From: IN%"REZABEH1648@cobra.uni.edu" "heath michael rezabek" 9-JUN-1994 02:32:54.70 To: IN%"fixion-list@netcom.COM" CC: Subj: PSYCHOdeGRADABLE : silo 5 scrytch : GOSUB UNIVERSE -- when i come to my senses, i'm outside the telly shop; a small group of the informationally challenged, homeless and tvless, talking -- Q : It's not so much that I am concerned about actually generating a novel idea, no, can't do it, more-over, what the hell would we *do* with it? R : Wha -- ey, shut the fuck up!! S : What time of day do you think Armageddon is going to happen? T : When Armageddon comes, it will most definitely be at around 4:30 AM on a tuesday night, when everyone is asleep. It adds to the whole black comedy of living and dying. And this is also assuming that Armageddon will slowly sweep through the world, one time zone at a time, so that it will always be 4:30 AM and no type of instant communication will be able to be verified, as there will be no one to receive them. No one will know before they are destroyed. No time for silly last rights and final moments of prayer, or hand holding, or a last quickie before the whole thing goes boom. It's just silent, and peaceful, and obliviating, just like the real thing. S : Mm. Nope. Taking it from this approach I would have to say rush hour, definitely, but from another perspective, I think it might be upon us and has been for a while, I think it might be a slow motion process, like dying, once you're born you start dying... Men in B, i can't help but note, are slowly circling the crowd, taking little bitty notes and speaking into walkie-talkies. the sets sit there, in a dark mass; i think the MiB are timing out the best time to turn them on, to blast away the thoughts of the crowd, disperse the attention gathered here... R : Eh? Rush hour is too human an occupation for an Armageddon not of our own making. If nature is involved (of this i'm not convinced), then it has to be somewhere near the rainy season. Days are too short for such large-scale catastrophes. Q : I have always wanted to write; my motives have shifted with time. At some point I realized that ideally all of my writing would become part of the same massive, intractible mess of writing. At times I have justified whole re-structurings of the lexicon on the basis of the inscrutibility of my form, genre, and motivations. At times I have needed whole new words to define or to label or to justify my compulsion. At times I have written to and for no-one, not even myself. The words have written me. It was absurd, because I had not found a context in which to do what I wanted and needed to do with words. the one looks at the other, squishes up his face like a prune, socks the other in the nose -- R : Ey! I said did i not to SHUT the FUCK UP!! then, in unison, the MiB are gone, replaced by a tide of attention which swells and collides with the now-luminescent cathode ray tubes before the mob... there, standing before a bank of hi-def, quadsubwoofersurroundomatic sound with flatter, squarer holotubes, rammalamma Channel555: *klik* // The Advert Channel! :) Where your Future is being made... TODAY! :) // Kotex understands the way you are! :) // Another victory for Common Sense! :) // I'd like to teach the world to buy another ten million gallons of ProzaCola! :) // my kittie-kat will only eat new improved KittySmack! :) // MenuMasters: For the way you live today! :) // I was a nobody until I too discovered the NaP Playtex Holobra! :) // You only get an 'ooh!' with Typhoo! :) // 12 pair of glassy eyes gaze in rapture, i begin to feel the sucking, attention funnelling towards the cathode-interp of a pack o' Beemans, when i feel there's someone behind me and then there are only words -- most importantly, what of this will make the PRINTED MATTER version, where space/time is at its most restrictive? {it was more fun than a barrel of monkeys} tek is NOT "value-free." media are NOT neutral receptacles of the message. it's all so very subtle. form is content and vice versa. and so it is with the medium and the message, with mind and spirit, blah blah. "Finalize flexible disabilities" this was three months after meeting, which was july 10 1993. this was the second time we had been around each other for an extended time in the flesh. this was ridiculous, but the sheer strangeness of our Situation had been to blame, point point. she had not looked anything like her words on my screen. when i had seen her though, everything had shifted into place; this would become one of the greatest cliches of the fleshmeet, a cliche of which i would never grow tired. i wish i could pin down the wheres and whens, i wish i could lay out a timeline that could be taken in and considered and accepted or rejected. thoughts arise in my head which do not have the neatness of the word-packets into which they must be stuffed. i cannot DELETE the ones i do not wish to save. i cannot just GREP through experiences as i have them; the WetWare forces a comprehension at a speed which is proportionate to the intensity of the experience. memory does not allow me to skim. entropy is very hard on a being. {it was the tear that fell when she heard of the death of her love} "ANDREW:" "the procedure is like this. we have a big tank of this electrochemical gel, and the person is dropped and suspended within it. a current is set up which leads from the person in the tank to the chips, and thence to the Net. after awhile, the EC streaks of energy set certain channels of the gel into a more or less conductive form, as if it were at first morphing its way into contact with the most often used energy-points on the body, and then jelling the lightning-paths TO those points into channels which could more easily be used. as more time went by, the ones that are used more often set themselves even deeper, while new routines get their own chance at habituation-formation, as the initial, random leaps set up first-time causeways. some areas which simply surround channels which are becoming more and more strongly established begin to liquefy to an amazing degree until they're almost like warm water; amniotic fluid, more like. there's a problem though. we've never been able to really get one set very strongly, because we're afraid to leave a person in the tank too long. we've had instances where the substance has *grafted itself* to some of the flesh and skin of the person. you've seen that weird chemical "slime," haven't you? kids play with it; it isn't quite liquid or solid, it doesn't leave wet stuff behind, but if it mixes with itself -- even a different color -- it'll morph into one. imagine that, only with your skin and flesh and ultimately nervous system. it's extremely painful to remove once that happens. but if we take someone out, the substance re-collapses into a uniform gel, waiting for the next dunk, at which time it'll start from scratch again. one interesting thing, though, is that people who have spent more time in the tank seem to get their channels re-set in a shorter time when they re-submerge. and people who happened to have gunks morph into their flesh -- well, those channels anyway set themselves almost IMMEDIATELY upon re-dunking. very strange stuff. but we won't know more until we have someone willing to submerge for a VERY long time. this could be fatal, though; or at least, the person might never be able to de-submerge." "Propel a pre-discussed cliche, in a negative manner" a few tales will be sprinkled sparingly; the rest will be locality reports, updated when possible. there are no orderly arrangements here-in but those which have welled up as turbulent vortices within ITs flow. humble and modest i may not be, but truthful to a fault. this exodex is content-free. {it was a blatant appropriation} writing style; tense and person. worn like a clothing style, the conventions of communication. to experience a Reality through Eyes and Ears and Nose and Touch and Taste; to inter-act with that Reality by way of the Mouth, to move about that Reality by virtue of the Legs. aqaraza sat in the bazaar. past tense. aqaraza does not speak here; the narrative is filtered through the Third Person Omniscient Narrator. the Third Person sits beyond the events to be relayed, as if they have already occurred; the Third Person sits aloof from the consequences of the Story. I am the Third Person, your Narrator. You shall have no other Third Person but Me. "Prioritize relevant involvement procedures" nobody ever showed me how to turn my recieve function off, but i dont care. messages pop onto my screen in the middle of my text and it just doesn't fucking matter. i'm not here anyways. how could i be here to give everybody what they want? what most people want is stupid. {it was riding} THUS PRODUCE IN THE PRODUCE IN THE PRODUCE BECOMES SCRYTCH-SOURCE BECOMES SCRYTCH-SOURCE BECOMES SCRYTCH-SOURCE IN THATEVER YOU THATEVER YOU THE PRODUCE BECOMES SCRYTCH-SOURCE IN THUS PROCESS. "Extrapolate meaningful preparation regimes" The Narrator can no longer see the end of the Narrative, nor the by-ways all along. As if the Narrator, originally watchful from far above the City and its doings, has been immersed and infused into an eye of more limited scope. As if these words are coming from no-where; as if aqaraza is no longer the only one who is baffled. As if the Narrative were being clunkily carried along in darkness, allowing the words to flow and waiting and waiting and waiting for the moments of revelation which The Narrator hopes and fears and gnows will come. But no Narrator can ever be wholly blinded to Its own situation; that fragment which is yet suspended far above looks down now and says: yes, not only is it as if this all were so; it certainly and actually is. Alas, says the birds-eye Narrator, even though I can know this and much more, I cannot gnow what it is like to live in a suspended wonder and fear. That makes me feel a loss of Omniscience, which in turn compels a suspended fear and wonder. The Narrative has splintered; a new Narrator has been added. Both Narrators hope that this has happened only so as to facilitate an eventual re-unification, but from here on in nothing is clear. Here and now The Outer Narrator realizes that this situation will only unravel through The Narrative, and so it goes back to Past Tense. {it was never heard from again} However, simply quote some scrytch at large. and allow appropriation and partiality from the Little Voices. "Upgrade a streamlined maturation theory" the moon is beautiful tonight as i venture into the unknown forest. here it is animals and trees and an attention to each, but i dont know where i'm going. nothing is new; the beautiful moon has been hiding, obscured by metaphor. the city is here wanting to take me into its arms. the city says "maam, are you ok?" i hang the phone up on the city. there is dignity in dreaming; there is dignity in dreaming when the moon is beautiful and not obscured by metaphor. i wait in cold sheets, sweating out demons. i ask a young boy if i have a fever. he says that his fingers are too cold to tell; when the moon is hidden i look at shelves of clever novels. there are books here which brought minds further -- but to where i could not say. i open one. the moon is hidden. i close the book on my lack of history. i speak to shelves of clever novels, i say: "i am closing the book on my lack of history." they say nothing in return; there are shelves here of stone ghosts. they are empty when the moon is hidden. once, i broke my teeth on stones. the city spoke to me, saying: "stones are not good to eat." too late, my teeth are already broken. i dream; the moon is beautiful tonight as i venture into the uknown forest. here it is animals, and trees, and an attention to each but i dont know where i'm going. nothing is new but love; the entrances and exits of love make of me a universe. at once i know that it could be no other way, and then it is. what should i cry, mercy? not likely. there is nothing to be done, coaxes judas. {it was the resulting biogeological sandstuff left upon the shore} All homage to the Subject of Dreams, may said's face forever shine in the darkness. "Focus on a relevant commitment consideration" Barbara stares at juice confusefuly. [what i am expected to do ??] [well, you wanted in -- so follow us, please!] oh, the story remains the same and the feelings remains almost the same {it was a necessary sacrifice} Invocation Oh, VoiD, by thine ovoid thighs' shine by thy shins two too by thy toes, By KUPFERBERG and ATOM ANT, By all that's wholly discrepant, bless this, our holey endeavour! Amen. "Articulate non-hostile designs, geared toward a non-prejudicial optimization technology" Signed, -- a Friday-coffee-induced-morning 21 February 1992, 6:28 AM with the wish that those who read(hear) will answer and those who know will tell this incarnation so he can bring to gether more his upper and lower as one in God. {it was all rather arbitrary} when compared to the textures of music, the shadings of color which surround and engulf us, the smells and tastes which direct our memory, the written word is irretrievably lifeless. it is probable that its advent postdates verbal expression. the neat little spaces and punctuations in written word are a simplified vivisection of the cadences and glossalalia which defines our spoken word. is there any way that text can be retrieved from the graveyard of sheer structure and [re]established as a compelling vehicle for expression? can words cause a visceral effect in the reader? if so, in what context? "Prioritize communal involvements" access to the Internet and a sizeable library; what more could he ask, he asked. {it was the THREAD which died a phoenix' death and rose again through re-iteration like the bubble under the wall-paper} I read somewhere that, to start writing, one must start writing. Anything, any style, any time, no limit. Is this a facet of scrytch? Probably. At least, that's my purpose in scrytching -- if what I'm doing is scrytching and not something else. What's the line between scrytching and babbling, anyway? Am I scrytching? {words as skeletalia} utilize all media. my sense of identity is slowly being displaced. i determine my sense of self in relation to my surroundings, and i am surprised by how fully that relies on my sight. i see the architectures reared around me, and i place myself in relation to them. smell helps, as does sound, and to a certain extent tactile sensation. these things establish a "me" within the flux. a physical me, at the least. that is not the sense in which i am being displaced, the sense in which i am being displaced is a more subtle one. i also consider myself in relation to the information surrounding me. familiar ideas, catchy tunes, favorite art. on the Net there are only words; words and the environment in which i choose to view them. this is akin to sensory deprivation. i am used to television, i am used to film. i am used to Plot; exposition, rising action, climax. all of my life on the Net is a kind of fugue, themes rising and subsuming themselves in each other, ideas recurring and resolving in resonant and dissonant fashion, figure-ground reversals within the very architectures of thought. {it was a holarchy} we are words. though not entirely detached from either you, the reader, or the writer, we now have a sort of autonomy. we sit here devoid of the influence of either of you. as written, we form a shape, a flow, a poetic object, a hypothesis. when clipped, we change. we are words, but I am the whole text. if we, the words, are extracted and vivisected and transplanted, we will form other shapes and I's. we have a center of narrative gravity, as written. that center of narrative gravity is our I. when we are clipped into excerpts, grafts, cells, each one possesses a new center of gravity in and of itself, while still retaining a relation to the text. which can no longer be considered, by you, as a whole. we are words. {words as foggy dust} You know, I like scrytching. I haven't written in months, and finally, here's something that I can start on again. Kind of like starting with liquids before solids after an operation. There's a lot up here in my head, and all of it really needs to get out. This is a start. Is this art? In a way, perhaps. A new form of it, perhaps. I'm not one for enjoying stream-of-consiousness fiction, but this isn't fiction. This is me, however incoherent or fragmented. But, as I write, I can see things coalescing and clicking into place. {it was to be or not to be} the tricky gnot was Audience. and the trick had changed, because the Audience no longer existed. the Audience had spilled over into the role of Presenter; they had fused in some horrible Lovecraftian fusion into the singularly dual role of Participant. {words as void-pointers} I've started walking again, toward where more people wander. And something hits the back of my leg-- it's a styrofoam plate! I can hear the violent crackling of the American flag back at Wariner hall as I bend down to look at this strange visitor. But then, just as I start to wonder if I should pick it up, it streaks a way of its own accord. Or at least, the wind made it look that way. And now I'm walking. {it was the loose end which deflected closure // words are absurdly Transcient; words are deadeningly Final. // with words we came together // with words we break apart // again and again and back again like orbits like the moonlike the tide like menstruation like hunger HUNGER hunger for the WE we wish to BE be // // WORDS // {words as transcient} There's that same family again. I've moved closer to the road, sitting on the benches where they'd left. I guess they went around the block, and maybe they're going home now. A little tribe, or maybe a little flock of lambs, they wait for each other, keep each other in line. A family. Maybe they even love each other. {it remains to be seen} Observing, still observing the world, watching, I would like to get rid of this observing function of my intelect, of my soul, it can make me happy no longer, only when I am drunken, I still sometimes appreciate observing, yes, when I was a child I spend a lot of time watching landscape from moving cars, trains, buses, but it is all over, and it makes me sick noeadays, I do not want to migrate any longer, I just want to change myself wherever I am... {words as transient} >to call them characters would be, at least, >hyperbole. they were sub-routines. or, more >fairly, tendencies. yes, to be fair, it is only >fair; they were tendencies. even better than >habits. when one was not scrytching the other >sorts and files. when one was not looking or >listening or itching the other was singing or >scrytching or EXPOSING to LIGHT and HEAT >he could see in his mind a whole body of scrytch, >scrytchy scholarship and scrytched-up speculation >about things and places and people which almost >existed. he could see an entire interlocking swamp >of work -- JUST PLAIN STUFF -- which could be >approached from any angle and was intractible from >all. it was, for him, the process which kept him >going, which gave him solace and attraction. "Kittie-Kats. no sense of team-work. furrballs. furrballs. litterboxes. asleep all the time anyway. fooey." {there are some dooms which are unavoidable, and there are some sorrows which are sweeter than any possible triumph} "i know i have to leave. that's the theme of all of my dreams; leaving. some of them involve arriving, but arriving entails leaving another place. i know i have to leave. i don't know where i'm going, but i know the directions. out and up. or perhaps it's up and out. maybe i have to get up to get out. it could be that i have to get out to be able to get up. but, up and out are definately the directions i need to go. out of here, from this dream-place, these dream-people, this dream-house, this fast fading life. up into the statosphere, up with the higher, better cleaner parts of me. leaving all the dirt and rage and crimes against my self behind. leaving this low, mundane life that i can only change by choosing which patch of cement i walk on today. then i wake up, and scrytch it down. the results rarely satisfy me fully. when they do i sort of wish they hadn't. good thing i've got it fixed so that it doesn't quite matter one way or the other." {Pride : reduce me to a mockery of my nobelest intentions} "is this a rhetorical question?" {there was once a rotting peel of a scrytch which inflamed in me a desire to scrytch not for the itching but for the healing of decay through creation} "niche." {there will someday be an idea whose time has come} "niche." {all needs revert to the need for a self which will never go away} "niche. scrytch is a foodstuff sacred to Legba. it too inhabits a crossroads between reason and instinct. scrytch cannot be explained, it must be eaten. niche." {there are niches which may never thrive, there are times which may never come} with a whispering flutter the taper was lit; with a smallish sizzling the resin began to melt upon the stick, the stick itself began to burn, the incence was released, wispy trails into the room's still dry air -- she sat again, beside the table, papers spread before her, stylus idle on top of books. out in the night, lights flickered from the villiage below and the heavens above. sands blew in with a slight breeze, something stirred, hunger or a memory. it would be years, generations. days ago she had awakened with the words on her lips -- "in your eyes, indirectly, i can throw stones." ridiculous dream-words. majik? absurdity. not even writing had come since then; the paper sat there, just sat. she had gone over and over the words, perhaps a message from the gods, or the distant past, or the future, the end of time? who had put the words there; those words were not her own, and she could tell from the dust on their little feet [which smelled and tasted like no local dirt] that the words had travelled far, through detours, to reach her. or -- much more likely -- they were simply passing through on their way to another. it was a small villiage; none were there who did not shelter the shadow of Mekh-Saalen in their eyes. in this small villiage, off of the roads -- the sheaf which the gypsies had given her three weeks before gave her no comfort. what was she to do with it, they had asked for nothing in return; she had no use, she refused to travel: it called her and threatened to blow away into nothing if she did not pick it up and leave with a blanket, a sheaf of papers useful only when meaning-full; which meant incomprehensible... . . ...the incense would have sickened her sweetly if not for the winds... . . ...she stared now, and delicately fingered the papyrus leaves, gazed glassy-eyed at the schematics inked upon them. three circles, two on the bottom and one on the top -- then an irritating absence, then five circles, four square with a fifth in the midst; then, below, a final dyad, one below the other running straight down the middle. she traces the lines slowly with her nails, the wind shuffles the curtain-lace; the smell of the incense is strong, all-but intoxicating. she cannot focus, she looks at the pattern, looks at the strewn pages, has a peculiar feeling of helplessness, of floating: the heat overwhelms -- the paper breathes -- she hears a voice and she gnows that it cannot or will not translate clearly -- the message is garbled and obscured by something like clouds or years or species -- no telling intention -- to decieve or to seduce -- it is sexless but its presence is overwhelming and it whispers with the empty winds -- "i died with a gypsie once. she was very good at what she did. she did nothing all day long but chop her fingernails off with slim knives. she had no fingers. no hands. but that didn't stop her fingernails from growing long. they grew from her wrists with the speed of a young fool's death. twisted and tangled she chopped and screamed. her fingernails tore holes in my chest; blood trickled and she smiled; blood gushed and she laughed. ranting and raving she ripped through my body until our gnothings touched; the touch excited me, i withered; and her nails grew and grew. behind my back they entwined. became one. the pressure crushed my ribs. my insides dripped out and my outsides slid in. she caught the bloody, thick spray with her tongue like snowflakes. i did the same. we consumed ourselves. i loved her. she raised me; with my toes tickling the sand she made me dance, and we danced to our scream -- when morning came i killed her. she fought me; i escaped with only cuts. when it rains my chest still aches. and they did have to amputate my hands; now my fingernails grow from my wrists, and i search for a young love." -- when she comes to her senses, she is enshrouded, enveloped, exhilirated: she looks around at high and cluttered darkened walls, each clamoring with hidden details. sounds fill her ears with sheer unfamiliarity. she looks around and at first believes she has fallen into a labyrinth or a dream. above her, lights flicker with a pseudo-consciousness; a blaring indigo buzzing sub-hum: prezzzence, abztence. prezzzence, abztence. prezzzence, abztence. she sounds out a word of a language she doesn't recognize with a voice she does, her own, but changed: "Saw-Paw-Paw-Pay-Paw-Pee-Aww-Pou-Liss"