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The Annihilation Fountain Issue 03
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THE ANNIHILATION FOUNTAIN
A JOURNAL OF CULTURE ON THE EDGE...
TEXT ONLY - ISSUE #3
The Annihilation Fountain & TAF Copyright c 1997-99 Neil MacKay
ISSN 1480-9206
http://www.capnasty.org/taf/
the_annihilation_fountain@iname.com
CONTENTS:
---------
*DISINFORMATION DETECTION
*I STINK, THEREFORE I AM
*STATE OF THE WORLD INDICATORS
*THE FUTURE OF OPERA: A PROPAGANDA PIECE PART III
*THE TRAJECTORY OF A BULLET - PART I: A MAN SCREAMING SO LOUD COLOURS
ARE COMING OUT OF HIS MOUTH
*3 POEMS BY CHRISTOPHER STOLLE
*3 POEMS BY HOLLY DAY
************************************************************************
DISINFORMATION DETECTION
by Rainbow Sally
************************************************************************
Let's say we had telecomm fifty years ago. What would you think
if you heard a story evolve quickly, like the one below. These
are headlines from various newspapers for one day with a
thumbnail description of the associated articles. Note that 5:00
in Chicago is 4:00 in New Mexico and is only 3:00 in California.
You Are There...
------------------------------------
July 8th, 1947
------------------------------------
FACTS:
Chicago Daily News (evening): "Army
Finds
Air Saucer On Ranch In New Mexico"
(Disk goes to high officers.)
Roswell Daily Record (evening):
"RAAF Captures Flying
Saucer On Ranch In Roswell Region."
(No details on flying disk are
revealed.)
Sacramento Bee (evening): "Army
Reveals It Has Flying
Disk Found On Ranch In New Mexico."
(Saucer details of North Staters
vary considerably.)
LA Herald Express (evening): "Army
Finds Flying Saucer."
(Airforce says platter picked up on
ranch.)
Second story appended, "General
believes it is a radar
weather gadget."
The next morning all the papers
said it was a weather balloon.
(Source: Stanton Friedman's
newspaper search.)
-----------------------------------
In Sept '47 the Air Force became a
separate body from the Army and all
the air base's names were changed.
-----------------------------------
... I thought, therefore I
was. -Descartes 10/6/97
Anyone got any other good "mutating
stories" on UFOs?
It may not prove anything about the
UFOs, but it can
help us get a bead on who's not
holding up their part
of the "informed public" bargain.
Here are a couple more examples to
give you an idea
what kind of "funny sounding"
reports we're looking
for.
Non-UFO Examples
-------------------------------------------------
|
\ /
THE WELL INFORMED PUBLIC --- APPLAUSE! ---
/ \
|
I subscribe to cable TV for a couple months every time the
government threatens to "change." The event I will relate below
occurred shortly after the Clinton's first moved to Washington
DC--I don't recall the exact date.
I was listening to CNN when the report about the shootings in
front of the CIA building in Langly came around. And around. The
first times, they had interviews with people in a bus that had
seen the gunman and the brown van he was in. Most got down on the
floor of the bus and didn't see the actual shooting, but they did
see him drive away in a brown "van." (I got the impression that
Americans that have cable must think people that ride buses can't
tell an airplane from a submarine. Show you why in a sec.)
An hour later, the story was pretty much the same. Same clips of
the witnesses, and everything. But you guessed it, by the third
time the story came around, CNN had put some professional polish
on the story and it was ready for the consumer market.
And here is what was consumed:
"Police have impounded the brown van and have ruled it
out as the getaway vehicle."
And then, apparently willing to risk earning every epithet the
media has ever received:
"Police are now searching for a brown station wagon."
There was no indication of stress in the announcer's voice. So it
was evident that these farcical statements weren't coerced by a
cadre of armed terrorists. So I conclude that it was probably
just a joke.
And though I didn't get the joke myself, I base my opinion on
this:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
As with any "endangered species," independent
journalists find
their environment becoming inhospitable. The atmosphere
of greed
and corporate mergers is choking out these journalists
as "media
managers" take over--managers more concerned with
making a buck
than reporting the news.
(From Ed Asner's Forward to "Unreliable Sources." More
below.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
News is not really so different from any other kind of
entertainment, is it? Some like Asner, "whine about it" while
others revel in the glory of it. So it appears that CNN --perhaps
to keep ratings up-- tossed in a little comic relief. Humor is a
great tonic, after all.
But without sounding too much like Ed Asner (absolutely GREAT
foreword, by the way) I would like to say that I'm concerned too.
I think that the humor in the "news" sometimes goes right over
the American public's head. So as much as I hate sit-coms, I
think a laugh track w o u l d be very helpful.
Here's the
evolution of
another media
screw
up, and another
example of how
this kind of
thing might
<appear as it
evolved>.
--- -------------------< Excerpt From >------------------------- ---
--- Unreliable Sources: A Guide To Detecting Bias In News Media, ---
--- Martin A. Lee & Norman Solomon (foreword by Edward Asner) ---
--- ------------------------------------------------------------ ---
THE CONTRA COCAINE NON-STORY
In July, 1989, four high-ranking Cuban military officers were
executed by firing squad after a show trial--in which they had no
right of appeal--convicted them of drug trafficking. It was a
sensational story that grabbed big headlines in the United
States.
A week after the Cuban officers died, another sensational drug-
related story emerged. An in-depth investigation by a Costa Rican
Congressional Commission on Narcotics found that the contra
re-supply network run by Lt. Col. Oliver North was deeply
connected to narcotics smugglers. North, Poindexter, Richard
Secord, former CIA station chief Joseph Fernandez, and former
U.S. ambassador Lewis Tambs were subsequently barred from entry
into Costa Rica by an executive order from Costa Rican President
Oscar Arias.
Unlike the Cuban drug connection, North's involvement with
narcotrafficers in Costa Rica received hardly any attention in
the United States. It could have. On July 22, 1989, an Associated
Press wire story carried news of the Costa Rican government's
finding into nearly every American newsroom, but the North drug
link was downplayed or ignored entirely by mass media. The
'Washington Post' and the "Miami Herald' relegated it to a few
muddled sentences on the back pages, while the 'New York Times'
and the three commercial TV networks didn't say a word about the
story. One noteworthy exception was the 'San Juan Star', which
ran a lengthy version of the AP dispatch.
The story certainly wasn't downplayed for lack of interest. After
all, 1989 news polls showed a majority of U.S. citizens viewed
drugs as the most important problem facing the country. The
American people probably would have been interested to know that
U.S. government officials were providing cover for a major
drug-running operation in Central America. This media-obscured
fact helps to explain the four-fold increase in cocaine entering
the U.S. during the Reagan administration, while Veep Bush was
titular head of the "war on drugs."
[Here's where it gets interesting. -RS]
HOW THE STORY SLIPPED OUT
The U.S. press, acting more as a gatekeeper than an aggressive
proponent of truth, skipped lightly over the highly embarrassing
and potentially explosive contra drug connection for a long time.
The First comprehensive expose' of contra drug trafficking
appeared in late 1985, when the Associated Press ran a story by
Robert Parry, a career AP reporter, and Brian Barger, who had
covered Central America for ABC News and the 'Washington Post'.
(Earlier that year, Barger won the Polk Award for breaking the
story on the CIA assassination manual distributed to contra
troops in 1984.) As it turned out, the contra drug story got onto
the wire by accident after their boss tried to kill the story.
"It was probably the most heavily edited story in the history of
the bureau," recalled one AP staffer in Washington. "They start
out questioning sources. They weaken and weaken, then they say
'Why is the AP doing this story?' Which, by then, is a good
question since all the good stuff is on the cutting-room floor,
so to speak." Parry told Joel Millman of the 'Columbia Journalism
Review' that he had "bitter' arguments with AP editors about the
story. Each rewrite was sent up to AP headquarters in New York
for approval. Only much later did the two reporters find out that
Oliver North was speaking with their boss, Charles J. Lewis, on a
regular basis.
[Cue up the laugh track. -RS]
Just when it looked like the story was going nowhere, and editor
working overnight at the AP's Spanish-language wire called up the
text on the computer and, without checking to see if it had been
okayed for publication, translated the latest draft and sent it
out over the wire. The next morning Spanish-language papers in
New York, Miami, and throughout Latin America picked up the
story, which quoted a U.S. law enforcement official saying that
drug smuggling had become an established practice among
"virtually all" contra groups in Costa Rica. Three days later, on
December 10, 1985, the AP ran a heavily - edited English-
language version, which omitted the quote from the U.S. official
linking "virtually all" contra factions to the narcotics trade.
This version bore the earmarks of damage control, as it focused
only on the soon-to-be-expendable contra group led by Eden
Pastora--a spin undoubtedly preferred by Lt. Col. North, who had
grown increasingly frustrated with Pastora's refusal to unite
with contra forces in Honduras.
Even though the piece had been watered down considerably by
management, the Parry-Barger revelations were still sensational.
But, the story ran in the 'Los Angeles Times', 'Newsday', and the
'Philadelphia Inquirer', it didn't get much more exposure. The
'New York Times', which published other AP riffs on the contras,
let it slide; the 'Washington Post' held it for a week, then
buried it in the middle of the paper. Aside from passing mention
by Tom Brokaw on 'NBC Nightly News', none of the networks touched
the story.
In March 1986 'San Francisco Examiner' reporter Seth Rosenfeld
documented links between cocaine traffickers and top officials of
the main contra group in Honduras. but it was just another drop
in the big media bucket. A year would pass before CBS 'West 57th'
interviewed convicted American drug pilots who told of flying
weapons to the contra base camps in Honduras and backloading
cocaine and marijuana to the United States. PBS 'Frontline' also
presented an in-depth report on the role of U.S. intelligence in
the narcotics trade. But these disclosures came and went without
causing much of a stir--in large part because U.S. officials, for
obvious reasons, were not inclined to push the story.
Instead, the Reagan administration sought to divert attention
from the contra connection by claiming that the Nicaraguan
government was involved in drug trafficking. Whereas U.S. media
were squeamish about publicizing contra smuggling, they eagerly
embraced allegations of a Sandinista cocaine link, despite a lack
of evidence to back up the charges.
-=-=-=-=-
One CBS interview (not sure if its
the same one(s)
they are talking about above) ran
against the Rose
Bowl on the other networks. Nobody
seemed to pay
much attention to these
revelations. (Source: "Out
of Control" by Leslie Cockburn who
had been doing
interviews. And was laid off soon
after.)
This scheduling screw up was either
the work of an
extremely well-connected tactical
genius or just
some extremely bad luck for the
"informed public."
Perhaps someday we can subject this
to a "black box"
analysis--where all we do is look
at outputs in
relation to inputs--disregarding
how or what makes
the thing "tick."
...ET phone Congress
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
************************************************************************
I STINK, THEREFORE I AM
by Paul Laurendeau
************************************************************************
Hey! Nihilo-Fountainers! Ever heard of THE CRISIS OF THE
CARTESIAN COGITO? Well, maybe you should, since it gives a flat
and simple example of the importance of the debate I described
and exemplified in my first contribution to THE ANNIHILATION
FOUNTAIN, the one about the BIG BANG THEORY. "COGITO" ("I think"
in Latin, from COGITO, ERGO SUM) is the name given, in our
contemporary culture, as one says when one tries to look flashy,
to a buzz-statement farted in 1637 by a guy, who signed CARTESIUS
when he was writing in Latin, and who carried the more modest
name of Ren Descartes (1596-1650). The CARTESIAN (from CARTESIUS
i.e. Descartes) COGITO though is simply nothing other than the
following sentence:
I THINK, THEREFORE I AM.
That statement, one of the most renowned philosophical mottoes of
the millennium, stinks ambiguity and sweats duplicity big time.
And that particular equivocal stench that I will describe here,
makes of the COGITO a juicy example of the fundamental struggle
between Idealism and Materialism in philosophy. IDEALISM is the
belief in the fact that spirit and spiritual entities determine
the organisation of material life. MATERIALISM is the conviction
that the organisation of material life determines our spiritual
representations, meditations and fantasies. The problem which
lead to the crucial debate between Idealism and Materialism comes
from a struggle over which category, MATTER or SPIRIT, is to be
considered FUNDAMENTALLY OBJECTIVE. This can be explained by
using the example of the question which is the most tightly
connected to the Cartesian Cogito: HOW IS IT THAT I THINK?
"... we see that to answer the question "How is it that
man thinks?" there can be only two quite different and
totally opposed answers:
First answer: Man thinks because he has a soul.
Second answer: Man thinks because he has a brain.
According to which answer we give, we will be lead to
give different solutions to the problems which flow
from this question.
According to our answer, we are idealists or
materialists.
(Politzer 1976: 13 - published in 1936)
In that situation, the IDEALISTS (who provide the first answer in
Politzer's example) and the MATERIALISTS (who provide the second
answer in Politzer's example) both agree on the supremacy of the
OBJECTIVE over the SUBJECTIVE. What they do not agree upon is to
which category, MATTER or SPIRIT, the status of fundamental
objectivity should be given. For the idealists, a spirit (namely
God) is the supreme OBJECTIVE being that penetrates every human
SUBJECT and determines them through the soul. The idealists do
not deny that we have a brain, but for them the fact of having a
brain is not specific to the human SUBJECT, who is the only one
with "a soul" that "will survive" after the death of the body.
For the materialists, the human brain is a particular
organisation of OBJECTIVE biological matter characterised by the
possibility to develop a complex mind that reaches the level of
SUBJECTIVE self-consciousness. The body and the brain are
mandatory supports for the mind. "Thus when the body is dissolved
by putric action, its power of thinking entirely ceases"
(Priestley in 1778, quoted in Plekhanov 1967: 91). The
materialists do not deny that we have a spirituality, but they
describe it as being the production of our SUBJECTIVITY. For the
Idealists SPIRIT (God) is the objective being that created our
material individuality. For the Materialists MATTER is the
objective being that gradually evolved from inorganic, to
organic, to organic with a social organisation leading to a
subjective conscience able to create ideas, including fictive
ideas such as the myth of God.
Descartes was sitting between two chairs on that fundamental
debate between Idealism and Materialism. He was a scientific mind
who introduced significant developments in Mathematics and
Physics, and who strongly believed in the determining action of
matter on mind. But at the same time he evolved, specially by the
end of his life, into the typical 17th century moral oriented
GodAssLicker/MotherMaryFucker. The point is also that, even in
his materialist phase, he always had the jitters vis--vis the
(pro-blind-religion) monarchic power, which at the time did not
only tended to burn the "subversive" books but their authors too.
Therefore, if we come back to the Stinky-Statement itself, we
observe that there are two possible opposite meanings to the
Cartesian COGITO, one idealist and one materialist.
a) THE IDEALIST MEANING OF THE COGITO: This meaning comes from
the ontological value given to the statement. If, when you make
the statement, you are talking about WHAT IS EFFECTIVELY EXISTING
(ONTOLOGY is the Doctrine of Being), the existence of the fact of
thinking appears as the foundation of your own existence. Then
you are claiming that your spirit determines your matter.
Speaking of Descartes, the idealist Hegel (1963, vol.III: 224)
said that "the spirit of his philosophy is simply knowledge as
the unity of Thought and Being." Another way to put the statement
in its idealist meaning is I AM BECAUSE I THINK, standing for:
DESCRIBING MYSELF AS A BEING, I CLAIM THAT IT IS THE FACT THAT I
THINK THAT MAKES ME EXIST.
In the general ordinary opinion, this idealist version of the
COGITO is often believed to be what Descartes meant. Almost
everybody is ready to follow Hegel's idealist exclamation (1963,
vol.III: 228): "Thought as Being and Being as Thought - that is
my certainty, 'I'; in the celebrated COGITO ERGO SUM thus have
Thought and Being inseparably bound together." This belief is
probably wrong, and the real meaning of Descartes' view is quite
likely to have been distorted by the idealist interpretation.
"The Descartian thesis has been distorted into the statement
that nothing is evident to man but his own subjective
conception. And the ideology has been carried to the extreme
of calling the whole world an idea, a phantasmagoria. True
Descartes needed God in order to be sure that his
conceptions did not cheat him."
(Dietzgen 1906c: 427 - written in 1887)
On the God-Garbage, see my second contribution to the
ANNIHILATION FOUNTAIN. Despite the accuracy of this observation
by the materialist Joseph Dietzgen (1820-1888), it is important
to realise that the COGITO does not belong to Descartes anymore
since its celebrity status made of it a common sense motto...
with the idealist meaning. Descartes' main philosophical
adversary of the time, Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), who
criticised him from the materialist point of view but with the
old fashioned instruments of traditional logic, demonstrates how
difficult it is to give precedence to THINKING over BEING in that
type of reasoning:
"Furthermore, when you say "I think", you make a statement
about yourself at the present time; it is the same as if you
said, "I am thinking". In fact you are the subject and
thought is the attribute. However, you cannot say that you
are thinking without saying "You are". Logicians declare
this when they teach that the verb makes a statement about
time, namely TO NUN HUPARCHEIN, the fact of existing now.
Accordingly, when you say "I think," you are saying "I am";
and when you then draw the conclusion "therefore, I am", you
are adding nothing but what you have presupposed; and so you
are proving something by itself."
(Gassendi 1972: 180 - published in 1644)
And we are brought to:
b) THE MATERIALIST MEANING OF THE COGITO: This meaning comes from
the gnoseological value given to the statement, being
acknowledged that "It is a fact of experience that men think"
(Dietzgen 1906a: 72). If, when you make the statement, you are
talking about YOUR OWN ACTIVITY OF REFLEXION (GNOSEOLOGY is the
Doctrine of Knowledge), that activity of thinking appears as the
confirmation of your previous existence. Then you are claiming
that your matter determines your spirit. "The fact of my
thinking, says the philosopher, proves my existence" (Dietzgen
1906b: 195). Another way to put the statement in its materialist
meaning is I AM SINCE I THINK, standing for: IN MY INVESTIGATION
ABOUT MYSELF, I NOTICE THAT I THINK. THEN IT PERMITS ME TO
CONFIRM THAT I EXIST. This meaning is at the origin of the
absolutely crucial para-Cartesian statement that constitutes the
title of the present contribution: I STINK, THEREFORE I AM (the
fact of stinking does not make me exist, but definitely confirms
my mere existence). Along the same line of interpretation, one
can also quote the paronymic dog-Latin COITO ERGO SUM ("I fuck,
therefore I am"), stimulated, so to say, by exactly the same type
of materialist hypothetical-deductive reasoning grounded in an
obvious empirical fact of existence...
This materialist version of the COGITO probably corresponds to
what Descartes really (and hypocritically... CF his compulsive
fright of the gendarmes of Louis XIII) meant in his famous
Discourse on Method for Rightly Conducting One's Reason and for
Seeking Truth in the Sciences .It is also the interpretation our
collective common sense forgot. "Materialism - which, it should
be said here, is in general the logical consequence of Descartes'
doctrine - " (Plekhanov 1967: 253) appears to be his option only
if the approach to the statement is gnoseological. Thus, despite
a very odoriferous ambivalent manner of formulating the
explanations that accompany the COGITO itself, we can affirm that
Descartes was talking about his METHOD OF INVESTIGATION rather
than about EXISTENCE. "Descartes' method is the method of the
clear understanding merely" (Hegel 1963, vol.III: 240). At the
exact moment of stating the COGITO, he was describing himself
working on his methodology's starting point. This starting point
was the attempt to formulate the only thought he was certain to
be able to trust as true and totally free from any other
preconceived idea. He then claimed that that pure initial
judgement was I THINK. As Spinoza (1961: 12) puts it, Descartes
follows the three following gnoseological steps: "I DOUBT, I
THINK, THEREFORE I AM". That very specific situation in which the
COGITO is formulated permitted Pierre Gassendi, using the old
logical procedure of the syllogism, to oppose Descartes again on
the METHOD as he had opposed him on the BEING:
"So a syllogism must be made up, either in the first and
perfect figure, to use a technical term, as follows:
"Whoever thinks is; I think; therefore I am."
or, in fourth figure, generally disapproved of and called
Galenic, as follows:
"I think; whoever thinks is; therefore I am."
But in either form, your collapse is evident. For if you
draw your conclusion according to the first form, the
statement "Whoever thinks is" becomes a preconceived notion,
antecedent to the one you wish to establish as the first
judgement. And according to the second form, your minor
premiss "Whoever thinks is" becomes a judgement that does
not depend upon your statement "I think" and does not follow
your conclusion "I am" upon which you want all judgement
except "I think" to depend.
(Gassendi 1972: 180-181 - published in 1644)
All these speculations are supposed to be about the starting
point of the procedure (the "method") of investigation. "The
first of the fundamental determinations of the Cartesian
metaphysics is from the certainty of oneself to arrive at the
truth, to recognise Being in the notion of thought" (Hegel 1963,
vol.III: 240). From that, we can say that there is a clear
irrealistic abstraction in the Cartesian reflection leading to
the COGITO: that futile attempt to clean mentally the mess of our
thoughts to find the pure original idea (I THINK) that will
permit us to deduce intellectually our own existence (THEREFORE I
AM). Shit! Yes! How irrealistic to see our own existence
presented as a simple hypothesis, merely a burp coming from no
stomach!. "For, as regards ourselves, when I know that I exist, I
cannot hypothesise that I exist or do not exist anymore than I
can hypothesise an elephant that can go through the eye of a
needle..." (Spinoza 1955: 19). One of the most prestigious
African materialist philosophers, Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972),
showed the "speciousness" of Cartesian methodological conceptions
by the simple fact of looking at them with a free mind:
"Descartes says that he can think of himself as being
without eyes, or as being without arms, etc. In short, he
claims that he can think of himself as having been deprived
of any of his physical features which anyone might care to
name. Whatever be the truth value of this, he sets it up as
a reason for saying that he can think of himself as being
without a body. Though one may not wish to deny that
Descartes could indeed have been physically deformed, one
must, I think, resolutely maintain that disincarnation is
not a physical deformity! There still remains a distinction
between mere deformity and disincarnation. Descartes'
reasoning is of the same level of speciousness as the notion
that because one can think of a cow without a tail or horns,
etc., one can think of a cow without a body. Thinking of a
cow without a body is as different from the thought of a cow
without a tail, as thinking of Descartes without a body is
different from his thought of himself without arms."
(Nkrumah 1964: 16)
But, despite that obvious irrealistic abstraction (and even
because of it!), something ontologically crucial is on the move
around that so simple little Stinky-Statement. The struggle
between IDEALISM and MATERIALISM is flagrant everywhere in
Descartes' Discourse on Method, and especially around the COGITO.
This strong presence of the fundamental debate of philosophy
deeply rooted in it, is certainly what explains a good part of
the fascination the statement I THINK, THEREFORE I AM still
exerts on the philosophical culture of the turn of the
millennium. Now let stick our noses right in the middle of the
ambiguous dung. Let us put the motto in its broader context and
see how ambivalent its orientation is. In red text are the
portions of the fragment that pull the COGITO in the direction of
Materialism. In yellow text are the portions of the fragment that
pull the COGITO in the direction of Idealism .
Quoting from the Discourse on Method for Rightly Conducting
One's Reason and for Seeking Truth in the Sciences, Part Four:
"As there are men who make mistakes in reasoning even on the
simplest topic in geometry, I judged that I was as liable to
error as any other, and rejected as false all the reasoning
which I had previously accepted as valid demonstration.
Finally, as the same precepts which we have when awake may
come to us when asleep without their being true, I decided
to suppose that nothing that had ever entered my mind was
more real than the illusions of my dreams. But I soon
noticed that while I thus wished to think everything false,
it was necessarily true that I who thought so was something.
1 Since this truth, I THINK, THEREFORE I AM, was so firm
and assured that all the most extravagant suppositions
of the sceptics were unable to shake it. I judged that
I could safely accept it as the first principle of the
philosophy I was seeking.2
I then examined closely what I was, and saw that I could
imagine that I had no body, and that there was no world nor
any place that I occupied,3 but that I could not imagine for
a moment that I did not exist.4 On the contrary, from the
very fact that I doubted the truth of other things, it
followed very evidently and very certainly that I existed.
On the other hand, if I had ceased to think while all the
rest of what I had ever imagined remained true, I would have
had no reason to believe that I existed;5 therefore I
concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence was
only to think and which, to exist, has no need of space nor
of any material thing. Thus it follows that this ego, this
soul, by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from the
body6 and is easier to know than the latter,7 and that even
if the body were not, the soul would not cease to be all
that it now is.8
Next I considered in general what is required of a
proposition for it to be true and certain, for since I had
just discovered one to be such, I thought I ought also to
know of what that certitude consisted. I saw that there was
nothing at all in this statement, "I think, therefore I am",
to assure me that I was saying the truth, unless it was that
I saw very clearly that to think one must exist.9 So I
judged that I could accept as a general rule that the things
which we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are
always true,10 but that there may well be some difficulty in
deciding which are those which we conceive distinctly."
(Descartes 1956: 20-21 - published in 1637)
Tied result! The fragment of the Discourse on Method containing
the Stinky-Statement shows very clearly what the CRISIS OF THE
COGITO is: a jittery stop-and-go wishywash between Idealism and
Materialism, between rational progress and mystical regression.
So typical of these last ten centuries, donât you think so, O
Nihilo-Fountainers! Personally my stand is taken: it is the
materialist stand. I STINK THEREFORE I AM, such is the most
convincing syllogism of this stinky, juicy, sloppy, sweaty
dying-out millennium. It is a truth, a mere truth!
REFERENCES:
Descartes, R. (1956), Discourse on Method, New York,
Macmillan/Library of Liberal Arts, 50p. published in 1637.
Dietzgen, J. (1906), The Positive Outcome of Philosophy, Chicago,
Charles H. Kerr & Company, 444p.
Dietzgen, J. (1906a), "The Nature of Human Brain Work - A Renewed
Critique of Pure and Practical Reason" in The Positive Outcome of
Philosophy, Chicago, Charles H. Kerr & Company, pp 39-173.
written in 1869.
Dietzgen, J. (1906b), "Letters on Logic" in The Positive Outcome
of Philosophy, Chicago, Charles H. Kerr & Company, pp 175-323.
written around 1884.
Dietzgen, J. (1906c), "The Positive Outcome of Philosophy" in The
Positive Outcome of Philosophy, Chicago, Charles H. Kerr &
Company, pp 325-444. written in 1887.
Gassendi, P. (1972), The Selected Works of Pierre Gassendi, New
York, Johnson Reprint Corporation, 442p. published between 1624
and 1658.
Hegel, G.W.F. (1963), Lectures on the History of Philosophy,
London, Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York, The Humanities Press,
vol.1, 487p.; vol.2, 453p.; vol.3, 571p. published in 1840.
Nkrumah, K. (1964), Consciencism - Philosophy and Ideology for
Decolonization and Development with Particular References to the
African Revolution, London, Heinemann, 122p.
Plekhanov, G.V. (1967), Essays in the History of Materialism, New
York, Howard Fertig, 288p. published in 1896.
Politzer, G. (1976), Elementary Principles of Philosophy, New
York, International Publishers, 171p. published in 1936.
Spinoza, B. de (1955), On the Improvement of the Understanding -
The Ethics - Correspondence, New York, Dover Publications, 420p.
published in 1677.
Spinoza, B. de (1961), Principles of Cartesian Philosophy,
London, Peter Owen Limited, 192p. written in 1663.
NOTES:
1)Original quote: But I soon noticed that while I thus wished to
think everything false, it was necessarily true that I who
thought so was something.
It is highly materialist to acknowledged that the objective
existence of the thinking being resists any attempt of
self-denial. This fragment is to be related to the Cartesian
notion of "horror of void", one of the running gags of 17th
century mechanist materialism.
2)Original quote: I judged that I could safely accept it as the
first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.
In the purest idealist tradition on gnoseology, Descartes
believes that a system of philosophical thought can have a
starting point and that that starting point is non material,
being simply one of the ideas or argumentative verbal statements
of the philosophical system itself. This approach is to be
related to the mythical Christian notion of creation.
3)Original quote: I could imagine that I had no body, and that
there was no world nor any place that I occupied,
Speculative abstraction fluffed in the direction of the
intellectual denial of empirical reality is one of the key
methodological elements of philosophical idealism. The procedure
is similar to the movement of abstraction used in elementary
geometry when you deny finity to the line or thickness to the
plane. This is what Kwame Nkruma was after.
4)Original quote: I could not imagine for a moment that I did not
exist.
The incapacity for speculation to reject the existence of the
speculating being testifies that in order to have thought you
need an objective material being capable of thought. No light
without a source of light. No fart without a digesting organism
causing it. No imagination without an imagining brain. Highly
materialist view.
5)Original quote: it followed very evidently and very certainly
that I existed. On the other hand, if I had ceased to think while
all the rest of what I had ever imagined remained true, I would
have had no reason to believe that I existed
Despite its highly speculative dimension, this fragment is
arguing in favour of materialism. Thought, even doubtful, is the
symptom of the existence of the thinking being and the absence of
thought would be the symptom of the absence of existence of the
thinking being (this reasoning is not applicable to non thinking
beings without reintroducing Idealism). The perpetuated objective
truth of what I thought about after the extinction of my own
thought confirms my disappearance or my "non existence" as a
being. Even if I do not produce thoughts about my children after
my death, their life will continue.
6)Original quote: a substance whose whole essence was only to think
and which, to exist, has no need of space nor of any material
thing. Thus it follows that this ego, this soul, by which I am
what I am, is entirely distinct from the body
The belief in a complete autonomy of the thinking self from the
material being is called Transcendental Idealism. Actually the
fundamental claim of every type of idealism i.e. the existence of
a spiritual essence independent from material reality is very
purely presented in that fragment.
7)Original quote: is easier to know than the latter,
The fact that intellectual or spiritual reality is easier to know
i.e. less complex than objective material reality is one of the
key element of the gnoseology of materialism. The quasi-
compulsive priority given to clarity and simplicity in Cartesian
rationalism is grounded in that distance taken by the
philosophical speculation toward the complexity of the material
world revealed here.
8)Original quote: if the body were not, the soul would not cease to
be all that it now is.
This is nothing other than the standard belief in the "soul" and
its immortality as swept along through the reactionary idealism
of religious ideology. This is certainly the most obvious
concession to theological thought made in the section of the
Discourse on Method surrounding the COGITO. Incidentally that
whole section is included in Part Four of the text, titled
itself: PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AND OF THE HUMAN SOUL,
what is not a good sign either! The guy had good reasons to have
the jitters after all the materialist position he had already
introduced.
9)Original quote: I saw very clearly that to think one must exist.
Once again it is highly materialist to acknowledged that the
objective existence of the thinking being resists any attempt of
self-denial. The existence of a thinking being (with a brain, a
social life, etc) is a necessary condition of emergence for
thought. What is seen clearly here is the materialist doctrine of
the subordination of subjective thinking to objective being.
10)Original quote: the things which we conceive very clearly and
very distinctly are always true
Idealist and positivistic position in gnoseology. The clear and
distinct idea becomes the key criteria of knowledge. Then that
key criteria is an idea and the manipulation of the subjective
self on it is obliterated. The quasi-compulsive priority given to
clarity and simplicity in Cartesian rationalism is grounded in
that tight connection made by the philosophical speculation
between truth and apparently obvious opinions or conceptions.
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STATE OF THE WORLD INDICATORS
from http://www.igc.apc.org/millennium/inds as of 1 September 1997
************************************************************************
World Population: 5,864,351,641
Years Until Insufficient Land - Northern Diet: 8
Years Until Insufficient Land - Southern Diet: 39
Species Extinctions Per Day: 104
Years Until 1/3 of Species Are Lost: 9
Years Until Half of Crude Oil Is Gone: 3
Years Until 80% of Crude Oil Is Gone: 23
Percent Antarctic Ozone Depletion: 70+
Carbon Dioxide, Years Until Doubling: 60
Water Availability (000 cubic meters/person/year): 10
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THE FUTURE OF OPERA: A PROPAGANDA PIECE PART III
by The "Puffin"
************************************************************************
The Future of Opera parts I & II apeared in TAF Issue #1
In order to elaborate the Future of Opera, we must first clear up
a pertinent issue in contemporary cultural discourse. Let me, in
a postmodern spirit of merciless and irreverent appropriation,
offer the following aphorism:
The medium WAS the message.
If you read that book, you got it then. Once you've got it,
forget Mcluhan. His message was: pay attention to the medium.
Once you understand that, the Content becomes the message once
again, only now we know that the medium of conveyance plays a
part in the reception of the message. Good one, Marshal!
I've brought this up for a reason. (1) "The medium is the message
is a FUCKING DISEASE now. Every jerkoff with a glimmer of
creative spirit is buying up technology, pushing all its buttons,
and pretending the first thing that burps out is art. They use
their little culture calculators to dress up bad theatre in
garish spectacle, then they l iposuction some pretty young thing
and stick it out front for the masses to gawk at. Why do you
think we have to put up with a creature like David Burnham? .(2)
Who needs a perfect Donnie Osmond? well, they do. It's all part
of getting the slack jaws pointed toward their extravaganza.
If you think the message is the medium, then you might believe
that there is some reasonable reason to pay attention to Joseph
and the Amazing Technovomit Dreamspank. Its not like it has any
content to offer, it just has media to pummel you with. The
zombies have absorbed our beloved Marshal and created CITY TV.
They've dressed everything up in neon and explosives, but all we
end up with is exploding Penguins and neon Hags and fucking David
Burnham. It isn't even new. Its just Wagner with a lobotomy and a
rocket up his ass. (And don't get me started on the internet...)
The content is fake, boring old myth, Bible stories; the medium
is the Technicolor dreamcoat,(3) and the present reality is a
vacant skull staring blankly out from behind the big teeth and
the big hair and the technological media that is necessary to get
the desensitized zombies to pay attention at all. If the medium
is the message, then I get that the world is just one fake
disaster or simulated sex act after another. Sorry folks, but
this is just too stupid. I'd rather have a massive heart attack.
At least that would be real.
But then I'd be dead. Good thing you're not taking me seriously.
So what then? I wonder what happens if, instead of exploiting the
medium of conveyance, we simply try to remove as much media as we
can? What if we pare away everything except the stage, the
players and the audience, and look for the simplest way to make
this situation interesting? Well, lets start with a game. Say, a
race. Nothing simpler than that. First across the line is the
winner, and winning is the point. And while those guys are
racing, we can watch and decide who is good and who is bad. But
that's obvious, isn't it? Win is good, loose is bad. Why then do
we feel sympathy for the loser? are we bad? And we like the
winner too, at the same time. Are we sick, or what?
Well, as some old bum told me once: it's not the winning or
loosing, it is the playing that means something. There can be bad
winning and good loosing. Many levels and approaches are
possible. So out of this simple process comes a whole drama, a
theatre of intense human interaction.
A game presents a situation in which the structure of the world
is simplified and focused. There is none of the putrid froth of
small talk and petty bickering thrown off the tidal movement of
existence, the soap opera crap which only the bored housewives
and the unemployable unemployed will tolerate as the substance of
entertainment. That stinking spray is too diffuse to represent
anything - it is just the wasting away of more seconds until you
go die like a good human. Here, in this rarified context, one is
supposed to play the fame, fundamentally; to follow the rues and
within those bounds perform some prescribed task. And through
that process, I believe, we can get with the tidal flow, ride the
big wave, lay it out for the masses, and even cash in big after
the show.
So how's that then? Well, beyond the initial simplifying
ritualization, the process of sport elaborates these basic
themes, articulating them through finer and finer transforms by
applying the three drives that all religions say underlie our
existence: affirmation, denial and reconciliation, or in this
context, talent, competition, and the race meeting. Competition
says you must fight to get what you want, talent says you are
capable of winning that fight, and the race meeting reconciles
the two by providing a proving ground and an audience to pay
attention, giving it all meaning.
Avoiding any half measures, I propose Grand Prix automobile
racing as a model for the Future of Opera. (4) Premodern
competition augmented with modern technology makes for postmodern
art. Very loud, very fast, highly technical, completely beyond
any sort of reasonable justification. This is not a rational
activity, any more than zombie opera is. It exists because the
audience loves it, and as we all know, love is not rational.
Those folks are not there to look good, and God knows they don't.
They all buy up those gaudy overpriced logo festooned costumes
like they might not mind being seen dead wearing them. But there
is a genuine passion behind the bad taste, showing up the snotty
condescension of those champagne crackheads at the zombie opera.
race fans stand and cheer when they want to, not when they're
supposed to. And, more telling, they in fact will sometimes
refuse to cheer when they are supposed to, or even jeer
inadequate performance. They still know how to act the way they
really feel. (5)
What is it they are they applauding? I say it is the content: the
genuine drama, the presence of real heroes, the actual spectacle,
the fact that it is not trying to look like something, but
actually is something. It may be an irrational thing, but then,
when you find your eyes following someone on the street, what's
rational about that? It may be an artificial context, but then,
as the Buddhists say, any and all contexts are ultimately
artificial. (6) If you can suspend disbelief, you can be there
too: witnessing the humans doing battle, brandishing the weapons
of our technology, doing magic with the elements of fire, water,
earth and air. In short, we can live the theatre that the humans
have always been willing to pay good money to live. Grand Prix
automobile racing is one prototype of the Future of Opera.
Getting into the details, what is it that those racer guys
actually do? Let's start with the challenge of the truly
difficult corner. The general rule is to approach on the outside,
brake down, turn in, clip the inside curb in the middle of the
turn, and accelerate out again, sliding the car to the outside
curb. You know, just like playing the piano is, in essence,
pushing down little levers according to written instructions.
Some can do it better than others. And, of course, there are
important distinctions between a Liszt sonata and 'chopsticks.'
(a friend of mine broke two fingers playing a particularly
difficult passage in the Transendental Preludes, you could hear
the snap at the back of the hall... (7)
Central to the understanding of Grand Prix racing is the notion
of 'the limit' or 'the edge,' the point at which a racing car is
cornering fast as the laws of physics allow. Two time World
Driving Champion Michael Schumacher says "The secret of driving
quickly as to corner at the limit, with the car balanced on the
throttle. Most drivers do it, but some are jerky, which costs you
speed. I try my absolute best to be smooth, and right on the
limit, all the way through a corner. Quite a few drivers find the
limit on the exit of a bend, but they aren't on the limit going
in, or in the middle of the corner. It's all very well being on
the limit coming out of a bend, but you'll never make up for what
you've lost." (8) What he doesn't say, but certainly implies, is
that it is much easier to find the limit when you are approaching
it from the safe side, accelerating out of the bend. To enter a
corner on the limit is another thing altogether; he must often
brake down from speeds approaching 200 miles per hour, well on
the wrong side of the limit, and get it precisely right time
after time.
Fellow driver Julian Baily describes Schumacher at the wheel: "He
was on the limit, and you could see the car was alive, the back
end working. [Former World Driving Champion Ayrton] Senna could
do the same, dance a car around at the limit. You see [Jean]
Alesi do it, too. Others seem to have their cars on railway
lines, which isn't the same thing at all." (9)
I've seen it myself; at the first corner of Montreal's race
course, Schumacher's 700 horsepower Ferrari braking from about
180 mph, turning in on a line unlike that of any other driver,
and proceeding to carve an arc through the turn at an angle
described by neither the front nor rear wheels. It was a stunning
kind of dance, one which, in an uncanny way, brought the machine
to life, at least to all appearances. This performance, then,
presents a vivid symbolic representation of the great struggle of
mankind to become God, to breathe life into the inanimate objects
we create. We can't really do it yet, but this is an Opera of the
Future, remember?
Others can tell us more about this dance. The technical nature of
the sport makes the car engineer's view particularly germaine.
Here's one to talk about the toys our heroes play with:
Watching the 1995 racecars from Williams and Benetton,
it is clear either that the Williams FW17 is more
stable, or that it has more grip... To maintain the
same speed through a corner, the Benetton B195 must be
driven nearer the edge of its smaller [performance]
envelope.
It will therefore be nearer the limit of stability and
control.
It is possible that the Benetton has had to be set up
with a lower stability margin than the Williams, in
order to slightly 'stretch' the envelope in these key
sectors to male up for an inherently slightly smaller
envelope. [Then Benetton driver] Michael Schumacher has
recently alluded to this.
He has also suggested that this may be the key to the
large difference in performance between himself and
other drivers who have raced the Benetton. This becomes
clearer if we define "stable" and "unstable"
respectively as "the tendency to return to a position
of equilibrium, when disturbed; and "the tendency to
diverge from a position of equilibrium, when
disturbed."
While a stable car will inherently correct small
disturbances itself, a driver must not disturb an
unstable (or marginally stable) racecar in order to
take it to its limit and hold it there. If such a car
is disturbed, very fast reactions are needed to correct
the disturbance before it diverges beyond the available
control authority, which is itself small or zero at the
limit.
Schumacher drives very smoothly as well as having fast
reactions. He knows the car well and where its limits
lie. He approaches them carefully, so as not to
overshoot or disturb the car unnecessarily once the
limit has been attained.
[Former World Champion drivers] Senna, Prost, Stewart
and Clark all had this characteristic.
While the engineers at Benetton work to expand the
performance envelope of the B195, Schumacher pushes its
edges. Even he occasionally discovers that it is not
possible to escape from its confines...(10)
So that's something of what they do, but who are the guys who
actually do it? Lots of unfamiliar names, I'm sure, but behind
the names there are unique personalities, each reflecting
particular talents and expressing them through different sorts of
ego. The general trend is, of course, toward the highly
competitive and strong willed type, but individuals range from
the elegant aristocratic type to the blustering lout. (11) They
all must have extensive technical understanding of the car, and a
background in racing that involves a lot of travel all over the
world, as well as a lot of track time. They are all very fit, as
the performance envelope of the current cars requires the driver
to keep a clear head while absorbing high acceleration loads for
periods of up to two hours. Their minds must be sharp in order to
make the kind of instantaneous decisions required when something
strange happens in a high speed corner. They are all highly
ambitious and successful, having had to win races consistently in
the 'lower formulae' (go-carts and a series of cars of increasing
performance and complexity). They come from many different
countries, backgrounds and lifestyles (though they are all pretty
much white males.....and many are rich). Some are virtuoso
performers, 'aces,' others are journeymen who pick up the odd win
when the best drivers make mistakes or have their engines
ventilate themselves. But they all WANT to win, and are sure they
are the best on their day. Imagine a group of guys like this
playing any game and you get some idea what competition is like
on the track. Of course, substantial rivalries develop.
The following passage, from an interview with Team Williams
technical director Patrick Head, outlines distinctions between
two types of racing personalities:
Damon [Hill] was a skilful, calculating driver with a
lot of [Alain] Prost in him. In the fast corners Prost
would always calculate the odds and give himself a
margin. That wasn't because he was frightened - F1
[Formula 1, synonym for Grand Prix] drivers don't get
frightened - it was just that when your front and rear
tires are half on the track half in the dirt, you are
only so far away from a big one [crash]. Once or twice
in 1993 we saw Alain severely pushed to his [fastest]
time by Damon. Then he would start using up more and
more of those margins. He didn't like doing it, and
when he got out of the car he would be gnawing at those
fingernails. But he did it when he had to.
Somebody like Damon, whose brain is always in gear,
will always leave himself a margin in places where he
knows he could have a very serious accident. Whereas
with Jacques [Villeneuve], at Suzuka [Japan] last year
[1996], it amused him to go through 130R [dangerous
turn!!] absolutely flat [without slowing down]. He set
that as his target. Until last year, I'd never seen
anyone do it, but after he'd done a 1 minute 38.9
seconds, he was grinning all over his face. He came up
to me and said: "I told you. It is flat!"
I said: "No, it isn't." But when I went to have a look
at the throttle trace [on the telemetry graph], there
wasn't a ripple before the corner. He'd come out with
half of his tires in the dirt on the outside and had
absolutely no margin at all. With Damon, there was a
lift [of the throttle]. He had decided to leave a
margin.
Damon Hill and Alain Prost are the Apollonian type, cool,
calculated, perfect. Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher and Jacques
Villeneuve are Dionesians, stylish fiery risk takers. Mixing the
two types on the racetrack can lead to interesting
confrontations.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the major rivalry was between
Frenchman Alain Prost and Brazilian Ayrton Senna. Both were ace
racers, known for beating everybody. Prost had been doing it for
a few years when Senna showed up and gradually took over the
sport. Prost was a thoughtful guy; he understood every aspect of
the game and could balance the importance of all these factors as
it shifted from moment to moment, both on the track and off. His
car always handled well, and he always drove smooth and fast. But
when Senna turned up Prost was in successful mid career, working
from a sound and proven strategic base, and no longer willing to
take extreme tactical risks. Enter Senna, young, very skilled,
very brave, and very aggressive. He learned to drive perfectly,
and then figured out what risks were beyond Prost. He proceeded
then to take those risks himself. I know, it reads like a comic
book.
When the rivalry came to its climax at the 1991 Japanese Grand
Prix, both went off the road in the first corner, and abandoned
their undrivable cars in the gravel. The difference going into
the race had been that Prost had to beat Senna on the road in
order to become World Champion, and if he did not finish the
race, Senna would automatically win. So, going into the first
turn after the start, Senna, having been beaten off the line,
simply drove into Prost, and both crashed out of the race, with
Senna getting the championship. Senna didn't admit deliberately
crashing Prost off at the time, but everyone suspected it, and he
eventually confirmed the suspicions.
What kind of human would pull a dangerous stunt like that? Senna,
three time World Champion racing driver, said this of his
experience driving at the limit:
It [is] fundamental to me that I concentrate as deeply
as I can... And in that state I am somehow able to get
to a level where I am ahead of myself... In effect, I'm
predicting what I'm going to face, so I can correct it
before it actually happens. You need a lot of
concentration for that, as well as instant reactions;
so a lot of tension goes through the body - like
electricity... I use everything I have.... (12)
Remind you of anything? Here's a hint: "I think of the various
degrees of frenzy in my fellow actors, the desperate pitch to
which I had been pushed, the charged and silent concentration of
the audience upon my wildly dancing body, and the infinite web of
electromagnetic energy of which we are all a part and which
constitutes the current scientific definition of reality, I
wonder if there might be times when a man becomes so charged with
electrical potential that the normal boundaries of the mind
dissolve for a moment as the charge is released. This sudden,
lightning like transit would be what the ancient Greeks called
'ecstasy.'" If you want to read the whole quote, go here.(13)
He's not as eloquent, but Senna actually said it with the car, if
you saw him race. He was clearly describing an ecstatic
experience, in the ancient Greek sense, complete with a kind of
functional clairvoyance. There were times in races where he did
things that did not seem possible without some sort of knowledge
of the future, just as with Wayne Gretzsky, at his best; he would
see opportunities taking shape before they happened, plot the
openings, and simply skate through them. A small miracle, but a
damn sight better than some sweaty statuette 'crying' in some
dismal religious dispensary.
The danger inherent in Grand Prix racing makes Senna's feat all
the more astonishing. The danger is what makes racing the only
surviving gladiator sport, and while safety measures have made it
more remote, the possibility of having the really 'big one' is
always there for those who push hard.
Ayrton Senna was one who pushed harder than any other, and many
people were watching in May of 1994 when, leading Schumacher at
the front of the pack, he went off the circuit in Immola and
pushed a metal rod through his forehead, causing his death. (14)
The whole scene was highly dramatic, the wreck viewed from above,
with the fallen hero still at the wheel, his head moving once. We
couldn't see the blood, and didn't know until sometime later what
exactly had happened to him. As I write this, there are still
legal proceedings afoot to try and figure out why it happened.
Did the car break, or did his extraordinary skill simply fail on
this occasion?
In the moment, however, it was just stunning, an event that no
one expected, but which made perfect sense in the big picture. Of
course Senna, the greatest ever to drive, would die at the wheel,
leading the race in a car that was not particularly good, driving
it faster that it wanted to go.(15) Opera needs the big scene,
and the death of the hero is as big as it can get. Opera needs
the big message, and there it is. You can figure it out.
I'm not the first to notice the power in the image of a man
dancing with a machine at the edge; of course auto manufacturers
and other more parasitic corporate interests (read tobacco) have
exploited this image complex for decades. Hollywood produced the
movie Grand Prix in 1967, a film which was very technically
advanced at that time, at it has been recently announced that a
new film on racing is to be made, starring (gag) Sylvester
Stalone as (double gag with hiccups and saliva) Ayrton Senna.
Politicians have even used racing. For example: back in the
1930's, Hitler financed the dominant Mercedes and Auto Union race
teams and also built the Nurburgring, the world's most
challenging race track.
Oh oh.
Shit. I forgot. The medium is the message. Nasty shrieking
machines, lots of power and speed, a nation's technology and
pride used to dominate others.
Remember, Wagner made Hitler's opera of the glorious past, and
now we see that Grand Prix racing was his opera of the glorious
future. So, I guess, car racing is for us an opera of the
present, and its glorious light casts a creepy shadow. Sorry. My
mistake. (16)
But There is something here that which leads us toward our
understanding the opera of the future. There is something that is
real in the
Opera of the Present that had died in zombie opera.
The living core of the sporting spectacle is something to
respect, and from it we can move closer to a relevant Future
Opera. (17) That, however, will have to wait. I've been thinking
about bacon, and I gotta go kill a pig now. See you next time.
Notes:
1. Actually, two reasons. The technomedia warlords also have
politics by the balls (as good a reason as any to get more women
into government). My stand on contemporary politics is this: Hit
me with the propaganda! Let me roll in its fetid stinking mass,
let me get to know it real good. I want to know when I'm
spinning, that way I can adjust my guidance mechanism. This is
important in ballistic culture. It doesn't matter where you are
right now, it only matters where you end up. Maybe we are selling
our children to McDonalds and Players Ltd. today, but I expect
that the human spirit can learn to go with the spin and in time
reverse the parasitic relationship. I bet that someday a clown
will be forced to deliver wholesome meals and nicotine patches to
your door by court order.
2. David Burnham is the replacement for Donnie Osmond in the
Toronto production of David and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat. His existence is, I propose, direct evidence that
human cloning experiments have been going on for some time.
3. And NOT the coat of many colors. That's another medium.
4. Not as seen on TV! If you are sitting in front of the TV, then
you are watching television, not the event itself. You must get
over this habit. Go look at some real life! (Keep looking at your
computer though.)
5. Which is good, because I want as much accurate information as
possible about how the 'folks' are feeling; that way I can
predict their behavior, and stay out of their way if they are
getting dangerous. I'm much less likely to get caught up in
random gunplay if I learn to spot the danger signs. The kind of
disaster more likely to befall me would result from the actions
of some alienated and disturbed cultural eunuch deciding he
should wield his power over me because he doesn't like something
about my 'stats'...
6. Well, no Buddhist ACTUALLY said that...
7. That's a lie. I DO know a lot of people with muscle and tendon
problems and many musicians, especially drummers, eventually go
deaf. And you know the 'violin hickey' most players have? Those
things bleed and get infected. I wonder if you could get AIDS
from playing someone else's violin? Music is dangerous! Think
about it!
8. F1 Racing Magazine, April, 1997. P. 42.
9. Ibid.
10. "Defining the F1 Performance envelope" in Racecar
Engineering, vol. 5, No. 3. P. 18.
11. Elio De Angelis and Nigel Mansell
12. This was from F1 Racing Magazine in an article on Villeneuve.
I forgot to get the reference. So fail me!
13. I don't believe in supernatural phenomena, and this
experience, ironically enough, has only strengthened my bias
against them. It seems more reasonable to assume that the world
is a coherent place in which every event is a natural phenomena;
to relegate an event to the supernatural is to make it in some
sense unreal. So when I seek an explanation for what happened, I
think of the various degrees of frenzy in my fellow actors, the
desperate pitch to which I had been pushed, the charged and
silent concentration of the audience upon my wildly dancing body,
and the infinite web of electromagnetic energy of which we are
all a part and which constitutes the current scientific
definition of reality. I wonder if there might be times when a
man becomes so charged with electrical potential that the normal
boundaries of the mind dissolve for a moment as the charge is
released. This sudden, lightning-like transit would be what the
ancient Greeks called "ecstasy".
In its original usage, "ecstasy" (from the Greek ek , "out" +
stasis , "standing") had two meanings: the state either of
someone who was "out of his mind" or of someone whose soul had
been transported from his body in religious trance. Since the
word was regularly applied to the cult of Dionysus, it's tempting
to think it was used in the first sense by those who opposed his
orgiastic and theatrical rites and in the second sense by those
who actually experienced them. Whether ekstasis meant madness or
the liberation of the soul from the prison of the body would have
thus depended on one's own experience.
>From Squires, Richard. The Meaning of Ecstasy, Gnosis Magazine,
Fall 1994.
14. Autosport October 26, 1989. P. 23.
15. This accident also deprived us of the nest great rivalry, one
that could have been more breathtaking than any other in recent
memory. Both Senna and Schumacher are absolutely fierce and
spectacularly talented. Since the accident, Schumacher has had
only Damon Hill to challenge him - a competent and fast driver,
but not a great racer (that is, one who can make the big pass
when necessary). Today, Jacques Villeneuve is probably
Schumacher's equal as a racer, but for sheer speed it seems
Schumacher still has the edge. Jacques is my guy, and I hope he
can pull in the gap - at present he looks like the only one who
can.
16. At the beginning of 1994, the Williams was not a good car.
The 1994-95 Autocourse annual says that "Initially, the
[Williams] FW16 seemed a difficult car to handle, Senna trying so
hard on his first outing in Brazil that he spun off during his
pursuit of Michael Schumacher's Benetton. Both Senna and
[teammate Damon] Hill also experienced rear-end grip problems
during practice for the Pacific Grand Prix, having carbon-copy
spins at the same corner during the same qualifying session." (p.
42)
17. Oh, Fuck that! October 12, 1997, Suzuka Japan. Villeneuve vs.
Schumacher. I want to see those two running together at the front
going into the last laps. If all goes well, I expect to be in
tears as the checkered flag falls. Jacques has done it to me
before. But those damn Mclarens are looking hot, and my cat is
cheering for Mika Hakkinen...
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THE TRAJECTORY OF A BULLET - PART I: A MAN SCREAMING SO LOUD COLOURS ARE
COMING OUT OF HIS MOUTH
by Joe Tomorrow
************************************************************************
Dark night.
City lights,
The distance hangs like thunder·
If this car would only go faster.
Concrete Jungle air, there's a difference, big difference.
Real air excites your lungs,
Concrete air insults (assaults) your lungs.
I can remember being paid a good wage to help me forget
I lived in a plaster box in the Jungle, in the sky. I remember dry
heaves in the morning. I remember trying hard to forget·
LANE CHANGE
I haven't seen another car for hours/miles of wet ribbon road.
My thoughts aren't as fast as the painted lines or as
slow as the radio's liquid amnesia·
I could be dead.
ACCELERATE
CASSETTE TAPE
"Hellhound On My Trail"
I'm chasing a dream that's a nightmare chasing through my
childhood/youth/adult life.
The windshield wipers beat it back with fluctuating rhythm·
ROAD SIGN
Turn off to where-ever/when-ever
DOWNSHIFT/CHILDHOOD
Brick walls and darkness·windshield
Staring at myself staring, I still think I'm twenty years
too late but I'm driving to forget all that shit, driving to
forget why I remembered it in the first place.
ANIMAL!
BRAKES LOCKED
TIRES SQUEAL
Rear end of car drifts slightly·
Control feels powerful,
like I'm in control
ACCELERATE
Country roads like big city lust gone sweet·
headlights piercing darkness
in surgical foreplay being folded over and over
until afterbirth is all that's left.
"I keep on hand on the wheel
and one hand on the shifter
I keep one eye on the road
And one eye on your sister"
Teenage sex is better on record than reality; clumsy and rushed
headlong into death
Teenage sex sung about by grown men remembering/wishing
"How many guys out there over 30
can still get 16 year old girls
to go down on them?"
"How many really want them to though?"
RIGHT TURN
Full moon on the horizon
Full tank in the rear
I remember helping a stranded female motorist. I gave her a left.
Her car broke down in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night
and I was on one of my nightly cruises into tomorrow·
She didn't think much of the handcuffs hanging from my rearview mirror.
She turned pale·
I dropped her off at the top of a street she said was hers·I wonder if
she remembers/thinks about me or my handcuffs.
FLIP THE TAPE
When I was a child I thought that all the traffic in the world
is what made the planet rotate
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3 POEMS
by Christopher Stolle
************************************************************************
THIS HAPPENS WHEN YOUR LOVER LEAVES
To Her
Deep down, somewhere on the surface,
there is fear seeping from an earmarked
loose vein.
Chunks of nightmares and drama traumas
glob from the gaping, disconnected
cylinder flux.
Blood rains across the silky innards,
refreshing this half-cadaver from possible
drought crops.
In these valleys and hills, nooks and creases,
flows a bittersweet liquid of immense
commercial viability.
Little germs and molecules irrigate organs,
only to drown from busting clots that line
flesh corridors.
Few notice this wound, this tiny slip cut,
that's deep down, somewhere on the surface,
flooding passion.
July 28, 1997
~~~~~
TRANSLATING AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GHOST OF AN
IMPATIENT, UNHAPPY JOHN LENNON
John, suppose destiny forgave
him or it?
(depending on the wound)
What would you be doing today?
did you eat well?
did you sleep?
you crying?
We're still hungry for love,
waiting for word,
listening.
Some sit idle, some heal glass.
did you resist, John?
you laughing?
What maker has the dreamer?
what image?
what tone?
what?!
We're still fighting, still singing,
waiting for help,
bleeding.
John, can you be our savior?
come home.
speak to us.
What wrinkles do you have now?
do you age?
can you see?
you must cry.
And this dew mirrors your wish.
what's your third wish?
what do you think?
have you seen Buddy?
And Jimi and Jim and Jim and Harry and Janis?
my grandfather, John?
and Jon?
Still in jeans and black shirts?
do you pray?
do you hurt?
you must laugh.
We tend to believe heroes are forever.
until they die.
are you dying again?
John, who do you miss?
who did you miss?
we miss.
How's the moon doing?
make it rain.
forget the snow.
what do you hope for?
We can't change time, it hates us.
we cry.
we feel alone.
These years grow like weeds.
souls erode.
we stopped praying.
Can you see our faces, our futures?
try to stop us.
please.
We used to laugh with you, John.
we stopped one winter.
And we teach our children your name.
we fall silent at sound.
your voice heals.
June 19, 1997
~~~~~
P.E.A.C.E. (Please Eliminate All Cultural Executions)
Echoes imprinted in wood
remind travelers of the path
they prepare to endure
and there is a whisper
which left the mark
from the past
to keep them from death
Mothers smile at their children
to hold them in their heart's mind
when the nights are cold
and there are tears
which release laughter
from the past
to keep them from worry
Music stifles lonely pain
leaving colors as shadows
bring back the romance
and there is a chorus
which holds our hands
from the past
to keep them from violence
June 8, 1997
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3 POEMS
by Holly Day
************************************************************************
Confessions to a Child Just Born
I went through my old poetry
last night, thinking of you
left behind in the hospital, tiny arms
pinned down with IV needles, tiny feet
scabbed and swollen from heelsticks and pulse monitors
trying not to think of you, first a monster swelling in my stomach
something I tried to kill with alcohol
and cigarettes
and failed herbal exorcisms plucked from
New Age magazines
to a soft twisting kitten
keeping me awake with dreams
of who and what you might be, praying always
I hadn't hurt you too bad. Now
I'm having to deal with an early separation
after a day-and-a-half of forced labor
too many drugs
sitting in my bedroom
among these piles of poetry
destroying every piece I ever wrote that says
I didn't love you
~~~~~
Dreams of the End
I had nothing to do with my ex-husband
ending up at the bottom of the lake (we used to make out at)
plastic bag secure around his head enough
Valium in his system to tranquilize
a bull rhino
I had nothing to do with the bold streaks of red
gouged flesh on his face (damned near lost a nail there)
know nothing about the blond hairs in his fist
smeared lipstick on his mud-soaked collar (tricked me into bed one more
time)
fading surprise in his eyes, mouth still a round "o"
but I can't help but feeling a little bit safer
now that he's dead
~~~~~
Pen Pal
I have walked through your burning dreams
and I forgive you, seen
children on fire, trapped beneath
fallen timbers and I know
the smell of burnt flesh and I
forgive you. I have
walked through silent houses seen
unsuspecting sleepers through your
scarlet blooming chrysanthemums and I
forgive you your gasoline-scented fingers
and trains of braided fuse. Tell me how it feels
to be completely an element, to be a force
of nature. Tell me how it feels
to decide a man's death, how you pick the right houses
to loose your fury on. Your letters
bring me God. I will always be here for you,
outside÷write again soon.
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CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE...
************************************************************************
HOLLY DAY lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her son Wolfegang
and their cat Calypso. She is the submissions editor of The
Squealer music magazine, also out of Minneapolis.
RAINBOW SALLY is one of the human beings still living on the
central coast of California.
CHRISTOPHER STOLLER (aka The Poet Man) is a senior this fall at
Indiana University majoring in journalism and education. He has
published poems extensively throughout the U.S. and overseas.
This past summer, he was able to experience Texas and California,
with an internship in the former and a visit to an aunt in the
latter. Both fostered many poetic ideas.
PAUL LAURENDEAU is an associate professor in linguistics at the
department of French Studies, York University. Influenced by the
thought of Spinoza, Diderot, and Marx, he is currently working on
a book titled MATERIALISM AND RATIONALITY (PHILOSOPHY FOR THE
SOCIAL ACTIVIST). Describing himself as a materialist rationalist
atheist, Laurendeau formulates the religious debate in
philosophical terms in the tradition of the progressive struggle
against the mystical and irrationalist tendancies of
philosophical idealism. His previous contributions to TAF enclude
On a Philosophical Implication of the Astronomical Big Bang
Theory, which was featured in TAF issue #1, and The Doom Of
Religion, which was featured in TAF issue #2.
"THE PUFFIN" is a magical creature who comes up for air when the
moon is full or there is a good Formula 1 race on the television.
"The Puffin's" The Future of Opera parts I & II was featured in
TAF issue #1. S/he/it can reached c/o TAF.
JOE TOMORROW in an unknown entity. Contact may be reached via
TAF.
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The Annihilation Fountain & TAF Copyright c 1997-99 Neil MacKay
http://www.capnasty.org/taf/
the_annihilation_fountain@iname.com
