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dialogue 1 with Alexandra Thurman, February 5 1997
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#PORT: @jaycee *** #PORT :End of /NAMES list. *** Mode is + *** jaycee has set the topic on channel #PORT to Eight Dialogues / PORT MIT / Dialogue One *** Mode change "+t+l 8" on #PORT by jaycee *** The date is: Wednesday February 5 1997 -- 11:33 -07:00 jaycee: There you have it, alone in the space of singleness -- a solitary voice on a channel in the nowhere ether of digital space. jaycee: In 25 minutes, Alex will show up. So, at the moment, I swim in the anticipatory straits. jaycee: This is the first of a series of Eight Dialogues. jaycee: And they begin today; all else that has gone before is the transient preparation for that which is to come. jaycee: Come we go chant down Babylon one more time... jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm *** Mode change "+n" on #PORT by jaycee jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm jaycee: Ten minutes or so, PORT should show up... #PORT: @jaycee *** #PORT :End of /NAMES list. jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm *** The date is: Wednesday February 5 1997 -- 11:52 -07:00 jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm jaycee: eight minutes jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm *** Alexandra (voodoo@hfx-p53.isisnet.com) has joined channel #PORT jaycee: Well, howdy! *** Mode change "+o Alexandra" on #PORT by jaycee Alexandra: Hi John--I'm on! jaycee: I just made you an operator jaycee: I like your address -- voodoo! Alexandra: What does that mean, exactly? Alexandra: My address is voodoo? Well hey, this is all voodoo to me! jaycee: Well, opping, in case I crash out, will give you the power to reop me and control the channel if there are any interlopers... jaycee: your address is voodoo@hfx-p53.isisnet.com jaycee: must be your friends email/login ID Alexandra: OK....Hope that doesn't happen. I like being in the passenger's seat--don't even drive. Probably this is something I should work on with a good therapist. jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Alexandra: What?! are you meditating? or reacting negatively to the idea of therapy? jaycee: well, hopefully nothing technical will happen, but if it does, well, I think I asked you last time, you can check your email from there, right? jaycee: Well, no, I LIVED with a therapist for seven years... Alexandra: Right, yup--I tried that a few minutes ago No problem. jaycee: So, I have mixed feelings jaycee: Okay. I suppose soon the MIT "viewers" will show up on the channel, as well as possibly others... jaycee: So don't be nervous, I told the gallery people who are running the show not to be insulted if I basically ignore them Alexandra: Ahh, well--I understand. I sent out a very funny (I thought) "fake" Christmas letter to people this year, and a therapist friend wrote back in great concern--he'd read all the (nonexistent) subtext into it, and was convinced I was having a breakdown! jaycee: unless there is some kind of problem jaycee: Oh man. Breakdown... Well, gees, shit happens... I call it dancing on the perimeter of the void... Alexandra: OK--this is so easy. I wonder if I could pilot a plane if the pilot got sick. I love technology! jaycee: well, I work with a lot of aeronautical engineers out here, I wouldn't want to fly a plane, I don't think... Alexandra: Yeah, but I'm not having a breakdown, except in communication with my therapist friend. I mean, geez--he can't take a joke! jaycee: Right... Exactly, that's the way I saw it in the psychology biz jaycee: you had to be a bit (or more) crazy to be in it Alexandra: back and forth--this double conversation thing is so interesting. I guess it reminds me that our minds are very complex, and capable of a lot more than we give them credit for...I'd rather explore this as a writer than a therapist. jaycee: I'll end you a text from a friend who is doing theater or pseudo theater on IRC... very interesting jaycee: send, that is, I don't play football with texts... *** portmurph (ircle@murph.port.net) has joined channel #PORT Alexandra: I'd love to see it--I'm very curious to find out what's going on on the net that's directly creative--besides journals and information links and e-mail, I'm pretty uninformed. jaycee: ooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm jaycee: (just concentrating) jaycee: There are some pretty interesting things going on, for sure, although the circle of viewers and makers is rather small... Alexandra: ah--spelling errors. I'm relaxed about them this time. By the way, I found myself dressing up for this conversation (!) as I might for an afternoon with a friend (not as I might for a reading of my work--I'm not that far-gone). but I felt I needed to symbolically prepare for this, and getting cleaned up and presentable--which I'm usually not, working at home all day--seemed important. jaycee: Probably about 500-1000 people world wide jaycee: did you make any coffee? jaycee: Hey so are you really going to send me some work? Alexandra: That's all? That few people? I'm amazed. I had pictured some huge number of artists who I just hadn't tapped into yet. Somehow this reassures me--I'm not too far behind things? *** Signoff: portmurph (Connection reset by peer) jaycee: No, not so many, remember, they are toys for the wealthy, still very much... Of course, that is the surface of visibles -- conference goers, the in crowds... jaycee: the alternatives you never hear about. I know some of them, and I guess AM one myself I guess jaycee: although I jump through many circles of people... Can't stand having to jump... Alexandra: No--I made Earl Grey, though. and yes--I'm going to send you something by the weekend. I've been going through my poem files, trying to choose a couple of things that haven't been published yet, but which I'd like to see exposed--maybe some of the work that's having a hard time getting published because it's a)too good, or b)too risky or) not good enough (?) for "real" publication Alexandra: I don't like jumping either. jaycee: Definitely, great... Can I read you the first passage of a poem by my friend Anthony's? Alexandra: Please do. jaycee: Ships, My Garden, Frequent Thistles; Spring the amber Finches jaycee: I take down curtains, jaycee: Down the rods; jaycee: Roof jaycee: Nude, jaycee: Open book, jaycee: I sleep upon the clear jaycee: of ridgepole. jaycee: Ah, a pire is jaycee: Pine, jaycee: Horn, dart, jaycee: At prairie scalp; jaycee: Our revenant jaycee: Rockets, jaycee: Pinionate, jaycee: Ventful; jaycee: Nesturn for jaycee: mown jaycee: Boded jaycee: Beamings.... jaycee: (and so it goes on for eight passages...) Alexandra: Lovely--evocative language. I haven't been reading as much contemporary poetry lately as I should--not since beginning the novel. I should, I should--it keeps me alive inside. *** PORT2 (murph@port_1.media.mit.edu) has joined channel #PORT jaycee: I'm going to be putting a few of his works onto the site. He's been writing for years now... jaycee: How is the novel going, anyway? jaycee: (can you feel the intimacy of this ether space change and mold different?) Alexandra: Yes? You didn't mention his last name...does he have books out? I still (and always) love books--the act of holding them, turning the pages. This screen stuff just doesn't do it for me as a complete experience--although it's a great way to be introduced to things. jaycee: Anthony Zega , no, no books, he works for himself, studying the world and the manifestations thereof... jaycee: hand-writes jaycee: the work Alexandra: The novel is going, well--it's like starting all over again as a writer, after twelve years of writing poems, and beginning (just) to feel competent as a poet. Now I'm a novice again and I like it, sometimes, and often it scares me. jaycee: you are making a leaving soon -- that must make writing hard, I can't work on the fly, at least coherently... Alexandra: I do admire people who work so completely for themselves, apart from the publishing scene. I've spent a lot of time in/with the academic world of writing, and although I have much to be grateful for, it's a stifling environment at times, and at times very antithetical to the act of creation. Alexandra: You mean my leaving here for good (in four months?) or to visit my son next week? Both moves are affecting my concentration already, yes, although I travel so often to visit Keir that I'm learning to stay productive anyway. jaycee: Yeah, well, academia in the US, forget it. It has only gotten worse in the last five years. Creativity cannot exist there, seemingly jaycee: Oh, I thought you were going south for good next week..., I see, so you'll be down in PA for a short time? jaycee: Do you fly? jaycee: Or take the ferry? jaycee: to Maine *** portmurph (murph@murph.port.net) has joined channel #PORT Alexandra: Yah, I agree--I mean, that's my observation as well. The only teaching I really care to do is at home--writing workshops with groups of very keen, very innovative, very humble people who just want to learn to write well--as do I. So we help each other. jaycee: it seems that micro scale is the best way. Well, it is not micro, just human-scaled Alexandra: I fly in winter, and in the good weather go by bus to Yarmouth and take the wild gambling ferry to Maine. I don't gamble, but sit in what used to be the reading room (now turned into a children's play area) and read and write. Weird. I love it. jaycee: each moment of stepping out to shout to fifty people is a bit of a waste compared to speaking with one... jaycee: Oh they gamble on that ferry too? Alexandra: Yes, human-scale. Hands on. jaycee: Riding the big cruise ferries in the Baltic, people are totally mad on those things... jaycee: Shipboard is suspended life... jaycee: I was on that ferry once, actually one of my earliest memories Alexandra: Yes, they do. groups of tourists from all over, gambling on the open seas. They're mad here too--what an environment. And then I get off and stay with a friend, an astrologer whose rare gift served to convince me that there may be something in all this stuff--astrology--she's so obviously psychic. Anyway, the contrast is always fun. jaycee: I was standing up at the top of a set of steps next to the foghorn when it went off, my mother was standing at the bottom of the steps, I leapt into space into my mothers arms, immediately to my side was the EDGE and the SEA... jaycee: But you are only going for a few weeks now... DO you have to leave Canada in four months? jaycee: Like, officially? Alexandra: My son has traveled the ferry with me many times--he gets seasick, but loves it anyway. He hates flying, is scared he's going to die on a plane. So we always go the slow route--almost always. I don't want to push him to do something that frightens him as much as flying seems to right now. jaycee: Hmmm. I can identify with that, I hate to fly now, after my friends going on TWA 800. That changes a lot of things with me, very subtle, but something is different... jaycee: Did he have a bad experience once? Alexandra: Well, I don't *have* to. It's time. I want/need to be with my son, and my partner and I are feeling stifled here, creatively, and hampered monetarily. so, we're going to come down for awhile, and see what's what. Mostly the choice is for my son--otherwise, we might try Europe. jaycee: Gees, It is strange that you and Joy (another in this project) are in the same situation... Alexandra: no, no bad experiences. But the news, you know--all the focus on disasters. He understands intellectually that many more people die in cars each year, but the news stories have branded themselves into his brain. It will take time, I think, for logic to replace fear in him. jaycee: Josephine has a three-year-old daughter, but he has custody of her Alexandra: Right, that's happening to a lot more mothers as well as fathers--which I don't disagree with. jaycee: the bent logic of man flying? Ain't no reason to that, just giving up ones' body to technology and another's judgment... jaycee: No, I'm sorry, a typo, she has custody of her... Alexandra: What I mean is--people always used to ask me when I'd leave for my MFA courses in the States (Keir was two and three yrs old then) 'Who's going to take care of your son?' jaycee: But children with one parent gone. Man, what torture! Alexandra: "Well, my husband,,,who else?" As if that idea were strange or unnatural. anyway, we're both good parents, but he's more stable financially, and so we decided on this together. Now we'll go back to joint custody arrangements. But yes, torture, and the way things are for so many. jaycee: Well, in the US, it is weird both ways, the "Liberals" express such compassion for others, yet they haven't the compassion to integrate children into their way of going... I liked it in Iceland, the way kids were part of everything... jaycee: Are you going to live in PA then? Alexandra: Yes, I've heard that so much--that our "anti-child" culture (masquerading as a "family' culture) is not prevalent elsewhere. It's so weird, and deceitful, how little care we take of our children, in a public sense, and how much we lip-flap about that. jaycee: (on the other hand, the Right just give lip service to compassion, and regard family as a military unit for patriotic power... jaycee: I loved to see the children literally run wild at family and public events in Iceland... Alexandra: Yes, it looks like it. State College is not my idea of heaven, but it works for my son and his father, and we'll be close to NYC Boston Philadelphia which will be fun after years of a small-town culture. And then in a couple of years, we'll look at moving out west, I hope with my son. Back to the Rockies. *** PORT (murph@port_4.media.mit.edu) has joined channel #port jaycee: I think the only way I will make a go of it is to have a foot as firmly as possible in two places on the globe... jaycee: Well, you'll be in shock, as I think I told you before, at the WEST. Dreams of it are not what it has become... There are 60 million more people in this country than 20 years ago... Alexandra: Ohhh, yes. The only place I ever experienced that was in California, in the alternative communities--this was before I had Keir. Once I breast-fed him up here in a restaurant, and two tables of people complained to the manager--who, to give her credit, told *them* to leave if they wanted to! I wasn't being overt, or anything--but they said it turned them off their food. jaycee: gees. Amazing how twisted people are... Alexandra: I know, I know--the West is not Mecca anymore at all. But it's home to me, and I need to reconnect with my parents/memories/roots. as far as a permanent home goes? I don't know where there is in the world to go to anymore for real sanctuary. *** PORT3 (murph@port_2.media.mit.edu) has joined channel #port jaycee: I still do dream of my adobe/solar place in Crestone, only fifteen miles from the center of the Universe, as the eagle flies Alexandra: Where is this? Crestone? jaycee: Someday. A place for travelers to come visit and stay Alexandra: Sounds like home, in the best sense. jaycee: On the west flank of the Sangre De Christo range, east side of the San Luis Valley, north of Alamosa, south of Poncha Springs Alexandra: State? jaycee: Colorado, south central, north of Santa Fe about three hours jaycee: But, I can't deal with money, so it is a dream... Alexandra: I'll tell you what I miss--the possibility of living in Utah in the mountains as I had hoped/intended to do. SLC is now the site of the Olympics 2002, and nothing will ever be the same. jaycee: right. oh well, fuck nostalgia, let's dance! jaycee: on the hoods of cars jaycee: and under the surveillance cameras jaycee: and between the fences jaycee: and over the satellite stars Alexandra: As far as money goes, up here is one of the last places I know of in this hemisphere to buy land for a song. Acres and acres plus house for 20,000-40,000 Cndn. dollars. And they like to dance here! To the fiddle. Under the influence. Along the edge of the sea. Alexandra: But oh (moan, and I'm so tired of my own complaining--the weather is shit! jaycee: I found out in Iceland, where their "landscape" in the romantic old sense is everything, that the land was actually 90 % deforested from settlement a thousand years ago from sheep farming, and what they market to tourists as exotic Arctic land is actually a broken and tortured land jaycee: My mum still wants to buy back their place on PEI Alexandra: Yeah, no surprise about the land being broken anywhere. jaycee: SO, dancing is definitely better. jaycee: It has been ages since I danced Alexandra: Speaking of Iceland--do people regard the US there as they do here? as a terrible place filled with violence and destruction? jaycee: I can't remember when, maybe Helsinki last fall Alexandra: When we tell people we're going to move down to the States up here they look at me as if I'm taking Matthew home to Bosnia. Back to Belfast! jaycee: Uh, Iceland, well, Iceland has a funny relationship with the US -- it was occupied during the war, and they say when the American soldiers came over, never was there more fornication in so short a time... jaycee: So there are significant connections to the US, but that is changing in the past few years -- and Iceland is coming under European influence much more... Alexandra: I love dancing! The only place to go here that isn't a pick-up college bar is the one gay bar in town. San Francisco circa 1975 with drag queens from another era--I mean, they're so conservative here, even when they're not! But we kick up our heels, and no one hits on me. *** Signoff: portmurph (Connection reset by peer) jaycee: I remember when I was coming to the US two years ago, I was terrified. Having spent a couple hours face down on a floor in Manhattan with a friend, with guns to our heads "where's the drugs, money, jewelry..." Alexandra: Hmmm--do people fornicate more in the States, or is it just soldiers? jaycee: People fornicate everywhere (as far a I have seen), what's that mean anyway... Alexandra: Ooooo--I'm not going to tell Matthew about this. I don't want to lie to him, by omission or otherwise, but soon he'll be like Keir with airplanes...and this is just the world we live in. I mean, where can we hide? *** remo (murph@port_3.media.mit.edu) has joined channel #port jaycee: yeahm, well, so it goes (I like to say)... jaycee: I found myself getting both soft living in Scandinavia, and more relaxed... jaycee: Takes me a few days to Suit Up when I get back to Manhattan... Which, to be realistic, is a more "real" place in world-terms... Alexandra: I've been meaning to tell you for the last week--I finally got to look at your site, with pictures. Wonderful! jaycee: Scandinavia is definitely a bastioned corner of the West (although Finland borders on the New Cowboy West of Russia... jaycee: Great... Where did you visit? There's lots of things there now Alexandra: I mean, it's like I've been half-blind here, reading only text--although with language as my main interest, it's been an interesting way to separate the sites I'm really interested in from the ones I'm not as drawn to. But now I want better equipment! jaycee: gottcha jaycee: the techno-desires! jaycee: So, get tough, buy things, and you'll be right back at home when you go south Alexandra: I went to your older projects--the triptychs 1000 Buddhas etc. Much more to look at, when I'm here at erez' jaycee: south that is jaycee: Yeah the Buddhas... *** JG (jgilbert@205.181.108.101) has joined channel #port jaycee: a product of life in Iceland Alexandra: Yah--i have friends who update their equipment constantly! Me, I feel so lucky just to have a computer at all, and to have access to a freenet during these lean times. jaycee: (shaken concentration) jaycee: Yah, that's canuckese? jaycee: I'm working on a new project based in the Human Genome site now... Alexandra: I'm pausing too. Sipping tea. Looking out the wind...is that a bluebird? in the middle of winter? Naw...a recycling bag blowing in the wind. jaycee: The blue birds should be in Georgia this time jaycee: of year Alexandra: No, Yah is pure me. Eh is Canuck. Alexandra: What's the Human Genome site? jaycee: Me mum has some of that left Alexandra: I won't let Keir call me Mum! No way. jaycee: THEY are writing the full human Gene code at a site... Hundreds of thousands of lines of GAAGGGCCCAAAAGGGGGG Alexandra: Excuse me? jaycee: You know Guanine, Alanine, Cytosine jaycee: the DNA code Alexandra: So what are you doing in conjunction w/ this? jaycee: along with pointed notes to the fucked-up portions to look for jaycee: like if you have that one, you should be sterilized, for example jaycee: well, nothing about it per e. jaycee: per se Alexandra: Ah--eugenics. I remember discovering a text on eugenics in my grandfather's library. Oh, so scary. jaycee: but using one string of code as a base for a massive hyperlinked image database Alexandra: Per e--I thought that was another weird gene name. Hyperlinked--technical, technical! It's sort of amazing that I'm doing this at all--I'm really a Luddite at heart. jaycee: I will have a brief access to say 200 megs of server space here in Arizona, with the people I have been working for, on a 6xT1 backbone connection... I am scanning images from the tens of thousands I have... I guess it will be another 1000 buddhas project... kinda jaycee: Ludd along... jaycee: It's only a medium jaycee: no different from any other material transformation process jaycee: in principle jaycee: but in detail Alexandra: I really loved that. You know, your site has really inspired me to begin to consider (how's that for cautious!) some sort of site of my own. Once I'm in the States on a normal server. *** CoCCoN (REMEDY@ppp45.sbbs.se) has joined channel #PORT jaycee: well, look, why not. IMagine it not just as publishing, but as sharing your expertise and desires in teaching... *** CoCCoN has left channel #PORT jaycee: eaah Alexandra: In fact--now, did I tell you this already? Matthew and I are making a film--just got a decent-sized Canada Council grant for it (like NEA, but still inexistence!) jaycee: well, do what feels right... it is another medium... jaycee: writing is yet another... jaycee: Great -- he is experimental (not to put a label) right? Alexandra: Anyway, we thought we might put a version of the film (I wrote it, he's the shooter, editor) on line somehow. A good thing to share. jaycee: I have such respect for Canadian film-making jaycee: Have you heard of Bruce Elder? jaycee: in Toronto? Alexandra: I guess you'd call it that. "Art videos". Not commercial. jaycee: He has influenced me more than any other single artist, ever Alexandra: No. Someone to look for? Have you ever heard of Bill Viola, vdeographer extraordinaire? jaycee: Ye, of course, Bill is a great artist -- must say that his works have stood out for me in theis last two year of moving around -- eeing hundreds of shows across Europe and the US, I recall the four of his in detail Alexandra: What does Elder do? Viola is a painstaking observer of things that most people would harely give a glance at. Trusts the moment--goes with it until you think you're going to scream--and then, pow1 Right? You get it; you're hooked on his way of seeing. jaycee: He is astonishing. And one of those few who are not afraid to sing his soul in the face of a profane "art world" Alexandra: Good, good, you've know his work. And Elder? jaycee: Elder is a film maker and writer and teacher. jaycee: I was priviledged to see the world premiere (with four others) of the first 20 hours of his Book of All the Dead jaycee: in Boulder in 1988 Alexandra: I took a moment out to write Elder's name down. Does he have a site on line? I wonder if Viola does--I haven't thought to check. jaycee: and caught further installations in 1992 in NYC jaycee: I doubt it for either of them, though there might be info jaycee: Yeah, Elder tackles anything and everything, and is a brilliant intellect -- one so strong as to cast Light clear through the rational beings that we have become to the core of invisible spirit... Alexandra: Twenty hours. Already I'm compelled. Oh, it's patience that I admire in an artist, that I try to cultivate in myself. The patience to wait/work for the real moment, not to rush. jaycee: Well, duration became an issue with me immediately on seeing that screening jaycee: not endurance, either, as it was pleasurable and compelling jaycee: simply duration. He almost died in the late seventies of a rare neurrological disease Alexandra: I've been reading Henry Roth, an astounding novelist who didn't write, after his first book, for over fifty years. Then wrote six (!) linked books in the few years before his death at eighty-nine or so. I don't know whether this was patience so much as necessity and luck, but, god--worth the wait for something so priceless as these books. jaycee: and the Book of All the Dead is rooted in Dante's triptych, but has it's own presence completely jaycee: hmmmmmm Alexandra: So--can I get hold of copies of his work anywhere? There's once art video store in town. jaycee: I am enclosed in a fluorescent-lit room jaycee: Nothing on video, but at the school, they must know of him, and have writings... He's well-known in experimental and Canadian film circles Alexandra: Do you know the work of Jan Schvenkmier? (probably a gross misspelling). jaycee: they have a good library there, eh? jaycee: uh no, doesn't look/sound familiar jaycee: The loudest sound inthat of the hard drives Alexandra: Me, I'm in an underlit room, clearly the room of a single man playing the role of stereotypical single man. Beer cans. Coffee cups. Ash trays. dirty dishes... jaycee: That's what you get! The technologists! jaycee: Pause jaycee: My back is not healing at all jaycee: I cannot travel if it does not get much much better jaycee: Trying to stretch jaycee: I can't sit in a vehicle at all Alexandra: Schvenkmier's work is wild, nihilistic, technically brilliant, very east European (he lives in Prague). Yah, the library here is ok (art college)--I'll look for Elder there. jaycee: definitely Alexandra: I was sick for several years after my son Alexandra: Woops--was born. Learned a great deal about endurance, restriction, anger, gratitude. I'm better now, but not robust. jaycee: I just have a hard time coping living with my parents, especially after doing all that constant travel to intersting places with interesting people for so many years... jaycee: Yeah, I get jealous of robust bodies jaycee: especially now... jaycee: YEah jaycee: Zazen Alexandra: So I empathize. It's so nice to have the body running efficiently, like a good little machine. But it seems to be more an antenna for the soul. i do take my physical state as my spiritual barometer now. jaycee: oh don't tell me that... My back is too much a reflection of how I am thinking these days (in rigid opposition to my parents...) jaycee: it is almost too obvious jaycee: and yet, I can do nothing to release the state Alexandra: Yes. I used to sit. Now I do something called Chi qong--a sort of moving about of energy, from point to point,whilc the body holds strong, stretching positions. I was such a fidgety sitter, and decided not to fight it anymore, but to look for an alternative. Alexandra: Yes, the connection is (sometimes) easy to "get" intellectually, but working it out, or through? That's a different, more complicated task. jaycee: I suppose I do need to have someone straighten out the energy in my back. I can't effectively do it myself, for sure,.. But there is always something to be paid... jaycee: maybe I am obsessed with money. that's why I have none most of the time... remo: There are a few people here that would like to know whoAlexandra is? jaycee: did you study Chi qong? Alexandra: I did manage to do a trade up here with an acupuncurist who wanted to write! She poked me in strategic places, and I guided her linguistically into others! jaycee: (check the web site at http://neoscenes.net/eight/eight.html) jaycee: Guided her linguistically? Alexandra: No, not formally. This acupuncturist taught me a few basic moves, and then I adapted it a bit (I have a background in modern dance) Like you, I can't afford much, including formal lessons. But it seems to work for me. jaycee: oh I see, had to read that twice of three times... yes yes.. Alexandra: That's just a fance way of saying I helped her with her writing--listened, edited a bit, made suggestions. jaycee: hmmm. I have been offered the possibility of a sweat lodge, I hould go with that to begin... jaycee: Hmmmmm. how is your concentration? Alexandra: Anyway, trading is such a good way to approach healing, I think. Alexandra: OKAY. Yours? jaycee: when we talk about the body, I get distracted by my own jaycee: just an excuse, I guess... jaycee: And reflecting on the things we have spoken of already jaycee: reverberations jaycee: mind filling with being and not being Alexandra: Me too, me too! My bodily aches and pains always distract me. It's my "great" excuse for everything. That's probably why I get sick a lot--in order to have to confront my laziness. jaycee: Dontcha hate the work ethic -- what a concept anyway, silly... Alexandra: oh, this really is a strange, interesting way to communicate. I *do* feel like I'm getting to know you, but not like I've ever gotten to anyone before. jaycee: That was a real sticking point in my marriage -- that working was manual labor and nothing else... Alexandra: i mean, we're talking, and yet not. Writing, and yet, more talking, really. jaycee: typing on a computer definitely NOT jaycee: work jaycee: well, for writers, this is amplified telephony. permanance in motion. Alexandra: I know, in my own marriage, well--economic power was power, period. And my choice of vocation/avocation dictated that I was not the one with such power. jaycee: Funny. jaycee: well, not really Alexandra: Stopped to write down that phrase "permanence in motion' Writers are thieves, all of us. jaycee: I wonder what we would have become growing up in the linguistic-based culture in Iceland Alexandra: Again (I know you've described this to me already)--linguistic based? jaycee: where the word (written and spoken) was the sole carrier of not only culture, but of life Alexandra: Hmmmm. jaycee: there are no monuments or other reminders of history there, only names and stories... and the language holding them special from the Others... jaycee: Have you read the Prose Edda? Alexandra: Well, that seems to be the way I live--the choice I've made, or that's been made (high up) for me. But I certainly do feel out of step in this culture because of it. So I guess I would have felt--less a stranger. jaycee: probably true Alexandra: No. What is it? jaycee: It is a compilation of the Nordic creation sagas (second half is) and the first half is a writers guide jaycee: written on a small isolated farm in Iceland in the 11 century jaycee: A writers guide on how to "KEN" things Alexandra: Writin' it down. Obviously, since you asked me, it must be (translated) English? jaycee: that is, name things into being... Alexandra: I will look for it. Ah. jaycee: through kenning -- a complicated set of writing laws for prose poetry... jaycee: It blew me away. That to name something is to bring it into being, simple jaycee: and vice versa, I guess Alexandra: I do find so often that I'm offered just the right thing at the right time--that is, when I'm working well. It seems to me this is just what I need to read right now to feed my novel. Me--and my novel. jaycee: And these rules were made for spoken language -- that is how being was transferred from one person to another Alexandra: So, thank you! jaycee: my pleasure jaycee: I wish I could say I was following my bliss these days, I'm not Alexandra: This is the point, in a "live" conversation, where you'd see my eyes begin to glow! jaycee: I am out of alignment Alexandra: Well, what would that be for you (in a few words, can you answer that?) jaycee: Hmmmmm glowing eyes. Fire Sign jaycee: I need to reconstitute some material base. I have been the traveler for a long time now. jaycee: Or travel with nothing to carry. Alexandra: I'm a Virgo--and everything else is fire. My main sign is the one thing that keeps me grounded, I guess. jaycee: I promised myself that I could do that as a teacher, have no materials except the self and the body and the mind Alexandra: Out of alignment--not to belabor the point, but the metaphor for your back is just too obvious to miss. jaycee: actually I should have written "fire sign" in its more general sense -- glowing eyes is a sign of fire... Alexandra: John, that's what drew me to your site, to the trvelogue--the sense one gets that this *is* the way you've living/travelling. It inspired me. jaycee: so the cold weather is not such a problem with glowing eyes... Alexandra: Well, it's often the mistakes in inference that take us to the next place in a conversation, isn't it? I mean, so the dialogue is like a web and not a line. jaycee: Well, I think the travelog may end at the end of this month. It will have been a year and I don't know how many pages... Alexandra: I saw that. I'll be sorry not to have it to read--it's a peculiarly intimate form of writing--but if it's served its purpose for you, there's no sense in going on. jaycee: yes, right, in this medium, it does tend to be more web-like and not linear, that is exactly right, good observation. Interesting that between two nodes there can exist a web (in time and in the lore of heart) jaycee: Well, I suppose if there are hundreds of cries of protest, maybe I'll..... jaycee: not to call you a node, either Alexandra: That's what I like--what intrigues me about this odd kind of dialogue--how much the form of it illuminates our innate capacity to travel all over, at once. jaycee: multitasking ;) jaycee: nah, that's too stupid a joke, the human far exceeds any of its material creations jaycee: period jaycee: my dogma Alexandra: No "node-offence' taken. Well, I'll write a couple of letters of protest, if that'll help. Although it does make me feel a bit of a voyeur, and like maybe I should start my own site, as a "gift" in return (to many people) Alexandra: I don't mind the dogma, if it's conscious and a bit ironic. It worries me when it becomes a numb habit, and starts to kill the language. jaycee: well, hey, distribution. I like it, because my web space gets hit by people who stumble on it through other of my network friends or whatever... I mean, you can't get to it on a search on John Hopkins, thanks to the University... Alexandra: Are ye there? Wow, the time has gone fast, here. jaycee: Yeah, dead and living language Yeppers. Time flies jaycee: I have 13:50:25 *** The date is: Wednesday February 5 1997 -- 13:49 -07:00 Alexandra: I know--I had to give your URL to my Dad--he kept coming up with the university instead of you. jaycee: seven hours before GMT Alexandra: Oh, good. My watch is a little fast. Alexandra: GMT? jaycee: Yeah. Greenwich Mean Time, a BRitish Invention clocked to the centre of Down Town London jaycee: the Zero Longitude line Alexandra: Hey, I can't resist. What was the verdict in the O.J. Simpson civil case (don't hate me). jaycee: Gads, how could you miss it? I am suckered by my radio addiction to do the NPR thing still, though I would rather wake up slow and quiet with the sun... Alexandra: I watch Entertainment Tonight for recreation--antropological study. jaycee: yeah sure ;" Alexandra: I don't have cable tv, and the radio is broken (just listen to tapes). jaycee: he got busted in the wallet... jaycee: Money makes everything right jaycee: especailly to the lawyers jaycee: brings the dead back to life and eases all pain Alexandra: Well. What a bizarre spectacle. And he's got custody of his kids? Enough said, I guess. Yechhh. jaycee: dunno about the custody Alexandra: Amen, brother. Money. Well, I'm not worried about the tough times ahead. I've never had much money, mever will, so I've nothing to fear that I don Alexandra: Woops-know already. Intimately! jaycee: I missed most of the spectacle except being in a cab in NYC with a Nigerian cabbie and a Jewish friend the afternoon the other verdict was given -- and the argument they got into as a result... all stupid. each of us has to walk the path jaycee: that wa spectacle... Alexandra: Ha. Do you remember where you were when...? We don't live our own personal lives anymore, just the public ones! jaycee: well, look, Alex, (not leaving yet), I'll be in touch -- if you have IRC access in the future, lemme know. Otherwise, email me contact info (snailmail et al) jaycee: Of course, Debord, you know his classic jaycee: Society of the Spectacle Alexandra: I'll be accessing my freenet for awhile from the s jaycee: uh huh... Alexandra: Woops again--states. Then I'll be up here again for awhile. i'll try to stay on-line from here on in. I'm hooked. jaycee: and I'll be passing through NYC at some point either sooner or later on the way to Ice/Finland jaycee: egads, not a USER! jaycee: think about THAT word, "user"... nuf said Alexandra: Good--then if I'm in Pennsylvania, maybe we can meet face-to-face. Alexandra: Better that Used! Alexandra: Than used, I mean. jaycee: I usually visit friends in Baltimore, Hershey PA, DC, Boston... etc jaycee: true Alexandra: By the way, Boston--I jaycee: yes Alexandra: I'll be there soon. Can I visit PORT. It's at MIT? jaycee: Oh, yeah, I'll have the dialogue up on the site by this evening... Yes, you should visit --- jaycee: Remo -- what's a contact info for Alexandra to get to the Gallery -- MIT, List Art center Alexandra: I will. I will. And so, I'll e-mail you soon. Wish you a great time with the rest of the dialogues. This was fun, easy. jaycee: Actually it's easy to find, take the Red Line to, uh, lessee, my Boston geography... MIT, and it's right there in the centre of the campus, if I recall from the days living in Cambridge (my dad worked at MIT during the war -- making war machines jaycee: Okay, so, we can sign out here. Great talking with you and we'll talk via email sooner than later... let me know your travel date, too Alexandra: Red Line. OK. I can call ahead, too. So, i'll say goodbye now too. Thanks for everything. Wave.... jaycee: Thanks for joining me! cheers *** Alexandra has left channel #PORT jaycee: Well, that's that, now to post the transcript and first go have some lunch and rest my fingers... Ciao all... John *** Mode change "-o jaycee" on #PORT by jaycee *** PART: Not enough parameters *** The date is: Wednesday February 5 1997 -- 14:05 -07:00 *** jaycee has left channel #PORT |
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