at it, and the
Deneuve Sarandon film _The Hunger_ upset no one. Moreover,
in my own classes in Michigan and here in Japan none of my
students, male or female, has any trouble with lesbian sex,
whereas almost all find it hard to accept even the harmless
man to man kisses in David Leavitt's fiction and in much gay
poetry. Reading these passages, though is salutary; the
more varieties of human experience we can know the better.
The over-all brio of affection, banter, and lyrical
writing alleviates the quirky twist when Ben, fascinated
with mystical out-of-body experience, through a detailed
inter-racial wedding scene, the motif of an angelic orderly
spotted at a trendy shopping mall and at the health spa, and
his solicitous friends, find himself transported. This
reader was not dismayed. The book, in plain Dutch Boy blue
with white and black lettering,might have been more
invitingly produced, and the typesetter had problems by not
always completing lines to the right margin. These caveats
are, though, minor, and do not detract from the originality
and beauty of the novel itself.
-- Jefferson M. Peters
Paul Trachtenberg, _BEN'S EXIT_, Cherry Valley Editions, Box
303, Cherry Valley, New York 13320, 1994, 125pp., paper,
$7.00 + $1.50 shipping & handling + 8.25% NY Sales Tax of
New York residents.
########################################
A definition of "Networker"
Andrea Ovcinnicoff
Genova, April 1992 (via j.lehmus)
from FLORA + ANTHROPOPHOBICA 1993
"If--as Ulises Carrion said--"mail art is the perfect
model of how art can be converted from productivity of
objects into organization of communication systems",
the Networker, operating inside one or more networks
of higher or lower independent international micro-
contact, daily and in contemporaneousness with others
scattered in the world, through International Mail
System as in Telematic, is ideally who in
consciousness acts as an accumulator and as a
converter, in the Maximum Circuit of all networks, of
expressive and intellectual Indeterminate and
Indeterminating creative Fluxes towards Planetary
Organizations, through Perpetual Change of Substance,
according to ethic proceedings preferred against Mass
communication projects, drawing out, preserving and
diffusing Antientropical Energy."
ANDREA OVCINNICOFF
since July 1989 writing the monthly mail art
and alternative correspondence newsletter,
"Arte Atre". Andrea Ovcinnicoff, Vico di
Coccagna, 1/3, 16128 Genova, Italy.
########################################
ON THE INTERNATIONAL SHADOWS PROJECT: 1990
Karl Young
This is a revision of an essay that first appeared in
WORLD'S EDGE, and English language Japanese
publication. I updated it for the book of my essays
coming out from Minnesota Center for the Book Arts this
spring, but decided to save it for PROVINCIAL
ANARCHISM, a book that's still incomplete and hasn't
found a publisher.)
When the first atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima at 8:15
a.m. August 6, 1945, people within 300 meters of ground zero
were vaporized by the intense heat. They left faint marks on
nearby surfaces. These have been called shadows, and these
shadows have been growing in importance as symbols, ex-
amples, and icons during the 45 years since.
During the early to mid '80's the maniacal nuclear
stratagems of the Reagan administration gave great impetus
to the global anti-nuclear movement and artists, poets, and
composers responded with an upwelling of oppositional work.
A resurgence of the guerrilla theater of the '60's emerged
as performance art. Anti-nuclear mail-art flourished.
Ruggero Maggi in Italy and John Held, Jr. in the U.S. united
mail-art and performance and sponsored many events at home
and abroad. Perhaps the most important of the mail-art shows
was held in 1988 in Hiroshima itself, under inter-national
sponsorship with the active guidance of Shozo Simamoto,
Mayumi Handa and others. Work from this show was passed on
to form the nucleus of a 1989 show in Calexico, a city on
the U.S.-Mexico border, curated by Harry Polkinhorn. This
material was passed on to me after the Calexico show closed.
Polkinhorn and I discussed turning it into a DNA show, one
that divided and replicated itself, with part sent this year
to Clemente Padin in Montevideo who wanted to do a show.
Invitations started going out in late winter. One of my
concerns was to bring in work from artists outside the
mail-art genre. I hope future curators of similar shows will
continue along these lines, making the project as open and
uncliquish as possible. In the invitations I said the show
would be "lightly juried." I would have liked to have left
it completely unjuried, but wanted to be able to exclude
work that would harm or get in the way of other pieces. One
piece was set up so it made a continuous c ycle of loud
sounds that would have distracted attention from other works
and would have been a sort of water-drip torture for people
who worked in the bookstore or read in the gallery. This was
the only piece excluded from the show. The openness of the
show drew some criticism: Some thought that without a jury
the show would be made up of nothing but junk from amateurs,
fanatics, and lunatics. This may have discouraged a few
people from sending work, but predictions of a cascade of
trash were not born out by the show. A number of con-
tributors fall into the amateur category but they didn't
contribute insincere or irrelevant art. The lone rejectee
was gracious enough to send a less harmful piece in place of
the rejected one. That's hardly irrational behavior -- I'd
like to see more people act as well in juried shows.
The lack of a jury gets at one of the main goals of the
show. The atomic age has been one of secrecy, exclusion, and
elitism. It seems particularly appropriate to oppose this
with complete openness, universal enfranchisement, and
inclusion. Jerome Rothenberg's notion of the Critic as Angel
of Death, as the officer at Auschwitz who decided who would
live and who would go to the crematorium, seems appropriate
here. We opened the show to everyone who wanted to par-
ticipate, not deciding which works should " live" and which
should "die."
The nuclear age has been based in distrust, not only of
foreign nations but also of people at home. The obsession
with secret plots and domestic spies and saboteurs
characteristic of the McCarthy witch hunt is alive and well
in the current movement for g reater censorship. A basic
assumption of the Shadows Project is that artists can be
trusted. Some contributors sent work that questioned or made
fun of the concerns of the show, but none were guilty of bad
faith. In this context, it is interesting to not e that
although the moral majority gestapo regularly patrolled the
show, they found nothing that could be used to attack the
gallery or close the exhibition.
The show included about 600 pieces from some 300 con-
tributors living in 38 countries. Work included paintings
ranging from Memling-like miniatures to large abstractions;
elaborate collages and found art; video and audio tapes;
poetry and musical scores; photos of everything from
Hiroshima wreckage to children's faces to previous Shadows
performances. Any inventory would be incomplete -- the show
included many anonymous pieces, and even provenience is
problematic: I sent invitations to artists in East Germany,
and received responses from some of them at new addresses in
West Germany, and the two Germanies ceased to be divided
shortly after the show closed. About half the work was new.
Of work from previous shows, some pieces are dated as early
as 1982. It would be interesting to track their progression
from show to show around the world over the years. Going by
dates, some artists apparently had contributed to shows
nearly every year throughout the decade.
That many pieces were anonymous brings out several important
things about mail art. It is not an art form from which
artists expect to make money or achieve fame. It is a form
that is not intended to be a commodity to be bought or owned
but to go out in the world with a message that is more
important than the identity or fortunes of the artist. Hence
it should not be surprising that a large number of
contributors were from eastern Europe and the Fascist
dictatorships of Latin America; that is, places where
artists' commitments have been put to a severe test. That
little work came from Asian countries other than Japan or
from Africa is a strong reminder that many people in the
world cannot participate in shows like this because they
cannot afford postage. Perhaps it is a shortcoming of these
shows that none of their curators has found a way of getting
around this.
Though we don't have any numbers to back this up, the show
apparently drew a larger number of viewers than any other
mounted in the summer at Woodland Pattern during its ten
years at the present location. The show formally ended on
August 6, Hiroshima Day, with a poetry reading. Despite the
official closing, the show was left up for an additional two
weeks. This not only gave more people a chance to see it, it
also suggested a reprieve of sorts: it's hard not to think
that the human race put a gun to it s head and pulled the
trigger on August 6, 1945 and is only waiting helplessly for
the hammer to detonate the cap. Maybe we can keep that from
happening.
1990 was a torch bearer year for the International Shadows
Project. When the show opened on June 17, concern about
nuclear weapons was probably at its lowest point in forty
five years. A lot of the careless euphoria of the preceding
year was still in the air. By the time the show ended in
mid August, the world seemed to have changed. Troops were
massing in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, ready for a war that could
go nuclear. Of the two giants that had been terrorizing the
world with their threats of nuclear armageddon for half a
century, one was in effect bankrupt and drowning in debt,
while the other was rapidly disintegrating. In their place,
their former client states were arming themselves with
nuclear weapons made from materials the superpowers had
given them. A world in which two bullies bluff each other
now seemed safer than one in which many impoverished
countries had nuclear devices and little to lose in using
them. At the same time, many people in the U.S. began to
advocate the use of nuclear weapons to rid themselves of the
Iraqi nuisance.
By springtime, many of those who had advocated nuking
Baghdad were expressing sincere and heartfelt sympathy with
the Kurds and other victims of the Iraq war. Clearly these
people didn't have the slightest understanding of the
indiscriminate destructive power of even a small nuclear
bomb. One of the purposes of these shows should be
educational. Serious consideration of the devastation caused
by the bomb detonated over Hiroshima (little more than a
firecracker by contemporary standards) apparently must be
encouraged; and the images of human suffering, with human
faces, must be kept before those who advocate the use of
nuclear weapons. This is particularly important after a war
that seemed to many people in the industrial nations like a
video game.
By the following winter, the Soviet Union had become the
world's first empire to disassemble itself. Through some
sort of mass psychosis that is completely beyond my
comprehension many people came to believe that the nuclear
nightmare was over. This folly continued despite a hellish
civil war in Yugoslavia that could easily be a rehearsal for
civil wars in the former Soviet Republics, or more massive
wars between the half dozen nuclear states that covered the
center of Eurasia. The possibilities of nuclear weapons
being used by China, India, the Koreas and other Asian
countries became more apparent. None of the polyannas seemed
concerned with the possible uses of material and tech-
nological ability that would be looking for some practical
application if they were not used in such conflicts. The
people who spoke of the end of the nuclear era had forgotten
how ready people in the U.S. had been to use nuclear weapons
on Iraq. Those who sponsor Shadows Shows in the future will
have a more difficult job than mine. Of course, no matter
how many shows are generated, not even if their number grows
to thousands per annum, these shows can not be expected to
put an end to the existence of nuclear weapons. But they may
augment the many other anti-nuclear activities launched by
responsible people all over the world. An unfortunate
problem that any anti-nuke group faces is the speed with
which images and ideas become passe. My hope is that the
changing of future locations and curators will keep the
shows themselves changing fast enough to stay ahead of the
ennui and trendyness that are the strongest allies nuclear
weapons have. I can see large scale changes in the
aesthetics and the approaches of these shows. I hope this
will be magnified in coming years when I'm no longer
involved in setting them up.
Since Clemente Padin stopped answering my letters before the
Milwaukee show opened, I assumed that there would not be one
in Uruguay, and feared that he might have become one of The
Disappeared -- particularly since much of his work has dealt
with the su bject of Disappeared Persons, and he had been
one himself for several years, until an Amnesty Inter-
national style letter writing campaign initiated by mail-
artists forced his release. A letter from Padin arrived in
mid October saying that the Montevideo show was mounted
along with an Africa show. In this case, the crazy optimism
characteristic of these endeavors was completely justified.
########################################
HIROSHIMA
j.lehmas
I meet my shadow on the stairs. All the incandescent
quarks the celestial toadstool sun descended upon the
earth, meet the burning brother Prometheus fire silver
golden energy burning aurora red glass shards shining
insects in spectral clouds coming down pest.
I see you in a panorama theater : aerial views, sound
off. Lumiere-white, subconscious messages mental
images pictures channelled through the flichering
screen. Hypnosis miracles. -20 dB noise.
We are walking on a frozen pale gree moss soil
covering, promenade. Black toadstools grow in
clusters on grey roots, branches limbs wrest'd of
leaves, we collect these. Some powdery species of
fungi, germs in dark clouds.
I tear a page from a fashion magazine, perplexed by
an advetisement : khaki-coloured air filter for asthma
breathing apparatus, "AFRAID OF FLOWERS". A round
shape, made of paper, with black stains.
########################################
EVENTS - ANNOUNCEMENTS
children
Karl Young
Here are the specs on Amos Kennedy's project as he has it
set up now. I think he'll want to change things as he goes
along. I think, for instance, that he might be interested in
a mail art project of some sort to go with it.
CHILDREN DON'T COUNT
Join us in this project!
A memorial book to children 14 years old or younger murdered
in the U.S. in 1993.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
Create a book with the following information for each child
murdered in your state in 1993:
Child's Name
Date of Birth
Date of Murder
Place of Murder
Method of Murder
Murder Number (The sequential number of the child's murder
during the year. If the child is the fifteenth child
murdered in 1993, the Murder Number is 15.)
One Page for each child murdered
Have a loose leaf of your book exhibited in a public place
in your state during 1994.
Supply one copy of your book to one of the project
coordinators, Caren Heft or Amos Kennedy, Jr. Register with
either:
Caren Heft
5508 Short Road
Racine, WI 53402
or
Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.
543 North Harvey Ave.
Oak Park, IL 60302-2338
for more information on line, contact
[email protected].
More than one book can be created per state. Artists working
in all media welcome.
Books so far underway:
Caren Heft, Wisconsin.
Emily Mills, North Carolina.
The IU POSSE, Indiana.
Jubilee Press, Illinois.
PEACE TO ALL IN 1994
########################################
Subject: Re: Creative Writing on MU*
From: Tom Meyer,
[email protected]
Has anyone worked on or know of any MU* enviroments that are
directly related to creative writing in a class?
Yeah, I'm building a MOO intended for hypertext creative
writing. It's not officially open, since I'll be making a
lot of changes next week some time, but most of the
infrastructure is there. It provides some simple tools for
the creation of hypertexts, and I can import Storyspace webs
into the MOO fairly easily.
At least one, and probably several classes will be taught
using this MOO as a writing tool, next semester.
I'll be officially announcing it here next week or so, but
in the meantime, people can check it out and take a look
around.
It's at: count.cs.brown.edu 8888
Tom
########################################
Subject: SIG Overview statement: Art and Design show
From: DEANNA MORSE
[email protected]
Art and Design Show: SIGGRAPH '94
The SIGGRAPH '94 Art and Design Show will be a juried, media
inclusive show, exhibited at the Orlando Convention Center
July 24 - 29, 1994. The Art and Design show presents the
world's leading exhibit of creativity inspired by the
interaction of technology and esthetic expression. The show
explores the limits and opportunities of the human-machine
relationship, sparks discussion, and generates controversy
as it extends the boundaries of imagination in a broad
range of formats: performance, animation, interactive media,
2D and 3D display, design, and other emerging areas.
The jury is especially interested in works that:
o Approach artistic creation and design in original ways
o Use computing as language and a means of discovery rather
than a production tool
o Could not have been created without the use of a computer
o Are critically related to computer graphics technology
and possess strong esthetic value
o Comment on the role of technology in society, (for
example works that consider implications for the artist or
the user, the culture, the present or future)
The accepted entries will be exhibited at SIGGRAPH '94,
documented in the Visual Proceedings, and on a CD Rom.
Selected works will be included on a slide set.
To receive a Call for Participation:
Conference Management: SIGGRAPH '94
Smith Bucklin and Associates
401 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611 USA
tel. 312.321.6830
Categories and Deadlines
5 January 1994 (enter with The Edge)
o Alternate media and performance
Computer graphics technology must be a significant
part of these entries, which may include one or more of the
following categories:
Multimedia
Performance
Audience participation
Interactive
New media
12 January 1994
o Critical essays
Essays that address the role of the computer in art
and design and the effect or impact of computer generated or
computer delivered imagery on society.
o Interactive installations
Visual, spatial, and temporal works requiring user
interaction and a live computer graphics system.
2 March 1994
o 2D works
Flat art and design pieces.
o 3D works
Sculpture, installation environments or static art.
20 April 1994 (enter with Electronic Theater)
o Film and video
Fine art animation intended for gallery viewing.
////////////////////////////////////////
Call for Proposals: Site Specific Artworks
The Art and Design show of SIGGRAPH '94 has broadened the
call for proposals to include works that could be shown
outside of a gallery setting. These works may be designed
to respond to certain designated areas of the Orlando
Convention Center.
Examples of works in this category could include:
-works designed to be viewed from a long distance
- performance works for captive audiences waiting in
lines
- an installation of work which takes advantage of the
visual and spatial changes of an escalator, and considers
the walls directly ahead of the top and foot of the
excalator
- an installation including audio designed to influence a
hallway
The jury is especially interested in works that:
o Approach artistic creation and design in original ways
o Use computing as language and a means of discovery
rather than a production tool
o Could not have been created without the use of a
computer
o Are critically related to computer graphics technology
and possess strong esthetic value
o Comment on the role of technology in society, (for
example works that consider implications for the artist or
the user, the culture, the present or future)
Please indicate on the entry form that you would like your
work to be considered for alternate exhibition spaces.
To receive a Call for Participation:
Conference Management: SIGGRAPH '94
Smith Bucklin and Associates
401 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611 USA
tel. 312.321.6830
e mail: siggraph94 @ siggraph.org
To receive more information about designing for specific
sites in the Orlando Convention Center:
Deanna Morse
Art and Design Show
268 Lake Superior Hall
Grand Valley State University
Allendale, MI 49401 USA
tel. 616.895.3101
email:
[email protected]
########################################
Subject: new edition of e-zine-list out (public release)
Wed, 26 Jan 94
From: John Labovitz <
[email protected]>
This is to announce a new edition of my e-zine-list, a guide
to zines on the net. There have been many, many changes in
the last couple of months since the last edition of the
list. Probably the biggest change is that there is now a
hypertext version of this list, available over the World
Wide Web using a suitable browser. All FTP, Gopher, USENET,
WWW, and WAIS links should connect to the appropriate place.
There are probably a few mistakes; if you find a link that
doesn't work, please let me know. The other change,
hopefully invisible, is that all versions are generated from
a format-independent source, and run through a program that
creates either the ASCII text or HTML versions. This may
still be buggy; again, let me know if you find any problems.
The newest edition of the list can be obtained in the
following ways:
anonymous FTP: netcom.com: /pub/johnl/zines/e-zine-list
(ASCII text version)
e-zine-list.html (HTML version)
World Wide Web: file://netcom.com/pub/johnl/zines/e-zine-
list.html
email:
[email protected]
If you would like to receive future editions by email as
they come out, please let me know, and I will add you to a
special distribution list.
john
[Thanks to all your e-zine editors for producing such great
stuff! And thanks for your patience; I know this latest
edition has been a while coming out.]
########################################
From:
[email protected] (john fowler)
to play it safe
fill out the form below and pass it along to
MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
In a world that needs more convergence
talk and travel through graphic space
please
a
literary-critical sophistica-society for
HYPERTEXT Intersections:
Viewing Bodies, Constructing Whiteness, Dislocating
Knowledge, Being Multiple, Making Physical Objects and
Handles, Tools, and Fetishes
While configuring--
configuring can also be visual....
form follows:
....................................
....................................
....................................
three times a year
please provide all possible information
GRIST ON-LINE, JOURNAL OF NETWORK LANGUAGE ARTS
etext.archive.umich.edu/pub/Poetry/Grist
[email protected], Editor & Publisher
########################################
From
[email protected] Tue Jan 11 16:07:37 1994
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1993 01:13:22 +0100 (MET)
THE INTER-SOCIETY FOR THE ELECTRONIC ARTS:
PUBLICATIONS ON ALL ISEA SYMPOSIA AVAILABLE
FISEA
The First International Symposium on Electronic Art 1988,
Utrecht, Holland
Proceedings appeared as Leonardo Special:
ELECTRONIC ART (ed. Wim van der Plas)
Available from Leonardo (MIT Press)
672 Sth. Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, CA 94110, USA
Fax: 1-415-4315737, Email:
[email protected]
SISEA
The Second International Symposium on Electronic Art 1990,
Groningen, Holland
Proceedings published by Groningen Polytechnic
SISEA PROCEEDINGS (ed. Wim van der Plas) 236 pages
Available from ISEA, see address below
Price: US$15 plus mailing costs.
TISEA
The Third International Symposium on Electronic Art 1992,
Sydney, Australia. Selected Papers published by the
Australian Film, Television & Radio School as MIA #69 (ed.
Ross Harley), 140 pages.
Available from ISEA, see address below.
Price: US$ 15 plus mailing costs
FISEA93
The Fourth International Symposium on Electronic Art 1993,
Minneapolis, USA
1. Catalogue, very well designed, full colour, 44 extra
large pages.
Published by the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (ed.
Susan Hanna-Bibus)
Available from ISEA, see address below.
Price: US$ 25 plus mailing costs (very limited availability)
2. Papers
Published by the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (ed.
Susan Hanna-Bibus) 190 pages, xeroxed.
Available from ISEA, see address below
Price US$ 20 plus mailing costs
Also available through ISEA:
IDEA, the International Directory of Electronic Arts
Organizations, institutes, people, magazines etc in
electronic art, all over the world.
Published by Chaos Edition (ed. Annick Bureaud), 500 pages
Price 250 FF or US$43
ORDER FROM:
ISEA, POB 8656, 3009 AR Rotterdam, Holland
Fax: 31-10-2668705, Email:
[email protected]
MasterCard & VISA accepted (and preferred for int. orders)
////////////////////////////////////////
FineArt Forum Volume 8, Number 2 February 15,
1994
________________________________________________________
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| | | \ | | / \ | \ |
_| _| _| __| ______] _/ _\ _| _\ _|
:::::: .::::. :::::. :: :: ::. .::
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :::. .:::
:::: :: :: :::::' :: :: :: ::: ::
:: :: :: :: ':. :: :: :: ' ::
:: '::::' :: ':. '::::' :: ::
A R T + T E C H N O L O G Y N E T N E W S
_________________________________________________________
Distributed by
Leonardo-ISAST on behalf of the Art, Science,Technology
Network
____________________________________________________________
Contents: FineArt Forum growing fast!
Arts Research Institute
New Name at FineArt Forum
The Role of 3D CG in Fine Art
4Cyberconf
The Art and Virtual Environments Symposium
6270 Technologies LEGO Catalog
Art & Technology course
Bay Area Art/Science Exhibition
Chaos and Graphics cfp
Chaos in Wonderland - book discount
1st BRAZILIAN SYMPOSIUM ON COMPUTER MUSIC - cfp
"Cyberia" Program Guide, Jan 1994
DEF CON ][
EIT's World-Wide Web Server
Drink Machines Online!
Interactive Media Festival - cfp
Pirate O'Radio
Israeli Computer Art - cfp
Leonardo Call for Papers
Making Money on the Internet
"Mazes for the Mind" in paperback
Sources of Multimedia information
Beyond Fast Forward - cfp
DEAD-ARTIST DESERT TRAILER-PARK
Digital Libraries: Current Issues - cfp
New Voices, New Visions - cfp
PANIC - cfp
Perforations 5
Stolen Moments
SYNERGY:CORPSE - cfp
Palm Tree Garden - cfp
MAC GRAPHICS TECH POSITION (Los Angeles)
SIGGRAPH 94 special call for Music
SIGGRAPH ART SHOW -Call for Site Specific Works
Spanish VR Company - Art Futura cfp
TeleEyes Brazil - cfp
New Russia-American World Wide Web Server
AAIM '94 - cfp
Visions of the Future - cfp
WOMEN'S WIRE Announces On-line Grand Opening
New on FineArt Online:
How to get to FineArt_OnliNE
____________________________________________________________
How to get to FineArt_Online
By WWW browser - our URL is:
http://www.msstate.edu/Fineart_Online/home.html
By Gopher our link is:
Host=gopher.msstate.edu
Path=1/Online_services/fineart_online
Port=70
By anonymous ftp:
ftp.msstate.edu
in the directory:
pub/archives/fineart_online
or incoming stuff can put in the directory:
incoming/fineart_online/ ***write only***
___________________________________________________________
Executive Editor: Paul Brown <
[email protected]>
Associate Editor: Hudson Oliver <
[email protected]>
Online Database Moderator:
Reed Altemus <raltemus @well.sf. ca.us>
Distribution: Gene Cooper <
[email protected]>
ASTN President: Annick Bureaud <
[email protected]>
ASTN, 57 Rue Falguiere, Paris, France
ASTN Advisory Board Chair: Roger Malina, Leonardo-ISAST
Correspondents:
Canada - Jeff Mann <
[email protected]>
Italy - Francesco Giomi <
[email protected]><art@ifiidg>
Japan - Hiroshi Okuno <
[email protected]>
USA - Susan Kirchman <
[email protected]>
ISEA - Wim van der Plas <
[email protected]>
Mail:
Paul Brown, PO Box 1292, Mississippi State, MS 39762-1292,
USA. Voice 601 325 3053, fax 601 325 3850
Support also provided by:
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San Francisco State University
Institute for Studies in the Arts, Arizona State University
____________________________________________________________
Send requests for subscription to FineArt Forum to:
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with the message: SUB FINE-ART your Email address,
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Send submissions of items to be published in FineArt Forum
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____________________________________________________________
************************************************************
########################################
EVENTS
30 April, 1994 GRIST On-Line - special Anarchist Poetry
issue - send your own poems or public domain work of others
for inclusion in special GOL issue to
[email protected].
After publication and distribution in GRIST the works will
go to the Poetry archive of Spunk Press, Internet Anarchist
publishers at:
etext.archive.ummich.edu/pub/politics/Spunk
Check there for a growing collection of anarchist poetry,
prose and political writings.
BRAIN CELL - regularly published graphic work, send your
artwork for inclusion c/o Ryosuke Cohen 3-76-1-A-613
Yagumokitacho, Moriguchi City, Osaka 570 Japan.
30 April, 1994 ENDLESS PROJECT - c/o Deedra Ludwig/The
Sanctary 51-55 Brunswick St E. Hove, East Sussex BN3 1AU
England
31 January, 1994 - EXPOITATION/EXPLOITED c/o Coyote Gallery,
Butte College 3536 Butte Campus Dr., Oroville, CA 95965-
8399
MANI ART - ongoing compilation magazine that consistently
produces excellent images. Send 60 copies of your works
21x15 cm max. to Pascal Lenior, 11 Ruelle De Champagne,
60680 Grandfresnoy France
TEMPLE POST'S WINDOW GALLERY because there are no forums for
Jose VandBroucke to exhit mail in his town, he has
designated his home's windows as a gallery. Send him your
works, not greater that 90cm. to be shown. He will return a
photo of this "Street Exhibition" Pikkelstraat 49, 8540
Deerlijk, Belgium
FIRST INTERNATIONAL COLLECTION OF NETWORKERS IN PANAMA is
organizing a mail art exhibition for The Nation Museum of
Mail Service. The theme is open, mail to Ruben Contreras,
Dewa-Estafeta Universitaria, Universidad de Panama, Panama,
Rep. of Panama
No deadline, but hurry. "DON'T TOUCH YOURSELF THERE" - c/o
1961 Cedar St, N. Merrick, NY 11566. Stop the sexual abuse
of yourself at the price of others.
3-11-21, A.I.M. AIDS INTERNATIONAL MAIL ART PROJECT CW Poste
4308 Greenwood Ave., N. Seattle, WA 98103 USA or BUCKWHEAT
TORNADO, O.O. Box 31792, Seattle, WA USA.
No Deadline, Visualizing Chaos Project, N-Eurovision, Enrico
Ciceri, Via Mascagne 22, 20034 Giussano (MI) Italy.
No Deadline, The Mouth, Visual Poetry, Alberto Rizzi, Via
Trento 51e, 45100 Rovigo, Italy.
No Deadline, Peacedream Project, Art project about visual
and experimental poetry, 100 copies, 21x14.8 cm (A-5).
Uni+verse(e), Guillermo Deisler, Riebeckplatz 12, 4020
Halle/Saale Germany.
Ongoing, Tensetendoned, Send 56 originals or 120 stickers
5"x9" or smaller and receive an assembled collection of
submitting artists' work. P.O. Box 155, Preston Park, PA
18455
No Deadline, Art Against Fascism, ongoing MailArt Project.
We need your contributions now to show the German public
international reaction against racism, neo-fascism, and
violence toward foreigners in this, our country. Good
images influence the attitudes of the indifferent silent
masses. Black and white simple drawings and writings to be
reduced in size to make 4x7 cm artistamps in PortoEdition
Sheets. Angel and Peter NetMail (Kuestermann) PB 2644 D 495
Minden, Germany.
95-10-1, About Face - Cross Gender Issue(s), 1. are you
cross about how your gender is treated in the network? 2.
face feminism in mail art and tell us your vision, 3. please
send a self portrait as a person of the opposite sex; no PC
restrictions,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Ars Nova Guild, A video/electronic
music/performance group at New Mexico State Univ. looking
for co-conspirators, fellow travelers, and solicitations for
submissions....email, MIDI, vid, fax et cetera ad nauseum.
Contact Eric Iverson,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Face Zine, FaGaGaGa interested in Email about Mail
Art and Networking for a zine chock full of Net news and
rants,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Global Mail, Send email numbers, art projects, mail
art shows, tape, fax, audio, anarchist projects, and
whatever, Ashley Parker Owens, at
[email protected], or
[email protected]
95-10-1, Herd - the girls & mailart zine, Contributions
welcome on the theme of women and mail OR anything by women
in the mail. , Next issue is 1994: Celebrate the Femail
Artist Campaign, Jennifer Huebert c/o Lewis & Hubener,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Permeable Press, We are accepting submissions for
our upcoming issues on Science Fiction and Sexuality. We are
also looking for contributions for our tape compilation
project PRESS PLAY, We love to receive email and mail art,
and will reply, Brian Clark,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Practical Anarchy Online, Send articles and bits of
new from everywhere to this electronic zine concerning
anarchy from a practical point of view, Mikael Cardell at
Internet,
[email protected] and Fidonet Mikael Cardell,
2:205/223
95-10-1, PURPS, We'd love contributions of art, articles,
essays, or whatever. We reprint most everything we like,
Publishes the OTISian Directory, which will review just
ABOUT ANYTHING (except fecal matter- we're touchy in that
respect), Jeffrey Stevens,
[email protected], OR Purps,
[email protected], OR Intergalactic House of
Fruitcakes, 955 Massachusetts Ave, #209, Cambridge, MA
02139-9183 USA
95-10-1, We Press, We can send you WE Magazine, issue 17
over the internet, Chris Funkhouser,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Please send me news of computer animation/animation
video festivals. Susan Van Baerle, Visualization Laboratory,
Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843-3137,
[email protected]
95-10-1, I enjoy any mail on the arts, weirdness in our
world, the occult, ancient history, and anarchy, Don Webb,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Send anything- everything, esp. cyberpunk, techno,
zines, and hacking,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Send me listings of mail art shows and whatever
else you would like, Reid Wood (State of Being),
[email protected]
95-10-1, Send anything- everything, esp. news of mail art
shows and general contact, Linda Hedges,
[email protected]
94-10-1, I am interested in receiving general information
about art shows, events, animation, film/video. I am the
chair of the SIGGRAPH Art Show for '94, deana morse,
[email protected]
########################################
M E D I A K A O S
[email protected]
(415)241-1568
JOSEPH MATHENY
Cultural Provocateur
O, gentlemen, the time of life is
short! And if we live, we live to
tread on kings! -Shakespeare, Henry IV
%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% MediaKaos %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%
presents
Books, CDs, Tapes, Records, and Videos from the MediaKaos
collection.
(415)241-1568
______________________________________
Videos
_______________________________________
T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, A Night of
Ontological Anarchy and Poetic Terrorism.
Featuring: Hakim Bey, Robert Anton Wilson, Nick Herbert,
Joseph Matheny, Rob Breszny of World Entertainment War, the
artwork of James Koehnline and more!
A great quality tape produced by Sound Photo Synthesis,
documenting the T.A.Z. night, February 6th, 1993, at
Komotion International in San Francisco.A one of a kind and
not available anywhere else. Includes original "Chaos"
poster and handbill from show.
Order # MK0001
2 Hour Video
$35.00
_______________________________________
Zone of Calm - by Xian Atrocity
In the eye of the storm is the Zone of Calm. Using brute
force recording techniques, Xian presents us with this
transcendental, post-industrial audio mindscape. Do not be
fooled by the title: this soothing sound massage is not for
the feeble. If you are ready, strap yourself into your
meditation chamber, take a deep breath and let the sonic
roughage cleanse your filthy soul.
Order #00015
60 min audio cassette includes tract
$5.50
____________________________________________________
Recycled Time - by Christian Greuel and Aaron Ross
The immediacy of pure existance can only be revisited as
idealized and corrupted memories. Yet these three video
selections, taken from a cyber-synaesthetic experience
presented at the California Institute of the Arts, provide
a bleeding edge, stroboscopic feeding frenzy for your
central nervous system's hearty appetite. Very engrossing,
often frightening and always beautiful, this tape is
a wonderful endurance test for your psyche.
Order # MK00016
Video cassette
$20.00
______________________________________
Books
_______________________________________
Esoterrorist: Selected Essays 1980-1988
Genesis P'Orridge
One of the best books about technoshamanism in existance.The
product of one brains fascinating rollercoaster ride along
the fringes of culture and sexuality, a virtual mapping of
the evolution of an ORIGINAL Cyber-Shaman. If you only read
one book this year, make it this one and become an
interactive particle in the ESOTERRORIST web. All versions
contain a new color collage by Genesis.
Special Handbound Artlaw version.Limited quantity.
Order # MK0002
$40.00
Regular Paperback version.
Order # MK0003
$14.99
_______________________________________
Thee Psychick Bible: The Apocryphal Scriptures of Genesis
P'Orridge & Psychick TV
Thee Psychick Bible contains manifestoes, essays, qoutes,
and other miscellaneous writings (i.e. scriptures) from the
numerous PTV material dating from its earliest origins to
the present day. With the exception of Liber XIII, which is
a reprinting of Thee Grey Book. The layout is a double
column format that can be read together or independently.
Each page consists of a primary (larger) text block and a
secondary (smaller) text block. The text found within the
primary columns are materials compiled and edited from the
numerous PTV L.P.s, CDs, twelve-inch records and other
related matter.Nearly all the writing in the secondary
columns come from other PTV/Genesis P'Orridge sources as a
compliment and/or distraction from the primary text.
Order # MK0004
$14.99
__________________________________________________
One Foot In the Future: A Woman's Spiritual Journey
Nina Graboi
Blending dramatic events with profound reflections on the
spiritual path and the human condition, One Foot in the
Future is written in a lucid and eminently readable style,
covering one womyns journey from a Nazi prison camp to the
LSD experience in America with Leary, and Alpert during the
Millbrook days, and on through the present to the future.
"Her autobiography is a rare, precious life achievment."
Timothy Leary
Order # MK0005
$16.99
_______________________________________
Records, CDs, Cassetes
_______________________________________
Fixated
The Seven Inches of the Apocalypse
IndustrialTechnoSEXhouseMUSIC
Fixated was concieved and created by Illusion of Safety
founder/leader Dan Burke.The work of IOS can be categorized
as ambient, post-industrial, power electronics, and
decomposition. Music thats time is cum. Taking a
pro-Erotica/anti-censorship stance this CD combines
Kraftwerk type rhythms with loads of Industrial-Techno-House
stylings interspersed with provocative soundbytes from
pornographic films and real life, mixed with double
entendres that keep it up. Lustful obsessions, Erotic sound
bytes, and pornographic beats that move your mind and
appendages.
50 min CD
Order # MK0006
$12.00
_______________________________________
Fifteen/Finite Material Context
Illusion of Safety
Over 70 minutes of material from two previously available
Complacency cassttes re-released on CD by Tesco orginisation
(Germany) sub-label Functional.Some of the best "group" work
from 1987/88 and solo pieces from the limited edition boxset
"Finite Material Context" (1990)." a true gem of industry-
meets-Andromeda sonic union."...Option Magazine
70 min. CD
Order # MK0007
$12.00
_______________________________________
Inside Agitator
Illusion of Safety
"...another in a never-ending series of uncompromising and
exquisitely-crafted tonalities.the title refers to a
favorite theme of founder/leader Dan Burke, namely a ghastly
glimpse into the aberrations of the human psyche.This
collection of the half-rhythmic beat/collages and half
ambient-noise reflect the dichotomy within us all; the age
-old struggle between the violent and the sublime, the Dark
& the Light." ...Scott Marshal
CD
Order # MK0008
$12.00
_______________________________________
Prevost/O'Rourke
Third straight day made public
Live recordings
cover by David Jackman
liner notes by John Corbett
TSDMP presents the meeting of legendary AMM percussionist
Eddie Prevost and guitarist Jim O'Rourke performing live in
England. Mining an area familiar to fans of both AMM and
O'Rourke's, but also exploring new possibilities in the
realm of improvisation. Ideas of what improvisation "sounds
like" disappear and are replaced with extremely visual walls
of sound, color, and light.There is an empathy beyond call
and response, reaching a language of pure sound.
Eddie Prevost: An original member of England's legendary
improvising ensemble AMM (which has included Keith Rowe,
John Tilbury, Cornelius Cardew, and the Arditti String
quartet's Rohan de Saram), works with "Supersession" (with
Barry Guy, Evan Parker, and Keith Rowe) and is a member of
the Eisler Ensemble. Writes and lectures on improvistaion
and related subjects.
Jim O'Rourke: Known equally as a composer and improvisor.
Known for his work with Henry Kaiser, Keith Rowe, K.Null,
Derek Bailey, John Oswald, Gunter Muller, Voice Crack, and
Nicolas Collins. As a composer, he has written pieces for
the Rova sax quartet and the Kronos Quartet.
51 min. CD
Order # MK0009
$12.00
_______________________________________
The Banishing Ritual
Illusion of Safety with Joseph Matheny
This new work embodies The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the
Pentagram ( a timeless ritual of protection and
pureification) with dense layered hard beat structure. The
flipside is a trance piece, starting with dark soundtrack
textures that build into a gentle rhythm using African log
drum and Kalimba. Ritual vibrations and liner notes by
Joseph Matheny of MediaKaos.
7" vinyl
Order # MK0010
$5.50
_______________________________________
A Transmedia Litany
Genesis P'Orridge with XKP
Good quality tape of Genesis P'Orridge's Transmedia lecture
and musical/visual litany, recorded in San Francisco, at the
legendary MediaKaos/Future Cult Project Space. For the final
show in the FC series Genesis and XKP put the audience into
a trance, and then proceed to build up to an earth shaking
crescendo.
Double casstette set Contains original Transmedia
Order # MK0011 Litany poster and handbill
$8.99
_______________________________________
Aleister Crowley
Poems and Evocations
Original Recordings of A.C. performing rituals and reading
his poetry. Very rare.
Cassette
Order # MK00012
$5.50
_______________________________________
T.A.Z.: The Temporay Autonomous Zone, a night of Ontological
Anarchy and Poetic Terrorism. An audio tape of the above
T.A.Z. show (see video section).
Cassette
Order # MK0013
$10.00
_______________________________________
Pagan Amen
4 songs
Early MediaKaos "found/sound art" project, early
trance/ambient experiments from 1988. Out of print until
now. Rare.
Cassette extended single
Order # MK00014
$5.50
Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery (probably sooner).
Included $4.75 postage for up to 5 items.
Mail check or money order made payable to: Athanor
MediaKaos/Athanor Arts
409 Laguna Suite #4D
San Francisco, CA 94102
______________________________________________
Coming in April:
BOOKS, CD ROMS
_______________________________________________
VIRUS
David Jay Brown
VIRUS is a science fiction psycho-thriller about a
genetically-engineered virus of extraterrestrial origin. The
novel is written through the eyes of someone who suffers
from Multiple Personality Disorder, so perspectives shift
with each personality. The virus we discover is a highly
intelligent,conscious entity!
_________________________________________________
The Last Book
Joseph Matheny and Friends
The Last Book is an ongoing experiment in interactive media,
employing written word via email and snail mail, cassette
culture and mail art collages, voice mail experiments,
derive', and other mediums. The project started with a
"template" created by Joseph Matheny utilizing cut-up
techniques, trance visioning, games of chance, tarot, and
the methods of John Cage. The results of the interactions
between Matheny's template and various participants around
the world are being gathered and bound in a handsome
"Artlaw" edition and hypercard stack.
__________________________________________________
INCUNABULA
Peter Lamborn Wilson, Joseph Matheny, and Friends
A CD ROM based on the wacky INCUNABULA works of P.L.W. and
J.M. See INCUNABULA and INCUNABULA 2: gopher well.sf.ca.us
Also see "Advances in Skin Science", bOING-bOING #11
October 1993
_________________________________________________
The Scrapbook of a Haight Ashbury Pilgrim:
Spirit, Sacrament, and Sex in 1967/68
Elizabeth Gips
Elizabeth was named "The Original Psychedelic Grandma" by
Peter Bergman of Firesign Theater.
A treasure trove of intensley personal Sixties memorabilia,
esoteric and psychedelia...
-Robert Anton Wilson
A different look at the Sixties.
__________________________________________________
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Snail Mail: Voice Mail: EMAIL:
MediaKaos (415)241-1568
[email protected]
409 Laguna #4D
San Francisco, CA 94102
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
########################################
:FLOPPYBACK PUBLISHING INTERNATIONAL
Consulting: FPI assists companies in preparing materials for
electronic distribution, from raw material to retail
packaging to distribution itself, stopping at all steps in
between. One of our particular desires is to help the small
business realise the communications potential of national
electronic publishing. And FPI publishes its own line of
floppybacks, details of which are given below.
:NEWS FROM FPI - MAY 1993
FPI Inc. is proud to announce that Matthew Paris has joined
the firm and will include among his responsibilities the
position of Editor-in-Chief of the New Worlds line of
floppybacks. He is a novelist, poet, playwright, musician
and videographer, producing art shows for public access
television. FPI's fall line-up is planned to include
hypertext travel guides to New Jersey and the New England
states. These will be distributed as freeware and will
include all kinds of vacation related information.
FPI can be contacted at PO Box 2084, Hoboken NJ, 07030,
telephone (201) 963 3012 or on Compuserve at 71702,154 or
via the Internet at
[email protected].
:SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
In general the only requirement for the floppybacks in this
catalog is an IBM-compatible machine. Certain floppybacks
may have their own requirements and, if so, these are
indicated in a "Special System Requirements" note attached
to that floppyback's entry. All non-New Worlds floppybacks
come with display software that allows text search,
printing, multiple sections of text onscreen and more.
The only major exception to this is the New Worlds line of
floppybacks which a) needs at least DOS 3.2 and b) is
available only on 3�" 1.44Mb disks. This is because the New
Worlds line uses display software called Orpheus.
:SAMPLER DISKS
Floppyback Publishing Sampler Disk #1 (FPI #0039). Contains
extracts from all of the work in this listing except the
Rutgers University Press floppybacks and The Clue. Includes
two complete short stories by O. Henry, two complete short
stories of Sherlock Holmes and fifty of Shakespeare's
sonnets.
The Rutgers University Press Sampler #1 (FPI#0040). Contains
extracts (including complete papers) from all six of the
Rutgers University Press floppybacks.
New Worlds Volume I, Number I. (FPI#0041). As much a
magazine as a sampler disk, New Worlds Volume I, Number I
includes original essays on everything from Rex Miller and
William Gibson to the future of e.p. as well as reviews and
samples from the New Worlds Line of floppybacks. Over 400
pages of text! Available only on 3�" disks.
:RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS/FPI
Please note that these floppybacks are all text-only
versions of the books in question.
*Cocaine in the Brain, edited by Nora D. Volkow and Alan C.
Swann, M.D. ISBN 0-8135-1981-0. (FPI# 8101)
*Owning Scientific and Technical Information: Value and
Ethical Issues, edited by Vivian Weil and John W. Snapper.
ISBN 0-8135-1980-2. (FPI# 8102) Fifteen chapters explore the
complete range of new intellectual-property rights issues
arising from new technologies.
*Discovering the Mid-Atlantic: Historical Tours by Patrick
Cooney. ISBN 0-8135-1959-4. (FPI# 8103)
*Jersey Troopers: A Fifty-Year History of the New Jersey
State Police by Leo J. Coakley. (ISBN 0-8135-1961-6). (FPI#
8104)
*Quicksand and Passing by Nella Larsen; edited by Deborah E.
McDowell. ISBN 0-8135-1960-8. (FPI# 8105)
Part of the American Women Writers Series. Widely used in
classrooms. Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928) and Passing
(1929) document the historical realities of Harlem in the
1920s.
*A Model for National Health Care: The History of Kaiser
Permanente, by Rickey Hendricks. ISBN 0-8135-1956-x. (FPI#
8105) By 1990, the Kaiser Permanente health care plan, with
almost seven million members was the largest health care
maintenance organization (HMO) in the United States.
:CLASSICS
*Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (FPI# 2105)
*The Four Million by O. Henry (FPI# 2106)
*Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (FPI#2107)
*The Hound of the Baskervilles & Other Stories by Arthur
Conan Doyle (FPI#2108)
*Three Men in a Boat (to say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome
K. Jerome (FPI #2109)
*Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (FPI #2104)
*SHAKESPEARE The Sonnets and Other Poems (FPI # 3209)
:FICTION
*The Angel of Death by Bruce Gilkin. (FPI #6101)
The first-of-its-kind, no-holds-barred story of one man's
fight to survive - Then in Vietnam and Now against Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder, the terrifying "flashback"
illness that strikes at over 250,000 veterans.
For credit card purchases _of this title only_ please call
1-800-526-9153 Monday thru' Friday 9-5 Pacific Time. All
major credit cards accepted.
*The Bone Orchard by Joseph Trigaboff (FPI#6106) =NEWWORLDS=
A classic of the crime genre.
*New York: 2084 by Karl Shapira (FPI#6105) =NEWWORLDS=
A novel of intelligent rats in the near future.
*Mystery by Matthew Paris (FPI#6103) =NEWWORLDS=
The cult-classic, praised by Philip Jose Farmer, about a
rogue cop. Originally published by Avon in 1973.
*The Holy City by Matthew Paris (FPI#6104) =NEWWORLDS=
Described by some as a how-to manual for making love to
robots and by others as, well... Originally published by
Carpenter Press.
*Decadent Plant by Matthew Paris and Robert Fox (FPI#6107)
=NEWWORLDS= A Voltarian pilgrimage of Don Juan through an
infinity of amorous watering-holes.
*Toothless Days, Clawless Nights by Jack Moskowitz. (FPI#
6102) Hanaloar, Niz "Short i" Snider, Dozod and the theater
robbery.
:NON-FICTION
*The Star Trek People by Matthew Paris (FPI# 1029)
=NEWWORLDS= The story of how the media produced an
environment for Americans in which Americans could accept a
scientific class.
*On Hazardous Service (Scouts and Spies of the North &
South) by William Gilmour Beymer. (FPI# 1027)
Originally published in 1912, this work is a collection of
ten accounts of the mission of scouts and spies (both men
and women) for the North and South during the Civil War.
*As Seen By Me by Lilian Bell (FPI#1028).
Originally published in 1900, this humorous journal details
the novelist's European Grand Tour in the late 1890s.
*How I Took 62 Years To Commit Suicide by Ben Weber
(FPI#1030) =NEWWORLDS= The memoirs of America's first
twelve-tone composer.
*On The Threshold by Seyn Leproyan (FPI#1031) =NEWWORLDS= A
study of philosophy and politics by Fulbright scholar,
Turkish emigre and computer expert Seyn Leproyan.
:MAGAZINES
Spaceflight August 1991. BIS. (FPI# 9101) A sample copy of
one of the two magazines published by the BIS, the British
Interplanetary Society.
:POETRY
*The Clue: A MiniMystery in the Form of a SoftPoem. by
Robert Kendall (FPI# 5103). (Please note the special
systems requirements below) Award-Winning Work: SoftPoetry
uses the computer as its medium to turn literature into
visual art. Graphics and animation bring the text to life on
your monitor with color and motion as you, the viewer,
control the poem from the keyboard of your PC. Robert
Kendall has received awards for both his SoftPoetry and his
written work. His book of poems A Wandering City won the
1992 Cleveland State University Poetry Center prize in 1992
(and was published by them). His SoftPoetry won a New Forms
Regional Grant Program Award in 1992. The Clue has been seen
on televison and has been exhibited at many sites, ranging
from a major science museum to a national poetry festival.
Special Systems Requirement Note: Unless otherwise specified
the titles in this catalog require only an IBM compatible.
The Clue, however, requires 512K RAM, a hard drive with 3MB
of free disk space, DOS 3.3 or higher, and an EGA or VGA
display.
*Love, War & the Movies by Paul F. Peacock (FPI #5101).
Electronic publisher and journeyman poet Paul F. Peacock
writes formalist poetry about computers, robots, love
affairs, war, the movies and our lives. His work has been
published in small poetry journals such as Black Swan Review
and the Passaic County Review
*Smoking Banana Paradise by Roiilaexxur and Bob Myer.
(FPI#5102). Freeform verse from California.
*Songs for Patricia by Norman Rosten (FPI#5104) =NEWWORLDS=
Poems for his young daughter by two-time Guggenheim winner
Norman Rosten.
*White Towers by Francis Bernard (FPI#5106) =NEWWORLDS=
Love-poetry by a man who had a distinguished career as a
premiere basso in many modern opera premieres.
*Modem by Matthew Paris (FPI#5107) =NEWWORLDS=
Poetry about computers by Matthew Paris, inspired by the
impact computers are having on our lives.
*Einstein's Folly by David Zimmer (FPI#5108) =NEWWORLDS=
Poetry about Science by rocker and poet David Zimmer.
*Cocoa Joe by Bob Tramonte (FPI#5109) =NEWWORLDS=
Poems of Italian-American life in Brooklyn, New York.
:INTERVIEW BOOKS
*Portraits of American Musicians (FPI#5110) =NEWWORLDS=
Transcripts of interviews with American Musicians such as
Virgil Thompson, Aaron Copeland, John Cage and more.
*Portraits of American Writers (FPI#5111) =NEWWORLDS=
Transcripts of interviews with American writers such as
Isaac Asimov, Lester del Rey and Stanley Ellin.
:CONFERENCE PAPERS
*1993 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation: Conference Proceedings Abstracts. (FPI#9110)
Order from: FPI Inc. PO Box 2084 Hoboken NJ 07030.
F.P.I. Sampler #1 5.00
IEEE Robotics & Automation R.U.P.
Sampler 5.00
Conference Abstracts 15.00
New Worlds Vol. I/I 5.00
On Hazardous Service 9.00+
Ethan Frome 9.00+
As Seen by Me 9.00+
Three Men in a Boat 9.00+
Heart of Darkness 9.00+
The Sonnets/Other Poems 9.00+
Huckleberry Finn 9.00+
Hamlet 9.00+
The Four Million 9.00+
The Taming of the Shrew 9.00+
The Hound of the
Baskervilles & Other Stories 9.00+
Love, War & The Movies 8.00
Smoking Banana Paradise 8.00
The Clue 8.00
The Angel of Death 15.00
Toothless Days, Clawless Nights 13.00
The StarTrek People 10.00
Einstein's Folly 10.00
How I took 62 Years To
Commit Suicide 10.00
Moons of Venus 10.00
Modem 10.00
Portraits of American Musicians 10.00
White Towers 10.00
Cocoa Joe 10.00
Portraits of American Writers 10.00
Songs for Patricia 10.00
The Bone Orchard 10.00
New York: 2084 10.00
Decadent Planet 10.00
Mystery 10.00
The Holy City 10.00
########################################
CONTRIBUTOR NOTES
FORREST RICHEY--poet, engineer, inventor, net-worker,
editor, publisher of TRANSMOG: a zine of absurd, dada,
surreal, experimental, found, computer generated/altered,
stream of consciousness, etc. texts and graphic art. Goal
2-6 issues/yr. Est. October 1991. Includes contributor
names/addresses. Trades OK, submissions OK, no subscrip-
tions, single issue $1 or 3-stamp long SASE, copies of back
issues 1-6 $1.50/set, issues 710 $2.00/set (ppd). Ficus
strangulensis c/o strangulensis Research Labs; Rt 6 Box 138,
Charleston, WV 25311 (ca. 11 pp 8.5"x11")
WES CHAPMAN--helps keep the net clean thereby catches big
fish.
JEAN A. HERIOT--expands our knowledge and appreciation of
history and its replication.
JIM ESCH Originally from Pennsylvania, Jim Esch holds a
Bachelors Degree in English/Latin from West Chester
University, and a Masters Degree in English/Creative Writing
from University of Texas, Austin. In addition to freelance
writing, he has been a part time college English instructor.
He has previously published poetry in GENERAL ECLECTIC, MAD
POETS REVIEW, and has contributed to SPARKS, a zine
co-founded by Esch. He now resides in St. Louis, Missouri.
LARISSA SHMAILO is a NYC writer and fundraiser living in
Manhattan. Her recent work includes a short story, The
Wrong Woodstock, scheduled for publication in winter 1993,
and a novel, Patient Women; the poem(s) appearing in this
volume of Grist are the "work" of the novel's protagonist,
Nora Nader. A former translator, Ms. Shmailo is
currently Director of Development for Urban Health, a South
Bronx community medical center.
JOSEPH MATHENY--"Ong's Hat" came into my hands while I was
doing some research into the Ong's Hat enigma. I recieved it
from a person calling themselves "Emory Cranston", and I was
instructed to post it on the net to "get the word out". I
have since placed it in several gopher and ftp sites around
the world. I have received an enormous response as a result
of these postings, and am investigating further. As for my
bio, I am the founding member of MediaKaos, a Culture
Jamming organization, and have published extensively as a
freelance writer. My main interests are: Media Piracy, Text
Mangling, Cut-ups, and fringe culture. MediaKaos may be
reached via email
[email protected]. We also publish
strange fringe culture books, CDs, records and tapes and are
in the process of starting a quarterly magazine to be
release in the summer or fall of 94. The Ongs Hat and
related material is available from: gopher.well.sf.ca.us
under INCUNABULA and INCUNABULA 2. see also "Advances in
Skin Science" Joseph Matheny interviews Nick Herbert about
Quantum Tantra. bOING-bOING #11, Oct, 1993.
LOU ROBINSON is the author of Napoleon's Mare, Fiction
Collective Two. (This novel was co-winner of F.C's 1991
National Fiction Competition). Her work has appeared
recently in The American Voice, The Kenyon Review,
Quarterly, Epoch, Top Stories, and Top Top Stories, City
Lights. "Infanticide" is a poem published by Flockophobic
Press on a lead tablet. Work is forthcoming in Black Ice.
She is co-editor of Resurgent: New Writing by Women,
University of Illinois Press. Surveillance, a collaborative
novel written with Ellen Zweig is forthcoming. Lou lives in
Ithaca, New York, and works at Cornell University Press.
ELLEN ZWEIG,
[email protected], is an artist who
works with video, performance and installation; a writer and
theorist. Her work in all of these fields concentrates on
images of the Other and the discourses between us and them.
In her installations, she uses optics to create camera
obscuras, camera lucidas, video projection devices. She has
presented work in Europe, Australia and the U.S, has
received two NEA grants, and is now touring a large
collaborative project (with Meridel Rubenstein and Stein and
Woody Vasulka) about Edith Warner, a woman who lived near
Los Alamos during the time of the making of the bomb. Her
other projects include a permanent installation of a camera
obscura for the Exploratorium in San Francisco, continuing
work on the series of instal-lation/performances,
EX(CENTRIC) LADY TRAVELLERS, and a series of image/text
pieces about concepts of the monstrous and the wonderful.
ALL TEXT IN THE 19S PLAY FROM:
Abir-Am, Pnina G. and Outram,Dorinda, Uneasy Careers and
Intimate Lives: Women in Science, 1789-1979; Alpers,
Svetlana, The Art of Describing; Altick, Richard,The Shows
of London; Barber,Lynn, The Heyday of Natural History;
Bartlett, Jennifer, History of the Universe; Blais,
Marie-Claire,Anna's World; Buck-Morss,Susan,The Dialectics
of Seeing; Campbell, Mary, The Witness and the Other World;
Crow Dog, Mary,Lakota Woman; Drinka, Birth of Neurosis;
Foucault, Michel,Madness and Civilization; Gachenbach,
Jayne,Control Your Dreams; Gernsheim, Helmut and Alison,
L.J. M. Daguerre; Helmut and Alison, L.J. M. Daguerre;
Gerstner, Karl, Compendium for Literates: A system of
Writing; Huysmans, J.K, La-Bas; LaBastille, Anne,
Woodswoman; Le Brun, Annie, Sade: A Sudden Abyss;
Luhrmann,T.M., Persuasions of the Witch's Craft; Mair,
Victor, Painting and Performance; Millett, Kate, The
Prostitution Papers; O'Brien, Edna, The High Road;
Ribeiro, Darcy, Maira; Rosca, Ninotchka, The Monsoon
Collection; Rossi, Cristina Peri, The Ship of Fools;
Rower, Ann, If You're a Girl; Salomon, Charlotte, Charlotte:
Life or Theater; Sarraute, Nathalie, Childhood; Sarrazin,
Albertine, The Runaway; States, Bert O., The Rhetoric of
Dreams; Strachey, Lytton, Eminent Victorians; Toepfer, Karl,
Theater, Aristocracy, Pornocracy; Valenzuela, Luisa, He Who
Searches; The Journal of Eugene Delacroix; Wells, H. G.,
Brynhild or The Show of Things; (Name Gabrielle Russier from
Mavis Gallant's Paris Journals).
KEITH DAWSON,
[email protected], 29, is a writer and
magazine editor living in Brooklyn, New York.
ezra--"how many more chapters can there be? lurker but never
shirks."
j.lehmas of Cyanobacteria, Experiment Planetscale (see also
GRIST On-Line #2) expects a new addition to his family in
about four weeks. "lemna pistia #2" is due in March and a
new text corpuscle for "Flora et fauna anthropophobica"
should be published in a few months. "Machinery" with texts
by j.lehmas and illustrations by Francoise Duvivier is
available. Contact him at P.O. Box 8, 70151, Kuopio,
Finlandia.
ANDREA OVCINNICOFF, PAOLO BARRILE, TADEUSZ KANTOR,
GE of(Huth) from the Cyanobacteria Collective these pieces
having appeared in "Flora et fauna anthropophobica", 1992.
KARL YOUNG, poet, mailartist, editor, publisher: Light &
Dust Books and now Interneter extraordinaire; watch out! see
also GRIST On-Line #1.
[email protected]
JEFFERSON M. PETERS, 7-12-15 Tagami, Kagoshima City 890,
Kagoshima, Japan. FAX: 0992-82-9902. US address: 9431
Krepp Dr., Huntington Beach, CA 92646-2708.
JOHN LABOVITZ of Internet list fame.
