[syndicate] Do not go gentle into that good night

Wed Dec 11 23:40:43 CET 2002

Thanks but I am not quite ready for prime time. I checked out your site and it feels like I could find a home there. 
The biggest issue I need to resolve is one of courage. I am drawn to artists that are as truthful and honest as they can be and that is the only way I want to be. But there is always the backlash. I don't need to explain this to you but I will mention one example because it is so important to me, which is Stockhausen's comment that sept 11 was ?the greatest work of art that is possible in the whole cosmos? . I found this personally exhilirating, and I would have to say in all honesty that if I met Bin Laden or Stockhausen, I would have to thank them, for this event and comment were the beginning of my own awakening, the beginning of my attention to art, and eventually, I hope, my own salvation. This is thinking just from a personal point of view, and naturally I have sympathy for the loss of loved ones. 
So here's the problem; many would call this madness.

>From the web: "His concerts were abruptly canceled; his daughter, a pianist, informed the press that she would no longer appear under the name Stockhausen; international reaction was swift and predictably harsh. In the midst of controversy, he tried to explain: ?Where has he brought me, that Lucifer,? he asked, referring to a major invented character who regularly figures in a series of seven operas that have engaged him in a twenty-five-year project."

So even he had to dis-avow his own comments, to blame it on a character he created. I don't want to do this, even though I recently employed this technique over at alt.support.depresson.manic, where I have been practically run off the list for my thinking. It seems I am too mad even for the mad. I love to provoke.

This is a problem, which is why I post under an alias, even though almost everything I write is true, especially since everything I write is true. I foolishly gave the state some time ago the power to "5150" me, which is parlance for locking someone up for being crazy.  As you know, once the state gets a power, it does not give it up.

I don't feel like I am mad. I am crazy like a fox, there is a method to my madness. Many are put off by my writing in such a personal way. But I find it useful for processing and clarifying my thoughts and that is all that really matters to me. For some odd reason, I think better in public. I came to this list out of a fascination with NN. That may be a better model for public discourse. I am watching and learning.

I am not ready to put myself out there much for another reason, which is that I am dealing with my own personal demons. I recently lost a friend to a heroin overdose. Most of my friends are on the edge, and I like it there too. They are either schizophrenic ("spiritual seperation symptom" when translated to Japanese), manic-depressive, addicted to narcotics or other drugs, etc... or in some kind of tenuous recovery, as I am. It seems like we all try to transmit love, which through some sort of mis-communication, gets reflected back as hate. Then this reflection is turned into self-hate. This is happening to me today, which means that the needle is calling me, which means I am suicidal. The basic question for me about art is if getting involved will help this situation. I tend to think that it will. But you can see why I must get the communication correct or I should say, get the communication into a form that is most helpful to me, because I am desperate to live. One of my drunk friends, an import from Sweden, taught me this lesson when he constantly talked about passion, how to get it, where it goes, why bother living without it.

In the meantime I am distracting myself by writing code. I am working on a couple of tools. The first is a front end spider to google image search with more sophisticated filtering techniques. The second is a project using lex and bison to perform syntactical and structural analysis of posts on usenet. I have in mind to write a bot that will strip out all proper names and place names and then post them together in a thread to look like they are responding to one another. i could take it further and run the text through a translator so that, for example, people that like to talk about Hitler in germany and america could be "exposed" to one another. Of course, I will probably be run off usenet for this but I am learning from NN how to hide, not that I think NN is hiding, it is just not possible to manifest yourself physically when you are a collection, so maybe that is the route to go, to start a collection. One is already forming around me which is the most fascinating thing for a former lone wolf like me. Where most people are pushed away, some are starting to be attracted (the interesting ones I like to think). 

One more note, to myself. Drugs and alcohol were quite useful as a way to break out of the box they try to put you in ("Oh yeah, watch this! try and control me now!"). In many ways they were also useful for practicing self-humuliation, which is a kind of deep shame. This comfortableness with humiliation will be useful in the future when I am further criticized. D/A eventually become their own prison. Then you have to break out of that prison. I am thinking of extending this metaphor into reality by working with prisoners -- I know what it feels like to be locked up and I know that it can be comfortable -- but around here they require 5 years of sobriety before they let you do that.

Of course, I am aware of the possiblity that I may not only be mad, but even worse, full of shit.

The last memory of my Aunt, who taught me that a big mind was possible: You were on a slab in the back of the mortuary because you would fit in a coffinn. Naturally, you had a soft spot in your heart for the rejects and misfits of society. They let your new husband out of jail, where I think he was there for beating you up, and two police officers brought him in in full leg, hand, and ankle shackles. They wouldn't let him out of the shackles so he threw himself on your cold body and began weeping profusely. I was ashamed, not for him, but for my parents and for the police, who stood there in quiet disgust and judgement. Small minds think alike. I just came back from your grave. At first I thought all the obligatory thoughts about the dead but I knew you wouldn't have wanted that. So I lay down on your grave and fell asleep listening to Karen Carpenter covers by NIN (who starved herself to death, as you know). It was nice having that little visit with you. I am not going anywhere and neither are you, so I'll be with you again soon.

So long Sue, I wish I told you that I love you.

I have found it useful to write this. It doesn't really matter if anyone reads it. It will only take up a few bytes on your hard drive, eventually flushed out to google, where it will remain in perpetuity.

- Michael

 "marc.garrett" <marc.garrett at furtherfield.org> wrote: Yes, I agree... I have done a few google works myself and am always happy to see such 'networked' behaviour transpiring such as yours.

I do not know of any lists specifically, but I do know that there might be artists who are interested in such a thing, such as A.Sondheim... But if I do see any - let me know. Actually - do you want to do some some google artwork for http://www.furtherfield.org ? marc

I can't get enough of google image search! 
I am just starting to try to do something artful with my time. I don't really know what I am doing. My primary talent is writing code so I am trying to think of what i could do with that besides pure coding. 
Google is one company that is doing everything right. There's so much more to do with it, if we can just think.If you know of any people who are thinking of creative ways to use this incredible tool, discussion lists or whatever, please pass them along. 
Thanks, Michael 
 "marc.garrett" <marc.garrett at furtherfield.org> wrote: ACE!

marc
Do not go gentle into that good night 
Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because ! their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

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