MultiMedia and the Avant-Gardes

I had to help write an essay about multimedia performances a few years ago, and found a wonderful book by Richard Kostelanetz which gave me a clue to how to shape the piece.

I have just bought it through AbeBooks for a very good price, as the Amazon going rate seemed much higher (£20-30 for the paperback).

Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes.

Mr Kostelanetz has written a myriad of fascinating material, and his website is definitely worth a visit.

Admittedly, I bought the first edition (1993) - the one that inspired me - and he has updated the second edition (2001) - with the cover shown here.
Indeed, he has offered some draft updates, should a third edition ever appear.

What I found, to help me shape the essay/thesis (with a deadline of a week!) was his reference to mixed-means theatre. He analysed the various forms that he covers with that term (Happenings, stage performances, kinetic environments, etc) using what I assume he got from Aristotle's rather rigid 'unities' for theatrical performances:

• The unity of action: a play should have one main action that it follows, with no or few subplots.



• The unity of place: a play should cover a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.



• The unity of time: the action in a play should take place over no more than 24 hours.

However, to describe the wider variety of audience, performer, creator interactions of mixed media / multimedia performance (including circus, in my terms) he offered this table:

And that gave me all the structure I needed to help my friend shape his thesis. We simply worked through all the practical projects and shows he had done, and described them as involving:

• open or closed space



• fixed or variable time



• fixed or variable actions.

So I owe Mr Kostelanetz quite a bit (and the library for having a copy of his book available at the time).
On top of all that, I love dictionaries, and this remains a treasure trove of cross-references, eye-openers, and other fun. He doesn't only cover some of my own favourite artists: Duchamp, Cage, Jarry, Joyce; but other perhaps less expected ones like Burroughs, Dylan and Bucky Fuller; and also genres from Performance Art to Punk Rock to Hypertext, and groups like Fluxus and Dada.

Language as a virus

Reading The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language - an overview on the current theories of language evolution - and felt very amused to find the model of language as a virus now having some currency among 'serious researchers' - given that the title of this blog comes from such a disreputable source as William S. Burroughs, based on his studies with Korzybski.

Perhaps his texts full of taboo subjects, grotesque and diseased images elicited an ugly association of the word 'virus' which hid the fact that he meant to indicate the method by which language appeared to replicate itself (something like what we now call 'memes').

You can find WSB discussing it in one of his less scary texts - The Job: interviews with William S. Burroughs - in the section called Playback from Eden to Watergate.


"My basic theory is that the written word was actually a virus that made the spoken word possible. The word has not been recognised as a virus because it has achieved a state of symbiosis with the host, though this symbiotic realationship is now breaking down, for reasons I will suggest later."












So anyway, without getting too technical, I flipped open p. 234 of the paperback edition of The First Word, to read:

"Kirby and a number of other researcers find one metaphor especiallly useful for thinking about language: imagine that it is a virus, a nonconscious life-form that evolves independently of the animals infected by it. Just as a standard virus adapts to survival in its physical environment, the language virus adapts to survival in its environment - a complicated landscape that includes the semi-linguistic mind of the infant, the individual mind of the speaking adult, and the collective mind of communicating humans.

According to Terence Deacon, language and its human host are parasitic upon each other. 'Modern humans need the language parasite in order to flourish and reproduce just as much as it needs humans to reproduce.' "

Indeed do artists get there first.

So anyway, Korzysbski had lots to say about 'language hygiene' (or thinking clearly) just as Burroughs adopted the cut-up method to reveal underlying assumptions, prejudices and styles.

Count Alfred Koyrzybski - a marginalized, ignored or forgotten person in the main - offered a set of tools for eliminating sources of error in thinking and speaking, which would have not made him popular with the kind of people who fund research, or politicians and leaders, or advertising execs, or religious types, or... Well, you get the idea. I happen to think he had a point, and quite a few of his tools have become adopted by people without awareness of the source (perhaps).

We use 'air quotes' for dubiously used words; many scientific studies now have started to merge with the use of the hyphen (neuro-linguistic studies, socio-biological) etc, etc. The whole area of study now called NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) - whatever your reaction to those words - remains a study of how words affect us and our belief systems, and how we might need to change the words we use to think about things, to produce real change in the world. And so does the movement called Political Correctness.

Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain Terence Deacon

This review on Language Miniatures had a useful brief summary:
Copyright © 2001 by William Z. Shetter

"But is this perception really all that wide of the mark? Suppose we compare a language with something that really does have animate existence. Let's choose viruses:

1. Like a virus, a language is an adaptive entity evolving with respect to its human hosts.



2. Modern humans need this language parasite in order to flourish and reproduce.



3. Humans ensure that languages, like viruses, are successfully replicated and passed on from host to host.



4. The earlier the age at which a language or virus is acquired, the more success it will have (given the simple fact of human mortality) in reproducing from generation to generation. So language infects young children.



5. Languages/viruses are highly organized and passed on as a complete, integrated working system, not as a collection of words/genes."

And here - at On Memetics - you will find a brief commentary on a video by Simon Kirby

“Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.” AK

Too many words, too little time. In terms of 'mental hygiene', of course, most forms of meditation seem aimed at quietening the chattering monkey mind - because when that compulsive inner voice stops we might just catch a glimpse of the world...

“Modern man has lost the option of silence. Try halting sub-vocal speech. Try to achieve even ten seconds of inner silence. You will encounter a resisting organism that forces you to talk. That organism is the word. “ WSB

Nothing original under the sun (stolen from Shakespeare)

Anyway - as I was saying - funny times right now.

I have to know about most internet things as part of my job - so although I run my own life on Gmail, Blogger, WordPress, PayPal and the home space that came from my service provider (even though they changed hands in the last few years) - I try everything out, so I have Yahoo and Hotmail accounts, YouTube, MySpace, etc.

When I joined Facebook I broke some kind of written (or unwritten - I skimmed through the Terms and Conditions - as you do) rule about using your 'real name'. Although I always performed under my 'real name' in a business where people often make them up, or simply work under them so long they become acceptable - 'know as' - and you can even open bank accounts without 'legally changing' your name.

So anyway, I open and kill Yahoo accounts all the time, just to get 3 days free trial of the magnificent XM Radio. No doubt, many Americans listen to one of the dozens of channels while driving. I can only get it on the internet (no satellite signal) and can't subscribe (I asked and no-one replied) so I have to keep inventing new Yahoo addresses just to get another trial period.
I don't want to sound mean about Yahoo's service, but at least I found one good use for them.

But I digress (quite often). I joined Facebook for an exploration, as Sid Scribe. Now Sid has a history. In the early days of email I got several addresses of varying degrees of privacy (to avoid spam) and one I used simply for activities that might generate or attract junk mail - or simply endless newsletters that I had subscribed to. So to subscribe I had an email address of s.scribe@ntlworld.com - just so I'd know the kind of stuff. He became Sid Scribe when 'filling in personal details' and emerged. In Facebook I gave him TJ's avatar, but TJ 'is' someone else again, (ermerging from some collaborative writing by the Maybe crew) so I've added a 'real' pic.

Confusingly, once people 'knew Sid was me' (I wish I'd spelled it Syd, now) through the friendship chains - people kept greeting me on my rare visits to Facebook, poking me, inviting me to games - I dunno. I still really only go there as part of my job...

I have had connections with the 'other' Toby Philpott before, and he seems like a nice guy (we have chatted occasionally, as people still sometimes get confused. For a while he had a link to 'The Star Wars Toby Philpott' on his blog, as I had "The Liberal Legend - Toby Philpott" on mine. Now I find at least two more in Facebook! So, stuck with my cover story, Sid Scribe has now invited the three other Toby Philpott members as friends. Hail Eris! I actually had more fun in MySpace, but that's another sub-personality and another alias. That bogus guy has videos at YouTube, as well, and has written most of OM (Only Maybe) for over three years. With fantastic visual from Bobby, and others.

So, let's face it - I stole Language Is A Virus, and added those arch inverted commas for the E-Prime freaks who know the connection to Korzybski and then Burroughs...but poets don't own words, right? And I have used the damned title since 2001, so I got attached to it (After the other blogs, Spooking the Herd, and Thinking Allowed - up to 9/11 - or as the Brits should think of it, 11/9).

I thought it didn't effect me, but I decided to start blogging fresh. Find myself still here, seven years later.


The website with this title has some word scramblers for NaNoWriMo Writers' Block - which amused me, as I consider that kind of November. The whole site seems filled with treasures, but I have no idea what names or buzz words might make you click that link - Hakim Bey, OuLiPo, Nin, Burroughs, software to play with, articles, even NaNoWriMo widgets and logos, etc.

Oh and I saw Laurie Anderson live once - I loved that mix - it resembled the fringe theatre of the 70s, with all and any elements of theatre and performance art mingled. I loved it.

You have to play to learn.

We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems

“Despite disparate aims and personnel of its constituent members, the underground is agreed on basic objectives. We intend to march on the police machine everywhere. We intend to destroy the police machine and all its records. We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems… To put it country simple, we have heard enough bullshit.”

I still didn’t get around to explaining the title of this blog, and why I like it. To associate oneself with William S. Burroughs has almost as many risks as (say) quoting Crowley in a positive context. He still seems really dangerous to many.

Anyone who thinks of me as quite a nice person might wonder why I use a quote from a cynical, misogynist, gun-toting gay junkie (I suppose, if you think in such labels).

Well, first of all – he’s very funny, to me. Especially reading his own material out loud in that wonderful W.C.Fields drawl. Ah, of course, a lot of people don’t find Fields funny, either. Hmmm.
OK – he strikes me as extremely intelligent (something I seek out wherever I can), and for all the apparently ‘damaged’ parts of him I always find rewardingly, and surprisingly insightful elements – that balance the apparent ‘cold fish’ aspect.

Of course, I also love Laurie Anderson’s work, and she did a most excellent version of ‘Language Is A Virus’ which I recommend to anyone…


Quite a lot of Burroughs’ work arrives in bite-sized chunks that he called ‘routines’ (again the parallel with show-biz comedy) – and (just as with Samuel Beckett) you might find it easy to miss the jokes.

If you want to check out his place in modern culture/literature – the book “Wising Up The Marks" might prove a good place to start.
(again with the echoes of ‘Never Give A Sucker An Even Break, and never smarten up a chump’ from Fields)

But the main lesson the gestalt of Burroughs's life and his work taught me was that there exists a sinister congruence between the control systems implicit in capitalist societies (with their obsessional manufacturing and their compulsive consuming) and the uncontrollable psyche of the drug addict. It was Burroughs's great contribution to twentieth-century literature to merge his own psychopathology with the collective malaise. Truly, to paraphrase his friend Jack Kerouac, he made us all look at what was on the end of our forks.

So - a fork with The Soft Machine on one end, and The Naked Lunch on the other.

Maybe try: My Mother and I Would Like to Know (from The Evergreen Review)

"The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals: In Naked Lunch, Soft Machine and Nova Express I show who they are and what they are doing and what they will do if they are not arrested. Minutes to go. Souls rotten from their orgasm drugs, flesh shuddering from their nova ovens, prisoners of the earth to come out, With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly" (Signed) INSPECTOR J. LEE, NOVA POLICE

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen.The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces,and I think that's just ridiculous. It's as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it's for a reason. Among primitive people they say if someone was bitten by a snake he was murdered. I believe that.- w. s. burroughs

You might wanna check out Grey Lodge, who offered a WSB Special

And you might stop to read the piece by Korzybski, too (with whom Burroughs studied at one time, I believe)

And, of course, you can always go read Wiki... if you get interested in the Dream Machines, or Cut-Ups, or his film projects (see Ubu Web) or his later art projects, etc.

And in case you think of him as some sort of blasphemous atheist, as opposed to a religious type, try this Burroughs-ian Gnosticism - which explores his fairly explicit Manichean connections. I have a soft spot for the Gnostics, myself. Here's a little more on the subject.

J.G.Ballard on Burroughs Biog Project Brainy Quotes The Ghost of WSB Reality Studio

Can You See a Virus? The Queer Cold War of William Burroughs

[...]those he does not repel, Burroughs fascinates[...]

If memes survive by parasitizing human minds, so, reciprocally, can the mind survive through parasitic self-replication: the viral programme “simply says ‘Copy me and spread me around.’” This is Burroughs: “all poets worthy of the name are mind parasites, and their words ought to get into your head and live there, repeating and repeating and repeating.” He could scarcely be more explicit.

A virus operates autonomously, without human intervention. It attaches itself to a host and feeds off of it, growing and spreading from host to host. Language infects us; its power derives not from its straightforward ability to communicate or persuade but rather from this infectious nature, this power of bits of language to graft itself onto other bits of language, spreading and reproducing, using human beings as hosts.The notion of the meme -- coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins to illustrate the field of memetics -- crystallizes this view of the communication process. Georges Bataille similarly argued that communication was best understood from the perspective of contagion. In Bataille any human being is no more than a conduit for communicative process, a channel for ideas which pass through him/her."If, as it appears to me, a book is communication, then the author is only a link among many readings."* The author is simply a node on a network, through which ideas pass. This found here (pssst! pass it on...)

Ruth Millikan's writings

A particularly interesting essay on the subject

You can't make this stuff up

Only recently I mentioned having a Gmail account hacked, and some consequences (not financial, fortunately!) on my eBay and Amazon accounts. Mostly hassle and paranoia.

Today I heard that the main ID thief seems like the government. I quote the shadow chancellor (who, as an opposition politician may exaggerate just a little)

"Let us be clear about the scale of this catastrophic mistake - the names, the addresses and the dates of birth of every child in the country are sitting on two computers discs that are lost in the post. The bank account details and national insurance numbers of 10 million parents, guardians and carers have gone missing,” said Osborne.

Full Story here

It appears that such a cock-up may delay the grand plan for a central database, and the whole ID Card fiasco in the UK. Most European countries have made citizens carry ID cards for years, but it has remained a slightly illusory freedom on this island to not have to carry an ID card.

Of course, as in the USA, many people now carry a driving licence in the UK, which works as the same thing, but people like me, who do not drive, do not have to carry proof of ID or address by law. A tenuous freedom, seeing as how any policeperson who suspects me of something can detain me until my ID is confirmed!

But anyway.

To paraphrase William Burroughs: 'They' can always find something wrong with your papers.

Just write the damned book!

Last year a fellow student at MLA told me about writing a novella in a month...a small community project has grown to a gigantic web event, with thousands of participants, so this year I decided to kick in and start, at least...

To write 50,000 words in 30 days means 1,666.666666 words per day...

I have done a set for Day One (so far so good) and you can find me over at NaNoWriMo under my avatar name of BogusMagus.

I suspect my lack of invention, and the fact that I have found my life stranger than fiction means that I probably will end up writing a roman a clef (a thinly disguised set of autobiographical events, and real people) but that may come as no surprise if you realise how much I enjoyed Henry Miller when younger. He, rather than (say) the mournful and forlorn Kerouac, gave me the courage to cheerfully plunge into poverty and insecurity in pursuit of a creative life. Miller didn't have a mum to go home to (like Kerouac) or a small allowance arriving every month (like Burroughs) but had to scrounge, beg, borrow, hustle and steal to get by. Actually, he probably exaggerated his lowlife credentials, in fictionalising his life, but there remains the ring of truth (even if Feminists destroyed interest in his work in the 70s, by putting him down as a male chauvinist). Actually, (apart from mistaking the character for the man), they seem to have missed his role in getting rid of censorship, which began the process of truly debating in real language about people's needs, and made honest writing possible. But hey, I don't want to start all that here.

Don't think of it as too late to start, or plan ahead for next year. Why not register anyway, to get access to the support, advice, forums, etc? I intend to give it a try, at least - and with no judges, no cost, etc - what's to lose?

A Word In Your Ear

I will spend a little more time back here in the blog, soon. I have decided to allocate the time I have spent in online study (for the last three years) in compiling my book. The website, of course, forms a kind of autobiography without much detail or inner thought, and my opinions get scattered throughout blogs, articles, emails, etc - but I like the idea of generating some sort of hard copy, probably using Lulu or some such 'on-demand' publishing scheme.

As usual, I may have an overspill of material, and may well use this space to ‘flex the writing muscles’ and warm up.

I don’t think I ever explained why I use the title I do, for this blog. If you know Burroughs’ work you may not need an explanation, but for me it relates to the fact that we use language to program our psyche-soma, and those hypnotic patterns literally confuse, bemuse or amuse us… The Neuro-Linguistic Programming guys analysed this years ago - although they have since developed a slightly cult feeling around NLP. The original linguistic analysis still holds true however, even if the magical claims - fast therapy, accelerated learning, etc - aspect may give you pause.

From today’s papers: “...for those who deny climate change: believe us, it’s a reality”.

You could spend the day dismantling that worthy thought. The implicit idea that climate has never changed before, the idea that you can either deny or ‘believe’ in such processes, rather than measure them. The sloppy use of the word ‘reality’, etc.

We as humans don’t intend to ‘save the planet’ (I don’t think cockroaches, rats, pigeons and micro-organisms will much care what we do to it, and feel sure Gaia doesn't mind) but we do want to save the planet as an inhabitable environment for humans. Not the same thing.

And if we really wanted to, or accepted that we have some responsibility for the way things have changed we wouldn’t just switch to washing our clothes at 30 degrees! Kit Pedler spelled all this stuff out years ago in The Quest for Gaia (1979) (and yes folks, the hippie generation saw it coming, too – remember Doomwatch in 1970?) – as well as washing at low temperature, you should quit ironing those clothes, quit shaving, quit driving, quit flying, quit eating meat, quit using deodorants, etc, etc. Of course, when Kit turned up at the Houses of Parliament, bearded, homemade woolly jumper, on his bike, no-one took him seriously. Hey ho. So it goes.

Rather similar language gets used for our bodily health as individuals. Giving up smoking doesn’t ‘save lives every year’. It may extend them, or decrease the discomfort of old age. It may also leave you lingering healthily and unhappily (and expensively for your children) when you could have gone out with a bang. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the point intended, I just wish the language would accurately reflect what they want, rather than try to manipulate me with emotion and half-truth.

And finally, in spite of Terrorism creating a certain amount of havoc, this ‘climate change’ seems to cause far more damage and expense, and if humans do take the blame then I guess compensation also seems reasonable. Until recently these kind of events counted as ‘Acts of God’ in insurance terms. Who causes more damage, fear, disruption and expense:- Terrorists or God? All together now….

Of course, if the concept of God drives you to distraction (language illusions again – and Dawkins specifically thinks of God as a word virus) you might enjoy Billy Connolly’s movie ‘The Man Who Sued God’ which plays with the idea of insurance firms (and churches) getting away with that.

Try Disaster maps on World Mapper

And if we do decide to hold humans responsible, after all, then we might look at figures like 984,000 people killed by cars (worldwide) in 2001.

That same year (and don’t forget that includes 9/11) the figures for terrorism

Total Persons Killed: 6318

You can see why I seem so wary of car-drivers, compared to Terrorists. They seem 200 times more likely to kill me!

Is It Rolling Bob?

Yeh, they made a record of Bob songs in reggae. Sounds great and I can't wait...

I seem to be a Bob fan: Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Bob (RAW himself) and I guess even Bob Dobbs, though I hate to take the name of the SubGenius in vain.

Then there's Bill Hicks, Bill Bailey, Bill Burroughs (Mr Burroughs to me)...

Hey ho, back and silly as ever from my short break...gotta get on with my online Academy stuff...homework!
PS on September 3rd

Sorry about the comment that was attached (I have hidden it now) - it's a bunch of dodgy URLs, and when I find the idiot who abused my comments system I'll do something unpleasant to them. At least sign it, and don't do it anonymously. And if it is an automated thing, and happens again, I'll just switch off the comments. Phew, I managed to write this without swearing...

Pekar to Crumb

Wanting to check out Harvey Pekar more, I ended up on the Crumb Family site - which was a fun place. I came across this weird photo of Uncle Bill Burroughs which I liked, but then I liked the drawing of Burroughs that Jesse did (second picture down).... as well as his Lenny Bruce.

Beta Testing Gmail

Because everyone seems to be worried about the ads tied to free email in Gmail, I thought I'd put in a few buzz words to find out, and guess what? It picked up my address from the sig file. This is what I put in, and I got tourist information for Cardiff...

Amazon books

William Burroughs

Neurolinguistic programming

movies

Lord of the Rings

owls

laughter

What will Google make of that?

Toby Philpott

Cardiff Libraries CMT

I keep forgetting how shocking this blog's title might seem...

Here's a quote from "Everything is Under Control" by Robert Anton Wilson

Novelist William S. Burroughs, who studied general semantics with Korzybski, has developed these notions into the surrealist theme of language as an invading virus, found in most of his novels. This virus, according to Burroughs, creates our thoughts, feelings, and sense impressions. Without the virus metaphor, Korzybski would agree, and so would Dr. Richard Bandler.
Dr. Bandler, out of the study of Korzybski and the verbal structures used by Dr. Milton Erickson (often considered the hypnotist of his time), developed Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), which shows how verbal structures create the world we think we live in…….

Of course, I am aware that most people read this backwards (i.e. this is the most recent posting and appears at the top of the page, but refers to the previous item, which is BELOW this)

The other great number is 23. If you have never heard of this, then have a look at DisInfo. It's quite an old-established number enigma, or is it just a mind-virus or meme? Certainly 42 seems more suited to clean-living, jolly H2G2 fans, but 23 lurks around the odder types like fans of Burroughs, Anton Wilson, Crowley, Genesis P.Orridge, etc.

My partner thinks you just notice it because you focus on it, and ignore the others - which is true to some extent. But she is just restating the secret addendum to the Law of Fives (everything is related to the number five....given sufficient ingenuity on the part of the investigator)

The Law of Fives
The Law of Fives is summarized on page 00023 of the Principia Discordia:

The Law of Fives states simply that: ALL THINGS HAPPEN IN FIVES, OR ARE DIVISIBLE BY OR ARE MULTIPLES OF FIVE, OR ARE SOMEHOW DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY APPROPRIATE TO 5.
The Law of Fives is never wrong.

In the Erisian Archives is an old memo from Omar to Mal-2: "I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look."

As a relatively unesoteric example of this Law in action, a Discordian would consider it significant that the Law of Fives is described on page 23, because 2+3=5.

I have been sorting through the thousands of pieces of paper that fill my room. Some of this stuff I will get into electronic form (and will never have to tumble out of a house clutching a precious box of papers ever again...I hope). Some of this stuff has been with me for a long time. Attempts at writing, cuttings, cut-ups, quotes and poems, pictures and such. Some of it just references to lead me back through the library again one more time. For instance, I wouldn't think to read back through William Burroughs right now, but here was a wonderful quote from The Western Lands (p213 in my edition).

"I saw a picture of a balloon suddenly and unexpectedly soaring and some people still holding onto the ropes connected to the balloon were suddenly jerked into the air and most of them didn't have the survival IQ to let go in time. Seconds later they are sixty, a hundred feet off the ground. Those who didn't let go fell off at five hundred feet or a thousand feet. A basic survival lesson is: Learn to let go.

Put it another way: Never hang on when your Guardian tells you to let go.

RIGHT NOW.

Suppose you were holding one of those ropes? Would you have let go in time, which is, of course, at the first upward yank? I'll tell you something interesting. You would have a much better chance to let go in time now that you have read this paragraph than if you hadn't read it. Writing, if it is anything, is a word of warning..."

"The bourgeois novel is the greatest enemy of truth ever invented."

I am sad to say our library isn't well stocked in some of my favourite writers - but then again - they were (still are) fairly dangerous. I have thrown in a few quotes from Henry Miller because so few people realise what a joyous and liberating writer he can be - it's a shame that this library only has a bit of 'porn' churned out to be able to eat - and not even the books which defend and explain that phase of his life. His enthusiasm, mysticism, literary criticism, etc are mostly unrepresented. And my own collection got trashed - or rather hijacked - (along with the rest of my library) back in 1994. Hey ho.

For completely different reasons I love William Burroughs - and (again) he isn't well represented here. Try this interview with J.G.Ballard about Burroughs.

I know my interest in Burroughs seems odd to some of my friends, but I have always enjoyed intelligent people, and particularly people expressing themselves in writing - so I overlook all the other stuff. His misogyny reminds me of W.C.Fields (it's a routine), and that's the truth. To me he is (like Samuel Beckett) hilariously funny under the deadpan, and a lot of people miss that (or just don't share that sort of hangdog humor).

So, if you are easily shocked, or worry about non-PC behaviour and attitudes, you'd better let Bill Burroughs pass by.....(and Bill Fields, most likely).

Time flies by, and I am still stuck with the puzzle of using this as a diary which gets published, so it isn't really very intimate. Too many people I know would not like me to be really honest in a medium which anyone on the planet could read (or take the wrong way).

At the same time, I don't really think many people drop in and read it, because I am not publishing it as a deliberate attempt to get my views better known. This is not a place for opinions - it really is a jotting pad which I access from here and at work, and anywhere else I travel. Perhaps I should put more thought into it, but I tend to find out about things by doing them first, and considering them afterwards.

Being an introvert / thinker / air sign I can just get stuck if I try to think first. I liked this phrase when I first heard it: It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking than to think yourself into a new way of acting.... Not that I am naturally an 'actor', but it was a good cure for my tendency to get stuck in indecision, trapped in paradox, and fretting about getting all the evidence in before deciding anything.

It also led to some fairly bad 'impulsive' decisions (like dropping out of school) which I might have taken a little more time over...but on the whole 'plunging in' has been a tactic I have employed when feeling stuck. Similarly, things like the I Ching (which a lot of rationalists think are mystical rubbish) are actually quite useful for breaking deadlocks in thinking. I haven't decided whether there 'is' some wise old grandfatherly spirit advising me through these translations, or whether it is 'just my imagination'. I don't think it is an either/or issue. Using random stuff to generate alternatives is just a way to try to 'think outside the box' (or 'think in other categories' as Ouspensky puts it). For instance, if I am stuck I might toss a coin to decide - but that is not evading responsibility because I use my reaction to the result to decide - I don't just blindly follow chance.

If that isn't clear - what I mean is this: I toss the coin and if the result makes me feel 'You see! I knew it!' then I go ahead. If the result makes me go 'Oh no! How about I make it the best of three....' then I don't do it.

Of course, THAT annoys people who think that if you are going to introduce chance, then you shouldn't overrule it. They are always annoyed to find out that Burroughs only used cut-ups as a starting point - like a brainstorming session - and then went in and edited with a critical eye.

Hey ho - what AM I on about today? I am just warming up the fingers on the keyboard, to get down to some real writing offline...and sticking this in here for the random browsers who may wander in from my Home Page - Hi! - although (as I said) these are mostly random jottings for my future self.

I heard from Dan Ferguson, and found myself playing a computer game (not something I normally do) and even enjoying it and feeling a bit competitive. Not like me at all! The strange connections which emerge from the Star Wars connection are keeping me amused, now that my circus/juggling connections are not so frequent or vivid - although I WILL be going into Glastonbury Festival to take down the Circus tent, move it to London and put it back up, as the have a 'two tent' weekend, and need the crew. I always look forward to Glastonbury (even though I have suffered and just about survived some of the really wet and muddy ones - ones where I have actually lost my sense of humour and sworn never to do it again, etc. Sadly, there were a shortage of spare tickets, so Julie may not be able to go, but she is going to try to get access by offering her services to the Welfare People. More on this later.