oga mu

Following the press release for DANZ

2006-03-29T13:31:00.000+12:00

There were a number of articles and a news item on One News. I'll put together some links when I get a minute. The release got quoted to my partner last week (babies can learn sign language before they can speak) without realising she was the partner of the writer! Classic.

Deaf Children Denied Full Access To Language

2006-03-29T13:23:00.000+12:00

DANZ CI Press Release
6 March 2006

The tragedy of deaf children on the waiting list for cochlear implants (CI) was in the media recently.[1] The news items focused on the need for increased funding so that more CI operations could be financed to increase the current total of 28 operations a year.

Dr Colin Brown, CI surgeon at Starship Hospital, expressed dismay that deaf children are losing the opportunity to acquire oral language skills: “every month of delay sets the child back in vital brain stimulation. If the hearing nerves aren’t stimulated early, they will never work.”

Robyn King, mother of 1 year old James, diagnosed 2 days after birth, described her plight in being unable to communicate with James and the year-long delay before his scheduled CI operation in July.

Robyn said “we went to the supermarket yesterday and all he did was squeal the whole time; we’re walking around the supermarket, a real high pitched squeal, and that’s all he does and everyone just turns around and looks at you. There’s no vocal speech there at all , , , they say he can’t even hear himself screaming.”

James is almost one year old. He has no language development whatsoever. This is a tragic missed opportunity. If the medical profession had given Robyn and James access to New Zealand Sign Language, Robyn and James would be able to communicate with one another while they are waiting for their CI operation.

The deaf child needs access to language at the earliest possible opportunity. Sign language can be taught to the deaf child before oral language. International studies have demonstrated that babies who learnt sign language before learning to speak show a 12-point difference in their IQ to babies who did not learn sign language.[2] It is currently fashionable to teach hearing babies to sign, but to deny deaf babies any language development until they are fitted with CI.

Deaf Association New Zealand (DANZ) states that language development is essential to the growth of the deaf child. Internationally, sign language has been shown to be the earliest demonstrable language a baby can learn before their larnyx can form complex sounds. A deaf child can access sign language before oral language. They can begin to acquire concepts and their uptake of oral language is greatly improved. Sign language and spoken language are complementary. A sign language is completely accessible to a deaf person, a spoken language is not. A sign language is the only language which a deaf child can learn in a natural and easy way. It is moreover imperative that Deaf children benefit from the use of sign language at an early age, and this helps them in forming their linguistic, educational and social skills.

The recent news demonstrated the tragedy of deaf children who are lacking the opportunity to learn language skills because of a lack of funding for CI operations. The medical and educational community has denied deaf children full access to language.

As of 23 February 2006, The New Zealand Sign Language Bill has passed its second reading. As Hon Ruth Dyson proclaimed last week, by declaring New Zealand Sign Language to be an official language of our country, this House is acknowledging the Deaf community’s presence, its rights, and its equal value in our society. No submission opposed the Bill.

DANZ urges the medical and educational community to work in partnership with DANZ to integrate New Zealand Sign Language into their programmes so that parents of deaf children can fully engage with their children. There can be no equality for deaf children until the Deaf community is seen as part of the solution. The more options our deaf children have, the richer their lives and ours will be.

**********

[1] TV3 6PM “3NEWS” Saturday 25 February 2006 Carolyn Robinson with Dr Colin Brown, Starship Hospital surgeon, Robin King, mother of James, and Dr Pat Tuohy, Ministry of Health. RNZ “Nine to Noon” Tuesday 28 February 2006, Linda Clark with Dr Colin Brown and Robyn King. Both radio and television interviews were not accessible to Deaf people as TV3 news is not captioned.

[2] Researchers recently discovered a 12-point IQ gap between a group of second-graders who had been trained to sign as babies and a group who had not. "We were astonished," says one of the researchers, Linda Acredolo, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis.

See also UM psychology professor, Lynne Koester’s 10 year research into hearing mothers with deaf infants.

The Natural Relationship of Sign, Signifier and Signified in Myth: A reading of Roland Barthes’s Myth Today.

2006-02-26T17:15:00.000+13:00

The Natural Relationship of Sign, Signifier and Signified in Myth
A reading of Roland Barthes’s Myth Today.

175.707
Thursday July 22, 1999
Peter Fogarty

STILL DEFIANT: A Muslim guerrilla during target practice not far from the Line of Control between Indian and Pakistani troops. The “holy warriors” have vowed to liberate Kashmir.
NZ Herald, Wednesday, July 21, 1999

To paraphrase Barthes in Myth Today [is] to consume a myth innocently, the reader does not see myth as a semiological system, but as an inductive one. The equivalence of signifier and signified is seen as a causal process, they have a natural relationship. A myth today may be one rooted in old legend; the classic struggle of man against the world and himself, or it may be an image in a newspaper, or an essay sprung from quotation. Barthes defines myth as “a mode of signification, a form . . . everything can be a myth provided it is conveyed by a discourse.” Hence we may mythologise a newspaper photo and an essay. But what does all this mean? Why do signifier and signified have a natural relationship when we speak of myth?

Saussure sets us on our journey into myth with his lecture notes on sign, signifier and signified in a first order semiological system. A sign may be any single word, object, image, film or groupings of such. The phrase we are deconstructing in this essay may be regarded as a sign, a cluster of inkblots containing meaning laid out assymetrically on a page. The sign is an inseparable correlation of signifier and signified and if we take that example: the signifier is the collection of letters in the english language that compose the Barthes paraphrase while the signified is the conceptual meaning behind the paraphrase: the statement that signifier and signified have a natural relationship in the inductive system of myth. Consider the image of a bearded man carrying a weapon, with two fingers upraised is the signifier that joins the signified concept of a muslim guerrila fighting to liberate Kashmir and becomes a sign, a historical representation of a freedom fighter at a fixed point of time. When we see the sign, we absorb its signifier and signified as a complete entity, they are correlated into the sign. This combination consistutes a first order semiological system, language.

Saussure regarded semiology as the study of the parole, a particular use of a sign or a set of signs, as a manifestion of langue, the general system of implicit differentiations and rules of combination which enable communication with signs. The focus of interest for Saussure was not on a particular sign, but how that sign manifests the general system of langue in the first order semiological system. Moving into the second order semiological system of myth, we are therefore interested in how the photo of the guerilla manifests the general system of revolutionary myth.

Myth is formed when the full sign from a first order semiological system is presented as an empty signifier of a second order semiological system also containing a signified and a third term is created from their correlation: signification, which is myth. Myth is a metalanguage, a collection of expressions and terms for talking about language; it is as inextricable from linguistics as it is from language. As sign is a correlation of signifier and signified, myth follows with its own correlation of signifier and signified in a second semiological system that is skewed in relation to the first.

The signifier of myth is, as we have said, the sign of the first system. As a sign, the photo of an bearded muslim holding a machine gun aloft, with his other hand raised in a two fingered salute is endowed with meaning, he is a muslim guerrilla fighting for liberation. But as a signifier, the muslim guerrilla has meaning torn from him, he becomes an empty form without context, a man holding a weapon, with the face of a saint, and a two fingered salute. Myth strips meaning from the sign. When we attach the signified to this signifier/sign, the concept behind the image emerges, the meditative guerilla fighting for the liberation of his beloved Kashmir, holding aloft symbols of might and peace or victory, depending on our individual interpretion of his raised fingers. The signified in myth is shapeless, fluid and associative. It is the signified/concept that enables the mythologist to unravel the multiple layers of signification. The Muslim guerilla is instantly recognisable as revolutionary myth, representing the form of revolutionary in the tradition of other iconic revolutionaries such as Che Guevera. Myth notifies and points out the inner meaning and interpretation to be found within the empty sign, the form.

Myth prefers to work with incomplete signs where the meaning is prepared for a signification already, such as the symbols in the photo of the guerilla, the weaponry, the gesture, the saintly demeanour. Without a caption, the picture presents us with the very myth of the revolutionary; the advocate of righteous change backed by a fist of steel in one hand and peace in the other. The form of the revolutionary is motivated by the struggle the sign represents: the liberation of Kashmir. Without context, the myth reader, responding to the complex whole consistuting meaning and form, signified and signifier, percieves the image as the essence of revolutionary, the reader experiences the myth at once as a event and as an ideal.

However, the myth reader does not see myth as a mythologist does, as Barthes says, “where there is only equivalence, he sees a kind of causal process”. The signifier and the signified are two different things but inextricably correlated. We cannot say that the signifier causes the signifier, or vice versa, but their equivalence is their sameness in their difference. This very sameness, their belonging to the sign in the first order semiological system creates a causal process in the mind of the myth reader. For us, the image of the guerilla is as inextricable from the revolutionary myth as it is from the conflict in Kashmir. The causality of the revolutionary myth is artifical; it sneaks in through the image only because the image itself is innocent. In the artifice of myth, the image’s second order meaning naturally forms within our minds through an inductive process; the artifical inference of a general law from a particular instance. We can naturally see the myth in the image.

When we speak of myth, the signifier and the signified have a natural relationship in the eyes of the reader as the Muslim guerilla on the Kashmir mountainside becomes a icon of revolution as we mythologise his image. He is at once filled with meaning and emptied of it before being refilled to overflowing with signification. He symbolises the struggle for a free Kashmir, he has the countenance of an Indian yogi yet carries weaponry, and his other hand shapes a symbol of peace, of reconcilation and love. The myth of the revolutionary forms out of these signs within the sign, and without realising, we automatically absorb and accept the significtion. He is the revolutionary incarnate. The righteousness of the sign of an armed Muslim guerilla gesturing against the backdrop of the historic struggle for Kashmir is enhanced with speech justified in excess and he joins the cadre of freedom fighters in the history of Myth in the eternal fight of the revolutionary.

Bibliography

• Barthes, Roland. “Myth Today”. Mythologies. London: Vintage, 1993.
• Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.
• Henderson, Mary. Star Wars: The Magic of Myth. Auckland: Bantam Spectra, 1997.
• Levi-Strauss, Claude. “The Structural Study of Myth”. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Michael. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
• Moyers, Bill & Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. Ed. Flowers, Betty Sue. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
• Saussure, Ferdinand de. “Course in General Linguistics”. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Michael. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.

A little bit of my work

2005-12-21T13:32:00.000+13:00

I edited this article for Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management which is one of the journals that I work on as production manager/editor. Nice!

Peter loves Paper Planes

2005-12-06T11:03:00.000+13:00

I just came across this and I was instantly enraptured. The comments section is pretty funny.

When I was at primary school, I was the king of paper planes. I have a special design that glides and can go quite far if thrown high enough, so when throwing, it was important to get as much height as possible, and then it would glide for SO far. I bet I could beat this design. And besides, that's not a real paper plane because the paper is torn or cut! Wrong! Wrong!

Here are a couple of other paper plane links.

Let me know where you get to...

Two Delany Things

2005-11-09T16:38:00.002+13:00

Ooh yeah, if you read the conclusion to my thesis, below, you'll know that I am a big Delany nut.

Here are two things Delany that recently came across my desktop.

First up: Delany pushes for more HIV studies, particularly among women.

"Not to do them is murderous. Ignorance does not protect anyone," Delany said.

Then comes an incredibly valuable bio that reads like an obitury, of Delany's life, written by Leslie K Steiner, a pseudonym of Delany's... It's in depth, enlightening and ... oh, just go and read it now!

The man in electricfity

2005-10-24T16:00:00.000+13:00

Plasma scientists are now comparing electrical discharge formations in the laboratory to rock art images around the world. Results in 2005 should confirm that immense and terrifying plasma configurations were seen in the sky of our ancestors.

South Atlantic Anomaly

2005-10-24T15:51:00.000+13:00

This is a huge electromagnetic sink in the van allen belt; it is bigger than Brazil.

Here's nice overview.

Earth can be viewed as a gigantic bar magnet spinning in space. Its toroidal magnetic field encases the planet like a huge inner tube. This field shields Earth from the solar wind—a continuous stream of charged particles cast off by the sun. It also traps charged particles, which tend to congregate in distinct bands based on their charge, energy, and origin. Two primary bands of trapped particles exist: the one closer to Earth is predominantly made up of protons, while the one farther away is mostly electrons. Evidence of these bands was first made public by James Van Allen, and so they are often referred to as the Van Allen radiation belts. This radiation can cause all sorts of malfunctions in spacecraft electronics. In fact, the Geiger counter used to measure cosmic rays on Explorer 1 stopped functioning because it was overloaded by radiation!

Catalyst; The Brooklyn Bridge - the best bit from MA Thesis on Samuel R Delany "Mirror, Prism, Lens"

2005-10-15T11:19:00.000+13:00

... after glimpse, the stays and struts of the Brooklyn Bridge rise out of the sea of Delany’s oeuvre, water glistening and tessellating off the masonry. Now a ruin on Rhys, now a dry span over the Hudson valley, now a Bridge of Lost Desire, there a retreat from a flaming Bellona, here the scene for many illuminating conversations as the evening sun strikes New York City, the location of a career in balance. The motif of the Brooklyn Bridge endures as a bridge to the future. The reader remembers Hart Crane’s cry, “All life is a bridge, I told him. Even the whole world.” (AM 96) Delany is always crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, spanning gaps, exploring the marginal areas in the shadow of bridges, on bridges. As the motif of the Bridge appears again, and again, and again, throughout Delany’s oeuvre, taking the foreground, or away in the background, the Bridge exists as a metaphor, a physical symbol for the reconciliation of difference, for connecting communities and ideas. The Brooklyn Bridge was built with hope, with the most futuristic technologies of the time, and yet endures, the most solidly constructed bridge to New York City.

“the Brooklyn Bridge represents and incorporates many of the socio-cultural elements of the age that produced it, elements that have helped create our own technological age.”

The Brooklyn Bridge profoundly altered a career, after meeting Auden, a walk on the Bridge engenders a career in science fiction after the publication at nineteen, of The Jewels of Aptor. The bridge is a location of truce, a literal bridging of Delany’s relationship with the poet, Marilyn Hacker. They’d have conversations about literature to bridge their differences, the difficulties of communicating their feelings about their relationship. One such conversation was:

Among the conclusions we reached that evening, as we strolled or paused at the rail with the cars sweeping by below us, or walked once more, fingers interlocked, cables wheeling above, was that for a novel, SF or otherwise, to show any aesthetic originality in the range of extant American fiction, it must portray, among many other sorts of relationships, at least one strong friendship between two women characters. Also, the major heterosexual relationship would have to involve a woman as active as the man. (MW 173)

This is the same evening that plots out the shape of The Fall of the Towers, Delany’s next project after the experience of publishing The Jewels of Aptor at Ace. The interlocking weave of ideas, like Delany and Marilyn’s fingers, the structural mesh of the cables holding the span high above the Hudson, span the thirty years of Delany’s oeuvre that covers selection of stories, novellas, novels and tales. Quest, myth, identity, memory, and transgression are the powerful themes that surge and swell with the ebb and flow of the tide beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Each theme intertwines with one another, until it is difficult to unpick the tapestry. The Bridge of Delany’s humanist perspective unites each theme; his desire to create a way of living, a movement towards becoming a mature, integrated person, free of prejudice and filled with joy in the diversity of life.

imagine four giant harps, side by side. Then rotate the alternate ones – just a little, so that some cables were vertical and some slanted across them. Now put two of these double harps at each side of the walkway, that will have to be reckoned into the total, and let the wind play silent music through and against crisp blue. (AM 66)

To understand the present, one must know the past, and the past helps to understand the future. And to know the past, is to understand the powerful symmetry of the Brooklyn Bridge. Horace Gregory frames Atlantis: Model 1924 with this image from Far Beyond Our Consciousness, “He sees an image of the bridge springing from a remote past and propelled upward, spiraling, arching the sky, casting its shadow down upon us and vanishing in space.” (AM 57) From the past to Atlantis, Atlantis as a holy grail, the goal of Delany’s quest. Part of that quest is to free the reader from their assumptions, preconceptions, and open up consciousness to new possibilities. The journey of this quest involves a search for identity, remembering identity, constructing identity in a subliminal quest to bridge differences within communities, within selves, to reveal the commonality of the human creature in all its lotus-petaled forms:

part of what, from my marginal position, I see as the problem is the idea of anybody’s having to fight the fragmentation and multicultural diversity of the world, not to mention outright oppression, by constructing something so rigid as an identity, an identity in which there has to be a fixed and immobile core, a core that is structured to hold inviolate such a complete biological fantasy as race – whether white or black.

In the process of remembrance, memory defines identity, as society transgresses the limits of identity, as identity turns back in on itself, reflecting on the past, considering the future, intruding upon the present, as Delany’s journal entries intrude upon his work. Life is inseparable from the project, his diary frames and shapes his writing. Delany’s writing shapes and defines the path of his life, creates new mythologies, and forms frameworks for identity, for interacting with the world. Identity is formed against the constant threat of continuity, against the threat of Kidd’s Dhalgren, the underbed of society. Kidd’s loss of identity is not something to fear, his fractured, fragmented identity is real, and Kidd copes fluidly with his situation, with the confusing changes in his reality. He projects his reality upon his surrounds and the tumultuous changes, strangeness, is reflected in Dhalgren. Memory infects The Einstein Intersection, through the remembrance and denial of the myths of the past, and the creation new myth in the intersection between Godel’s infinite theorem and Einstein’s relativist manifestations of reality.

Memory creates identity, memory projects continutity. One wakes up in the morning, and remembers life the day before. Although the reader is trapped in a temporal loop where the future is unknown, the past is there to stand on, to push forward from. Empire Star’s characters are guided by their future selves. Through a trick of time-continuity by travelling through the interstellar nexus at Empire star, they travel into the future and into the past, and shape and guide each other’s future experiences, so that all the characters die at the beginning, but their end is their beginning. The characters are transformed like the progression from larvae to crystalis to butterfly and the return. Memory serves to structure and create the continuity of life.

The purpose of Delany’s textual diversions is to rupture the linear continuity of the text. The rupture of the journal, authorial observations, and commentary split the text into two. The split column tactic, is a reference back to double consciousness. Lewy’s journal is in code, and so is the split in the text. Lewy shows his journal to his brothers, “ when John opened the cover it was in code – two columns, one barely comprehensible, the other complete nonsense. ‘You don’t want none of them jewboys to get hold of this,’ John said. ‘They could figure it out on you.’ ” (AM 8) and returning to the journal, John repeats, “ ‘They could figure it out on you.’ But, chuckling, Lewy wandered away, barefoot over fallen blossoms, as if codes and journals and secrets and cyphers had ceased to interest him as he searched the spring night.’” (AM 16) . . . The cypher of the split column of the effaced journal . . . Dhalgren’sAnathemata: a plague journal effaced with the authoral influence, elimination, statements of transcription: “The falsification of this journal . . . What is down, then, is a chronicle of incidents with a potential for wholeness they did not have when they occurred; a false picture, again, because they show neither the spread of our life’s fabric, nor the most significant pattern points.” (D 734) These fragments of a thesis, consciousness bridging the gaps in between, produce a false picture, or a real picture, but with the potential of becoming whole deeply buried in the riverbed of the reader’s consciousness. How do the tiles of the mosaic fall together? Stand back a little bit more.

The double narrative, in its parallel columns . . . With the two (or more . . .) tales printed as they are, consecutively and not parallel at all, a romantic code hierarchizes them: the second account – full of guilt, silence, desire, and subterfuge – displaces the first – overt, positive, rich, and social – at once discrediting it and at the same time presumably revealing its truth.

Yet reread closely.

Nothing in the first is in any way explained by the second, so that this “truth” that the second is presumed to provide is mostly an expectation, a convention, a trope – rather than a real explanatory force.

But if it is the split – the spaces between the columns (one resplendent and lucid with the writings of legitimacy, the other dark and hollow with the voices of the illegitimate, and even a third aglitter with ironic alterities) – that consistutes the subject, it is only after the Romantic inflation of the private into the subjective that such a split can even be located. That locus, that margin, that split itself first allows then demands the appropriateion of language – now spoken, now written – in both directions, over the gap. (MW 67-9)

These prismatic filters of the split narrative, a “double narrative, in its parallel columns” (MW 67) accentuating, supposing inter-relations, yet they are resolutely separate. A fragment of self-conscious purity, framing devices which highlight and accentuate the underlying themes. It is the play of light in the mirror of the text, projected through the lens of experience, focused by the prism of consciousness: “motes cycloned in the slanting illumination where I had been. And the motes stilled.” (EI 23) With the rainbow magic of a sheen of oil floating on water, cultures, genders, differences are recognised and bridged, even as they are transgressed, redefined. Each split column, the different narratives, they are bridged in the reader’s mind, united by understanding. Delany allows the margins to intrude on his work, through anecdote, through experience, splitting the text to accommodate new perspectives. Delany writes with the hope that his vision may be actualized, and the first thing that must be done is to have the thought that it is possible, that his hopes will be realized, and if we begin there, it will happen. Listen to the marionetteer:

He / is the test of how you see yourself, and regardless of whether or not you hesistate, Sentimentiality and Inhibition are the Scylla and Charybdis of the criticism of this decade, it may be assumed that you have won, that this wooden and external representation (AM 71)

The marginal is made, through the expression of Delany's oeuvre, as magical as a dimension of a multifaceted prism which includes all possibilities in glimpse . . .

The Meaning of a Sensation Term is not a Private Object the Term Picks Out.

2005-10-15T11:16:00.000+13:00

Phil 311

Wittgenstein
The Meaning of a Sensation Term is not a Private Object the Term Picks Out.

Peter Fogarty
2/10/95

I

The thesis, that the meaning of a sensation term is not a private object the term picks out, is difficult to interpret. A sensation is something that only you can feel or sense. It is highly individual, like pain. A sensation term is a term representing a sensation; the name given to a sensation. A private object is something that only you have access to. Your sensation of pain is one such private object. Therefore, the thesis can be read as saying that the meaning of pain does not lie in our personal sensation of pain. My personal sensation of pain is something that only I can know and understand. A private language is a language only the speaker can speak and understand. It could be used to refer to my sensation of pain. The thesis claims that we cannot have a private language. We can talk about our personal sensations; but not through a private language. The strongest argument for the thesis is that we cannot have a private language without fixing meaning through a public language. The most powerful objection to the thesis is that we refer to our private sensations to understand public sensation terms. The thesis is relevant to the materialist theory of consciousness in the contemporary philosophy of mind. It can eliminate the qualia objection to the materialist view of consciousness.

II

The thesis, that the meaning of a sensation term is not a private object the term picks out, is a statement against the possibility of having a private language. A private language, according to Wittgenstein, is distinct from a public language; which everyone understands and has access to; in that only the speaker can speak and understand her/his speech. It is not a language that is derived from a public language; for then it would not be private. It is a language that cannot be translated. Such language is untranslatable because the words of this language "refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations"(243). Hence, the content and context of a private language can only be understood by the individual to whom it belongs. The meaning of its terms are untranslatable because only the individual can know what they mean. As Wittgenstein says, "another person cannot understand the language"(243). The terms of a private language are necessarily incomprehensible to another person because of the fact that they cannot experience the same sensations or know the same objects as the owner of the language.

Thus, to say that the meaning of a sensation term is not a private object the term picks out, is to say that we cannot have private language. A sensation is a private thing; nobody can experience the exact same sensation as another. If private language is possible, then the meaning of the term used to describe a sensation would be fixed in that private object that is the sensation. Every private object would have a term to describe it; a term that is understood only by the individual to whom the language belongs. By stating that the meaning of a sensation term does not lie in a private object, the concept of private language is rejected.

III

The need to fix meaning forms the strongest argument for the thesis against the possibility of private language. Wittgenstein illustrates this strongly and clearly in his argument against the possibility of fixing the meaning of sensation terms in a private object. Each argument against private language returns to the need to fix the meaning of sensation terms in a public language. This must be done otherwise the private language is rendered irrelevant; as Wittgenstein states, sarcastically, I imagine: "The proposition 'Sensations are private' is comparable to 'One plays patience by oneself'"(248). This truth reveals the futility behind the quest for a private language. A private language, is by definition, comparable to a game of patience. The only person we can speak a private language with is ourselves. A private language can only give satisfaction to the speaker. Patience is played when the player has nothing better to do. Why should the speaker bother speaking when nobody else can understand her/his spoken private language? The private language is thus rendered irrelevant because it is not communicable.

Wittgenstein, however, destroys the case for the private language much more thoroughly than this. He attempts to build his own private language from the basics. He begins by examining what a sensation term is. They are possibly just words "connected with the primitive, the natural, expressions of the sensation and used in their place"(244). Wittgenstein eliminates the trap of description by saying that these sensation terms do not describe the sensation; but replace it by verbal expression. Sensation terms are therefore from the beginning, public. They are public because they are taught; sensation terms, Wittgenstein says, come from ostensive definition. This is only a possible interpretation; the benefit of the doubt needs to be given to this.

IV

Next, Wittgenstein asks of himself; "in what sense are my sensations private?"(246). Here he addresses the most powerful objection to the thesis. The objection is that sensations are private because nobody can know what someone else's sensation of pain is like and how it is similar or different from his/her own sensation of pain. One's only reference is to one's own pain. The private language argument depends on the meaning of sensation terms being private. If nobody can know another's pain, then the definition of pain cannot be fixed. Yet we still speak of having pain, of sharing pain. We are able to communicate our intensely private sensation of pain in a public sense. We are able to come to a consensus of what constitutes pain.

People are intrigued by the private language argument because they feel that nobody else can know their feelings and sensations. It is seductive because our sensations are private and it is impossible to communicate how it feels to have the sensation, to describe it exactly, to make the listener experience our sensations. It leads us towards the belief that we have a private language. This is the strongest objection to the thesis: that we refer to private sensations to understand public language and we refer to our private sensations with a private language. The advocates for this objection will disagree primarily with the conclusion that the meaning of a sensation term must necessarily be fixed in a public language in order for the speaker to communicate that sensation. It is however, a fundamentally flawed objection as Wittgenstein proves.

The private language advocate can reply to Wittgenstein that he is right; we use concepts and expressions that are understandable to others to communicate a sense of pain; yet we can find meaning in the sensation term for pain in our own personal experience of pain. This objection is almost beside the point. Remember, a private language refers to what can only be known by the individual speaking. By Wittgenstein's definition of what constitutes a private language; the meaning of a public term cannot be a private sensation. As Wittgenstein says: "in so far as it makes sense to say that my pain is the same as his, it is also possible for us both to have the same pain"(253). If two people can compare their pains and agree that they are the same and the while retain a private understanding that their private pain is different, they are saying that their pains are similar. In any case, if the meaning of pain was private, they would not be able to compare their pains; each having a different conception of what constitutes pain.

V

Wittgenstein attempts to reconcile these two arguments. He tries to "shew the fly the way out of the [private language] fly-bottle"(309), to show the private language advocate their error. He attempts to build his own private language. Wittgenstein's eventual conclusion is that a private language is not functional. I will explain his argument in more depth.

Returning to Wittgenstein's interpretation of sensation terms; the ability to communicate pain is understandable because it derives from a public conception of pain. If these sensation terms were natural expressions of sensations, his language would not be private because these expressions would clearly be understandable; being public. But, Wittgenstein notes, sensation terms are not necessarily natural. If there were no natural expression for pain, no groaning or grimacing, it would then become "impossible to teach . . . the use of the word"(257) that matches the sensation; if there ever was such a word. In such a case, the sensation might have a name invented for it; but because the sensation of pain is not obvious to others, it becomes impossible to communicate it. (How can someone with an impassive expression on their face communicate their blinding headache; something that they have never heard of, nor experienced, when there are no visual clues to alert other people to the existence of pain?).

Wittgenstein builds his definitions of the terms and limits of the private language argument by beginning with their foundation; sensations, and building up to sensation terms. But here, he is struck by an impasse: how could the sufferer of the sensation of pain have named it? This question illustrates the need to have a purpose for naming a sensation that is not shared. Why is there a need to name the sensation if it cannot be communicated? To give something a name without understanding why they have named it is a pointless action. To create a sensation term presupposes a public understanding of the term; which means that it cannot be a private object. How can the private sufferer of pain give it a name without privately understanding the reason for giving it a name? To give something a name is to place it in context; as Wittgenstein says: "it shews the post where the new word is stationed"(257). Hence, the existence of a private grammar must be presupposed. A private grammar is necessary to place the name in its context in a private language.

Wittgenstein's attempt at the construction of a private language fails because of insufficient stage-setting. This is clearly demonstrated in his diary example. Wittgenstein's diary example shows how giving a sensation a name without context becomes futile. Wittgenstein decides to keep a diary of a recurrent sensation that he feels; to which he gives the sign 'S'. The sensation, Wittgenstein says, is indefinable, but he can "concentrate [his] attention on the sensation - and so, as it were, point to it inwardly"(258). By this, Wittgenstein refuses to publicly define his sensation; the only sign of his holding that sensation is the moment at which he marks in his diary the day during which he had 'S'. He defines the sensation internally, by impressing it on himself; by saying 'I am feeling "S" right now', thus marking the connection between the sensation and the sign. The sensation is relevant only to Wittgenstein; only he can say whether he is correct in identifying subsequent sensations as 'S'. Wittgenstein remarks on the keeping of the diary as merely a ceremony, for it does nothing and accomplishes nothing for anyone else.

Wittgenstein elaborates that it is necessary to remember that the words that he has used in creating this example of the use of a private language come from a public language: "'sensation' is a word of our common language, not of one intelligible to me alone"(261). The use of these words within a public language stand in need of a justification of their meaning in the public language. The meaning of the sensation term, 'S' is not fixed in the private object that Wittgenstein designated as representing 'S'. 'S' must be defined in the public language for the diary experiment to make sense. Also, Wittgenstein charges that there is no feeling of "pointing-into yourself, which often accompanies 'naming the sensation' when one is thinking about 'private language'"(275). We live everyday without considering that what we see and feel are unique to ourselves; this is because we think in a public language, where we accept that our sensations and feelings, if not the same, are shared. The private object that represents the blue sky, our pains, cannot provide the meaning for sensation terms. What does represent the meaning of sensation terms is a gestalt of private and public understanding of the sensation the term represents.

We communicate our sensations through sensation terms. The meaning of these sensation terms cannot lie in a private language. By the definition of private language, they are not be communicable. To communicate a sensation; a public term must be used. The meaning of a sensation term cannot be a private object that the term picks out. It must always be fixed in a public object; otherwise the sensation term becomes irrelevant. Private language fails because of the constant need to fix its meanings with regard to a public language.

VI

Wittgenstein's thesis is supported by contemporary philosophy of mind. In contemporary philosophy of mind; materialism is the only game in town. Even a light reading of Wittgenstein confirms him as a hardened materialist. An objection to the materialist presentation of consciousness is from the position of qualia. Qualia is a subjective theory. The advocates for qualia claim that consciousness can never be defined physically, that there is another, inexplicable side to our mental states. This is as opposed to the materialist view that consciousness can be and will be fully understood. A Neo-Wittgenstein argument against qualia will eliminate the qualia objection to the materialist view of consciousness, by the same criteria by which Dennett sniffs: "they just aren't functional"(404) and dismisses Jackson's epiphenomenal qualia.

This contemporary theory is relevant to the examination of the thesis because both are similar problems. Both are reliant on what cannot quite be defined. Qualia and sensations are names for related mental states, if they are not the same thing. We cannot know another person's qualia just as we cannot know another person's sensations. Qualia is the Latin for qualities. In philosophy it is the qualities of experience that are under discussion. Personal experience, strictly speaking, is a private object. It includes sensations. The problems of qualia and private language are similar in that they are both internally located. A private language is possible just as epiphenonemal qualia are possible; it's just that both are non-functional. Both have no real effect on the world. Frank Jackson's interpretation of epiphenomenal qualia is that "certain properties of certain mental states, namely these . . . called qualia, are such that their possession or absence makes no difference to the physical world" but the "instantiation of qualia makes a difference to other mental states, though not to anything physical"(133). This sounds familiar. Although the analogy is not perfect, in that sensations do make a difference in the physical world, a private language does make no difference to the physical world and it would make a difference to other mental states. Wittgenstein does not directly say this, but implies it when he says: "One plays patience by oneself"(248).

Wittgenstein's argument against private language works just as well against epiphenomenal qualia if we consider it as an inclusive sensation term. A neo-Wittgenstein argument will consider that epiphenomenal qualia is a collective term for sensations. It would then deconstruct it in the same way as I have described previously; reaching the conclusion that although epiphenomenal qualia are private, they are discussed in a public language and therefore do not constitute a private language. As I have said, the analogy is imperfect, but this relevant because it is a new materialist reply against qualia.

VII

Wittgenstein effectively removes the foundation stone of the old Seventeenth and Eighteenth century models of language, at the same time rejecting the idea of private language as being inconsequential with the thesis: that the meaning of a sensation is not a private object the term picks out. This thesis eliminates the relevance of having private language by removing the meaning of sensation terms from private objects that the term represents. What does represent the meaning of the sensation term is a gestalt of private and public understanding of the sensation the term represents. Wittgenstein shows that all private language arguments fail because the meaning of their terms need to be fixed in a public language. This is the strongest argument for the thesis. The main objection to the thesis is that we look to our private sensations to understand the meaning of public sensation terms. Wittgenstein, however, shows us that our understanding of these sensation terms is based on a public consensus on their meaning. The thesis indirectly rejects the qualia objection to the materialist view of consciousness in contemporary philosophy of mind by asserting that, as a private language is non-functional, qualia is non-functional because they are not relevant to the physical world. We may have them, but they don't do anything relevant. "So", Wittgenstein says, "in the end when one is doing philosophy one gets to the point where one would like to just emit an inarticulate sound"(261).

Bibliography

* Brown, Derek. PHIL 311 Lectures 1995
* Dennett, Daniel. Consciousness Explained. (Penguin; Auckland, 1991).
* Jackson, Frank. Epiphenomenal Qualia. Philosophical Quarterly. 1982. (127-136).
* Proudfoot, Diane. PHIL 311 Lectures 1995
* Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. (Oxford; Blackwell, 1992). (paras: 243-308).

The Resistance of the Hyperself against the Concept of Simulation in William Gibson's Burning Chrome.

2005-10-15T11:14:00.000+13:00

AMST 106

The Resistance of the Hyperself against the Concept of Simulation in William Gibson's Burning Chrome.

1/6/95

In the postmodern, decentered world of William Gibson's Burning Chrome, the notion of identity is rapidly disappearing. It is slowly being destroyed by the pervasive influences of simulation and the development of the hyperself in response. It is erased by a supersaturation of stimuli, so overwhelming that the distinction between the artificial and the real is completely lost and Gibson's universe becomes, like his matrix, a disorientating, dangerous and strangely seductive place to be. Individuality is all but lost, but resistance exists in some individual agencies' adaptation and subversion of the bewildering array of technology and sentient corporations prowling the fragmented globe. The hyperself becomes the only way to preserve a semblance of individuality in the face of the loss of originality. The hyperself becomes a resistance against assimilation into the power games that corporations play in the killing fields.

The central source of the erosion of identity in Burning Chrome is its saturation with simulation. Simulation becomes the medium for communication. Baudrillard's "ecstasy of communication" lies in the transcendental aura of Gibson's cyberspace. Cyberspace is a virtual realm that exists everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It is a simulation created to illustrate the relative sizes of databases and to act as a virtual universe. The simulated matrix is "an abstract representation of the relationships between data systems . . . [an] electronic consensus-hallucination that facilitates the handling and exchange of massive qualities of data"(197). The matrix is laid out in cyberspace. It is best described in Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive as "the bright grid, the towering forms of data . . . a chrome yellow plain of light"(269). No amount of description can describe how transcendental the matrix seems to be: it is a "bodiless exultation" Even though it is an "illusion"(205), it is more real than reality.

Another dimension of cyberspace are the simstims. These are a futuristic version of today's soap operas, made possible by the same technology that created the matrix. Simstims, or "simulated stimuli"(211), are viewed as if the viewer was the star, Tally Isham: "the world - all the interesting parts . . . as viewed by Tally Isham. Tally raced a black Fokker ground-effect place across Arizona mesa tops . . . Tally partied with the superrich on private Greek islands, heartbreaking purity of these tiny white seaports at dawn"(211). These two dimensions of cyberspace come from advances in bio-technology and use simulation to draw the subject in.

Simulation in Gibson's world is pervasive. Because it is pervasive and indistinguishable from the original, the distinction between real and artificial becomes lost. The artificial becomes more real than the real. Cyberspace becomes more appealing than reality. In 'Fragments of a Hologram Rose', Parker survives only through his ASP (apparent sensory perception) fix. He uses ASP cassettes to enable him to sleep, and to escape from his mundane job writing "continuity for broadcast ASP, programming the eye movements of the industry's human cameras"(53). When he discovers a blank cassette that his ex-lover has recorded and jacks in, the calmness of the cassette is more soothing than his early life in a violent, turbulent and confusing Texan landscape: "European sunlight. Streets of a strange city. Athens . . . Look through her eyes . . . at the gray monument, horses there in stone, where pigeons whirl up and circle"(57). It is an escape for Parker. This idyllic cassette projects into cyberspace, where he becomes the woman in Athens and finds refuge in simulation.

The question of whether a simulated, artificial consciousness is the same as a normal consciousness is raised by 'The Winter Market'. Because the artificial is more real than the real, there is no distinction between the two. Casey, a dream editor and producer meets Lise, a young, terribly wasted girl wired on wizz and so weak; her body is only supported by an exoskeleton wired to her brain. He discovers the power of her mind, and helps her become a star. Neuroelectronics, a subsidiary of biotechnology has reached the stage where dreams can be recorded, and consciousness downloaded into massive databases. This technology creates a star out of Lise, but she is dying, so her consciousness is encoded into a database. Casey is troubled by his knowledge that "she was dead, and I'd let her go. Because, now, she was immortal, and I'd helped get her that way. And because I knew she'd phone me, in the morning"(140). Casey comes to the realisation that the artificial consciousness is no longer any different from human consciousness. After all "the technology is there, so who, man, really who, is to say?"(165). Simulation, in Lise's case, has superseded the original. The simulation is the original, because Lise's body has been cremated, her identity or an approximation of it, is encoded into a database. She will phone him. Who can say it is not real?

Every person's identity changes according to circumstances. The core of identity is the self, the part of an individual that always remains the same. In Gibson's universe, circumstances change so rapidly that a multiplicity of identities is needed to cope. This multiplicity forms the hyperself. The hyperself is a self constructed out of various personas according to need. The self has evaporated; there is nothing at the core of the individual, only personas filling an empty shell.

In 'New Rose Hotel', Fox and Sandii shuffle their identities like packs of cards. Fox is in search of the 'Edge', a new tool to make him perform even better for his chosen corporation, Hosaka. He discovers this Edge in Sandii, discovered in a bar in Yokohama; she is "Eurasian, half gaijin, long hipped and fluid in a Chinese knock-off of some Tokyo designer's original. Dark European eyes, Asian cheekbones"(125). Sandii is like Fox in that she has multiple identities. Her past is never the same, it is a construct cut from a deck of identities: "cut carefully from the scattered deck of [her] past"(130). Sandii is the definition of the hyperself. Even her features typify the hyperself; they seem constructed from the best possible.

Sandii floats into the narrator's life and helps him and Fox defy the expertise of Maas Biolabs GmbH, a multinational corporation, by kidnapping their key genetic engineer for their rival, Hosaka. Then she betrays them, and destroys Hosaka's Edge with a synthesised meningal virus manufactured by Maas. Sandii disappears; she adopts another identity and vanishes into the confusion and decay as Hosaka hunts, a wounded animal screaming for blood. The narrator, safe in his coffin room, can only wonder: "sometimes you just didn't seem real to me. Fox once said you were ectoplasm, a ghost called up by the extremes of economies"(137). This is what Sandii is, a hyperself; who, when examined, is entirely superficial. There is no core beneath the multitude of identities past and present.

This hyperself, while being a consequence of the necessities of Gibson's world, is also a form of resistance. It is a form of resistance because it is the choice of an individual agency. It is the only way to preserve a semblance of individuality in the face of corporate might. It was Sandii's choice to betray her lover and work for Maas against Hosaka; she asserted her individuality, and shuffled her deck of identities and disappeared. She used Fox and the narrator to advance out of her previous existence: "We thought we'd found you, Sandii, fbut really you'd found us. Now I know you were looking for us, or for someone like us . . . looking for a way out"(130). It was her choice; the assertion of her will. Rather than being acted upon, Sandii acts for herself. She makes active and original decisions. This magnesium flare of originality, of Edge, in Gibson's decaying landscape is a resistance to the relentless oppression of the corporations. Sandii was an individual agent. In a similar way, Fox and the narrator are individual agents, part of a whole, but ronin: "We were mutagens, Fox and I, dubious agents adrift on the dark side of the intercorporate sea"(128). Resistance is going with the tide, and working subtle, damaging changes to the composition of the sea.

In a different way, the cyberspace hustlers of 'Burning Chrome' are resisting by subverting their technology and entering cyberspace to steal data. In 'Burning Chrome', Bobby Quine and Automatic Jack cut into Chrome's database; slicing through malevolent black ice with a Russian military icebreaker to insert a program that will remove all her money, giving it to "a dozen world charities. There was too much there to move, and we knew we had to break her, burn her straight down, or she might come after us. We took less than ten percent for ourselves"(217). They are cowboys; it is their job to do this kind of stuff. Gibson's characters in his novels are usually cyberspace hustlers; breaking into huge corporation databases to remove vital information, or to simply, like Bobby, steal money. These corporations are encased by black ice, which is a neural feedback weapon designed to repel or even kill intruders.

Ice (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics) is an example of how real simulation has become. It is real enough to kill. By breaking through Chrome's ice: "They said she cooked her own cancers for people who crossed her, rococo custom variations that took years to kill you"(196), Bobby and Jack are resisting the implication that they cannot do the job, that they don't have the guts to face her ice. They are burglars, thieves, working "for other, wealthier thieves, employers who provided the exotic software required to penetrate the bright walls of corporate systems, opening windows into rich fields of data". Because they are thieves, they are resisting the status quo, and they do this by adapting the technology created by these corporations and turning it back at them.

In William Gibson's dystopian, fragmented universe of predatory multinational corporations, in the decaying urban infrastructure of Burning Chrome; the concept of identity has been worn away by the relentless bombardment of simulation. The simulation becomes more real than the real and the sense of the original is lost. Because of the loss of the original, there is no longer any distinction between real and artificial. There is no difference between the human consciousness and the simulation of consciousness. In their attempt to resist this supersaturation; individual agencies subvert and adapt the technology that makes the simulations possible for their own ends. Ultimately, individual agency is no match for the corporations; all they can do is to try and survive. These survivors have evolved a hyperself; a multitude of identities to live in this postmodern universe. The hyperself is their attempt to be original; to go against the intercorporate tide, to assert their individuality. After all, it is the multinational corporations, the zaibatsus who are the dominant lifeforms; the individual agent's continued existence depends only on not being caught.

Bibliography

* Baudrillard, Jean. 'The Ecstasy of Communication'. From The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. (ed.) Hal Foster. (Bay Press; Port Townsend, 1983).
* Gibson, William. 'Fragments of a Hologram Rose', 'New Rose Hotel', 'The Winter Market' and 'Burning Chrome'. From Burning Chrome. (HarperCollins; London. 1983).
- Mona Lisa Overdrive. (Grafton; London, 1989).
- Neuromancer. (HarperCollins; London, 1984).
* Gregg, Jane. Tutorial 3. AMST 106; 16/5/95.
* Wilcox, Leonard. AMST 106 Lectures on White Noise and Burning Chrome. From 8/5/95 to 17/5/95.

Notes on “Red Roses for Bronze” (HD CP: 209 – 305)

2005-10-15T11:00:00.000+13:00

On the function of the poet / of poetry / rejection / isolation / in unrequited love / and need for spirituality / HD sculpts her love in bronze / shaping the contours and wandering curves / belittled, mocked by cynic curls worn / by a light and free intellect / imprisioned by her gaze /

“With stroke, / stroke, / stroke, / stroke, / stroke at–something” (211) melts with welcome / HD’s careworn emotions sliding layers over one another, sediment falling to the sea-bed as her wishes, her images spin lazy down the page / how easily am I caught by red roses caught in bronze / when exasperated, a little breath is lost / “that I would prove too strange, too proud, / for just the ordinary sort of come and go, / the little half-said thing, / the half-caught smile,” (211-2) / the incredulity of “forgot? impossible,” (212) / quiet, contemplative, plaintive – a woman, fiercly independent / but desire has pulled despair out of the ravine / that separates by a marble stair / of love denied / of gaze fallen upon the muscle concealed beneath fine weave / her desire surges forth “I feel that I must turn and tear and rip” (213) / in her frustration – she longs to flail forth – to make him aware of her singularity among women / treat my exception with honour /

A scenario is built in IV / would you meet me “to-day – / tomorrow will not do at all;” (213) / HD’s discomfort makes my fingers ache as they dance over the keys / why the aching pain inside me / nags me, pushes fears forward / my faith in writing ever nearer the marble stair / of alienation and misunderstanding / without the complete picture / how can I proceed? /

Afro–futurist sound–check for Harry Allen / Ray Keith live in Mannheim, Germany: 000602 / http://www.breakbeat.co.uk/archive/dnbevents/liveevent3_raykeith.asx / now droppin Krust’s ‘Cloakin Device’ / http://www.krust.co.uk/media/real/new_releases/cloakin_device.ram /

Encircled by light caught in a tangle of serpents, HD slips into a rapture / bewitched by his hair / his eyes, flecked with pounamu glint / and we are swept by her adoring gaze / grasping the ineffable essence which words attempt to imprision / her love, who is as distant as the stars, as Mars, or Actaeon / as avatar of Artemis, the Huntress / buried beneath the hounds of desire, despair and desolation / Artemis’s own, not his own / did HD wish she would be stumbled on – in a cavern – to find Actaeon caught in surprise at Artemis’s sudden beauty / as she bathed / only to have her call his own hounds upon his transcendence from hunter into hunted / that sudden betrayal of purpose / of desire revealed all too late / when wounds bleed for too long / in mis-deed, retribution is swift / even the crime of inattention /

And did Artemis deliberately lose her race / did she cast her face / so that the dappled light beneath oak trees / flickered with irony over the freed mystery / of allure, so deep and still that all men are ensnared by her visage / in all her honesty – all her forthright pride – her solid sense of worth / so that she seethes in jealousity, in hate, and in love spited / spiritedly sings “I would clear so fiery a space / that no mere woman’s love could long endure; / and I would set your bronze head in its place, / about the base, / my roses would endure,” (215) / as she knows that her own is eternity / her red rose in brazen words sprint ever forth / outwards and upwards through time / the flame always one step ahead of ashes and dust / all that is left of these of lesser spirit / where is the earthy ideal / deal la ma!

Esprint activated / 21 electrodes tingling in the sudden vacuum / auditory relief / back into the formless / bone conducting vibrations from each bone – a nerve relay / no perceptible delay in response between nature and machine / sound meshes with vibro-sense / I listen to HD – she continues, a poem may also be a microcosm for a book / and “Red Roses for Bronze” circles and penetrates these themes / HD, a dancing matador goading her malcontence / HD finds a certain liberation in the expression of sensuous image and ritual / in a love which is transcendent / “ is a trap, / a snare ) /a bird lifed a passionless wing; / nothing, nothing was ever so fair / as the wonder that clutched at me there, / unaware; under the rain; my brain sang” (217) / in this refrain, too easy to grasp at this / and say ‘HD knows the pain of indifferent beauty; of the besotted vision which finds sumptuous wonder in the most starved of gesture’ / while this is not quite simplex, does it go deep enough into complexity to be called multiplex? /

One often finds darkness in the depths / and “Red Roses for Bronze” ends with ‘The Mysteries’ / a poem which begins its six sections in dark days / gloomy spirits, turbulent earth / then breaks the permafrost with the first flower of the season / at the cusp of her love lost / comes love renewed / with spring in step, it’s hard not to lift your head / and smell your bouquet / a sceptre / a flower / enchanter / magician / arch–mage / escalating magics running across the moor to greet the stripped, fevered warrior / its purpose? “Not to destroy, / nay, but to sanctify” (303&304).

My feeling is that this dimension of HD’s work reflects but one facet of her nature / and nature is the key / nature transcends human failings / while the pangs echo endlessly down corridors / “the air / will be full of multiple wings;” (218) / again, and again, HD turns away from the frailities of other humans to these long gone myths the Greeks stole from Kemet – but whose essence lives on, in the history of the tale / HD’s voice runs now quick, “Who is there, / who is there in the road?” (223), now lifted by endorphins “again shall my pulses beat / like the deer / escaped from the net,” (226), now melancholy “Hard, / hard it is to wake the gods, / but once awake, / hard, / hard, / hard is the lot / of the ignorant man,” (227) / Our own ignorance struggles with HD / in a world where words have become kaleidoscopic / where grammar has lost its importance / overwhelmed by the sound–bite / where classical no longer means white european achievement / but tradition in all its multitude / where the Greeks sample Africa / the persistent, constant use of Greek mythology to accentuate / imposes http://longman.awl.com/mythology/glossaries/default.asp upon the reader / even as “Orion bent / to shelter Artemis;” (261) and is slain for his pains and thereafter his dance across the sky is chased by the scorpion /

Peter Fogarty A4 14 000806

Notes on HD’s ‘Leuke’ in her _Helen in Egypt_

2005-10-15T10:58:00.000+13:00

On L’isle blanche “as a flash in the heavens at noon / that blinds the sun, / is their Meeting.” CP100 I am struck by this image of the white island – a splitting of the atom – skills known to the ancients – an ability to split the atom with the weapon of superconsciousness – as Krishna demonstrated for Arjuna, and the walls of Jericho ruined by chanted harmonics. If Agamemnon and Achilles are two parts of an atom, to be split asunder for love, whom is the third star, if not Helen?

The cruel ties of Love bound within a gaze; Love does not love me but I love Love. As Helen wanders in the veils of time, she is drawn to her changing story: the disputable origins, locations and serenity of floating beneath a clear Mediterranean summer night. I smell the crisp tang of hot sand as my senses withdraw – the stars measured by the sway of a mast.

Again, the woman scorned, Oenone: abandoned by Paris for Helen of a thousand ships. Yet she bears witness to the death of her Love, calm, but for her “wild eyes” as Pallas turns her back on Paris. The handsomest man alive, the bewitched suitor betrayed to his death by Aphrodite’s promise. Yet he slew Achilles for Helen, the man whom she loved – after Aphrodite’s spell untangled at the walls of Troy.

Driftshards in time, detail of a veil fluttering in the wind as Helen vanishes into the stairwell.

Dying Paris reaches out for ghostly Helen, “you say you did not die on the stairs, / that the love of Achilles sustained you; I say he never loved you.” HE 144.

Theory ? Text ?

2005-10-15T10:57:00.000+13:00

“we were frenzied beasts rampaging on bassfields in the jungle: surgical artists remorselessly guiding our passage.” Fogarty, 000319.

Where is text? Where is theory? Two questions bring storms of response; so many conditions can preciptate a different kind of rain, or shall we say: text. The imprint of alphabetic and alphanumeric symbols on a page, a screen, or a mind, is this text? If we play with the textual layers, my text, your text, Hyde’s text, whence can we define text from the nth dimension? From a vantage-point: a photon orbiting a nucleus composed of variant neurons. Text slides, a platelet on an icy mountain freshlet, bumping, spinning about grassy stalks thrusting from the current, in my mind. But these words are timid, flashy and ultimately arise out of distraction, as one reads desperately, to cleanse the eye from theory, from fiction, from poetry, from the mundane horror of 1930s fiction, no more circumlocutions! I beg of you.

Demanding, childish voice: TEXT?

If we are so pendatic as to have to refer to a dictionary or some other such resource, we find that the common consensus hallucination is that text is “the main body of printed words in a book as opposed to the notes and illustrations.” How anal. But as we delve deeper into this book on the sixth floor, we find that “the actual words of an author or piece of written work as opposed to commentary on them” is a fair idea of what text should be in our context of Hyde.

BUT.

The piece of paper in your hand, with the squiggly symmetrical markings on it, in even columns and rows, is this not a text? No. How many times?! I’m not an author. I’m not a writer; not even a textualist, ok? This piece of paper, or electronic bits encoded within a document in server no.5 in Superb Net, Seattle, cannot be considered to be a text unless I, myself am under discussion, under investigation for insubordination and dereliction of duty. In such an environment, this would be and shall be considered a text, as would my handwritten notes, as would any fragmentary piece of paper yielding some nonsensical phrase, in my hand, shall we see: “ in silence there is no death, only replenishment. Iron child, leaden, heavy: a burden to be carried, dead weight, consuming always with no return  iron child = war machine / stormy / fierce and petulant”. But here! A little further on, we find this apparent non-sense in a high, frantic hand, some words seemingly meaningless: “Elantite! Sharp SpIked [exaggerated, resembling meaning] needles mounting sea ripples [scribbles?] / waves weighing upon our furtherst shore of plenty  a movement into spasmodicy” (unknown notebook found unburnt in the ashes of Fogarty’s desk. 370819). The surrounding context for this unusual fragment is the work Fogarty was studying at the time, The Book of Nadath. We believe this because of “iron child”, which is the title of the eighth section of this long poem’s publication in 99. Could Fogarty have been referring to Hyde’s handwriting or his own? We shall never know, we are at too distant a remove to attempt to organise Fogarty’s disheveled notebooks, filled as they are with poetic rambles.

However, this discursion across textfields illustrates the potential for any piece of writing to be considered a text. Your text is as good as my text. But my text isn’t a text: it’s commentary. It cannot be considered a text unless it’s taken by unknown hackers and mutated into a text; anthropologists, sociologists, poor students undertaking textologic evacuations of the jumbled characters in such foolhardy rushes of expression post eleven hundred on twenty eight of three in zero zero.

These preliminary conditions for Hyde mean that our answer must be; any known, unknown fragment, letters, manuscripts and published works: all compose her text.

“what . . . is this thing that makes your heart roar and the muscles sing on your bones . . . ?” They Flew At Ciron, 81.

Nadath & Prophet: I could see how they could be regarded as similar, structurally. Nadath: false indeed, imagery obscures enlightenment, speaks to my eye, to my mind. Prophet: sings, unbearable song of freedom, of realisation, of escape through the eightfold path, out of the five delusions into the trinity of our world. We do not live in duality. Where is Rubaiyat in this?

Pleading, sobbing voice: THEORY?

This entire A4 is all theory, if we consider theory to be a series of ideas and general principles which sought to explain some aspect of text, these ideas and explanations have not been proven and never will. That’s is the nature of theory baybe! These conjectures about Hyde’s texts, about her compositions, the ‘correct’ manuscript theories; they’re all just hypotheses. However some hypotheses are better than others  what right does one have, sixty-one years later, to make decisions based on fragmentary manuscripts? It’s the desire to see something brought into the light of day, of criticism, to show literary artists the genius in their midst, with the apologetic understanding that this is an unfinished work, but here it is, in the way we believe the text was intended to be presented. No one is omniscient, it’s all theory, and we cannot have the practical application of our theories: how dare you accuse me of necrophilia?

I shy from theory, as I shy from a cowherd with razorblades embedded in sugarcubes, my forelegs threshing the air as the bit clamps my tongue and pulls my head down. Whence does text dissolve, becomes actuality? Crossing these borders is a monumental task of sorting, poring, associating: jumble of dates in my mind, made more confusing / difficult by different scales, agreements and jealous guarding of documents. Exhibitionist, isn’t Fogarty?

The deaf infant’s movement through Kristeva’s Semiotic and Symbolic

2005-10-15T10:55:00.000+13:00

175.707

The deaf infant’s movement through Kristeva’s Semiotic and Symbolic

Peter Fogarty
Friday 22 October

Analyzing the development of the deaf infant through Julia Kristeva’s semiotic and symbolic with focus on the chora, thetic and mimesis stages highlights the source of the problem deaf have with language acquisition. As Kristeva is notoriously difficult to comprehend, once the reader feels that se has understood her prose, a re-reading reveals yet another interpretation: therefore this can but be one possible application of her thesis. Because the deaf infant acquires language at a much slower pace than normal, it is interesting to see how Kristeva defines the boundaries of the movement of the infant from the semiotic into the symbolic. She moves out the scope of language into the extralinguistic past the relations of signifier and signified into the semiotic and symbolic, always with a concern for the speaking subject.

The semiotic is the formless, anarchic motility of impulse and energy seething in the infant’s body before hir drives manifest themselves in the symbolic, which it pre-signifies. The symbolic represents the concrete solidity of the defined, of language. The semiotic and the symbolic enable the subject to signify, produce discourse and engage in society; this is how they are related. In this way the infant learns to associate the signifier with the signified in the semiotic. The formation of hir subjectivity, of identity is made by the connections se makes between the signifier and the signified, thus allowing hir to move into the symbolic. The semiotic is the space occupied by the infant and hir mother; it is a space preceding the moment of stability, of identity acquisition and subject formation. Kristeva locates the infant in the semiotic by the chora: ‘an essentially mobile and extremely provisional articulation constituted by movements and their ephemeral stases’ (35).

Kristeva’s chora precedes everything, it is unformed, yet formed: it is the loci the infant, whether deaf or not, finds hirself immediately after hir emergence into the world from hir mother. The chora constistutes the uncertain infant before se begins to attain a signifying position; a position in which se consolidates hir identity before crossing the mirror stage. The deaf struggle to emerge from the chora into the thetic phase; their social stimulus is limited to the visual. They live within the social organization they were born into, their family and the communication system of their family, be it sign or oral speech. If the deaf infant is congenitally deaf, se will not acquire an understanding of sound until much latter in life; if the infant suddenly goes deaf, it comes as a great loss; a sense, which they did not know they had, vanishes and the trauma is evident. The social organization, which is always already symbolic, imprints its constraints onto the unformed motility of the chora. The deaf struggle to meet the expectations of a symbolic world while living in the semiotic chora & take a long time to move out into the thetic, and mimesis after that.

The movement out of the chora is marked by the infant’s drive to communicate; this drive is ambiguous, destructive and assimilating. The infant’s oral and anal needs are dominated by hir mother who mediates the symbolic. It is in this mediation of the symbolic that the life of a deaf infant is first determined: oral or visual, the drive to communicate is seeded here. This distinction must be made because it is the method the mother uses to speak to her child that determines the infant’s ability to acquire language. If the deaf mother uses sign to communicate with her child; the deaf infant develops quite naturally, speaking with hir body in gesture and mime. However, sign is object oriented; the tenuous connections between symbols and abstract ideas are not as easily expressed as they have no visual referent. If the mother uses an oral method of communication, such as was made in my case, with amplification of sound and speech movements, the deaf infant will take much longer to acquire language but has the potential to become almost assimilated into the social organization of the English speaking culture.

The drive to move out of the chora into the thetic phase and through the mirror stage is a struggle of waves against stases, pushing through blockages of understanding as the infant gradually realizes its separation from hir mother and passes through a castration phase. The deaf infant floods the barren plain of silence with hir body, expressing what se cannot, in the chora where se is generated and negated in motile instability. The realization that something is wrong, something is lacking, that they have been castrated unknowingly, their silence thrusts against their forming identity, molding it irreversibly as their body speaks. At 6 months of age, the deaf infant falls silent, vocal enunciation ceases but continues in gesture. The deaf infant of deaf parents soon learns to use sign rather than speech to attract hir mother’s attention, and thus their ability to vocalize is gradually lost and has to be brought back into life by therapy. I underwent twelve years of speech therapy to reach my current level of eloquence. The acquisition of the symbolic is a social effect of the relation to the other. It is established through biological and social differences and limits in concrete, historical family structures.

The deaf infant, as other infants do, moves from the chora into the thetic, the precondition for signification and assumption of language: the threshold between the semiotic and symbolic. It is within the thetic phase that the deaf infant moves apart from the normal infant in hir development. Hir growth slows, as stimulus remains visual and its place in the world, before the mirror stage, comfortably resides with hir mother. Fundamentally, Kristeva’s explanation holds for the development of all infants, but deaf in particular struggle to fully enter the symbolic in the sense that they find it difficult to form abstract concepts. It would be impossible, for example, to translate this essay into sign. Deaf tend to have a large vocabulary of signs representing visual concepts, but struggle to make connections between these signs: although all oscillate from the semiotic to the symbolic, the thetic phase is particularly problematic for the deaf

The thetic phase is the break in the signifying process between the signifier and signified: a slippage. The connection between signifier and signified to form signification is problematic for the deaf infant because they find it difficult to grasp the signified. The signifier is seen and understood implicitly, but the meaning in the signified is hard to learn and express. The deaf infant’s awareness of the world about hir is the same as a normal infant but the names of objects take longer to arrive, especially in an oral environment; in a sign environment, there may even be no naming sign for the object. Living in the motile semiotic, fragmented identity, clutching at hir mother, the deaf infant’s enunciation of hir drives is very much trapped in the oral and anal cycles in an acceptance that this is the way things are. This acceptance carries on throughout the deaf person’s life; if that is how things are, then that must be the way things are. The deaf infant learns this during the thetic phase before the mirror stage when se perceives hir reflection and realizes that hir unformed, motile state is reflected in a coherent body and discovers hir identity; hir space is filled by one alone, separate from hir mother. A spatial intuition is realized; the infant realizes se is separate from other objects and begins to distinguish itself with holophrastic enunciations while still in the agitated semiotic.

The deaf infant’s holophrastic utterances, expressing a complex of ideas with a sound or gesture becomes a signifier, the vocalization of the deepest structures of the body speaking its drive to communicate, its struggle to emerge into the symbolic with hir utterances. The deaf infant takes much longer to reach the threshold of language enunciation because se is not aware that gestures, sounds are communications until after passing the mirror stage. There is a division here in this threshold between the sign and oral deaf. The deaf infant in a social environment of sign, of deaf parents, learns early that vocalizing brings no response, whereas gesture does and thus its path of development through the thetic phase is fixed. There is an acute and dramatic confrontation between the unified subject, learning, positing, identifying, and the motile, uncertain, shifting semiotic chora at this stage of the thetic phase.

This separation of the semiotic chora and the unified subject which is posited in the social structure of the symbolic is a castration, a realization of identity and the infant begins to acquire language, guided by hir mother, who represents the phallus. The semiotic motility of the infant is transposed onto the more stable ground of the symbolic order. However the gap between signifier and signified remains; without completion of this phase no signifying practice is possible. Closure of the thetic phase comes with mimesis as the infant learns mimicry from its social environment. Because the deaf infant is trapped in the gap between signifier and signified, observing the signifier but unable to grasp the signified, it must mimic the function of the signified without understanding its meaning. Hence the deaf infant constructs an signified which is perceived to be like the truth but not quite.

The deaf infant of deaf parents comes closer to a normal acquisition of language than the oral deaf raised by hearing parents as visual gestures of sign language in their social environment are easily perceived, absorbed and imitated. The oral deaf are heavily reliant on direct intervention. The oral deaf infant’s mother must make a conscious and sustained effort to communicate with her child as speechreading is arbitrary in the least. An effort must be made on the part of the deaf infant to connect the movements of the mouth with the signified from its signifier. The deaf learn to communicate through mime, gesture and attempts to imitate their parents. Their body speaks by mimesis, the imitation of other creatures. The construction of the symbolic emerges from the semiotic in imitation of social convention. The most successful deaf are usually the born chameleons.

Trapped in the gap between signifier and signified, the deaf infant will always struggle to make a connection between the two to form a full sign. It will not be until a much more mature life, after immersion in the social environment of the symbolic that the deaf is able to make deeper, abstract connections between signs. Even then, their language to the expressible concepts of that language limits the deaf who communicate by sign. As sign is very object oriented, the return to the poetic language of the semiotic in the symbolic; making the semiotic part of the symbolic, making it new, is virtually impossible, distinguished only by subtle nuances in gestures which directly refer to objects and their relation to the environment. It is nearly impossible to distort the signifier to enable this return to the semiotic. The problem of the acquisition of language for the deaf is rooted in the incompletion of the thetic phase, forcing the deaf to rely on the mimesis stage of their development. As language is a doubly articulated system, split between the signifier and the signified, the bridging of this chasm is precisely what distinguishes the deaf infant from a normal infant, absorbing the world like the utterly receptive sponge se is. The limits of the world are defined by the limits of the language learnt.

Bibliography

• Grosz, Elizabeth. Sexual Subversions: Three French Feminists. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989.
• Kristeva, Julia. “The Semiotic and the Symbolic.” The Portable Kristeva. Ed. Oliver, Kelly. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
• Literary Theory: An Anthology. Eds. Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Michael. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
• Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Ed. Miller, Jacques-Alain. Trans. Sheridan, Alan. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.
• Lacan, Jacques. “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.” Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. Eds. Rice, Philip and Waugh, Patricia. New York: Edward Arnold, 1992.

psychobabble

2005-10-15T10:53:00.000+13:00

psychobabble

dual spin plates suspended astagger
gravity wells column roil square

cultivate field of thought
objects within define room more

enclosed space contains preference
affinity, symbiosis of polyglot virii

open pasture to genetic meddlin
edges bleed territory: meaning

seeps sumps intermarry blurry survival
goldi closed, stranger proof deny

pattern of growth swell coffers
spill over, intrude infected ideas

spreading pool propagate species
seed germinate layers, strata

descent stepped into graduation
shoots waver glided ripple

no closure

but of course. I called it open field, and open field is what the poem discusses. We were reading a charles olsen text on geography, body and fields in literature, specifically poetry and poetics. There's a fair bit of pontification going on there, hence, psychobabble. the poem is just my psychobabble on the idea of open field.

psychobabble

with that image I attempt to evoke the idea of two plates spinning, generating a magnetic force opposing that of the earth and creating an effect of antigravity. they're plates so imagine these plates scattered and staggered across the sky, floating fields, also there's a metaphor there on the use of magnetic fields to oppose the natural forces of gravity that holds us all to the ground

dual spin plates suspended astagger

this continues the idea of gravity, the squares float in a roiling gravity well, gravity fights to ground them, but the magnetic forces oppose it,

gravity wells column roil square

on the plates, we cultivate a field of thoughts, of ideas, thinking of field as a conceptual space, in which fields are defined by the thoughts that it contains. if we utter a marxism, we're in the field of marx and marxists. if you know what I mean?

cultivate field of thought

it is what the field contains that defines it, looking at the individual objects that compose fields

objects within define room more

the space that encloses the field holds the preferred ideologies, conceptual trains of thought that consistute the field. these three lines are iterations of the same idea, what makes a field a field; what it contains

enclosed space contains preference

and what it contains is a certain affinity of thought, a symbiosis, or meld of several people's ideas, thought of a glut of ideas, and turned that into polyglot, I'm not sure if it's a word, I can't find its meaning anywhere, but it sounds good, and the sound's the thing, this poem is mean to be read aloud. virii is clear I thought, viruses infecting minds and changing their perspectives, breeding and feeding

affinity, symbiosis of polyglot virii

but what happens if you open a field/pasture? genetic meddling with what defines the field, is to change the field, so if we open the field, new ideas and thoughts are going to come through, discoveries made in one science applied to another in the humanities, by opening the field, we open it to meddling and mutation

open pasture to genetic meddlin

the thought of the field remaining identifiable at its center, but the opened edges of the field are blending, bleeding into the other fields, that point of crossover where meaning arises and situations are fluid

edges bleed territory: meaning

thinking of ideas seeping into sumps within our minds, for us to retrieve with our unconscious mind, intermarrying survival tactics, blurring the edges, it creates a nice little alliteration with the repetition of sounds here, only by joining forces can ideas survive and breed, marry

seeps sumps intermarry blurry survival

this is a reference to the proofreading job that I did for penguin, and which prevented me from doing my A4 on time, which is why I wrote this poem during my class instead of doing something else before it. I got to class, found out what the topic was, and then made notes, writing the poem in the last ten minutes of the class. The book I was proofing was called Closed, Stranger, by Kate De Goldi

goldi closed, stranger proof deny

if the opening of the field is successful, ideas are bound to mutate, breed, spread and spill over the confinements of the original field, swelling coffers, and I mean coffers here in the sense of a strong, enclosed space, like a strongbox or the dry boxes used for underwater construction, if they can be swelled against the pressure of the outside mass . . .

pattern of growth swell coffers

and spill over, breaking into other fields, infected ideas, concepts intruding

spill over, intrude infected ideas

and spreading, a spread is propagation, procreation, more and more people click onto it, the survival of the species is strong, also liked the image of a pool of water spreading, that skin on the water inching along the ground . . .

spreading pool propagate species

seeds of thought germinate layers of the mind, strata, a visual image of the layers within, being fertilised by the conceptual seed

seed germinate layers, strata

a descent from that level of thought, in graduated steps, also a graduation as an accomplisment, and descent as return, a swoop from far heights

descent stepped into graduation

and to calm the consciousness after such a series of abstract images, a soothing line about shoots, rice shoots maybe, wavering in a ripple gliding across the surface,

shoots waver glided ripple

but there can be no closure, no resolution, no end of definition when it comes to open field, for that is the nature of open field.

no closure

16 / 08 / 1999

Meditation on Composition

2005-10-15T10:50:00.000+13:00

He glows with danger. Most people just shimmer . . . he looks like a lightning bolt.
Noon, Zukofsky and Stein in Constellation.

Peter Fogarty
175.716
24 | 6 | 99

eXplication
A constellation of voices observed; three suns moving into alignment against the starsprent sky of literature. Hanging in space, scratch of vacuum pulls my skin as I listen, my eyes bathing in trinary radiation. Before me, Noon, Zukofsky and Stein float, their massive gravities tugging at each other, bringing me ever nearer. It seems inevitable that I must soon flare in the atmosphere of the closest orb, Noon. Within this boiling G2 star, language is remixed and rewritten. Text borrowed from OneList email cut up and renewed with noise and flavour, a voice never spoken, yet Noon speaks anew. Triumphant, spared a fiery death, I draw near the red dwarf, infinitely dense, Zukofsky condenses but within such density is a bubbling marvel of expanding understanding, if only we have the key. If only we have the appreciation of the new, cries the solar wind from Stein, no key but understanding, of generation after generation of work.

This constellation is formed from readings of Stein, Zukofsky in the first part of the year, combined with the contemporary stylistics of Noon, move into juxaposition, stripping the page of glue, links become tenuous and only the collage remains. More specifically, in this spiral inwards, I looked at Zukofsky’s AN ERA poem, at the condensing and mathematical symmetry underlying the simplicity of the work. Because of the extraordinary briefness of word limit, I could only allude, hint and direct understanding of the reader to the poem itself, resting beneath my presumptuous text. As this text is a collage, it becomes a collage of impressions, of veiled knowledge orbiting the true sources of light. Each generation needs new metaphors, new mediums of communication. Stein pushes and cajoles us into new beginnings, into learning anew, repeating and reiterating in loops of understanding, using simple elements to create music. Noon plays with metaphors taken right out of remix culture, from the readers of the future, sample madness and noise built into a deconstruction of communication, fragments of an idea recombined and re-expressed. Noon is the centrepiece of this collage of an array of authors whose work express the drive to change, to perpetual motion across time. It is his technique that looks toward the unknown, that compresses coal into diamonds. Zukofsky and Stein float in their contrasting modes of thought, of condensation and reiteration.

Elements of collage have steered away from the elements on paper tip. Instead, I have presented you with a collage of ideas pasted on the metaphor of three suns orbiting one another in a distant solar system. Iterations within the text unite the three pages as a whole. Think of this brief explanation as the balance that keeps the stars from tearing into each other’s immense gravity wells of influence, as the voice within the text comes from my mind, the underlying text speaks for the original genesis of idea. Language is unified by a sensation of collage, electronic cut and paste, in the dissonances to be found with such brevity. You will notice my experimental approach to the problem of referencing quotations. The entire Noon section is extremely problematic because there is not one word that I wrote there. It is all his work cut and pasted into the form which you find it. Where I have retained assemblages of more than two words in this essay, I have referenced them with book initals and page number. Let us evade this issue and concentrate, shall we?

AN ERA / ANY TIME / OF YEAR is as good a place as any to demonstrate Zukofsky’s fascination with numerology and meaning residing within consonant and vowel. Two ways of reading Zukofsky, the hunt for meaning by the ear. With Michele Leggott’s aid, we can look at Zukofsky’s process of constructing meaning. This is an extremely condensed poem, a poem that may have arrived whole, a subconscious realisation of a lifetime’s work of condensation: the process of making something increase in density as it gets smaller. Condensation is more than half of composition. The rest is proper breathing space, ease, grace. AT (81). AN ERA does not fail Zukofsky’s test of poetry. It breathes, the vowels sing with their beauty as they bounce off the consonants in between, no matter how you read it, slowly, quickly, top to bottom, letter by letter: it takes even, calm breaths with the grace and quiet confidence of old age in a lifetime of great confidence. Looking deeper than the sound to its etymology exposes an abundance of meaning, as Leggott has done: from AN ERA, she finds crude metal dug from the earth [aes] cohabitating with airy arias rising out of the construction of nines in a constellation of possible readings RZ (41). Zukofsky’s desire for immortality rests in his intense, cramped notes and without these Zukofsky remains difficult.
He has segued beyond phonemes and morphemes to juggle the letters, attributing to each infinite potential, denser than a neutron star burning in a galaxy of Objectivists yet as expansive in meaning as a supernova.

Each generation has something different at which they are looking AS (495). New generations of conceptual understanding thresholds of consciousness mapped and intuition ordering perception as we gaze at the new. With her iterations Gertrude Stein loops us in pulls us around and round in a spin of meaning in her repetition of key words until understanding evaporates and it is the time in the composition, the sounds of the words that we listen to. Hear it jump, see it speak and shout, taste its construction. The using everything brings us to composition and to this composition AS (499). A collage of concern for time for attempts to alter the way we see things to introduce new media and attempt to establish and consolidate perception. It can only be a defining mechanism: composition is the difference which makes each and all of them different from other generations AS (495). Yet the refusal to conform to established forms of expression is also a denial of communication. The response time delay in comprehension is prolonged when perception of the new is force filtered through our experience and definition struggles. A work of the new must communicate, must subvert and reuse, loop, recycle word and meaning until thought is lost, then found. The movement of the sound of the words passing down a monoxide stained service corridor, dopplering and shifting is just as significant as the ideograms infecting language with communication and time stretches and compresses as meaning condenses and expands in ever increasing spheres within spheres as we hang aloft.

I set my eye to ignition PJ (265). Elaborate, experimental. Remix the song, dropping words, sounds, noises in and out of the mix, a ghost of the original: a haunting song. Stripped down to the bone, exciting images randomised, mixed on screen, paper cut out in new connections, secret messages. Dub. Building it up order story feel a new life. Images on the screen move into groups of three lines, counting the syllables, seventeen. Work as a page, as a text, as a shimmer of meaning. Karaoke. Electric haiku remixes the ghost of original text. Language Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors’ Desire FR. Borrowing texts, pushing them through filtering devices, producing new texts: ‘the unreadable book’. Break these into words, phrases, juggle them around, looking for a new hit JP. Educating people, breaking down language. Segue. Isolate best images, only things that interest; series of poetic images. Random mix a scrap of meaning in it, maybe using the same language, atmosphere. When you first write a word there is a moment when it is still drying, you can move it around before its meaning is set. Language, different drummers. Remix techniques lengthen the drying time of a word FR. A completely different story jar jars so layer more input. Scratching. Series of words through a complete mess in and out of sense. Put the work in; the final piece has to be brilliant. The processes I use break the language down and then work it up again, then you can work the relationship and move through a narrative. Some experiments fail and have to be abandoned. Beauty is a dirty word in experimental writing FR. More minimal structurally, a texture of individual sounds. Noon has put the hours in. Sampling. A Chemical Generation guide to the English Language.

:referenceS

AB: Pound, Erza. ABC of Reading. New York: New Directions, 23rd Printing.
AS: Stein, Gertrude. A Stein Reader. Ed. Dydo, Ulla E. Evanson: Northwestern University Press, 1996.
AT: Zukofsky, Louis. A Test of Poetry. New York: Celia Zukofsky Publications, 1980.
FR: Roberts, James [on Jeff Noon]. “Ghost In The Machine”. Frieze. London: Durian Publications, May 1999.
JP: Noon, Jeff. “Juicing the Pixels”. Posted by A.P McQuiddy. http://www.onelist.com/viewarchive.cgi?listname=Vurt&archive=137.gz
PJ: Noon, Jeff. Pixel Juice. London: Doubleday, 1998.
RZ: Leggott, Michele. Reading Zukofsky’s 80 Flowers. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1989.

Notes on “Tribute to Freud”

2005-10-15T10:46:00.000+13:00

Helen Cixois: “I understood that the only way to live was to seek refuge, to perch oneself in a private tree, to live on a different planet – one made of paper that stratches above murder and conflict.” Dazed and Confused – July 00 [64].

HD visits no other planets in ‘Tribute to Freud’ but our own unconscious collective mind. Her prose is transcendent in its simplicity, its clarity of description. I am moved, most moved when I read §53: “HE HAD SAID, he had dared to say that the dream had its worth and value in translatable terms, not the dream merely of a Pharaoh or a Pharaoh’s butler, . . . but the dream of everyone, everywhere.” This description of Sigmund Freud’s dream interpretations is simple and eloquent. By assuming dreams arise from a common well of human expression and symbolism, Freud makes psychoanalysis possible. As empirical evidence increases, the analysand may begin to understand how the roots of their neuroses are made explicit when in dream–time.

It goes deeper than that, though, superficially, this is his main discovery, but deeper still, diving down into the mud of our consciousness, and down into the subatomic strata of our mind, we find the spraying fountain of collective memory. Such images arise from HD’s singing praise:

“He had dared to say that the dream came from an unexplored depth in man’s consciousness and that this unexplored depth ran like a great stream or ocean underground, and that vast depth of that ocean was the same vast depth that today, as in joseph’s day, overflowing in man’s small consciousness, produced inspiration, madness, creative idea, or the dregs of the dreariest symptoms of mental unrest and disease.”

And HD’s delight in Freud’s understanding of the sciences from the East, the buddhist and yogic traditions of consciousness stamp this knowledge large: we are all one people and we have but to learn to listen to our deep ocean, to dive into the ocean and in the logical extension of such transcendent access, in the words of Theodore Sturgeon in his equally brilliant “To Marry Medusa”:

“Humanity had passed the barriers of language and of individual isolation on its planet. It passed the barriers of species now, and of isolation in its cosmos. The faith of Mbala was available to Guido, and so were the crystal symphonies of the black plants past Orphiuchus . . .. As one man could share the being of another here on Earth, so both, and perhaps a small child with them, could fuse their inner selves with some ancient contemplative mind leeched to the rocks in some roaring methane cataract, or soar with some insubstantial life–forms adrift where they were born in the high layers of atmosphere around some unheard–of planet.

“So ended mankind, to be born again as hive – humanity, so ended the hive of Earth to become star – man, the immeasurable, the limitless, the growing; maker of music beyond music, poetry beyond words, and full of wonder, full of worship.” [149]

Can you see how Freud is extrapolated beyond humanity’s collective understanding into a cross-species understanding – the glory of the self within the all-knowing, all-understanding hive mind across the cosmos? Sturgeon, perhaps the greatest undiscovered American writer of this century, has captured the Buddhist reality of the cosmic mind where each of us are motes, aware of the billions beyond billions of motes about us. This, the cosmic mind we find what Freud calls the collective unconscious, is the sea of dreams.

HD blasts the past into existence with her blitz on Freud’s importance to human consciousness – the art of self-discovery in a form the puritanical, supremacist mind could find reasonable and appreciate the subtle interpretation of ancient knowledge, from another facet, as it were, of consciousness. HD’s 85 petaled lotus flower swims serenely in literature: one is reminded instantly of Paramahansa Yogananda’s ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ and Soygal Rinpoche’s ‘Book of the Living’. Both are divinely inspired, both, as is ‘Tribute to Freud’, are read with the utmost ease – as if the magnetic attraction on the receptors of language created its frictionless glide.

I am stunned by HD’s recall of Freud’s anger: “ I did not know what enraged him suddenly. I veered round off the couch, my feet on the floor. I do not know exactly what I had said . . .. The Professor himself is uncanonical enough; he is beathing with his hand, with his fist, on the head-piece of the old-fashioned horseheair sofa hat had heard more secrets than the confession box of any popular Roman Catholic father-confessor in his heyday . . .. Consciously, I was not aware of having said anything that might account for the Professor’s outburst. And even as I veered around, facing him, my mind was detached enough to wonder if this was some idea of his for speeding up the analytic content or redirectiong the flow of associated images. The Professor said, ‘The trouble is – I am an old man – you do not think it worth your while to love me.’ [16] This, this reveals more of Freud’s humanity in a few words than everything by Seigmund,

“The victorious mouth or voice or utterance.” [88].

Peter Fogarty A4 15 000815

Black Gold - Published in Re:Mix Dec 2002

2005-10-15T10:30:00.000+13:00

Oil. Black gold underwrites the planet. Anyone living in the first world cannot avoid using oil. Most people think of oil as petroleum and refined gases: a greasy viscous combustible liquid. Plastic is a product refined from oil compounds as are CDs and some foods, candles and perfumes. We are immersed in oil-derived products; computer cases and cabling, implements, and even clothes are saturated with nylon compounds, waterproof coating and zipper teeth. You’d have to be naïve not to understand that efforts to control oil resources explain world political issues. If you slept through your history classes at high school, hear this: It’s always been about oil.

Consider this. Worldwide oil consumption is expected to exceed available resources within our lifetimes; this includes untapped reservoirs and stockpiles. The economic dependency on annual growth in output to remain stable of a militant, industrial and capitalist civilisation constantly multiplies demand. The world uses about 26 billion barrels of oil per year, but discovers only about six billion in new fields. Known global oil resources are expected to slow to a trickle within 2050 years. Geologists favour an earlier date than sociologists and economists.

Hitler drove his armies to the gates of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942 for the oil reserves beneath the Caspian Sea, desperately needed to supply his war machine. The hustling for the Caspian Sea oil never ended. The Russians will not grant independence for Chenchnya because the discovery of vast reservoirs of oil beneath Chenchnya in the late 1970s ensured that the region would be a global bone of contention as multinational corporations vie for rights to exploitation.

The key is Afghanistan where a 1,000-mile pipeline can be laid from landlocked Turkmenistan through long valleys to Pakistan and from there to the Red Sea. Cold war attempts to control the region resulted in the Russo-Afghan war: a decade of bitter fighting by American-backed Afghan and Arab mercenaries (including Osama bin Laden, recruited by then CIA director, drug smuggler and war profiteer George Bush Sr.) against Russian soldiers. Eventually the war collapsed the Russian economy and ended the cold war.

Fast forward to present day, and the hustling for Middle East oil continues. Why does democratic USA continue to back feudal Saudi Arabia, where all the 9/11 suspects were said to come from? With military bases in Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, the American military engine’s foothold in the Mediterranean, the Gulf, and the Arabian land mass became permanent after 1990’s Gulf War instigated by then President of the United States, Bush Sr. The American presence is justified as a contra-precaution against invasions by Iraq and Iran in return for plentiful access to oil. It is a great source of irritation for Middle Eastern nations: effectively a military occupation.

Every day the newspapers tell you about the price and scarcity of oil and about unchecked American or American-funded aggression in the Middle East. Terror grips the world every day. The media in America and the rest of the white world are pounding the war drums. Weekly, a new villain is discovered; if it’s not Osama bin Laden, it’s the Washington sniper, and now it’s a ‘rediscovered’ Saddam Hussein and his Iraq.

News media clamour that Iraq poses a threat to the civilised world because of its huge storehouse of biological weapons and potential nuclear capabilities. What they omit is that America and Britain sold these biological weapons to Iraq in the 1970s and 1980s. They also omit that America is the biggest violator of UN law; producing illegal biological weapons; environmental emissions; supplying Israel with financial and military assistance in its genocidal drive through the Occupied Territories of Palestine; daily bombing Iraq; and all manner of unspeakable covert operations.

The truth is that America badly needs Iraq oil. It has hit an energy supply ceiling exacerbated by bad management and reckless consumption. California’s power blackouts in 2000 were triggered by complete deregulation of the energy industry and a shortage of oil to generate electricity with, which meant that power suppliers withheld energy until bills were paid, but because of Enron-style ‘creative’ accountancy practices, that didn’t happen. This is the future of energy in America: shortages. Thus, America’s oil dependency endangers its national security. America consumes roughly 8 billion barrels of oil a year or a quarter of all global oil production. It is not just America that consumes too much oil. So do all the first world countries, including us.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, formed when Venezuela approached its competitors Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia to set a stable price for crude oil in 1949, is a powerful intergovernment oil cartel protecting and unifying oil interests. OPEC believe they ensure a fair return on capital to petroleum industry investors.

Fair? The Group of 7 (G7) countries OPEC supplies, America, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy and the UK, generated US$1.7 trillion dollars in taxes from $850 billion dollars worth of OPEC oil revenue over the period 19962000; double the price. The real profiteers (privateers) are the governments of consuming nations, including New Zealand and Australia. The UK receives four times more money from taxation than what OPEC gets from the sale of crude. Our government’s expenditure is also hooked on the tax revenues from our economic dependency on oil. Our governments readily see that our ‘strategic interests’ are at stake. That’s why New Zealand SAS lost limbs to American landmines in Afghanistan and why our minister of trade in opposition warns of American trade sanctions, which were lightened when our governments committed forces to Iraq in early November.

It’s a cliché, but it really is all about maintaining the oppressive white supremacist industrial-military complex of the ‘first’ world. Capitalists exploit consumer dependency on oil. Even at the end of October, OPEC oil prices were at their lowest for the eleventh week with no discernable effect on domestic oil prices. Where does the difference go? Meanwhile, news publishers worldwide are growing alarmed at the possible repercussions American control of the Middle East oil reserves would have on the planet. UN sanctions block access to an enormous 112 billion barrels of crude beneath Iraq’s radioactive sands; the second largest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia’s 264.2 billion barrels. Consider the well-documented connections the current Bush administration has with the oil, pharmaceutical, energy and armaments industries: Bush with Harken; Ashcroft with Enron; Cheney with Haliburton; and Rice with Chervon.

Why wage war on Iraq, when so far the oil industry and the ‘first’ world companies have gotten their way through military dominance in Arabia? The question may be answered by asking who stands to profit from a war on Iraq? Oil industry investors stand to sweep a bonanza if a new Iraqi regime biddable by the US replaces Hussein. One of these investor families is a family with war and oil connections going at least three generations back to a key financier to Hitler, Prescott Bush.

The most cynical realist cannot shy from considering the accusation that the tragedy of 9/11 was allowed to happen to pre-empt the future security of the United States of America. Strategists may have seen inevitable terrorism within America, and seen it as no bad thing. For years before 9/11, thinktanks have predicted a future of worldwide terrorism from dispossessed peoples, as well as a future of oil and water wars: a fourth world war.

So, what does all this have to do with Re:Mix readers? You are involved whether you like it or not. For one thing, this magazine would never reach you. Without oil the records played by DJs would not be made. Your CDs couldn’t be so cheap. Your bottles of Coca Cola would still be glass. You couldn’t fly out of the country. Your nightclub couldn’t sell imported alcohol. You wouldn’t be trading mp3s, surfing the net, chatting on IM, or writing emails. Power wouldn’t be conducted through cables to you. Oil is everywhere, in everything; it flows, and we live. Our lives are soaked in the destruction of the lives of millions of non-white people, crushed so that the ‘first’ world can enjoy abundant oil. Nameless people without number. People like us.

RED/GOLD

2005-10-15T10:20:00.000+13:00

In the blackness of a sealed tower
I find myself encircled by sound
As if I were a reed in the wind
Trembling and shivering in my sorrow

I stand in the deeps overwhelmed
By calm. A strange serenity
Settles upon me as I look into fastness
And am vastened. My mind

Shatters. A hyperbolic supernova
Mists away in a vild of light,
The universe is washed clean.
Enlarged so, in this darkness

The fates conspire to dismay me
With the scattered deconstruction
Amidst the fields of anger, I discover,
To regain confidence I must look

Heavy into the neural byways
of self and realise how lightly
This devastation has affected
The eternal curve towards freedom

Even as I stand within this fortress
Ensoncled by the great labyrinth
Of consciousness, it is easy to see
That all limits have fallen.

12/11/96

tyger dreaming

2005-10-15T10:16:00.000+13:00

I woke to the glare of morning
The blazing jungle has gone
Out of sight amongst the haze

In a wasteland I wander in a daze
And fall without glimpse of my fate
Into a cratered morass; green, fetid.

In the morning after the jungle
Ensnared the eagle in his
Drugged flight of glory;

As if the prey ran for his benefit
Beneath the azure vault
Within the belljar of ecstasy,

Lo loping across the plain
Exposed and glorying in this
Riding the windblown surf

A creamy gold ripple marking passage,
As a faery on the ride with a host
Of infinitesmal slowness of grace.

The wind buffets and struggles
To hold the eagle aloft.
As if gravity could with a magnet

Be reversed. The runner came closer
The curve of the orb diminished
While the sky deepened

The wind shrieking in his ears
Every pore became visible
And his talons extended

Like the thunderbolt he came
Out of the sun
Like a bat in evening trespass

With tears in his eyes.
How can it be immensely loved
And yet so alone and forever thwarted

As diamonds shimmer and tremble
While they float upon the air.
As if they were a webbed vault suspended

In nothingnesss. I awake upon a gleaming beach
All alone, surrounded by the magnificence of life
In every angle its abundance overwhelms.

Teardrops hover with the rainbow amongst
The tingling flesh like a diaspora
Between the miniature suns.

5/8/95

Niamh Lost To The Oracle

2005-10-15T10:15:00.000+13:00

A betrayal. A revealation in the night
Become cold. She has changed beyond
Memory; who is this stranger in my bed?
Even she looks different, but tellingly,
It is her mindset that alters my world.

What have you done? A world away
I had a feeling for snow, but this was
Not what I expected. Sure, you couldn't
Keep your need at bay, neither could I,
But this was different, this was love.

The moon has fought and lost twice
And I have been shocked deeply,
All my words lie about my feet,
With wide mouthed alarm my mind
Races for some explanation, some solution.

The secret lies in the shrill peaks
Where one loved and lost touch
As I lay upon a beach awash in stars
One was intensely embracing another
And I have lost interest, my mind begins

To wander. Adrift in a empty waste
I lived amongst an indifferent people
In a new civilisation upon the flat lands
Of need. It was hot, the night I burned
In the flames; all sensiblity eroded by loss

And heat. As the swan disturbed the air,
Pressed these trembling strands floating
Through a stream of fragmented reality
Into a recognisable pattern, a veil prevented
The engendering of Agamemnon in washes

Of colour, and lust was sated, and I forgot
Leda. At the front I wondered in
Misdirected love; How is She?
Does She long to return to the summer
plains swept in copper?

The continential came in and a mystery
Embraced me. 'I missed you!' She exclaimed.
But it was not until later that I knew,
It was forgivable, but what was unforgivable
Was the loss of trust, the keeping of secrets.

17/4/95

one of my deaths

2005-10-15T10:13:00.001+13:00

Last night I dreamed I was dead
gloriously dead upon a bright sea
voyaging with the angels.

Last night I saw an angel
in the garden speaking to a snake
in the shining grass beneath a bush

of bloody thorns, upon which were
impaled, righteous servants of the lord.
I dreamed my death last night;

down a slate grey street I walked
leaning against the breath of dragons
at the bottom of steel hives and then

I was penetrated, not once, but many times
violated I was raped viciously and brutally
against the grit and oil, smelling stale fish

and oranges. I am shattered, mangled
with glowing extensions from an alien mouth
blood flew splattered the sidewalk.

8/9/94

A conversation with Yoda.

2005-10-15T10:13:00.000+13:00

We are luminious beings, you and I
sharing the beauty of the world in one glance.

the snowcapped mountains rise
out of urban decay
disembodied voices speak
into my shattered ears

through chrome ravens I glare
at these murdering ghosts
searing up out of hell
reaching for the light

why that sense of deja vu?

I am so much in love with life
but I still have not dreamt
my death

There are infinite moments in which
the poet can enjoy
while a dagger hovers the while
above iridescent sapphires

the cats are beautiful. such smooth
grace. child of grace
what is your reaction?
have you said what you wanted to say?

why the beach?
why this obsession with blue?
that extends to the pen

we are luminious beings, you and I
life is a infinite hell, or finite heaven
in bowers of bliss
what are these voices saying?

7/8/94

Friday on the beach

2005-10-15T10:12:00.000+13:00

O
What can the wind do to me that it sways
my tenderbitten judgement and I am lost on a beach,

the sand burnt to ashes
beneath my scoured feet;
imprinted miles streak away from my red back

shimmering in the near distance
distorted by the iridescent heat
searing out of the white sea and blue tongue lashes

at my legs, sucking at my toes
and the old man beseeches me to come to him
with a prized morsel quavering between my legs,

and I see at my feet a new print.
It comes from the blue
teardrops fall and surf in the mould,

peaking in the heel then evaporates with much love.
There is another! They invite this man
who dreams of tygers and eagles towards the bush,

that jungle lurching out of deepest nature
of the wildest dreams of the savage garden;
incandescent strobes of exploding greens and browns

these tracks lead.
With salt upon my lips, and my nipples tingling
in remembrance of others

and their kisses draw me into that inferno.

25/6/94

untitled

2005-10-15T10:11:00.000+13:00

ah now why do you
murder me with a
brush of the lips?

why have you betrayed me
for the eternal agonies
of everlasting bliss

did gabriel seduce
you so that you lost
all sense

and opened yourself
to a succubus
and allowed the fiery seed

to sunder your life
and engender these blue
eyes fused with that grey

why do you do this to me
must you betray me
with a kiss?

7/6/94

satin tygers

2005-10-15T10:06:00.000+13:00

An agony sears through me
i am devastated
my fingers tingle
and i am dead

the little death
as a fountain
geysers from my
dick

arcing in the firmament
a white jet
of life seeking
tygers

tygers enclosed
within a delight
of many colours
and moods

living in my mind
rolling upon the satin
wilds beneath a liquid
blue sky

the godshatter
fills my senses
and i am content
to watch the shadows

frolic on my life's
breast, to taste her
nipple and awaken
from her sweet petite mort

with a slow kiss
and see the rising sun
come back for
more.

10/4/94

shards of glass - a fragment from 1993

2005-10-15T10:03:00.001+13:00

After seven years, he saw her again. He had thought her lost to him forever. Before, where she had been merely beautiful, she was now simply gifted with beauty. He stood, utterly shocked, staring at her as she walked, glided across the redbrick square, a spectre amongst mortals. Passing under pools of light, fingers of God stabbed, marking her progress. Her unnatural face gleamed during each encounter, it was utterly white. Somehow she was much more beautiful than he remembered. her face! God! her face!.

- No, it must be a trick of the light!

Still he stared, transfixed under lithium gleaming eyes straining to follow her progress. Yes! there she was again, flights of delirium rose; high sculpted cheeks in profile, red cherubic . . . Wait! she was gone! The crowd surged and frothed about him in late night ecstasy, a woman lost, searching as he searched, her eyes met his in wild surmise; recognition? check, pass? no. they moved on, found another victim.

There! he saw her vanish, her coat superimposed upon his mind, black suede flaring retinal impression. Her long auburn mane was soothed back into place carelessly in his mind. He stood there arms crucified, eyes rapturous. Louis felt his heart beg to be released from its prison. She was so beautiful! He could not bear it any longer. He leaped onto a lamppost and eyes lurched towards her.

Louis saw her face flash in his direction, surely she saw him! it was unthinkable that she hadn't seen him! He dropped down and moved quickly toward her. She was almost supernatural. exquisite creature! her legs! her hips! Louis could not visualise her naked, the reality was too much to bear. what was her mind like? he sliced though the late night crowd like a hot blade through butter towards her. but when he got there, she was gone!

he saw the red coat flash into an alleyway

coldwintersday

2005-10-15T10:03:00.000+13:00

These lips
are shattered
chipped
raw to the
wind

blood
flavours
my bitter
tongue

chill
nostrils
leaking
vital
brain fluid

Every now and then
a
savage
burst of
rage into
a cotton
slip

Around me
others are
embracing
handkerchiefs
as noses
drip

sick to my
stomach
how long
can
I keep this
up?

Stuck in
small
cramped
overheated
dreadful
lecture theatre

old man
bearded
drones
buzzing
he gestures

in irritation

at a sudden
sneeze
a racking cough
miserably
muffled by
pale hands

history
one two five
has never
been so
long and
boring

dry
throat
hawks
attempts
at
silence
lost

sympathetic
irritated
eyes stare
back
shut the fuck up!

fat, bundled
woman
next to me
in the
prime of health

bitch!

these lips
are gone,
lost
forever.

23 jul 93

mackenziewinter

2005-10-15T10:01:00.000+13:00

the golden road bends and twists
like a snake searching for food,

fenced in by white snow, dawn's light
reflects off the icy sheen of scales.

snow covered hills loom
taller and taller with every mile,

a skeleton reaches for the sky,
Straining to leave the white sea.

stubby, burnt out candles
celebrate the new day,

stark crucifixes march
to the carven hills

silhouetted by the rising sun
newborn and still mewling.

a deep river of snow heaves
and attempts to breach the golden dam.

once it floods, new snow falls
but the dam holds fast.

Ok, let’s play. Play to win! Play to win! A Nymphomation review

2005-10-15T09:59:00.000+13:00

Swooping through manga noir nightmares, Jeff Noon’s ‘Nymphomation’ is his most breathless work yet. Set in the Vurt universe of his earlier ‘Vurt’, ‘Pollen’ and ‘Automated Alice’, Nymphomation is a delirious ride through a kaleidoscopic near future Manchester. Stuck in overdrive, Noon steps up through the ceiling to 24th gear, his narration tumbles and runs at a frenetic slick neon rain pace. With a peculiarly English sensibility, Noon satirizes England’s National Lottery in his vision of a Manchester captivated and obsessed by the Company’s Domino Bones lottery. Every Friday there must be a winner of fantastic riches, the winning bones are illuminated on Lady Luck’s sinuous body, and the shifting domino bones fade into blankness, the losers left to wait for next Friday, with new bones shifting through patterns in their sweaty palms. Nymphomation follows a group of unlikely math students in their increasingly dangerous pursuit of the hidden mystery of Domino Bones, the nymphomation. Nymphomation is the secret knowledge by which information can make love to itself and produce more powerful information. Burgercops, Blurbvurts, Vaz, Random Topology, bone-juice, and Black Math intrude and swarm through, over each other in the House of Chances. Noon is unable to contain himself, he can’t stop exploiting and subverting his own work. Nymphomation is effectively a remix of the best bits of Vurt, Pollen and Automated Alice, with several dj stories filtered into the mix. Noon’s remixology literary styles places him as not only one of the most important SF writers of his generation, but a brilliant writer in general who has invented a new style. These concepts are followed through and enhanced in Noon’s latest release, Pixel Juice, with another due in February. Highly Recommended.

Published in Re:Mix, circa 2000.

What if... the world was mostly disabled?

2005-10-01T17:26:00.000+12:00

Now wouldn't that be something? I really wished the webdesigners had provided an alternative method of downloading this video because I'd love to see a smoothly moving version.

Outward Bound - Part 2 (unfinished)

2005-10-01T14:44:00.000+12:00

We made the top of the ridge after stopping countless times for people to get their breath. It was heavy going on an untracked hill with full backpacks and the weaker among us couldn't keep pace. A fantail followed us from the lower foothills all the way up, enjoying the insects that we disturbed and set flying as we passed. Naia got stung by a bee and we saw wasps as we walked down the ridge to the trig. The track was clearly blazed from here on and we made good time. But coming down the hill was very slippery and I couldn't stop laughing at Naia and Ashley as we all slipped and slid down the hill. The main body of the party was grumpy with us for moving at our own pace as we had to be together as a group for our own safety. Back at Anakiwa, Mike told us to change into our PT gear. Oh no! My knee was seriously hurting after the stress placed on it descending from the ridge above Anakiwa. I’d flared up the old injury from tramping up the Rakaia river in January, the same one that was strained when I had to lift Willie during the Top Town competition at the April camp for DEAFinitely Youth Group. We were all pretty shattered, but we had to do it. Emma, Naia and myself were too sore to run so Mike got a baggage trolley out for us to ride on, but eventually it was just Emma that had to be pushed, with me hop-skipping and Naia limping along for the two mile run and dip. We had to do a water exercise, where we sat on each other’s lap in a circle. After changing into dry clothes we scrubbed down our tents and hung up our bags and had a debrief meeting. It was only Saturday afternoon, just over twenty four hours after we had arrived. Dinner was served and we had the evening free. Daniel was the first up and woke us all again for 6.15 PT in the Sunday morning dark. My knee was very sore and I couldn’t even start on the two mile so I had the dip and cold shower instead and was first up for breakfast kitchen duty. After breakfast w Sunday afternoon – the rope – over and under, etc the bomb/hat thing.

Monday morning – rock climbing - afternoon Solo

Tuesday morning – solo – afternoon – practice rowing sailing, swim to the wharf.

Wednesday – rowed and sailed boat to bay on other side of Tory Channel. We made ready to go sailing, all the spare clothes packed into a boat bag, and our food packed into the other boat bag. We hopped on the cutter [Name?] and rowed out into the middle of the Sound. We looked and looked for wind, but to our dismay the pennant tied to one of the mainstays barely fluttered and the wind-arrow kept shifting. The nature of the hills around Queen Charlotte Sound meant that wind swirls and gusts in little eddies all across the sunken valley where we were. We had no choice but to row. And row. Bevan told us that it was not unusual for people on Outward Bound to do nothing but row all the way to where they were going. It looked like we had to do that too. There were eight of us on the oars, Beryl & Lynx and Bevan & Mike on board. We rowed right up the Sound and lunched after three hours steady rowing, where we could see Picton. The wake of the Interislander rocked us as it went past. We saw penguins swimming about 500m away, then seals flipping and Dusky dolphins torpedoed beneath us. I caught a glimpse of a large adult when I looked beneath us as we rowed. We kept having to change around to give each other a rest, and soon ended up with all the guys taking the heavy oars and the women taking the lighter, newer oars. I took my striped thermal top off and fashioned a turban with it as the sun was quite harsh and I could feel my skin burning. It was like a summer day, rather remarkable for the middle of winter! Finally, as we went past Tory Channel, the wind picked up and we were able to sail the rest of the way to the bay where we would spend the night. We lowered sails and splashed oars and rowed to where Sir Roy was moored. Before we could eat, we were given a choice of three people swimming to shore and all of us camping for the night, with people keeping watch on the boat as it floated on a long line, or half of us swimming and camping for the night on the shore with half swimming back in the morning to the boat on a mooring, or everyone going for a swim and sleeping on the boat. It was getting dark by the time we decided. I would have preferred to have half all swimming and camping on shore, but Marian said she really didn’t want to go for a swim. Mike told her that was completely the wrong thing to tell him. So, of course, we all went for a swim. After the initial shock, I went back and dived in two more times from the roof of Sir Roy’s cabin. Christian discovered that I had his towel – as I am colourblind I had no idea. He didn’t have togs so he jumped into the water buck naked twice! We had a pail for a toilet or else it was over the side for the waterworks, which was a tough test of our privacy. I put up the two cooking flies over the boat, tying one end to the hull and the other end to Sir Roy to create a tent over our cutter. We cooked on the gas burner and the triangas on the back hatch of Sir Roy. Daniel was the main cook, cooking two lots of meat and boiled vege dishes. Emma and I had a vegetarian dish made up of mushroom rice risotto and noodles with a few select vegetables. After that I made my bed up by the mast beneath the bleachers, next to the water bottle. I sat in meditation for a few minutes, but was interrupted by Ashley for what must be the third or fourth time. “Are you ok?” But finally I slipped away and slept soundly until Daniel woke up first and stood on my foot. I eventually got up, and it was about 6am, still dark with the brighter stars still clearly seen. After eating a few fried hashbrowns, I unfolded half the fly and Christian took pictures from the roof of people sleeping in the boat to try and wake them up. We were told that we would have to swim before we could leave. It was so cold that when I got out of the water, the skin had contracted around my toenails and gotten cut by the edges of my toes. I showed Bevan: “Look at what you did!” and he just laughed. Eventually we were all ready to go, all our packs and gear stowed away on Sir Roy, and we rowed out to try and look for some wind. We rowed across to the western side of the Sound and found a small amount of wind. We raised the flag and called the instructors and interpreters on board. Val was taking care of Sir Roy. We raised sails and spent the next 40 minutes tacking across the sound, eventually ending up roughly 30m away from where we started. I was skippering the boat at this point, so I told everyone we would have to row. We were given three options: row and maybe sail, or row and be towed back to Anakiwa and do some high wire climbing, or row all the way. We quickly chose the tow option! We kicked off the instructors and interpreters to lighten the boat and make it easier for us, and while they had hot chocolate and coffee, we rowed and rowed to the beacon opposite Tory Channel. From there on, we were towed back and Mike facilitated a group session where we said what we thought was best about each other, and then pointed out one characteristic that we thought needed improving in ourselves. I can’t remember everyone else’s, but I remember a couple of comments – working hard, not complaining, keeping calm and enjoying myself. Once we were within a short row’s reach of Anakiwa, we rowed back in, snacked outside the McKenzie briefing room, then started cleaning all our gear to be ready to leave on Friday morning.

Thursday – swam around boat – rowed – towed – high wire & cleaning after dinner.

Friday – cleaning, goodbye and leaving.

Being Deaf - July 15, 2005

2005-10-01T14:30:00.000+12:00

The many experiences of my life have defined who I am today. A defining quality to my experience is being Deaf in New Zealand. A world of silence descended upon me when I endured pneumoccocal meningitis and thereafter lived with deafness. The nature of memory is non-linear; it is a quantum space with synapses interconnecting information. My memories of being Deaf are fragmented, because the things that define being Deaf are not continuous. I have not expressed every event of being Deaf in my life, such as publishing Moving Hands, and going to Deaf clubs, but instead I present a montage of moments to show a pattern in the weaving together of fragments mended by silence.

The Beginning

I’m too young to remember the illness that took my hearing. We don’t know where I picked up the meningitis bacteria. Vectors for infection included a visit to a sick relative, playing on a cousin’s horse-training farm and from any of my companions. The meningitis bacteria is communicated by contact with people and most people carry the pneumococcal bacteria so I could have got it from my friends, and picking up pneumoccocal meningitis from farm animals in the spring is not unusual. It is one mystery I will never be able to understand.

I was taken to a weekend doctor when I took ill on Saturday morning. His diagnosis was inconclusive. My mother Nan rang him later in the night when my condition had deteriorated. He told Nan to “give him more Panadol, he won’t die overnight, you know.” My own general practitioner misdiagnosed my illness and a hour after his visit I went into convulsions. I went to hospital and was in a coma for about 15 hours. Nan thought I was deaf before I left the hospital and mentioned it to the pediatrician. He said it was a withdrawal as a result of the trauma of hospitalization.

I had no other ill effects from pneumoccoccal meningitis and the following week Nan confirmed that I had become deaf when I showed no reaction when she called my name or clapped behind me. Nan describeed me sitting on the floor playing with my toys, and she called, “Peter?” I did not turn to face her or make any indication that I had heard her. Nan came up behind me and clapped loudly. Nothing happened and she realized something was wrong. I could not hear. I went back to hospital two weeks later for a checkup and the pediatrician told my mother “of course he is deaf, he had meningitis after all.”

Plugging In

I can’t remember being able to hear without technology. My childhood memories are clear, but disconnected from sounds. I remember things that happened, but not how they sounded. Through the crack of the slightly ajar door I see my mother walk down the hallway to me in silence. Sound was a compromise; a part of me that I had to strap on every day. At primary school my hearing aid was strapped to my chest in a crossover harness. I got ear-level hearing aids a year or two later. My teacher Wendy Lamb had a large radio microphone on a cord around her neck. This struck us on the head when Wendy bent over to look at our school work. When I went to play at the mixed kindergarten of deaf and hearing children at Rutland Street I could tell who was like me because we had the same hearing aids strapped to our chests.

Still feeling

I still have bone conduction hearing. This is what I hear: the keys clicking as I type; my partner closing the door heavily downstairs when she comes home; the wind knocking the door to the deck against the wall; a heavy vehicle passing by. I feel their sounds in my bones. The keys clicking feel perhaps much like they sound when I plug in my cochlear implant; annoying and much like the sound I always imagined the word “clack” described. The reverberating thud of the front door closing below me is a solid bang with quivering aftershocks as ripples move up through the frame of the house to my office above the door. The wind bangs the window, the door, and sometimes slams one of the bedroom doors beneath me; I often go downstairs to see who has come because it feels like a visitor has arrived.

Adults, not other kids

Visits to hearing adults supporting the Deaf world were a regular part of my life when I was growing up. I had a lot of extra tutoring throughout my childhood with visits from itinerant teachers of the Deaf three times a week during primary school. I also visited the audiologist a few times a year to have my hearing aids calibrated after a hearing test and new ear moulds made to correct the whistling from out-grown ear molds. I tried to count the number of holes in the sound-proofing tiles on the walls. I played with plastic toys and jig saw puzzles and endured all the different tests. I liked the feeling of ear mould putty as it was injected into my ears. The cool solidity felt like I was being filled up completely, and I was always sad when it had hardened and had been removed. The reverse was true for wearing hearing aids. Sound was and is a thing to be endured, a pressure that never stops pressing. I am immersed in distorted sound for as long as I wear the hearing aid. The cochlear implant has improved upon the clarity of sound; it is a sound free from amplified distortion. I almost prefer the old sound; it’s like the difference between vinyl and CD music. A warmth disappears into the spectrum not transmitted by the cochlear implant.

In the Mainstream

I was mainstreamed at St. Martins Primary School in Christchurch. I was the only Deaf there until another boy came for a year or two. Itinerant teachers from Sumner School for the Deaf visited at least three times a week. Sometimes they came for a hour every day. It changed a bit from year to year, but it was never less than three times a week in the beginning. I was very well supported. In my first year of primary school I had extra one-on-one reading classes with my teacher, Mrs Whitein a small resource room filled with School Journal boxes and other educational material. In later years, I came here to work with my itinerant teachers. I went to speech therapy lessons one morning a week until I was fifteen at Sydenham Primary. Recently the school burnt down and now the site is a vacant lot.

I remember many things about primary school, but very few of them were related to my being Deaf. Apart from having to wear technology, meeting my itinerant teacher while everyone else did music class, my life was much like everyone else’s: climbing trees, playing spontaneous games of bull rush or go home-stay-home on the school fields, competitive rounds of paddle tennis and all the things that kids do.

Hamner Deaf Camps

I went on a few KIT Deaf camps up in Hamner Springs during autumn school holidays with my parents and other parents with their Deaf children who were mainstreamed or at Sumner School for the Deaf. We were oral and sign Deaf. I don’t remember using a lot of sign language. Between the oral Deaf, we didn’t know much sign language. Sure, we could all do the alphabet, and say a few other words like hello, you, “be cool until after school”, and other basic signed English like “I am good”, “You are bad”, among other things. But by no means were we fluent. My mother Nan went to evening sign language classes at Sumner School for the Deaf for two years when I was at preschool and taught me all the signs she knew before I started school. I wasn’t very interested in learning sign language, but I had a keyword vocabulary in sign and Nan used to correct my English by using conjunction signs like “is” “are” and the alphabet. Most parents of mainstreamed Deaf gave their children some sign language through Total Communication. I vaguely knew other Deaf from the school for the Deaf in Sumner and I knew that they were being taught with sign language as well as the oral method. Nan tells me that she thought I wasn’t very interested in sign as I was reliant on lip-reading, and resisted sign language because it made me too conspicuously Deaf.

Linwood High School

It was at Linwood High School (now Linwood College) that I learnt to read Total Communication. Because Total Communication is more or less signed English, I was able to guess ahead of the words I speech-read and watch for the corresponding hand shapes. I could read signs, but because I had not been taught signs, and my interactions with other Deaf were limited to the Deaf Unit, playground encounters, and in assembly where we would sat together to watch our teacher of the Deaf interpreting for us. I still did not learn to sign. I formed a prejudice: I felt sign language was inferior to English and was of no use to me. I could function far better and more independently with my speech-reading with strangers. I could not imagine trying to communicate with people solely by sign language. I had to be able to speak to anyone without being dependent on someone else to interpret on my behalf.

When I entered third form at Linwood High, I was placed in a low stream with the other Deaf children. Nan queried this as she had seen my entrance exam marks. She discovered that I had scored in the 80 percentile, high enough to be placed in one of the top streams. Sumner School for the Deaf was not confident that I could manage English or Social Studies. They said that I had scored higher than any of the other Deaf who had ever enrolled at Linwood High School. Nan went to Sumner School for the Deaf and asked if I could be put at my grade level and do all subjects. .I was moved up several streams to the B stream. I silenced the skeptics coming second in my class that year. The following year, 1988, I came first in my class. I was promoted to the top stream in fifth form and I found the measure of my peers, achieving in the middle of the class, but earning a general excellence in English as one of the top four English students. The pattern repeated the following year with another general excellence in English, and in seventh form, in recognition of my overall efforts, I was awarded a prize for special endeavour that was created to honour my high school work. I stood up on the stage and watched the emotions on the faces of the school and wondered what the prize giver was saying. A list of things I had done had been read out: I’d won a speech competition in 4th form, competed in waterpolo in the national schools competition several years in a row, excelled academically, popular socially, etc.

My experience of being Deaf at high school was marked by the presence of teachers of the Deaf taking notes for me in each class. I do not remember being “taught” by my teachers of the Deaf, but I do remember having little “what does that mean?” conversations during the course of each class. They gave me lots of extra work-sheets to do for homework, especially in math and science, to ensure I missed nothing. Because I shared few classes with my Deaf peers, I have little idea how my Deaf peers coped with the same trials as I did: speech-reading the teacher, reading the notes and copying down blackboard lessons, and socializing with my hearing peers.

I played waterpolo and was active in sports, racing a two-person Sunburst yacht, riding my bike the 5km to school, taking the school bus, going on camps, working in the woodwork room, and reading. I skateboarded as a hobby. Most of my friends went to Hagley High School, and I mixed entirely in the hearing world. For all purposes, I had assimilated entirely into the hearing community and my peers would forget that I couldn’t hear, and often say so.

New York, New York

I went to school at Lexington School for the Deaf in Queens at the end of sixth form in December 1991. We had privately hosted Darren, a student from Lexington for several weeks earlier. We had showed him around the South Island and he attended classes with me and with Pollyanna Ferguson at van Asch College. He also stayed with the Ferguson family for a few weeks. Darren is a very nice man whom I have lost contact with. He had a great time in New Zealand, but grew homesick near the end. The oral culture of my family and the large size of my home in comparison with the condominium apartment he lived in with his brother and mother was probably a strain on his comfort zone.

I went to stay with Darren’s family in their condominium next to a large mall in Staten Island for nine weeks. Every morning Darren and I took a bus over the Verrazano Narrows bridge to Brooklyn and along the river to Lexington School for the Deaf in Queens. I was the first time that I was living entirely within a Deaf culture based on sign language. I did not have the opportunity to become fluent in ASL (American Sign Language), but I picked up the rudiments of communication. Then, as now, the problem is not understanding what a person means, but in recognizing details. I know she is talking about having dinner in the city, but when?!

The American education curriculum was approximately one year behind New Zealand, so I found the material taught in class very easy and did not do much original schoolwork. Once I taught the Science teacher a new way of remembering formulas based on the pyramid shape, and she was excited that there was a very easy way of remembering three part formulas.

I remember the metal detectors at the front doors, the way everyone sat down to breakfast at school, students signing in the hallways, and watching dawn sunlight glinting off wintry Manhattan as we cross the Verrazano Narrows bridge and drive along the Brooklyn expressway.

Visiting Galludent

We drove down from New York City to Washington to visit Galludent University. The wide ten lane motorways meant that our convoy of three cars could comfortably drive in parallel all the way through New Jersey, and we could all sign to one another all the way down to Washington, DC. The drive down was exhausting but we were shown around the main memorial sites in the car, the Vietnam memorial, the square with the Lincoln memorial and the obelisk. I visited the dorms at Galludent and we caught up with some of Darren’s friends. Much of the time is a blur because we were all drinking a lot. I remember that some guys bought a quart of vodka and proceeded to make it stronger by boiling it.

In the Deaf World

I have conflicting feelings about the Deaf world. I know I am of the Deaf world, but it does not form a substantial part of my life. My dips into the Deaf world began at the Rutland kindergarten. Mrs Lofts was my teacher. It was a Deaf and Hearing Kindergarten with a Deaf Unit attached. The memories of that time are largely visual and I remember the shapes of the buildings and there are vague impressions of being on a tricycle, the diamond shape of a shed or outhouse, and the sandpit. I learned to sign the alphabet, I think, at this time.

People like Paul Buzzard came to visit my parents as part of their introduction into the Deaf world. I don’t remember much of those visits. Paul Buzzard recently told me that I was a very alert child, very clearly a Deaf child, and he was saddened by my parent’s desire that I receive an oral education as he’s always advocated Deaf be taught in sign language. My signing Deaf peers were mostly the Ferguson family, particularly Pollyanna, then Joyce, and then Oliver when he enrolled at Linwood High School.

I was a flag bearer at the World Deaf Games in Christchurch in 1989. I was exposed to a wide range of Deaf from all over the world, watched them excel at their sports and communicate with one another in all kinds of sign language, and their communications were rapid and bewildering. The slowness of TC was gone! My father, John Fogarty, was the lawyer for the New Zealand Deaf sports organization at that time. He was the lawyer for 17? years and I am always meeting elder Deaf who say that they knew well my father as a good man.

My Sign Name

I was given my sign name on the American road trip. My old sign name was “worm” because I am a constant reader. In New Zealand, people are given signs for a defining characteristic of who they are. In America, people are given sign names based on the initial for their first name, and perhaps also a character of their personality. I was given the sign name of “P” held under the chin, with the forefinger scissoring as if I am talking. I was given this name because so often the lot fell to me to be the oral communicator for the group because I had the best spoken English skills of everyone in the group. My New Zealand accent didn’t appear to be a problem. While I was actually 17, I looked over 25 with my long hair and so I was able to buy food, tickets and alcohol without photo id or being questioned. I used my voice all the time to facilitate things for my Deaf friends. The new sign name wasn’t actually much of a stretch, as the standard sign name for “Peter” is very similar, in the same place, but closer to the sign for “bird”.

1st National Deaf Camp: Cambridge 2005.

I was a team leader on the first national Deaf youth camp organized by the DEAFinitely Youth Group. It was my first full immersion in the Deaf community since New York. I’d been to captioned movie premieres and attended NZSL classes at Auckland University of Technology, and visited the Deaf clubs in Christchurch and Auckland but they were always just an evening out. There were twelve of us in the leadership group. I had met most before, but I didn’t really know them and met a few more new people. It was an international gathering of Deaf. Two American women were there, one as a co-organiser and another as a drama workshop presenter. There were two Brits too, an English organizer and a Scots leader. I had met most of the other team leaders before, but Philip King was the only one I had spent the most amount of time with as he had been at Linwood High School at the same time as I was. We were in charge of 45 Deaf kids from all over New Zealand. I was invited to the first National Camp for the Deaf because of the NZDeaf email list and it turned out that one of the boys in my team was also subscribed to the list. I struggled with my NZSL during the camp, but everyone was happy that I was trying to express myself with sign language. There were two hard of hearing Deaf in my group, which meant that half the time we needed an interpreter with our group to translate both ways!

Little Things About Being Deaf

Being Deaf is to live in a world of silence. People who cannot experience silence seek to bring their world of sound into being. I have a cochlear implant that gives dimension to the movement of life; for all living things move, and as they move, they transmit information. But it is not necessary. Sound is not necessary to comprehend information with senses that can be strengthened by the lack. Intuitions are reinforced by the need to speechread and absorb non-verbal, non-manual signifiers. Sensitivity is developed and personal space becomes a visual space. Silence in the field of vision is a field where nothing moves, nothing intrudes and all is still. The uninterrupted gaze finds peace in the gentle susurrations of motion in the ripples of the sea, the castles of the air, and mountains’ timeless thrust. Silence forms the fabric of my reality; I endure other people’s desire to bring sound into my life and this is being Deaf.

Headstrong

2005-07-12T14:27:00.000+12:00

Round Two hits up now. Maybe I really should try to get ZPL in there.

Gaman - S Nees

2005-07-12T14:06:00.000+12:00

This is a great article about "gambatte" - the tendency of people to say stuff like "harden up" to depressed people.

THE SIMPLER WAY

2005-07-12T14:01:00.000+12:00

I keep meaning to read this but I haven't got around to it yet. The subtitle is:

Working for Transition from Consumer Society to a Simpler, More Cooperative, Just and Ecologically Sustainable Society

This Bloke...Peter Russell

2005-07-12T13:57:00.000+12:00

I came across recently through the Running on Empty group.

Some of his ideas flow from conclusions that I share - like Atlantis being submerged by the end of the last ice age. Others are attempts to describe the same kind of ineffable that I think is "how things are" but fall short with a clunk. I'm just linking to it now so I don't lose it later.

Swallows & Amazons Forever!

2005-07-12T13:32:00.000+12:00

I'm on an Arthur Ransome kick. I loved the books when I was a kid and I've been reading them again. They are simple, elegant and endearingly full of make-believe.

Don't know what I'm talking about? Then you were probably born after the 70's. My dearly departed Gran, Beryl Hall had most of them in her hut at the Rangitata river, alongside lovely editions of Biggles and the Famous Five. The Swallows & Amazons series are about two groups of friends who meet up in the holidays and have sailing adventures on a lake in the north of England, without an adult in sight, except for non-Natives like Captain Flint and other Natives who the Swallows & Amazons get milk and water from ...

Now reading.. Secret Water

We Who Are About To...

2005-07-12T13:22:00.000+12:00

We Who Are About To... by Joanna Russ is the longest Alyx story, a novella about a party of people crossing the mountains on an alien planet after their ship crashes. Alyx is the wise and wily Trojan woman who has been teleported into the future to work as an agent for an extraterrestrial agency.

"I had turned from writing love stories ... to writing stories about women in which the woman won."
- Joanna Russ

This is the new release with an introduction by Samuel R. Delany. It is a reqired addition for my Delany & Russ collection.

Outward Bound - Part One

2005-07-12T13:21:00.000+12:00

I was Outward Bound when I got on the tiny cigarette plane early on a wet Friday in Auckland. There were seven of us there in degrees of Deaf. I'd met three before, but I was soon to know everyone. Christian, Daniel, Dylan, Melissa, Naia and Scott. That's who else was on the plane. We flew for a hour and half to Blenheim, a place I affectionately know as Bleh, half an hour out of Picton. We waited for a fellow from Invercargill to arrive and I was put to work as a voice, asking the shuttle driver if he could drop off Daniel, Melissa and Naia at the railway station as DANZ hadn't organised transport from the airport to Picton for them. Picton was the same as ever, a tiny, boring little town at the bottom of the Malbourough Sounds. We had the last coffee of that week and a fish burger for lunch and walked around town for three hours until our pick-up at 1pm. Ashley and Maria arrived by train from Christchurch and Emma was dropped off by her parents. Our ages ranged from 16 to 39. The fellow from Invercargill, an unemployed baker called Chris, was never comfortable, and pretty much the first thing he said to me was that WINZ had promised him work at a bakery if he did the Outward Bound course. He wasn't on the course long. You'll learn shortly. Before we could put our bags on the boat we had to do a little exercise, run a rope up our sleeves and down our pants legs and then in reverse on the next person, and linked in this manner, collectively carry our bags on board a little tug of a launch called Sir Roy. As we were shipped to Anakiwa, we introduced ourselves to one another. Ashley tried to go swimming with a pod of dolphins. In mid-winter Queen Charlotte Sound! We shivered to think of how cold it was! Anakiwa is a little small settlement in mouth of a valley at the bottom of the Sound. The Outward Bound school is a ring of watch houses around a round square with a hall and administration and equipment buildings next to the beginning, or end, of the Queen Charlotte Sound walkway. We were billeted in the McKenzie watch house, named after Sir Roy McKenzie, the current patron of Outward Bound. We were told to dress in our PT (physical training) gear and get back to the wharf. Right then, all of you jump in the water with all your clothes on and swim back to shore, as a group! The light was fading - as usual there is too much talking to make sure everyone understands what needs to be done - but it's important to know. On the count of three, we mostly jump in. A few people wimped out and stayed on top of the wharf - but in they had to go, because we weren't going anywhere. Christian jumped in and was back on the wharf faster than he was going in, but back in he came as we all pleaded for everyone to get in so we could get out and have a hot shower. Did I mention hot showers, what a laugh, too bad, no more hot showers until the last day, and maybe at night if you're lucky. We did press-ups and ab crunches under a cold shower in the trees by the entrance, and then got some dry clothes on to have dinner. The Kupe group welcomed us with a fierce haka with women singing from the front of the hall. They were a mixture of teenagers, mostly from Auckland and South Auckland, from the Islands, India and NZ aged 16-18. I met two girls, who became good company over the week, Jelitah and Jacinta. The food was nothing to write home about, but it was very edible. I ended up getting second helpings most nights we ate at base. The thing about Outward Bound is you're always outward bound. We spent Saturday making sure that we could pitch tents and hang a fly and use the triangas to cook with. Ashley and I spotted the Kupe group negotiating the rock wall up on the northeast side of the valley. That night we humped five tents, three triages, two cooking flys, meths for gas, and food, sleeping bag and clothes for two hours along the Queen Charlotte Walkway until we reached the campsite up the little river at the base of the next valley up. We set off before dinner as the light fell. Glow worms, dark rainforest, and the annoying tendency of people with torches to ruin my night vision by shining their light back and forth along the pack train to reassure themselves that we were all keeping together. The moon was up and when I did have night vision back, I could see the debris of the bush floor moving in the light of the torches on each side of me. The two youngest girls, Emma and Naia both had difficulty with their packs and got them carried. Krystofer got one of the packs, they were heavy to begin with, to carry two! Camp was set up quickly and the triangas were hot. I had bought a bag of lemons, green tea, honey, dried fruit and a macadamia nut mix because I knew that while the Outward Bound school was exemplary in providing vegetarian fare, it just wouldn't cut the grade in terms of pack rations. I munched on the nut mix and had a reviving cup of green tea. Naia and I put up our tent in no time at all. There was some talk, but it was dark and I have no idea what was said. We went to bed and I kept waking in the night to adjust my hat and turn over without waking up Naia who was tail to my top. Daniel woke us all up before first light. We had to move out by 9am. We were running on Deaf time, so there was no chance. After we got ready to move out, we had to drop our packs and do some more compass orienteering to settle on a route up and out of the valley and go along the spur and drop back down to Anakiwa. It took four hours to make the top of the ridge up a fairly light bush floor clearly marked with blue ties on line of sight patterns - showing us the route up the hill. The OB instructors pretended not to know what they were for, saying, oh, it must be DOC or something. The first sly manipulation of the truth. Oh no, you don't have to swim tonight means, yes, ohhh yes, you're going to have a swim before the day is done! I didn't promise you that, it was Bevan who said that, and I'm not Bevan. I'm getting ahead of myself here.

"her aura of evil"

2005-05-20T08:48:00.000+12:00

This is so right. Anyone who has seen the Gestapo photos, the Nazi-chic, the jackboots, the satorial flair, and that smile, those eyes...

She stood in the crowded room as her drove of minions stood around her...A huddling mass trying to draw closer to her aura of evil. The lights flashed against her fangs as her cruel lips curled into a grimace. It was meant to be a smile but it wouldn't reach her cold, lifeless eyes It was a leer- the leer of the undead before a feeding...

The above was not a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer- it was just Condi Rice in Iraq a day ago. At home, we fondly refer to her as The Vampire. She's such a contrast to Bush- he simply looks stupid. She, on the other hand, looks utterly evil.

- Riverbend

Say it like it is!

Getting Paid, Not.

2005-05-08T10:45:00.000+12:00

I just got a letter in the post from VADEC saying thank you for your wonderful efforts etcetera with a cheque for $300.

Considering that we have sold over 300 copies at $30 a copy, that is about $10,000 that they made from 18 months work from our team.

I had to laugh. If it wasn't that I desperately need any little bit of money I earn, I would frame both the letter and the cheque to show how pathetic Deaf Education really is in New Zealand.

There is a choice two word phrase that I'm thinking right now.

Market Forces

2005-04-22T19:10:00.000+12:00

Market Forces or Market Forces?

Make up your mind. I finished reading Market Forces the day before I read this essay by Naomi Klein, one of the faces of the anti-globalisation movement.

The irony was striking. On the one hand, we've got a mad max future where account directors hit the road for some promotion, and Naomi's polemic. My favourite Kleinism is:

a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction.

Richard Morgan's book took me a while to get into, but in the end I loved it just as much as I did his earlier Altered Carbon and Broken Angel, the books about Takeshi Kovacs, a reluctant mercenary in a world where you can download your consciousness into empty sleeves and travel between the stars by this manner.

It's funny, when I wrote the previous sentence, I put Broken Carbon and Fallen Angel down. Where did that come from? In any case, he wrote an interesting diatribe against the word loser.

Just don't go calling anyone a Loser.

Oh, and here is a review of Phallos that wasn't so good... I thought he was unfair, Phallos is more of a literary in-joke, a lively story about a fabled phallos that was stolen. It's more of an annotated essay about a book. I like how its also a play on the "Sacred Image of the Masculine". It's a lovely little book.

returning to a daily sadhana

2005-04-13T11:48:00.000+12:00

i still wake every morning as sunlight comes over the edge of the planet. time glows the hour, 5:12, in a cluster of large red LEDs next to my head. i look at the stars through mosquito netting. the sea breeze rises in the open windows. i slide my legs out beneath the white diamonds, and pad over the painted wood to the bathroom. my face greets me as I splash my face seven times with water, blessing the new day, and scrape the excreted toxins of the night off my tongue. i am still yet riddled with indigestible sugar and other processed _foods_. A smile at the growing hair on my chin and a look at the dark ring around my blue irises, then i go to my seat, pull around the blue check duvet because it's cold, and the eastern horizon is lightening. O Master! Thou art the real goal of human life. I am yet a slave to my desires, putting bar to my advancement! You are the only real God and power to raise me up to thy stage. Amen. Sitting upright, gross energy churns through my back and i itch between my shoulder blades. my crown tickles and warms. i gaze with my eyes into the blue diamond, and my i plunges and listens to each beat of my heart and i watch the light to see what it does. i become absorbed, the churn lessens and becomes fine and subtle: the gentlest sensation, a sensation without sensation, a nothingness overflowing. The space inside me feels incredibly vast, and my sense of i is no longer up top, but down here. twenty minutes pass and i witness. my eyes open before it is time, and I sit and look at the light as it falls on the trees across from me. Tomorrow, perhaps I will sit longer, be more absorbed, be more focused and one-pointed, craving ever more the release from the bondage of my ego's desires, wishing to harness its power and plough with mastery for humanity and not the winds of my selfish fancy. nightly, i sit on my bed and watch the accumulated impressions of the day pass from me as if i were a sooty factory chimney. Molten gold fills my chest as the smoke leaves, pulsing with my breath and heartbeat. But really, nothing is what happens to you, and meditation is a journey of discovery that no book can teach.

Diane Foreman - The Emerald Group

2005-04-11T12:47:00.000+12:00

I just read this inspiring speech given by Diane Foreman as she gave an award to Michael Whittaker as the 2001 Entrepreneur of the Year.

Here are some bites:

o what makes an Entrepreneur?

Is it brains? Maybe. Is it the ability to take risks? Definitely. Is it education - certainly not according to the examples I have just given? Is it gender, definitely not. I think it’s about the nature and mind set of the individual - thinking innovatively, recognising opportunities that other don’t see and having a tenacious optimism that manages stress more easily, delights in tackling tough challenges and smashing through barriers others see as insurmountable.

What it is not about, is a singular desire to make money. The evidence is fairly clear that money by itself is too shallow a goal to motivate. Money is the score card on which we are all judged, not the reason for playing the game. I have never met a truly successful businessperson who’s sole focus was to make money. Every successful person I know set out to find a better mouse trap, to grow a business, to give their people bigger opportunities and customers a better quality product, but above all else to fulfil their dream.

Now read the rest. Damn. Inspiring: From the Spirt.

Peak Oil, dear reader, is Coming.

2005-04-10T12:14:00.001+12:00

Most people who personally know me, know that Peak Oil and a resulting Die-Off has been a concern for the last five years.

I published a flawed article in Re:Mix magazine in December 2002 before the second Gulf War. Flawed because it was far too short to fully back itself up, but it was a good primer. If I can find it in my backup CDs I'll post it here.

It looks like the peak will be this year.

In the light of all that, I'm looking towards living local, which is why I moved to Waiheke after all, a couple years back. For survival.

I'm putting this up mainly because I want to highlight this article: "Retrofitting the suburbs for sustainability" by David Holmgren. In it he outlines the problems facing sustainable living in Australian suburbs, and offers some solutions. The bit I was most taken with was:

...create our own small neighbourhoods. ‘Suburban sprawl’ in fact give us an advantage. Detached houses are easy to retrofit, and the space around them allows for solar access and space for food production. A water supply is already in place, our pampered, unproductive ornamental gardens have fertile soils and ready access to nutrients, and we live in ideal areas with mild climates, access to the sea, the city and inland country.

So what do we have to do to make it work? Basically, the answer is “Just do it!” Use whatever space is available and get producing. Involve the kids – and their friends. Make contact with neighbours and start to barter. Review your material needs and reduce consumption. Share your home – by bringing a family member back or taking in a lodger, for example. Creatively and positively work around regulatory impediments, aiming to help change them in the longer term. Pay off your debts. Work from home. And above all, retrofit your home for your own sustainable future, not for speculative monetary gain.

Check it.

By the way, I have a new computer, and it rocks. Though, its the same 256DDRAM as my old computer so I'm like, "I want MORE RAM!!"

I so want to get juicing

2005-04-07T14:59:00.000+12:00

What a wonderful looking juicer! Why, oh why, does Amazon not ship this juicer to NZ? Why, oh why, is it not available retail in NZ? Does the market want us to die?

things that made me go "hmmmm" - Synchrony & Group Cohesion

2005-04-07T12:46:00.000+12:00

"It should be clear by now that it is impossible to synchronize two events unless a rhythm is present. Rhythm is basic to synchrony. This principle is illustrated by a film of children on a playground. Who would think that widely scattered groups of children in a school playground could be in sync? Yet this is precisely the case (reported here in slightly revised form from _Beyond Culture_). One of my students selected as a project exercise in what can be learned from film. Hiding in an abandoned automobile, which he used as blind, he filmed children playing in an adjacent school yard during recess. As he viewed the film, his first impression was the obvious one: a film of children playing in different parts of the school playground. Then watching the film several times at different speeds - a practice I urge all my students to use - he began to notice one very active little girl who seemed to stand out from the rest. She was all over the place. Concentrating on that little girl, my student noticed that when she was near a cluster of children the members of the group were in sync not only with each other but with her. Many viewings later, he realised that this girl, with her skipping and dancing and twirling, was actually orchestrating movements of the entire playground! There was something about the pattern of movement which translated into a beat - like a silent movie of people dancing. Furthermore, the beat of this playground was familiar! There was a rhythm he had encountered before. He went to a friend who was a rock music aficionado, and the two of them began to search for the beat. It wasn't long until the friend reached out to a nearby shelf, took down a cassette and slipped it into a tape deck. That was it! It took a while to synchronize the beginning of the film with the recording - a piece of contemporary rock music - but once started, the entire three and a half minutes of the film clip stayed in sync with the taped music! Not a beat or a frame of the film was out of sync."

_The Dance of Life : The Other Dimension of Time_ by Edward T. Hall. pp154-5. Doubleday: New York, 1983.

Babies babble in sign language too

2004-08-05T14:12:00.000+12:00

That's the headline from this New Scientist article.

"Babies exposed to sign language babble with their hands, even if they are not deaf. The finding supports the idea that human infants have an innate sensitivity to the rhythm of language and engage it however they can, the researchers who made the discovery claim."

Yeah. What they said. That's all the more reason for learning sign so you can communicate quicker with your babies; and maybe they'll just clench their hands when they want milk instead of screaming.

But what about this extreme medical "solution" to deafness. Who would want a brainstem implant?! Well, don't throw stones in glass houses, right. Could just as easily say who wants a cochlear implant?!

huh.

Refraction and Mirroring

2004-08-01T19:24:00.000+12:00

Life is about having experiences. Life as a human on this planet is the experience we all signed up to live.

Many of us are content with a repetitive life, with ritual behavior and repeatable experiences. Many of us derive pleasure and comfort from this apparent stability.

Repeating experiences creates a groove in the pattern of life and over time it is easier to slip into that groove, and many people react with hostility when they are forced to leave the groove they're accustomed to being.

Who was it that said that repeating a behavior and expecting something different is insane? Yet we do this daily. We consume things that we know are bad for us, but expect to be satisfied and happy with what we've consumed, and express dismay and disappointment when our expectations are thwarted. Isn't it?

Who wants nothing to change? You? You're insane! : )

I was doing some reading the other day - Rajagopalachariji's collections of speeches given to Danish abhyasis in the early nineties and literature from Adi Da's website. I came across Adi Da's writings in a leaflet at my corner shop and was curious. I found that some of what he was saying, while apparently very ego-centric (I always resist spiritual teachers who request their devotees to worship them and venerate them as God-head), was making sense. I could not feel the usual intensity of transmission of divine love that I usually feel from the writing of bonafide spiritually realised teachers, but there was a little something there. I've copied some relevant passages for some food for thought.

There's a common theme of repetitive experience, creating something within and finding it without, and how verification of experiences relates to living a spiritual life.

"So what is it we are trying to create here? In the old tradition again, a human being is nothing but a symbol of this universe. We are each one of us a universe in ourselves. We have in us the wisdom of the owl, the strength of the lion, the viciousness of the tiger, the poison of the snake, the gentleness of the rabbit, the fleetness of the deer, the beautiful vision of the hawk. We have within us everything. Kill something outside and you kill that within yourself. Create something within you which is beautiful and you create that outside. The old tradition says that this universe is a mirror. Create a lion in yourself, you have created a lion outside yourself. Create fear in you, you have created fear outside. Create hatred in yourself, you have created hatred outside. Create a black man within yourself, you have created a black man outside. And they are going to fight
you. It is our creation which fights us."

'Revealing the Personality' - Parthasarathi Rajagopalachari. p.30.

"Clearly, the search for Realization via experiences of whatever kind is the principal characteristic of both the childish and the adolescent stages of human development. Those who come to Me are, like all other human beings, temporarily, more or less fixed in the demands of their childhood and adolescence. They look for experiential justifications to fall back into the childish sense of unconscious dependence, while at the same time they struggle to realize some kind of idealized and experientially justified independence. Therefore, they are always rising and falling, coming and going."

Adidam

"you must see the strategies that are arising in you always and see that they are wedded to the principle of unconsciousness, of conflict, of dilemma. You must see that they are always giving rise to dilemma"

"Serve the crisis which makes the life of understanding possible. I will not Serve the random needs of individuals to be fulfilled, to be consoled, to be fascinated. I must always Work to offend, criticize, and undermine the usual egoic process of every individual who comes to Me in order to Realize the Self-Condition that is God, Truth, and Reality.

"I must be paradoxical, I must be Free, in order to Serve those who come to Me. The qualities of My action cannot be predetermined. I will not consistently assume the qualities of an archetype--the holy man, the Yogi, the philosopher. I must be Free to appear in any form. I must be Free to behave in all common ways, as well as all uncommon ways, at any moment, in order to undo the expectations of those who come to Me. I am always acting to undo the egoic life of individuals in My Company.

"I do this so that people will not identify Spiritual life with qualities, tendencies, preferences, all the armor people take on when they think they are turning from the world of suffering and turning towards Truth. Religious or Spiritual seeking is not the Way to Truth. The remedial or strategic path is not the Way to God. No experiential process makes you Realize God."

"The true prophet does not lead you to align yourself with karmic destiny. The true prophet leads you always toward a "radical" new position relative to the entire force of your ordinary life.

"The prophets of Israel are representatives of that kind of prophecy. They were all aggravated, annoyed, humorous, paradoxical. They sought to draw people to God only, not to occupy them with psychism. In My prophetic role, I must take the same position relative to all of the occult, psychic, and falsely popularized Yogic and religious hype that permeates our society. Time has not fundamentally changed anything. People are still turned from the Divine Condition and want to find their way back by exercising the capability for experience. They want to read the stars and have visions. They want to read tarot decks and see ghosts. They do not want the prophet."

adidam

On verification, how do you verify:

"that by which the eye sees, but which the eye itself cannot see. That by which the ears hear, but which the ears themselves cannot hear"

?

"Let us not complicate it with the mental acrobatics of the so-called intelligent and refined thinking mind of the West, which is a disease. It is a cancer which is killing us slowly."

"Verification, which is always after the fact. Science proves by verification. Spirituality proves by the immediate presence of the thing, which must be, and which has been, and which shall eternally be there; myself, yourself, the Self. So this is why we seek within, not withstanding what the great religions may say."

- Revealing the Personality by Parthasarathi Rajagopalachari

I feel, after reading the quotes above, that if we have to continually ask for verification, we are like the numb, desensitised man standing in the rain asking for proof that he is wet.

We know intimately the wages of the body and of the ego. After all the ego is always identified with the machine of the body, and to know the arts of the body is to know the space of the body and its emotional forces.

The danger of knowing the arts of the body is to think that this is all there is. That is why the search for the source of consciousness has always failed, because scientists have always stopped at the body.

The danger, I feel, of the martial arts is to isolate spirit into the body, for only then can the martial artist destroy other bodies without also destroying part of Self. The price of this is isolation in the body and in the mind.

The dance of martial arts and the arts of the body and intellect is to reinforce the body and the mind. It becomes denser, heavier and less subtle. The more the intellect "knows" of the body, the less the intellect apparently "knows" of the spirit that animates it.

When what we appear to wish for is to seek to escape the body by over- and under- standing the body, we become even more concrete, the more we struggle to release the bondage of the flesh, yet, paradoxically, the means of "knowing" the body is to surrender control of the body and the intellect to the spirit in the center, the heart.

Enter and become driven through and by your heart, for your heart, the pump of life. Meditate upon the bright light in your heart. Release control of the machine of your body, surrender control of the programs running your body and mind and dissolve into that light.

Know that God has no attributes, no power, no knowledge and is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, and is no thing.

All that we know is that we are alive, for that is what we are.

Cease to kill so that spirit can rise from the body and become subtle and free of all the little gross deaths. When we attack, we attack our self, we are killing something within our Self. Embrace our fears and fear will run a mile because fear cannot tolerate the presence of love any more than darkness can tolerate the presence of light.

I wonder if we make a decision to reject those whom we can not reach, who will not accept our teaching because of a sense of failure. And because we have had failures, or had few failures, we balance on a sense of supremacy, a sense of indecision, and as a result our compassion suffers.

To "know" something truly, it is necessary to "be" that something.

This is the value of personal anecdote when teaching, for it shows that you have been there and done that, and the student can therefore be inspired with hope.

This knowledge can be transmitted from heart to heart. The greatest misfortune for humanity is that many have never met a true, living, heart-teacher; and must be inspired by the memories of dead heart-teachers.

There are few that can transcend time and space, very very few.

Heart-to-heart teaching is limited only by the student's own receptivity and reciprocality to the teaching.

People who wreckognise the message and deny the validity of other streams of being are encompassed by a sense of separation and a paradigm of exclusivity and have abandoned hope to humanity. Until they embrace what they have rejected, they cannot know hope.

Spirituality cannot be known by the intellect, and spiritual experiences are conditioned by the individual's accumulation of attachments, not by any external environment or external influence. A living master of the spirit is required for such individuals to realise escape from their bondage.

What a contradiction we are: on one hand we deliver spiritual food to this list, and on the other some teach the right of intolerance and violent response and rejection of that which does not "fit".

Some more quotes:

"We have healthy bodies with sick minds in them. It is time for raja yoga par excellence. Not for hatha yoga, not for energy fields, not for Tai Chi,and things like that which will only deepen your misery. It is the mind which has to be regulated, not destroyed, but regulated."

"Whenever you hate something, look into yourself and try to find it and remove it from within. Then you will not hate it anymore. When you are afraid of something, look into yourself and remove it from inside. And you will not be afraid of anything in this universe after that. You are seeing enemies everywhere. Look inside, all of you is rebelling against you."

- Revealing the Personality

So, by being agent provocateurs on this list in expressing controversial ideas and stirring things up, insulting and belittling people's ways of life, getting heteronormatively medieval with the alphabet, we are bringing into question the experience of faith based on personal illumination and initiation.

Using the violence of actions to make others submit to will, we create only a recoil, a resistance in the self that is then difficult to overcome by yourself, and must be given up so that we progress towards the goal of realising our inner freedom. In this way, written actions reveal the personality of other people, and that can be useful. However the recoil counts against this usefulness.

Faced by our adversary, the personality grows stronger as a tree grows stronger against the wind. The times may require that strength.

However, this is not the only way of existence. Doing that can damage that which has the potential for viability, which all life has. Because of our belief systems that are not based on experience, others are condemned to their fate, and the hope of awakened life is taken away.

Any chance of the seed of knowing the Self to grow is killed by laying concrete over the top of the awakening self, locking them into a machinic fate when it is our destiny to work the alchemy of transmuting this iron machine age into the golden age.

True knowledge is transferred from heart to heart by a master. Don't read what I'm saying, feel it in your heart!

"The brain has nothing to do with spiritual existence, except to give me such guidance as I need, - like the instruments in a pilot's cabin, to show direction, height, the weather outside. The intellect is for guidance only, temporal guidance, it has nothing to do with the spiritual life."

"... tendency to ask questions, to seek intellectual satisfaction, answers, is utterly, in one sense, pressing us down, keeping us on this level, from which we have to rise."

- Revealing the Personality.

So all reciprocal relationships are based on heart-to-heart communication. This is real communication, real reciprocality.

From my heart to your heart

“What the #$BLEEP*! Do We Know!?”

2004-07-27T13:29:00.000+12:00

I wanna see this movie. Someone get me a DVD with subtitles of this film, yesterday!

It has all the stars, Hameroff, Emoto, and Wolf are just a few.

Connecting to the Grid

2004-07-26T18:49:00.000+12:00

November is when it all happens.

When the TRS comes online, I'll finally be on the grid and have full access to telecommunications! And I'll be using this sexy little textphone to do it with you.

Bummer for CommunicatioNZ though, as they would have been good service, but ...

Ambition Quotient

2004-07-26T16:41:00.000+12:00

"I have overcome my profound deafness to achieve at the highest level in every area I have worked. The real world favours the brave and able and discards the disabled. I have never met a mentor who was able to support and guide my ambitions. I challenge you to find one for me."

Aquashot AQ Test

I just took this test and got the mark of 188 out of 300 which put me in the top 6.5% of people who entered the test. I doubt that means much, but it will be interesting to see if anything comes of it...

Time will tell.

Pre-NZRS Telecom Correspondence

2004-07-09T16:19:00.000+12:00

A QUICK NOTE: This is the correspondence between myself and Telecom a year ago as I attempted to find out what I was eligible for in terms of services that Telecom owes me as a Telecom customer.

Essentially, the question is: why am I not given what I pay $39.95 a month for...no access to telecommunications.

At 12:35 18/06/2003 +1200, Nicola Crequer wrote:

Dear Peter Fogarty

Thank you for your request regarding a breakdown of your Homeline Charges for account ********** (09 372****).

On this account you simply have Homeline standard monthly rental of $39.30, plus wire maintenance of $2.24.

Wiring maintenance is an optional service which covers the cost of parts and labour for the repair of faults caused by normal wear and tear in the wiring at your premises , providing the wiring has been installed to Telecom specifications .

In regards to your enquiry about a fax directory , I believe there may be one of these printed. You would need to contact Telecom Directories Ltd regarding this , on either phone 0800 808845, or if you would prefer you can fax them on 0800 225022

They will be happy to help.

Kind Regards

Nicola Crequer
For National Manager, Customer Services
0800 10 80 10 ext 32553

From: Peter Fogarty
Sent: Wednesday, 18 June 2003 15:30
To: Customer Service
Subject: Re: Telecom request 20030617-109664

Dear Nicola Crequer,

Thank you for your response.

I will send a fax to the number you have given me and get a directory sent through.

As regards the breakdown of the bill, I was wondering exactly what services I am entitled access to through the standard Homeline charge?

For example, free calls to 111, directory listings, directory service?

Best,
Peter

At 09:14 20/06/2003 +1200, Nicola Crequer wrote:

Dear Peter,

Thank you for your request regarding what calling services are included in your standard homeline (other than the homeline itself).

HomeLine Standard includes unlimited local calling.

As far as 111 calls go, you receive all genuine 111 calls for free. Plus one false 111 call for free per month , and are then charged $6 per false call thereafter.

All directory assisted calls , or operator assisted calls are chargeable.

I hope this information helps

Kind Regards
Nic Crequer
Service Co-ordinator
Customer Correspondence Group

From: Peter Fogarty
Sent: Friday, 20 June 2003 12:58
To: Customer Correspondence
Subject: RE: Telecom request 20030617-109664

Hi Nic,

Thank you for that description. How much would the unlimited local calling service cost?

I do not have access to this.

Best,
Peter

At 15:55 24/06/2003 +1200, Nicola Crequer wrote:

Hi Peter

As advised , free unlimited local calling is part & parcel of all standard homelines. You only pay local calling charges on special plans such as Homeline Economy.

Homeline standard monthly rental is only $39.30 per month, and this is what 09 372**** is on.

I hope this makes sense

Kind Regards
Nic Crequer
Service Co-ordinator
Customer Correspondence Group

From: Peter Fogarty
Sent: Thursday, 26 June 2003 16:54
To: Customer_Correspondence
Subject: RE: Telecom request 20030617-109664

Hi Nic,

I guess I should tell you where all of this was going. As you may be aware,under section 44 of the Human Rights Act in New Zealand it is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of disability in the provision of goods and services. This means if a customer purchases goods or services and is disadvantaged in a way that is unfair to their status, there may be a ground for discrimination.

I was attempting to establish the "cost" of access to free, unlimited local calling, as opposed to a connection to the network. Perhaps I should have asked how much the cost of maintaining a connection to the network is, as opposed to my focus on unlimited local calling (for which is what most people are happy to pay the monthly fees.)

You may also be aware that the new Telecommunications Act requires Telcos to provide a relay service for the hard of hearing and deaf, so they may access the "free, unlimited, local" service for which they pay $40 a month, and for which I pay the same amount, but because of Telecom's policy of not "operating a charity," I have no access.

I use the phoneline primarily for the internet, as do a large number of New Zealanders, so I am "happy" to pay Telecom's rates for that privilege.

My inquiry was to try and establish the "cost" of the access to free, unlimited local telephony contained in the monthly fee.

Best,
Peter

At 08:20 27/06/2003 +1200, Nicola Crequer wrote:

Hi Peter

Thank you for clarifying your query.

Though I do understand your query , the 'cost' to have free local calling , is all part & parcel and inclusive of your standard homeline monthly rental of $39.30.

This rental is what you pay per month for your line, and includes connection to the network , plus network services such as local calling.

There is no defining price split as such (ie - it's not like half of the cost is towards local calls & half is line rental).

I hope this further clarifies your monthly rental.

There is another alternative- Homeline Economy , whereby you pay a cheaper monthly rental of $25.55 plus 20c per local call (up to 2 hours) , calls up to 4 hours are 40c , up to 6 hours are 60c etc .

However as you are most likely aware - whenever you connect to the internet, your phone is making a local call, hence this would become chargeable on the Homeline Economy plan (so would not be a money saver).

You are correct in that (even though we do a lot of sponsorship work throughout New Zealand) Telecom is a business and not a charity.

We also believe in not treating people differently due to a disability , which is why you are entitled to all the same services as other residential Telecom customers.

I hope this information helps. For future reference , and advice on hearing impaired phones/equipment, you may wish to contact your local Hearing Association.

Kind Regards
Nic Crequer
Service Co-ordinator
Customer Correspondence Group

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 13:33:08 +1200
From: Peter Fogarty
To: Customer_Correspondence
Subject: RE: Telecom request 20030617-109664

Hi Nic,

Thank you for your further clarifications. However, I still find your company policy to be unacceptable with regard to the disability of deafness.

What you are telling me is exactly the same as a business refusing to provide a wheelchair ramp so that people with mobility disabilities can access their premises.

Let me give you two examples of the ways in which Telecom deprives me of an acceptable standard of living.

Firstly, I note that I have to file a tax return by next week. I need assistance to complete this tax return. The only way I can get this assistance is, guess how? An 0800 number! Last year I had to find out where the IRD offices were and then go there in person to get the form filled out properly. Can you guess how hard it is to find the offices as Telecom doesn't list their address, only a 0800 number? This is inconvenient and frustrating in the very least.

Running your own business becomes very close to impossible without access to voice telephony.

My second example is from yesterday, when I went into the city from Waiheke where I live, to do a job in Takapuna. Ordinarily I would expect there to be a taxi waiting in the taxi rank, and because it is impossible for Deaf in New Zealand to call a taxi to save their lives, not to mention calling the police, ambulances, or fire engines. I pray that I never have to have that need because if I do, I will not be able to, because of Telecom's policy of not making exceptions for the one disability that it oppresses.

So, what do I do? I walk around the Devonport CBD and try to find other taxi ranks. With no luck, I look for a business so I can ask a hearing person to call a taxi for me. I go to a hotel and what do you know, they order the most expensive taxi company in Auckland, even though I ask them to ring 5291000 for Discount cabs. An $8 fare became a $25 fare. I went without dinner that night. I could have used a relay service to pre-order the right taxi without depending on a stranger (who was making money for their business by ordering a taxi and therefore getting money for themselves) and therefore gotten to my work appointment on time and without penalty.

Why am I telling you this? Because in your response below, you say that "We also believe in not treating people differently due to a disability , which is why you are entitled to all the same services as other residential Telecom customers."

PRECISELY.

You do not provide me with the same services as all other residential customers, which by law (Telecommunications Service Order and Human Rights Act) you are required to provide all residential customers.

Your company is lucky that New Zealand does not allow class action suits.

Thank you for your time and kind regards.

Best,
Peter

From: Peter Fogarty
Sent: Friday, 4 July 2003 10:31
To: Customer_Correspondence
Subject: Fwd: RE: Telecom request 20030617-109664

Dear Nic,

Look, I'm sorry about my rant yesterday, but the fact is, Telecom is obliged to provide access to local unlimited calling, to emergency numbers, to absolutely everyone, as part of the kiwi share agreement. The fact is, Telecom does not meet their obligations.

This is not a tired point to be making because it has been acknowledged last year and made a service order.

I know you're just a customer service manager and can't do anything about company policy.

It's just obscene that your company can have billions of dollars in profit but nitpick over their public service obligations where their service impacts on the Deaf while telecomms the world over have provided this service for decades.

I am semi-employed precisely because of your company, even though I was a straight-A student and have three and a half university degrees to my credit.

Can you give me some ways of accessing emergency services should I ever need to? That is: How do I get hold of the police, an ambulance or an fire engine?

And by the way, the fax number to try get hold of a fax directory is always busy. Can't you simply post me a copy of the directory and add the cost to my bill?

Best,
Peter

At 15:06 16/07/2003 +1200, Linda Harrison wrote:

Dear Peter,

You were corresponding recently with Nic Crequer regarding a number of issues you have in relation to Telecom service.

Nic has asked me to respond to a few outstanding issues.

Firstly, you asked if there was another way to purchase a fax directory as you were having trouble getting through on the advertised fax number.

If you have still not been able to get through on this number, can I suggest you fax your request directly through to 09 525 5047. The person who receives faxes at this number will ensure your request is passed on to the appropriate area, along with a comment about the difficulty accessing the correct number.

Secondly, you asked about accessing emergency services. Deaf customers can contact emergency services via:

• TTY on 0800 16 16 16
• Fax on 0800 16 16 10

You also related to Nic two examples of difficulties that you attributed to Telecom.

The first of those related to needing assistance in filing a tax return. You criticised Telecom for the Inland Revenue Department not listing the street addresses for its offices in the Telephone Book. Telecom lists whatever details an organisation chooses (and pays) to list. Your issue in this case is with IRD - not Telecom. I note that IRD tells its website users that they can obtain assistance via telephone, email, post or by making an appointment (which has to be requested via phone).

Secondly, you discuss incurring a higher than necessary taxi charge because a company other than the one you requested was called – in spite of your instruction to call a specific company. I suggest your issue in that case is with the hotel placing the call on your behalf – not with Telecom.

I do agree that a relay service would have been one way you could have received greater assistance on both of these occasions.

In some of your earlier correspondence with Nic, you focussed on the cost of provision of local calls - which you say you are not able to take advantage of . You say that you primarily use your telephone connection for the internet and obviously also use fax services. These (can)both make use of the local calling service - depending on the ISP used and the fax number called.

Finally, you make mention of the Human Rights Act and the provision of a relay service. Whilst section 44 of the Act does talk about discrimination, it is important to view this in parallel with section 52 - Exception in relation to disability.

The Government announced in May last year its intention to establish a relay service, rather than exploring the possibility of requiring telcos to perform this function. It has also signalled its intention to establish a Telecommunications Service Obligation that would require telcos to pay for this service - but has not yet taken this step.

You state in your email of 26 June "that the new Telecommunications Act requires telcos to provide a relay service for the hard of hearing and the deaf..." This is not the case - the Act makes no mention of a relay service.

As an aside, you may be aware that Telecom has a service through which customers can use Directory Assistance via fax instead of by calling 018. The same charges are incurred as calling 018. I am attaching a form for using this service.

Regards,

Linda Harrison
Government & Community Relations Advisor
Telecom New Zealand Limited
Ph 0800 114 104
Mobile 027 444 0996
Fax 0800 266 222
email: linda.harrison@

From: Peter Fogarty
Sent: Thursday, 17 July 2003 16:56
To: Linda Harrison
Subject: RE: RE: Telecom request 20030617-109664

Dear Linda,

Thank you for your clear and precise response. You have illustrated my misapprehension of the situation. I had thought that the Telecommunications Service Order was a binding order to set up a relay service. I was wrong, apparently.

Thank you for giving me these fax numbers. I will copy them to a place handy to my fax machine and hope that I will get an immediate reassurance that I have been listened to, and that services will respond immediately.

You are half-correct in your response to my two other examples of impediments in my access to your networks. My complaint is with the hotel, and with IRD, yes. But my complaint is also with you. You are not a dispassionate party to these incidents which occur DAILY as a result of your lack of provision of access to which I have every right.

You tell me that "In some of your earlier correspondence with Nic, you focussed on the cost of provision of local calls - which you say you are not able to take advantage of . You say that you primarily use your telephone connection for the internet and obviously also use fax services. These (can) both make use of the local calling service - depending on the ISP used and the fax number called."

That is correct.

Indeed, that is ALL I can do with my use of local calling. I am limited to one phone number (I do not yet have a fax directory - something I must pay for - and because I am unemployed as a result of your company policy, I must go without) and I must ask you a further question.

Is your own use of the telephone limited to calling your own internet provider, if you have one?

Is your answer no? If so, why do I have limited, local access to your networks, when it is supposed to be unlimited local, for everyone in the public sector?

I wonder if I should take up my complaint with all the companies, all the businesses, all the services, as you suggest, since I cannot get in touch with them any other way, and email and postal is not satisfactory when there exists an immediate connection, that just simply is not there as a result of your company policies.

Thank you for clarifying that our government only has an intent to establish a relay service and has, in fact, not made a move to order telecomms to establish that service.

Again, I ask you. Is your use of the phone restricted to using your internet provider? Are you able to make any other kind of phone call? Why should I be unable to do so?

I am not familiar with section 52 of the Human Rights Act, with exception to disability. Are you able to copy me that clause? I presume you mean that this clause allows you to exclude the Deaf from your telecommunications networks.

Thank you for your considered response.

Best,
Peter

At 17:14 17/07/2003 +1200, Linda Harrison wrote:

Peter,

Thanks for your email.

You ask about section 52 of the Human Rights Act. I will fax you a copy of that section.

Telecom's position remains that it has no issue with the concept of a relay service. Our concerns relate to the way that service is set up and how it is paid for.

Regards,

Linda Harrison.

From: Peter Fogarty
Sent: Thursday, 17 July 2003 17:44
To: Linda Harrison
Subject: RE: RE: Telecom request 20030617-109664

Dear Linda,

Thank you for your impeding fax on the relevant section of the Human Rights Act.

Will I expect any further responses to this email from you?

Best,
Peter

At 08:56 18/07/2003 +1200, Linda Harrison wrote:

Peter,

I was unable to get through on your fax last night. Seem to be having more success this morning.

I'm not sure what more you were asking of me - apart from the rhetorical question regarding regarding my telephone use.

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to come back to me.

Regards,

Linda Harrison.

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 10:48:38 +1200
To: "Linda Harrison"
From: Peter Fogarty
Subject: RE: RE: Telecom request 20030617-109664

Dear Linda,

Yes, thank you for sending through the relevant section of the Human Rights Act, section 52.

I can see that Telecom refuses to provide access to unlimited, local telephone calls for me, because "(i) That person's disability requires these facilities or services to be provided in a special manner; and (ii) The person who supplies the facilities or services cannot reasonably be expected to provide them in that special manner". The rest of the section provides that the services or facilities need not be provided if they are on terms more onerous than those on which they are provided to other people.

Oh. I see that this means that you are once again saying that you are not a charity.

I can see that I am making a completely unreasonable request for access to your networks. I can see that you are not to be reasonably expected to provide these services, despite your billions of dollars of income, your millions of dollars of profit.

What a shame.

You need not respond to my rhetorical questions in the previous email. I will just resign myself to my hopes that the government will establish an acceptable relay service so that I may be allowed to become a fully functional human being instead of being disabled by one company's oppressive, selfish policies.

It is a pity that the Government had not established a relay service prior to your company's privatisation of the telecommunications business, where I am sure I would have enjoyed a richer enjoyment of life, I would be able to run my own business and no longer be regarded as difficult to contact, difficult to communicate with, and be able to enjoy the privileges and benefits that telephone usage accrues.

Have you any information that you may be able to give me, as regards the government's intent to provide a relay service? That is, can you tell me what is happening? I have had no responses to my inquiries.

Best,
Peter

From: Peter Fogarty
To: Ruth Dyson (Minister of Disabilities)
Time: 18/07/2003 11:22am

Subject: Telecom correspondence re: Relay Service.

Dear Ruth,

As you will see from this correspondence, I am very frustrated with progress being made on the relay service.

I see now that you have only established intent to provide access to voice telephony and have in fact done very little to ensure that it will be running any time soon!

May I have some information as to what is happening with the delivery of a relay service?

Best,
Peter

CURIOSITY: Kenji Siratori

2004-07-06T16:48:00.000+12:00

His opaque SF writing is extreme in the least.

His writing is a continuous barrage of code and repetitive words that inlay an implicit DNA coding of the English language.

His art as you can see in this gallery is no less synthetically fractured and recompiled as this interview shows.

His personality and his filth productions comes with a language all its own.

Another interview explains all the facets of this hypersonic talent.

Go get Blood Electric. You'll never read anything like Siratori except for perhaps Alan Sondheim.

REVIEW: BEE

2004-06-27T14:19:00.000+12:00

I was just looking through some old bits that never got into print for one reason or another and found this article written for Re:Mix; turned out that they ran out of space to run the story...

Bret Easton Ellis appeared in the literary scene at the age of twenty-one with 1985’s Less than Zero, a brilliantly wrought novel that evoked Catcher in the Rye’s disaffected Holden, but was closer to the 1920s fetishes of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Having written four novels before turning seventeen, BEE hit his stride with his third published work, American Psycho, published when he was twenty-seven. A $300,000 contract was cancelled by BEE publisher Simon & Schuster on sight of the manuscript and Norman Mailer asked that it be reviewed by a panel of twelve writers before it was printed in 1991 on Random House’s Vintage imprint. American Psycho was initially banned in New Zealand, and was released shortly after on the condition that it be sold shrink-wrapped and stickered R18. BEE followed American Psycho with the quietly deceiving The Informers in 1994 and made a confident return in 1998 with a celebrity satire cum thriller, Glamorama, where he refined his style to perfection.[1] The Washington Post called BEE’s fictions “the literary equivalent of a snuff flick.”

Already notorious for the unrestrained stylised characters and smoothly repetitive plotless narratives of Less than Zero and 1988’s The Rules of Attraction, BEE burst into infamy with American Psycho. Inflammatory, controversial and bitterly protested against, American Psycho gave the capitalist era its Frankenstein in psychopath Patrick Bateman, who perfectly illustrates the selfish greed and insanity of the Eighties. It was a book that strapped you down and mocked you through a welter of amoral fantasies and material depravity described with clinical, detached precision. Death threats were sent, anonymous phone calls made, feminists were up in arms, and Fay Weldon wrote, “Look, I don't want you to actually read BEE's book. I did it for you.”[2] And BEE agrees with her; if you’re a teenager, he doesn’t want you to read it either.

It is these palettes BEE dexterously wields that compel readers to return to his books: his narcissist dislocated youth; his obsessive detailing of surface perfections masking inner emptiness; amoral social requirements to conform; and lives spent chasing the dragon. It’s slasher pornography wretched out of its plastic molds, but it’s no less pornographic than news media pornography, fashion pornography, or war pornography, and that’s the point.

Everyone’s disappearing, and they can’t find or feel themselves anymore, but nothing much happens, anyway, in BEE’s fictions. Money, designer clothes, restaurants, brand names and objects replace their selves, and they are no longer capable of affect, desensitized by random acts of violence, sexual brutality and remorseless prose. Material wealth is taken for granted, and spirituality comes down to what brand of health food is consumed. Nothing shocks; the mention of a snuff movie in Less than Zero has narrator Clay wondering if he should be concerned. Yet no matter how dreadful the action gets, BEE is a master of the American novel; peering into the underbelly of what it means to be an American and unflinchingly documenting his amoral people with a deep sense of moral perspective, as Thomas Pynchon, and Don Delillo did before him.

The characters that people BEE’s books search for their feelings, they try to find something to make them have feelings, something to anchor them to reality. Their tales of disaffect illustrate our prisons, and while BEE is most likely to disappear from the library stacks, ending up a lonely “Lost” in library databases, his fictions will yet reserve pride of place upon the bookshelves of these feeling BEE’s satire, and most likely to be borrowed and never returned. You know who you are. It’s okay; I would too, if I were you.

books

Less Than Zero [Simon & Schuster, Inc: New York, 1985 / Picador: London, 1986]

“You can disappear here without knowing it.”

Clay returns to Los Angeles from college in New Hampshire at Christmas to find his best friend Julian is sleeping with his girlfriend, Blair, but he doesn’t care. As their drug use goes from recreational to habitual, homogenous blond/e and tan teenagers search the suburban Xanax haze of Los Angeles for something to give meaning and feeling to their lives. Julian develops a large drug debt and sells himself for sex, then disappears. Clay observes it all, unsure whether he should merge because people are afraid to merge in Los Angeles, and then he leaves.

The Rules of Attraction [Simon & Schuster, Inc: New York, 1987 / Picador: London, 1988]

“The scene of us standing there was too real and too pointless.”

It’s all stereotypes with haircuts; the diary of a group of confidently hot New Hampshire college students drinking, having sex and doing drugs, in no particular order. Paul’s in love with Sean, but Sean acts straight; Victor Ward’s looking for a girl in Europe; Lauren’s post-virginal and sleeping with someone who’s not her boyfriend, isn’t sure if she likes it or not, and she’s missing Victor; Harry’s dead, suicide, with no heartbeat, but he’s still alive; others gravitate around nothing; Stuart wants to fuck Paul; Patrick Bateman’s Sean’s brother; and Clay tells us people are afraid to merge on campus after midnight.

American Psycho [Vintage: New York, 1991 / Picador: London, 1991]

“Murders and executions ... mergers and acquisitions”

A sadistic, psychopathic Wall Street merchant banker, Patrick Bateman, obsessively details every element of his daily life; recording an extensive bathroom routine with the same relish as his mutilations of prostitutes, rats in vaginas, decapitations, beggar shooting, dog knifing, and what his peers are wearing, eating, and saying. His life is whiled away in a succession of lunches and parties and fucking and killing. No one notices anything behind Patrick’s blank face, and if they notice, they don’t react; there is no exit anyway.

The Informers [Borzoi: New York, 1994 / Picador: London 1994]

“We’ve already been there,” I tell him. “We’ve already seen it.”

In a collection of inter-related stories about a group of friends, it’s been a year since Jamie died in a car crash outside Las Vegas. Tim looks good but isn’t quick on the uptake, and his friend Graham’s mother self-medicates with Libriums and Valiums, fantasises about sex with the pool-tender. She follows Graham to his drug pick-ups, and catches him in lies, as does Tim’s mother; meanwhile vampires stalk Los Angeles, and bodies are found skinned in rubbish bins. The impressions of their lives flash past, and as the stories get bleaker and disquieting, there is left a passed-out intoxication, a drained emptiness.

Glamorama [Borzoi: New York, 1998 / Picador: London, 1998]

“The better you look, the more you see.”

Victor Ward, a blandly handsome twentysomething New York model with a semi-successful sideline in movies and two girlfriends, becomes lost in an increasingly surreal reality. Victor imagines he’s always being filmed, considering how a director would shoot the scene, how the light would appear on his face, and perhaps he is always being filmed, or perhaps his whole life is a glamour. The line between film and real life is hovered up through a rolled-up Benjamin. Victor accepts $300,000 to go on a cruise ship to the UK and somewhere along the way he is replaced by a double, disconnected from his old life and becomes unwillingly entangled in a conspiracy, where everyone’s involved, and he’s a pawn manipulated through broad lashings of cinematic terrorist attacks, which may be staged.

cutoffs:

“But the precise facts of his substance use, like those of his sexuality, or his social life, or his future ambitions, remain out of reach.” [3]

footnotes:

[1] Less than Zero was filmed in 1987 with brat-packers Andrew McCartney and Robert Downey Jr., and Mary Harron sympathetically bought American Psycho to the screen in 2000, and this year Roger Avery brings us The Rules of Attraction; it’ll be interesting to see what he’s made of a book panned as a too self-conscious college diary.
[2] Weldon, Fay. “An honest American psycho: Why we can’t cope with Bret Easton Ellis’s new novel.” The Guardian. Thursday April 25, 1991.
[3] Beckett, Andy. “Leader of the Bret pack.” The Guardian. Saturday January 9, 1999.

How Deaf Am I?

2004-06-24T23:46:00.000+12:00

Just so you know:

I found this graphic and I hear naturally at the top of the scale, around 130-140db...

Genesis Meditations

2004-06-23T17:44:00.000+12:00

Every now and then I find or am directed to writing online that opens my eyes to elements of meditation.

XM (from an email group I participate in) sent me a link to Organelle last week.

The site is absorbing and provides a concise insight into many of my interests. Particularly, I am grateful for its provision of Ain Soph, a text called the Unknown God by F. J. Meyers.

It all goes back to Genesis.

In meditation, at first, the mind can "see" only darkness. The sensations of the body are present, thoughts fly past in the cartesian theater, but it is darkness above the deep, above the waters of the body.

And slowly, after some time, Light appears.

Anyway. It's all about Genesis, and Organelle has so much interesting detail on various elements of alchemy, the tree of life and its corresponding matrix to the pattern of life.

It's a Long Way to Tipperary

2004-06-09T15:25:00.000+12:00

It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye Piccadilly,
Farewell Leicester Square!
It's a long long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's right there.

Yeah, so I was thinking about my given names, and the question of the origin of Fogarty came up. Now, Fogarty Researchers might give me clearer answers.

The family story is that we came from the Tipperary / Galway area during the potato famines and ended up on the West Coast, supporting the gold rushes.

Before that, legend is that we are dark Irish, descended from Moor sailors held for ransom after their ships sank off Eire as Wes Ulm corroborates.

"Fact: The Spanish Armada battle at Gravelines itself was definitely not a titanic naval clash, but a short, inconclusive, rather anticlimactic encounter between two large fleets, both of which committed major blunders and neither of which damaged each other significantly. It’s true that the Spanish Armada caused little damage to the English ships, but then, neither did the English ships cause much harm at all to the Spanish fleet, as discussed in the main text below. It was an unusually ferocious September Atlantic storm as the Spanish vessels were rounding the tip of Ireland, that damaged and/or sank most of the Spanish Armada ships that did not return to port, either directly or in compelling the vessels to beach on the rocky Irish coast. Most of Spain’s casualties from the Spanish Armada invasion resulted when sailors died of or were incapacitated from disease and exposure, not from battle wounds. In any case, most of the Spanish Armada ships did manage to return to port in Spain or Portugal. Many of the lost ships had already been in a state of disrepair, while Philip II’s crucial Atlantic class vessels—the most seaworthy in the Spanish Armada and designed for oceanic traversal, the key to Spain’s New World empire and the newly conquered Philippines archipelago in the Pacific Ocean—returned to the Iberian Peninsula largely intact. In fact, excellent seamanship was displayed by both the English and Spanish sides in their encounter, and it is quite remarkable that the Spaniards did not suffer greater losses considering the unremittingly powerful storm they had encountered."

- Top 10 myths and muddles about the Spanish Armada, history’s most confused and misunderstood battle,” by Wes Ulm, Harvard University personal website, © 2004.

There are several narratives that either support or debunk this theory. Another site says that modern scholarship has not proved or disproved the Spanish Armanda theory:

"When the Spanish Armada sank, several bands of Spanish sailors managed to reach Ireland, where they were stranded. Over time they married into the Irish population, and their descendants, with their darker or blacker hair, eyes, and Spanish complexion, naturally stood out. They were and are called the Black Irish."

Looking at photos of my family I can almost see this, yet we're European in appearance, if not clearly Irish, as we do look quite continential. I am always asked where I am from, probably due to my Deaf accent and dislocated look. I usually say, Noo Zild via Spain, France, England and Ireland and that settles it.

I'd like to know if this is more than just Romance.

Time to look at our whakapapa.

Why I like those the best

2004-06-06T15:39:00.000+12:00

The articles I reposted below are the ones I like the best out of what I've published because they are clean.

They represent my honest opinion and the year 2002 was a good year for my writing.

I think I wasn't feeling silenced then, as I feel now. I don't feel like writing because I see it as being futile. There isn't much point. So why bother. I gotta change this mentality. Hence a blog.

I think I was more optimistic about the future and so felt the need to write, back then. Or maybe that's just how I feel right now.

A Thousand Ways of Density

2004-06-06T14:54:00.000+12:00

Null density :: We spun in after the 27-day spiral
sunwards on electromagnetic rails from the tear edge.
We’d been out on routine testing the termination shock
limning the subsonic, that glistening pane of tension
before the heliosheath teardrops away from the
interstellar wind. For slowtime days we combed and
wove the flux for density, braiding the tessellating
groove so that Sol’s coruscating field curled on. The
vibrant rayon-ionized and counter-rotating spheres of
our interstellar bodies dissolved into invisibility as we
crossed the threshold of Golden. Golden! We the
Delany’s golden, we who somehow could traverse the
edges of Sol’s radiation and live: he golden, she golden,
null golden, golden to the lost density of light and its
gardeners. Heliosurfers, solsailors and sundancers
came here to depolarize and we were no different.

One density :: And we were no different. Oh! We were
as different as anyone could be. We each rotated down,
we each dropped notches of dimensionality, and our
glowing unity fragmented and I am again. Everything
started with desire and I am no different, I’m at war with
my self on my body’s battlefield: subtle pushes and tugs
down at the resisting dense. The bar was dark, but we
were light, polarized, and individuated after our passage
through the aether gateway grid. There were humans
here, other golden, other species, and various energies.
The bar wavered in the collective light; coloured
shadows shifting like mandlebrot sets. We, the Oh and
the I, we sat, the three of us. No need to order in the
Golden. Our muscles ached from our tense weight. To
be golden is a curse and a blessing. Ionized water
sprayed around us and for a moment our stars showed
like diamonds in the mist.

One density :: Mirrors folded in upon themselves and
we stood at the bar, to amusement of multi-dees and
the consternation of the humans by whom we
apparated. Humans, hah, could never handle
downshifters to their dee. The condescension of
downshifting assaults pride, always; better to arrive
downshifted than to emerge from the very air in the
semblance of one of them. Us, we energies, must
become human to be visible on their dee. And the pilots
who drink at the Golden, they’re no mere human.
Sense hardened from thunder through silent space,
they, who endure the slow death of space because to
leave earth is to become the ance-spacer on the Galileo
run, returning every ninety-year to the grandchildren of
grandchildren, they’re the original human beings. I
saluted the valiant tragedy of their lonely centuries as I
sat at the bar next to a creased triplanetary, probably
the seer of a seven. Leaning from a high stool at the
bar and tall with a face like rainforest midnight, eyes
flecks of moonlight in the trees, and as his breathing
returned to normal through his broad nose, he said,
looking up at me, “you do that to me every ‘me
do you?”

Two density :: “It wasn’t that long ago when it was light
above, all around and in the waters-between.” Slipshift.
We were eating raw vegetables on a moon beneath an
orange sun and a bright star. A simple matter it was,
through a vesica piscis between twin orbs, to timeslip at
the Golden. Still looking, “waters-between?” he asked,
“need a singalong? See how dense I get on you?” And
surfing his countenance: why do you fly on thought
while we scar space why we so dense you subtle I see
nothing you up pushing down and my senses ‘plex the
multi intertwined in mine. Oh, to live so slowly, to
comprehend so little, every micro-expression unread,
and needing to brute the air to produce those clicks and
whistles as he spoke me and I listened him thirteen
ways but five only he shared.

Three density :: Bone, he archaeologies of a life
drunken with emotion. The cold expanses between the
planets shed whispers at shadelow. A stolen embrace
between two moist three-brained bodies become two
from within the nine. Deeper yet, Khushi sings under
the bluest sky, a brook joins her, and the trees tickle one
another. Falling; a wet crown pushes from her lips, pain
of the sun explodes in my eyes and burning air by my
heart beat. I gasp and scream as I fall free; now three.
Beat. Waters-between, heavy yet? Waters-between, o
that name flows through my hair as my arms pull and
push warm liquid as I swim with the Sirians. Float upon
the waters of my homeworld, golden. Castles condense
above the reefs and drift on the wind.

Five density :: He stood against the bar ignoring sounds
(singing angels, my Love, my guides?) and watched his
fleeting thoughts: I am that I am, seer, with my eyes and
ears and nose, with my math and jets. Here not
because I’m tall, not because I’m golden, oh no, but
because I waver with golden now. Never saw tell (?).
Here first, you see, now then. O how you golden avoid
the density of lightness. Then you wouldn’t be golden
and I wouldn’t be human. Katipos balloon from their
nest under the pingao grass. They drift over my face,
spiderleg shadows dervish round my eyelashes, and one
lands on my cheek. It tastes me with its tiny black
palps and I see fanged chelicera about to sink venom; I
slap it dead to the sand.

Eight density :: Bone taps a tailormade jane from his
pocket. Hark at the fool sucking on hot coal, eh watersbetween.
On the cornices, four circles imprint his palm
as he knuckles the Audi round a hairbend, rear wheels
skidding in the verge. White crystals spill from his nose
and he laughs with a blonde woman, her hand on his
knee as he shifts up a gear. Tullamore Dew on his
breath, hot red meat in his belly, and cocaine in his blood.
The wind rushes in his ears and he sounds like a violin.
The Oh and the I, we are sated now; how our shoulders
ache and our forehead flower’s afire. Thanking Bone, we
bade him farewell and the Oh and the I, we left. Thirty
four counterclockwise and twenty one clockwise and at
nine tenths of the cee it is all just light.

Thirteen density :: I saw her face float over my nicoflare
like a ghost in smoke. Pale gold and emerald quarks
whorled at me. She (?) shimmered and shifted; caught,
I blinked away the burn and peered into the bar, gone.
Talking I was to . . . (?) Oh, musa been angels again,
oheah, the Golden. Funny, lighting here’s shady
nowdark, brillig was when I inschooned. Shebeen type
of face to suicide for, a ko-omote, ah fib on the acci: on
the lip of the return to the one, end of mean loop cycles
back to thirteen, a one a three is four. Step it upout!
He scaled back up to one density :: as I, the Oh and the
I, rotated back to null density :: we saw (?) his wry
smile, the traceries of micro-expression and left with a
gentled sigh, . . . is all light.

a thousand ways of density . . .

A SF prose poem published in Foxymoron #3

By Peter Fogarty

Original titles included Fibonacci Density and Fibo-den-acci. I'm kinda glad that Georgie and Mel used the subtitle instead.

Telephone service gives new voice to the deaf

2004-06-06T14:39:00.000+12:00

Go to New Zealand Herald link

14.05.2002

The use of new telecommunications powers has finally brought one disabled group in from the cold, writes PETER FOGARTY*.

Life has been changed dramatically for the deaf and hearing- or speech-impaired by the Government's announcement that a telephone relay service will be established. The decision comes after 25 years of lobbying by deaf and disabled activists.

A telephone relay service is a simple technology that enables people who cannot speak or hear to make phone calls to those who can. Deaf and hearing- or speech-impaired people will use a special keyboard, a teletypewriter (TTY), which connects to a standard telephone, to type to an operator at a specialised call centre. The operator reads out the written words and transcribes the spoken reply to text which callers then read on their TTYs.

This service has been proven remarkably swift and practical overseas. In New Zealand the deaf have used TTYs to call one another since 1982, but it was impossible to communicate with anyone who did not have a TTY of their own. Also, most deaf people could not afford a TTY because of the poverty created by the business community's inability to integrate them into society.

The devices were also more expensive to use than normal telephony because it takes about three times longer than a spoken conversation to transmit the same information.

When Telecom took over the public telephone system in 1986, several submissions were made on improving access to telecommunications for the deaf. These included reduced costs for toll calls, a relay service, TTY rentals, and access to emergency services. Telecom ignored all these submissions.

Four years later, its marketing manager said the company was in business to make a profit, and would not subsidise these services.

In 1989, fax machines became widespread and affordable. The deaf rapidly adopted faxes because they were cheaper than TTYs for toll calls.

When the internet became popular, the deaf shifted to email and instant messaging, and now use these to communicate with one another and the hearing community.

This remains unsatisfactory because most deaf people still have to wait to get a response to their emails or faxes, while a telephone call gets an immediate reply. This is very important when emergency services and businesses are concerned.

The Human Rights Commission received two complaints from deaf people, Kim Robinson in 1995 and Victoria Manning in 1997. They claimed that Clear (now TelstraClear) and Telecom were in breach of sections 44 and 65 of the Human Rights Act because they directly and indirectly discriminated against the deaf and the hearing- or speech-impaired by refusing to provide a relay service to access voice telephony.

The telecommunications companies' response was that they had no obligation to provide a new service, that their provision of voice telephony required an ability to hear and that there was no incentive to provide a relay service for so few people.

Last December, the Human Rights Commission found that Telecom, TelstraClear and Vodafone were in breach of the human rights charter by refusing to provide a telephone relay service.

Now, the Government has announced the compulsory establishment of a telephone relay service by the end of the year as a telecommunications service order under the Telecommunications Act.

This act requires telecommunications companies to provide the services defined and negates all the arguments the telecommunications companies had against their provision of a relay service.

"All citizens need access to instant two-way voice communication, not only in an emergency, but to participate fully in the community, which is a fundamental principle of the New Zealand disability strategy," said the Government.

Millions of calls will be made with the relay service. A total of 204,700 people were identified at the last census as having some hearing loss. Of these, the Deaf Association says, about 8000 identify as deaf.

There is also a large number of people with speech impediments. This number is easily trebled by including the hearing people who cannot contact the deaf and hearing- or speech-impaired people because of the lack of a relay service.

The Fitzgerald Report commissioned by the Government in 1999 estimated that 14,000 people would use this service.

However, this figure does not include the hearing family, friends and colleagues who will also use the service to contact the deaf and hearing- or speech-impaired. The relay service will enable all these people to communicate more easily.

I am deaf. We will now be able to make emergency calls, call for pizza, and invite friends over. We will be able to apply for jobs where only a phone number is given.

We will not be refused work because we cannot use a phone. We will be given a voice after being silenced for too long.

The Government has finally ensured our right to full participation in the community.

* Peter Fogarty is a freelance writer and editor.

SIDEBAR: London Times

2004-06-06T14:35:00.000+12:00

Go to London Times link

July 23, 2002

'It is not easy. But it is beautiful to have the choice of sound or silence'
by Peter Fogarty

At first I heard nothing. Instead I felt pain: a piercing, terrible stabbing in my auditory nerve. Three to four months like this went by. I wore the implant at the lowest setting, slowly increasing the sensitivity of the microphone over time as my brain grew accustomed to the pain. I could distinguish the sounds of objects as different kinds of pain. A door slamming was a firm, heavy jolt to my cortex, while a siren stroked my nerves with a razor blade.

Not surprisingly, I did not flick the switch on all that often — I could spend weeks without turning it on — and I learnt a truth: silence is golden.

Then I went to a drum’n’bass party at a nightclub. I don’t remember who played but I remember the end of the party. I have always had good bone conduction hearing — everyone has this, so dance music was perfect for me, especially breakbeats: drum’n’bass, two-step, R&B and hip-hop. Anything with arrhythmic bass lines moved me: I felt the tunes and thus heard them.

But this time, when I walked out, I heard the early-morning traffic down the road. The sun was coming up and I could feel, and hear, the party going strong behind me. I could hear!

Everything after that was a new experience. The sound of my nylon jacket as I walked was a whisper on the wind. The loud sound of my urine splashing into the lavatory basin was a revelation. You guys listen to this stuff every day? People’s voices were incongruous, an oddity, but appropriate to appearances.

The sound is still as painful as before, although I have developed a tolerance. The simulation provides me with information, but also with a strange feeling: a magnetic field spins on the left side of my head behind and immediately beneath my ear on the surface of my skull. The flesh gives if I push in behind my ear and I feel the edge of the internal processor.

I still don’t switch myself on all that often. When I’m in a club, or when I feel like it, or just for the hell of it. Or when people want to talk to me. This is why I have a cochlear implant: to help the hearing people around me to live with me — so they can understand my speech. It’s my attempt to cross an uncrossable divide so that I may live and work as a human being in society.

I hadn’t expected a “miracle” cure. In fact, I was ambivalent about the implant and refused to have it until it became apparent that I was unemployable because of my deafness. What I had hoped for was a higher quality of hearing, and that I might be able to use the telephone.

Now I can, after a fashion, based on 80 per cent guesswork and 20 per cent technique. OK. The first letter of the word is a, b, c, d, e, e? OK. The first letter of the word is E, right? Yes. How many letters? Four? OK, what’s the next letter — a? Yes, easee? Oh! easy.

No, it is not. But it is beautiful to have the choice of sound or silence.

Peter Fogarty, 27, a writer, lost his hearing at 22 months after a meningitis infection. He had a cochlear implant three years ago.

VIGNETTE: Across The Silence

2004-06-06T14:20:00.000+12:00

Someone touches me on the shoulder as I walk down the steps of the Clock Tower at Auckland University during Orientation Week. I turn, shading my eyes from the midday sun, to look at who tapped me. I see a man who seems familiar, but I cannot place him.

He looks in my eyes. I see the tower, trees and passersby reflected in the lens of his glasses. With this look, I see that he is deaf, but how Deaf is he? His next gesture gives me the answer. He is Deaf. His lips shape a word as his hands come up. He said "remember?" and I translate his sign: "Remember me?" He has the facial musculature typical of the Deaf, an oddly slack, but expressive way of adding nuance to sign language.

"I'm sorry, your face is familiar, but I don't remember your name," I said while making the signs for sorry face don't remember name. My face adds the emotional meaning for sorry, a slight frown, and familiar, I raise my eyebrows, and shake my head for don't. I shrug on name.

He smiles at my amateur sign language. He adopts the body language of talking to a hearing person, and tells me his name. Michael Preston*. The namesign is right hand in the shape of the ASL M, which then 'bites' across the chest to the left.

Michael guesses at my namesign which is right-hand thumb to index finger, keeping forefinger straight in the American sign for 'P', hand up under the chin, making a universal speaking gesture. He comes pretty close, his hand forms the P, but held in front of his chest. I smile and show him the right way.

I sign "nice to see you, what are you doing at university?" (nice see what doing university), and Michael tells me that he has just come from seeing the disability counsellor, Lynne Crabb, about interpreters, note takers and tutors for the two papers he is taking this semester.

Our conversation is slow as we negotiate our words past our mutual disability. He is just as deaf as I am, but he is Deaf and I am not. He is fluent in NZSL but because I have never lived in the Deaf community, I am not. I understand NZSL when it is signed to me, aided in large part by lip reading and body language but my own NZSL vocabulary is around fifty words or so. My first language was body language, then reading unlocked the universe, and with reading came spoken language. I never quite acquired the ability to sign as I was mainstreamed into general education for the Hearing after a year at the Deaf kindergarten at Van Asch College for the Deaf in Sumner, Christchurch.

So we're talking past one another outside the Clock Tower on Princes St. Because it's Orientation Week, the footpath is crowded with streams of students stepping past. I catch a few looks, and read their body language as they digest our visual information; that we are Deaf, and the still beauty of our punctuating arms. After ten minutes of talking; Michael signing and I speaking carefully so that I may shape my words as well as I can with the manuscript of my face; I learn that he does not have an interpreter yet for his classes.

"What? No interpreter?" What interpreter, shake head, frown, I said.

"No" Michael signed, "I work for AUT, and AK University has no interpreter for Deaf, but at AUT they have 3 full-time interpreters" No work AUT AK university no interpreter but AUT have 3 full interps, Michael shrugs, as if his body adds "what can you expect from these people?"

I ask about notetakers, aren't they enough? Michael looks at my eyes. A pained expression crosses his face, and he signs hard read, lots words, shake head, understand. I translate, "It's hard to read the notes, there are a lot of words that I don't understand." I gasp.

Michael sees my reaction. He frowns and asks "What?" Over about twenty minutes I explain that I'm a born writer, and find reading very easy. I explain that the quality of my note takers was reflected in my grades. Michael marvels, his expansive face opening in a wry smile as he nods slowly in understanding. Over these twenty minutes I learn a large number of things. That he cannot read very well, and must have tutoring immediately after some classes to have the notes explained to him. That the quality of educational interpreters is low, and there are far too few for the numbers of Deaf students who need them. That the reason there aren't more Deaf at tertiary level is because there are no interpreters there for them, and without interpreters, Deaf are adrift.

"But interpreters cannot do the job properly," I said, "they simplify the language far too much, and you lose too much information because of their editing."

Too many long words. I can't sign them. I hold back a sigh, and keep my face still as Michael asks me for clarification. I tell him that I have a major problem with interpreters. I tell him that I believe that interpreters are to a large part responsible for the state of Deaf education today.

"How much can you read" I ask Michael again. In response he reaches into his bag and grabs a folder and shows me a page on the folder. It is a conversation with his tutor.

Michael points at a word, "acquire", and asks me, "means 'get', right?"

"Yes, and no" I sign. Yes, beat, and no. "Acquire means get at the very basic level. You understand?" Michael nods.

"Acquire means more than just 'get', it means that you have worked to get something, or that you have been given something as a result of a plan, or maybe inheritance."

Slowly, I unpick this for Michael in sign. Acquire mean get. But acquire mean work get. Or give get. Maybe uncle die and you get. When Michael understands, he smiles, then frowns slightly and asks why couldn't the interpreter tell him this?

"You see! That is exactly what I mean, that interpreters are the problem; they don't teach how words are subtly different in meaning, but just teach you the sign for that word, and you do not attribute the extra meaning to the sign, with maybe a prefix sign like work-get . . ." Too many words again. I try again.

"Interpreters are the problem. They simplify your language, and so you see the world in simple ways where it is really more complicated. But because the words you use to talk about the world are simple, you can only have simple ideas about it, and when you try to read, the language is difficult, isn't it?" I said, interpreter problem. They simple your language, so see world simple where more complicated (fingerspelled). Words use talk about world simple, you have simple ideas about, and when read, language difficult?

"Do you understand?" I sign. Michael nods, slowly, not quite convinced. I tell him that the english language is abundant with examples where more nuanced versions of simple words have no sign equivalent.

"Meaning is stripped from the words when they are signed to you, and you are not told that it has been stripped from the word. All you get is the basic meaning, which is not enough for translation purposes," I said, painstakingly signing it out with the few words that I could use. Michael nods again.

"I understand what you are saying now," he said, and we both turn to look at the time on the Clock Tower. To our surprise this conversation has taken almost two hours, although we have exchanged a fraction of information that hearing people would have in the same time, we came away from this meeting with a richer insight into the complex layers of being Deaf in a Hearing universe.

I am reminded that I exist in a kind of limbo, neither a Hearing person, nor a Deaf person. I drift in the between of the margins of both worlds.

I have glimpsed the inner life of a Deaf person, Michael Preston. I have been reminded that educating the Deaf necessary comes in a multitude of variations depending on the language skills in sign, oral, and reading that they have acquired in the morass of Deaf education in New Zealand, and that only an approach tailored to the individual will help the Deaf succeed in life.

I am sure Michael Preston walked away with a richer understanding of how meaning is taken away from him by the inexpertise of his interpreter, and that he will use his position at AUT to teach the interpreters how to avoid this invisible trap that so often locks the Deaf down.

I walk down the hill through the dappled sunlight beneath the trees of Albert Park, Auckland; my mind expanding with insight.

Vignette written as part of the requirements for the post-graduate diploma in applied journalism qualification at Massey Extramural, May 2002.

*Michael Preston is not his real name. He was slightly offended by the way I represented him, due to my lack of understanding of NZSL and I may have reported the conversation inaccurately and so I have changed names to protect his identity. Everything written here is from my own perspective.

Why am I not posting enough?

2004-06-06T13:29:00.000+12:00

I don't really know why. It's not that I have nothing to say, but probably that I don't think I care enough about what happens day to day in my life to say something about it. That must be false, because I'm here, talking about it.

Last week I came to the end of a trial working in a second-hand book shop down on High street. It was the other one, the one with really rare books, you know, Rare, as in collectible, expensive and all that. I was managing the shop two days a week, doing mostly cataloguing and helping customers out. I hooked the job through my aunt who was friends with the owner. I think we all had doubts about my ability to work there because it was a sole-charge and that meant there was no one to answer the phone for me.

Honestly, the worst thing in the world after hearing a bus brake on a steep hill next to you is the telephone. I don't know if it is the cochlear implant, or it is universally horrible, but when you are the only person around to not answer the call, which is always going to be a business call asking for some book or another, it is excruicating to sit there and wait out the rings.

Anyway. I didn't keep the job for that obvious reason. Once more, stymied.

I thought perhaps I should load the blog with the previous pieces of writing I got published and liked enough to keep. Here we go.

2004-04-07T09:44:00.000+12:00

I found something about oga mu the other day. I suppose you're wondering, why oga mu? Generally I lay it out like this: oga is derived from my surname Fogarty. Spot the oga? It's been my pinball handle since I was high enough to see over the top of the table, and mu? Mu is the sunken continent off New Zealand and of which New Zealand forms a part. I'm from New Zealand, so like in the old days, oga is who I am, and mu is where I am from. Easy.

Now, this is where it gets interesting. oga is all over south east Asia, as mountain names, hill names, and in languages. I haven't managed to get a definite translation, but I did watch this Tibetan film about soccer-mad monks, and turns out one of them was called Oga, and the subtitle was "little servant". I like that.

Anyway, here's a hieroglyph I found on the net at hai oga and the subtitle on that is: worship, humbly. As this fits in with my Sahaj Marg practice, I'm liking it even more and more, the subtle synchroncities that have metasized from my initial use of oga to post the highest scores on machines from Addams Family, Fish Tales, World Cup to Creature from the Black Lagoon, and White Water all of which I've shut down. How about that?

Some suggestions for Living

2004-04-06T10:46:00.000+12:00

This morning, upon waking, my meditation was disturbed by constant thoughts of what I could or should be doing to help people minimise the impact of "civilisation" on their lives. I considered it awhile, and I felt that food was the most important dimension of civilisation that kept people down. I attempt to adhere to those guidelines, but I do not keep to them strictly, therefore I say avoid, rather than do not, because if I told you do not do this, you would respond with a reaction that would be detrimental. I've focused on food because it is one area where most of us have the power of choice. I'm no saint and I regularly avoid some of those guidelines (such as #'s 3, 5, 7, 12) but if we all moved along that path, some good may come from it. I'm working towards living like this.

1/ Avoid eating processed foods. This includes canned food, tv dinners, treated meats, irradiated fruits and vegetables. The reason being that such foods have deleterious qualities of lifeforce, and will consume your own lifeforce that they may be digested properly.

2/ Try to drink only boiled or distilled water, frequently. If possible (ie: you don't live too close to a major metropolis) consider setting up a rooftop catchment to collect water free of the shit that local government put in it to control the populace.

3/ Avoid the use of plastics to store or wrap food. If food is wrapped in plastic, transfer to paper bags or put in air-tight containers to keep fresh. Plastic always contaminates food. You're wrapping your food in oil; people are dying because of people wrapping food in plastic. The harmonics are not healthy.

4/ Avoid watching television an hour before going to bed, and also a hour after getting up in the morning. This means that your mind is free from subconscious influences while sleeping and you may access the noosphere untainted by programming. Maybe you'll meet up with your mates there.

5/ Avoid intoxicants such as marijuana, alcohol, prescription pills, coffee, cheese, over-cooked foods, and narcotics.

6/ Avoid wheat- or gluten-based products. Seek out breads based on rice, rye or spelt grains. Spelt is the only form of wheat that is completely digestible by the human body.

7/ Avoid cold or fizzy drinks. They shock the human body into a fight/flight response. Especially the ones with artificial sweeteners like aspartame.

8/ Buy local grown foods. This ensures your connection to the planet is sustained through foods grown in your area. Consider setting up a co-op where one of you has land and everyone else shares gardening duties and grow food.

9/ Avoid using refined sugar in your foods. Use honey or unrefined sugar if you really have to sweeten your foods.

10/ Keep food stored in your refrigerator to a minimum. Food stored in a refrigerator quickly assumes the harmonic vibration of the fridge and loses its integrity. Buy fresh veges on the day you will use them. Maybe a hassle, but your digestive system will thank you for it.

11/ Meditate on light in your heart at a regular time. This is a subtle technique for eliminating negative tendencies and harmonising your cellular system.

12/ Maintain some form of low-impact exercise regimen. A long walk around your neighbourhood will do the trick.

13/ Cultivate love and compassion for all living beings (not just humans, but plants, insects, birds, etc) and take care not to kill unnecessarily.

14/ Do everything in moderation.

15/ Avoid eating anything that has been slaughtered or otherwise bred in captivity to be slaughtered. Eat organic where possible.

16/ Avoid buying unnecessary items simply because they're the newest, coolest thing. Consider whether you will have better quality of life if you purchase such items.

17/ Do talk to your friends, call out people that indulge in wasteful behaviour, and attempt to keep your thoughts free from uncultured desires. Cultivate spirituality and move beyond religion. Look towards the essences of what is said, not what is said.

18/ Get outside more often. Walk on the grass in bare feet as much as you can. Sand is nice too. Walk in the rain. Allow Nature to caress you. Listen to the birds singing to the seeds. Listen for the greensong of the planet.

19/ Wear copper bracelets if you're on computers all the time. Consider the changes to your life if you used less electricity. . .

20/ Love life.

2004-04-04T16:05:00.000+12:00

MANIFESTO: When language cages writing, how do I make you feel what I feel? I can only drive my words into your mind and hope that the endless gyres that I spin about you will work a groove deep enough to break you out of your monster zero existence. I want to break frames of reality; all the given assumptions that make an ass out of you and humanity, every second. That’s what I’m about to load hereabouts.